Rule change re under 13s in stories and new guideline re roleplays

[Joal 555]

The staff would like to draw your attention to the following changes:

Rule change regarding under 13 characters in stories

During the last couple of months, the staff have further discussed stories involving under 13 characters sneezing and displaying other fetish symptoms and as a result, we have decided to amend the relevant rule which now reads as follows:

Stories - There is no outright ban on stories containing children under 13, HOWEVER, if a child under 13 is featured in the story, then there must not be any descriptions of any sickness symptoms relating to the child that could be interpreted as fetish-related (this includes sneezing, nose blowing, fevers, etc). If you are unsure whether your story will be allowed on the forum, then you should submit it to the staff for approval prior to posting it and failure to do so may result in a warning being given if material posted is unacceptable.

This differs from the position before in as much as under 13 characters were previously allowed to sneeze and display other fetish symptoms, as long as there was no sexualisation of this and the story was approved by the staff in advance. However, the staff feel that even where the author does not intend any sexualisation, some other people might read the story in that way. Therefore the rule has been tightened accordingly.

As usual, no action will be taken against stories posted before the change in the rule.

Roleplays must be open to all members

The staff have also been discussing RPs and noted that some of them are currently stated to be just for 2 specific members. We would like all threads on the forum to be as inclusive as possible and open to all members to join in. As a result, we have posted a pinned guideline in the RP sub-forum which says the following:

Roleplays placed on the forum should be open for anyone to join if they wish. We want to encourage members to be able to participate freely in any thread that they wish (as long as they follow the rules). If initially two people start an RP they should title the thread the type of RP it is. Please do not label threads as "belonging" to specific people.

No action will be taken against any RPs which were just for 2 people and had been started before this guideline was posted. In addition, where appropriate, some topic titles have been amended to show that such RPs were started by specific members, but they are now open to anyone to join in.

The first paragraph of the above has also been added to the Guidelines section of the constitution.

Thank you for your attention!

The Staff