Changes to Rules and Guidelines

[Vetinari]

A couple of minor changes have been made to the forum rules and guidelines.

It was becoming apparent that there was some concern from members regarding stories which contained descriptions of children sneezing, which on a forum such as this might be interpreted as sexual. Whilst we do not wish to altogether ban any mention of children, it was felt that this situation required closer monitoring, and therefore we would now ask that any member who writes a story with children under 13, should submit it to the staff prior to posting.

Rule 4 additional bullet-point:

Stories - There is no outright ban on stories containing children under 13, HOWEVER all such stories must be submitted to a member of staff prior to posting for checking for anything that might be interpreted as sexualization, which is strictly forbidden under the rules above. Failure to do so may result in a warning being given if material posted is unacceptable.

In addition, there have been a number of threads posted over time which challenge members to write a story of the poster's choosing, in the guise of a competition. These have generally been removed by the staff in a discretionary way, although there was no rule or guideline which directly covered that removal. In addition, Bondi requested in a post here that members did not make posts listing their favourite sneezers or comparing people with regard to who was "better". We have therefore added a new guideline asking that members do not do these things, thus updating the guidelines to reflect what has already been occurring for some time.

Please do not post any "Fiction Competition" thread (or indeed any other writing competition) without the express permission of the staff. Please also avoid ranking other members with regard to sneezing, wavs or in any other comparison of that type. Creating threads for the purpose of rating anything, from media to people, is not condoned by the forum staff and is strenuously frowned upon.The forum staff do not endorse any "rating or ranking" threads that might be allowed under this guideline.