Rules & Regs

[apple_pathways]

A note on Membership:
Membership is completely optional, and not required to read and/or post to the comm.


General Rules and Guidelines:

• Anonymity is optional. You may post anonymously, under your username, or using the sock account of your choice.
  
• No flaming, personal attacks, or character bashing.
  
• No shipping wank.
  
• No wank of any kind, but especially no shipping wank!
  

A Note On Isms: This comm takes the position that Isms (such as racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.) are bad. Discussion of Isms, in fic or reviews, is fine; endorsing or expressing Isms is not. Occasionally, unintentional!fail will occur. DON'T PANIC. Please explain in a calm, respectful manner what you found problematic and why. If you think the fail was intentional, please report it to the mod, who will take appropriate action.

Rules for Authors

• Please publish your story to the appropriate post, and read the posting guidelines for your specific story type before posting.
  
• ALL STORIES rated above an R should be posted to our sister comm, concrit_anon18. Authors are expected to use their Best Judgment in deciding how a story rates, but if in doubt, post to the adults-only comm!
  
• This comm is for constructive criticism. Please prepare yourself for constructive criticism. You are posting your story because you want an honest opinion of your work and how it can be improved.
  
• When responding to reviews, keep it brief: ask for clarification about what the reviewer meant, thank them for their time, or suggest an alternative to an element of the story they found problematic: don't spend paragraphs defending or explaining your work.
  
• If you object to a review, remember: each review is just one person's opinion. Give yourself time to think about it, and if you still don't agree, so be it: in the end, it is your story. But please be respectful of the time people have taken to read and respond to your work!
  
• If you are writing fic that explores/deals with an "issue": please remember this comm's stance on Isms. Issue!fic is fine, but it must be written from the standpoint that Isms are bad; prepare yourself for reviewers to take issue with the way you've handled the subject. Stories that are written to be inflammatory will be removed at the mod's discretion.
  
• You may post anonymously, or using a logged-in account. If you post anonymously, please note that once posted, your story cannot be removed from the site unless you have included a "Delete After" note with your story. For more details on what that is, see the post for your story type.
  
• If you posted with a logged-in account and would like your story to be removed/deleted for some reason, please PM me from the account you posted under and I will remove it.

Rules for Reviewers

• This comm is for providing constructive criticism. If you don't know what that is, go here.
  
• Balance your criticism: be sure to mention what worked as well as what didn't.
  
• If you can't find anything that worked, it's best to skip reviewing that story. The author's writing is probably just not for you.
  
• Likewise, if you can't identify anything in the story that needs improvement, it's best to skip commenting. The aim of this comm is to help authors improve: glowing reviews are not only unhelpful to authors, they make it harder for other people to step up and offer criticism.
  
• Please remember the no shipping wank rule. If you're a die-hard X/Y shipper, and just cannot fathom why other people would ship Y/Z, you might want to have a think before you review a Y/Z story.
  
• Really, that principle goes for any story element: if you hate AUs, or detective fiction, or fluff, or WHATEVER, please consider whether you can put aside your bias in order to provide an honest review.
  
• Check back on your reviews, or track them, to see if authors had any questions about your critique.
  

Enforcement of the rules is entirely at the mod's discretion. Response to actions deemed to be in violation of comm rules include (but are not limited to): freezing and deleting of comments, (temporary) disabling of anonymous commenting, (temporary) logging of IP addresses, bannination, gentle reminders, stern looks, virtual wrist slaps, and voodoo curses. In short: DON'T MESS!

A Note on Karma:
If this comm is going to work, people are going to have to READ AND REVIEW. Since anonymity is allowed, I have no way of checking who's doing what, but please help maintain the balance! If there are stories up without reviews, please give them a go before adding yours to the stack.