DISCUSSION: Stories That Violate Guidelines

Community Episode Fan Community
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I actually thought about making a discussion topic about this a while ago, but since I’ve noticed a lot of stories getting banned/suspended/removed/reported lately, now seems like good time to discuss it…

Here’s some questions to start the discussion. You don’t have to address all (or any) of them, they’re just prompts.

  1. What do you do if you read a story that violates guidelines?
    1.a. Should you message the author privately or report the story straight away?
  2. What do you think the process should be for readers to report stories?
  3. What do you think the process should be for authors once they’re story has been reported?
  4. Should every story that gets reported go through the same process?
    4.a. Should ALL authors of reported stories be given a chance to amend it or are some violations just too bad that they don’t deserve a second chance?
    4.b. Should ALL reported stories be removed from the app while they are being reviewed?
  5. Should trigger warnings and/or the choice to skip violent or sexual scenes be taken into consideration when a story is reported?
  6. Should reporting stories be treated similar to reader retention? For example… If you have 1 million reads, but only 1000 people have reported it, that’s only 0.0001% of readers who have reported it. But if you have 100 reads and only 10 reports it, that’s 10% of your readers.
  7. Have you had a story of your own reported? If so, what was your experience? You don’t have to share it if you don’t want to.
  8. Anything else?

Please refrain from naming and shaming user stories in this discussion. I don’t want community authors to be dragged through this. If you want to use examples, you may talk about Episode Official stories or your own stories.

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1. I would just mind my own business, and go read other stories, or I’d just tell the author to remove it to prevent him/her from getting in trouble.
2. If the story is over-the-top inappropriate then it should definitely be reported, but not over silly stuff.
3. Try to investigate why, and to learn from their mistakes, unless its a dumb report.

4. Yes, they should be given a chance to amend it IF they learn from their mistakes, and the stories should be FULLY reviewed and then reported to give a good reason to report.

5.When a story is being reported mostly the violent or sexual scenes should be taken into consideration BECAUSE the mods need to understand why this particular story is being reported

6.No

7. No, as I still am working on one.

8. If Episode is so butt hurt about “Sexual”, mature scenes, let them look at their own FEATURED stories,and cry for 24 hours straight :smiley:

That’s all I gotta say.

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My Thoughts on It

If I see an author that violates guidelines (the ones I usually come across are fanfiction) I send them a fanmail warning them that this is not allowed on Episode and they should fix it & change it before someone reports their story.

I have never reported a story in my life though, so I’m not that sure about the process but I do know the guidelines for what is and what is not allowed in stories-though I feel as if Episode should add more details to the rules on Writer’s Portal where it says FAQ.

Maybe even promote the guidelines a little bit more-like before someone begins their story, ask if they read the guidelines-this ensures they understand what their story should contain because sadly there are aspiring authors out there who want to write on Episode but don’t read the guidelines and just dive right into it.

However, with some strange feature stories like In My Bed and My Stolen Bra (is it called that? I forgot the title lol), there definitely is content that breaks guidelines so how can people follow them if Episode wants to break them?

Episode, you need to treat the guidelines equally for all, including yourselves.

Heck, maybe some people will get inspired by those breaking a lot of rules Featured stories and write those types of stories and if Episode does ban them…what can they do?

They will be angry!

They will discover Wattpad.

They will move on and discourage others from using Episode since it was being unfair.

Honestly, it would be great if the reporting process improved because some authors get reported for the slightest things, others get reported on because someone didn’t like their story (umm…if you don’t like then don’t read, don’t ruin the enjoyment for others, just exit the story, leave)

This happened to 2 of my friends-one got her story banned and one got sent warnings to make changes in her story, when they were just glitches caused by Episode itself: (

Please, Episode, when it comes to reviewing stories, be more fair.

You’re an amazing app, sigh, I just wish some things were a little different…

Also if a story contains trigger warnings and/or the choice to skip violent/sexual scenes, then it shouldn’t be reported…I mean there was an option to SKIP it? JUST PRESS SKIP.

Thank you for reading ^^

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  1. I do absolutely nothing. I have a very strong belief that no art should be censored at all. No matter who might see it. Even the gratuitous art. I guarantee all people can find something far worse than anything they’ll find on this app —> simply because of the lack of being able to show anyways.

  2. If you report something, there needs to at least be a little text box and an option to send an image of the offense to a team of reviewers. Text box needs to have an explanation as to why there was anything violating guidelines in it.

The reviewer should then have to read the thing. (I’m not sure, but I get the feeling these stories are not read into or researched.)

  1. If a story was reported and then did have a violation in it as SEEN by the team of reviewers, there should be a reasonable amount of time a writer has to fix it. That’s agreed upon.

  2. Why wouldn’t all stories go through the same process? (The answer’s yes)

4.b. I personally do not think so. However, if there was a compromise needed, then I think a story should be more like…FROZEN. Which means that it’s still up but can’t be like updated or read passed a certain point. That’s a complicated thing to do, I know, but it isn’t impossible.

  1. And yes.

  2. I don’t think so, the popularity of something shouldn’t quite matter. Just because a story has only 100 readers doesn’t mean that someone might have noticed something or perceived something different from the other 99 and has something to say about it.

I think a common thing we forget is that the readers matter, too. The thing is, everyone kinda matters in this situation and every one needs to be treated fairly and with the benefit of the doubt.

  1. LOL, I’m not published yet, but I have a feeling I might be reported. It’s just my luck, we’ll see.
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This may be considered slightly off topic to some people, but I don’t think so.

You guys know what Mein Kampf is?

If you don't know what Mein Kampf is

This book is written by Adolf Hitler, and it is kind of an autobiography. He lays out some history about himself and some future plans he had.

This book is banned in some places. If you think that’s okay, it isn’t. It is banned in public libraries and school libraries. Maybe Mein Kampf is an extreme example to some people. How about an example not so extreme? Of Mice and Men? That book is banned in some school libraries.

I feel like there’s warnings and summaries and boxes with explanations BEFORE going into the books for a reason. All of these things should be respected and nothing created should be wiped away from existence.

Let me know if I’m wrong.

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I hope I’m not off-topic either, since we’re talking about censorship. Let us know, @amberose! :raising_hand_woman:
I’m leaving my quick response to @NelidaU here but if this isn’t on-topic enough, I’ll be sure to edit it and answer some of the questions in the main post.

Hmm… You bring an interesting point. Sure, in an ideal world where people can’t be strongly influenced by literature or another piece of art, censorship shouldn’t be a thing. However, there are some twisted people in this world and/or people who are easily influenced by some horrendous pieces of literature/videos/etc. You took an extreme example, so I’ll respond to that, but obviously my opinions aren’t this radical for everything that’s ever gotten censored, that’s a very broad topic to get into :upside_down_face:

The reason why books like Mein Kampf are banned is due to a matter of safety, in my opinion. I don’t mind full censorship when it is used to censor things that can hurt people or influence people to hurt others. As I said, there are some twisted people in this world who still deny that the Holocaust ever happened, some people still praise Hitler and consider him a hero or an idol, there are people who want to repeat the horrors that he’s done. As horrific as it is, Adolf Hitler was influential enough to get a tremendous amount of people to believe in his worldview and stand by him at the time. Who knows what those persuasive skills can still do today for twisted people who idolize him or people who are more susceptible to these kinds of tactics. Human psychology is a lot more complex and sometimes a lot more fragile than most of us think. The less people like that who get their hands on a book explicitly explaining Hitler’s view of the world from his own point of view, the better. That’s what I think, anyway (:

Art influences us, which is why it can be and is often used for propaganda. So I find that censorship is necessary when used correctly, to protect people from nefarious content.

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@AllyJay @NelidaU I didn’t think it was going off-topic. Interesting, thought-provoking comparison actually… :thinking:

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1, I don’t like reporting stories, usually I just stop reading if I think it’s too much. I only reported one story, which was obviously racist and it really pissed me off.

2, Readers should be asked why exactly they want to report a story, but I think this is how it goes.

3, Well, if they want to keep their story, they should try to identify the issue, follow Episode’s instructions and make sure to avoid publishing anything similar in the future.

4, Yes. I think everyone deserves a chance, but if an author just straight up ignored the guidelines, his/her work should be monitored closely by Episode so that they could take action when needed.

5, Yes and no. It’s good if there is a warning at least but that doesn’t mean everyone can write about anything they want.

6, No. If something, that’s the trending stories that should be handled more strictly because those are the ones being read by thousands of people.

7, Probably yes, because Episode contacted me that they found inappropriate content in my story, however they didn’t mention it was reported by anyone. I don’t think it was a big deal but I changed my script according to their request and I didn’t have any further issues afterwards.

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I very much understand your point of view. Impressionable people make the whole thing kinda messy to deal with or talk about.

So, if we were going to take down this kind of thing, where is the line at?

Oof!! I think that’s the problem Episode is having exactly. Why is it okay to take down some stuff and not other stuff that is the same or perhaps even worse? To bring the exact issue right back to the exact problem Episode is having, there seems to be confusion as to where this line really is. I do believe you used this word before, and it’s the hypocrisy that really needs to be looked at.

I don’t know for sure, but just from what I’ve seen/heard, etc, I feel like who ever is getting the reports is not reading, reviewing, or researching into these reports and stories at all. There’s just no way they could be.

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Definitely. That’s why I was saying that it’s a broad topic to get into, we could talk about it for hours because this is really something that depends on each case and each art piece. The line is blurred for many reasons, which is why platforms like Episode have certain rules to follow and why we get pissed when users or the Episode team themselves don’t respect those rules.

Yes, just to confirm, I did use the word hypocritical to describe Episode and I stand by it, haha :grin: You can’t demand of your users to fully respect your rules if you yourself promote stories that clearly break them (and hide behind the “it’s satire” excuse). They’re trying to fix the grey areas and blurred lines before addressing the elephant in the room and taking care of the basics! I think they need to look at themselves first and foremost while removing the stories that clearly go against the guidelines before (for example) removing stories for using the word “sexy” in their story descriptions.

I’m also curious as to who’s approving covers and overlays, reviewing stories, and removing some. And how do they come to their conclusions? It’s nearly impossible to understand how they operate at this point.

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I have always supported Episode enforcing their guidelines. There was a time when they were extremely lax and failed to take down violating stories, and it created a bunch of issues for the users.

However, they seem to have gone from one extreme to the other. Some of the specifics that are used in reviewers’ guidelines can be extremely easy to violate if you aren’t aware of the specifics (and I don’t believe we have access to these specifics?)

The new application of guidelines sometimes feels arbitrary, as though they were made specifically when a reviewer comes across a story they aren’t comfortable with but can’t find anything that’s a blatant violation. For example, there’s apparently a limit to how many times one can refer to a love interest as “Daddy” per chapter. Who would even know that?

The application of guidelines has gone from responsible monitoring to a form of strict censorship, and the result is that many users are feeling discouraged, unmotivated, and afraid to even write. If they’re wondering why there’s been a decline in interest and profits, they may want to consider this factor. Additionally, this strict application that is not always consistent takes away from their credibility when they do have to remove a story. People will always complain when their favorite story gets removed, even if it’s a blatant and obvious violation, but It is getting harder and harder to agree with Episode’s actions once you see the explanation some authors have been given lately.

Also, I really hope they’re actually going through stories that receive a lot of reports to see what exactly the violations are before suspending or removing a story. They’ve been in this game long enough. They should know that people sometimes gang up and use the reporting system as a weapon against authors either because they want to bully the authors or didn’t like the way an author did something.

I would like to see Episode find a middle ground in between not doing anything and doing too much. Neither approach creates a healthy writing and reading environment, and it’s discouraging to see so many authors walking away because they keep getting flagged for minor infractions that aren’t anywhere in the guidelines that we have.

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Ok, now that I’m in the mood to type, I want to answer the questions in the main post. I love these DISCUSSION threads~ :blush:

1. What do you do if you read a story that violates guidelines?
I report it. I know many people don’t do that because they consider it to be rude to the author, but some stories really do deserve to be reported and I know that if more people would allow themselves to report a story, there would be a higher chance for that story to be taken down as it should. I wouldn’t feel like I’m helping if I just let problematic stories flood the app by just ignoring them. Plus, reporting stories allows you to choose to never have to see them again on your device and that really encourages me to report a story, personally.

1.a. Should you message the author privately or report the story straight away?
Contacting the author is risky since they might get aggressive and you might just get into a fight. Personally, I generally don’t have the time or the energy to jump into that kind of drama. Instead of being the third party, I often prefer to leave it to whoever is really concerned (in this case, Episode and the author) to deal with the issue privately if possible.

2. What do you think the process should be for readers to report stories?
I think the current process isn’t too bad, I just wish it was more effective.

3. What do you think the process should be for authors once their story has been reported?
Episode should have a team of people who review reported stories properly and give more specific reasons as to why a story is being removed. Then the author can discuss it with an Episode representative who’s taking care of their case and find a way to get their story back on the platform if possible and if they wish to do so. However, I think that after a certain number of times having their stories reported, the author should just be banned from creating content on Episode (temporarily and/or permanently). Some authors just never learn. Also, some rules being broken should cause a bigger sanction than others, for example: a scene with excessive swearing shouldn’t be treated the same as a scene depicting and glamorizing sexual assault.

4. Should every story that gets reported go through the same process?
I think that the more an author gets reported, the quicker it should get for their story to be reviewed and removed. If an author is known to clearly break the rules and break them multiple times, they shouldn’t be treated exactly the same as an author who’s never broken the rules and accidentally did it once.

4.a. Should ALL authors of reported stories be given a chance to amend it or are some violations just too bad that they don’t deserve a second chance?
I think some violations are just too bad to deserve a second chance, but it should really be something extreme.

4.b. Should ALL reported stories be removed from the app while they are being reviewed?
Depends on what they’re being reported for. If it’s excessive swearing, I’d leave it up while it’s being removed. If it’s promoting mafia violence, it should be removed, in my opinion.

5. Should trigger warnings and/or the choice to skip violent or sexual scenes be taken into consideration when a story is reported?
Hmm… That’s a hard question. Again, I think it depends on the rules it breaks and to what extent. I think that if a story blatantly breaks important rules, it should be reviewed and removed whether it has trigger warnings and options to skip or not. But I definitely would be less inclined to report a story if it lightly broke some rules in a reasonable way and included warnings and options to skip.

6. Should reporting stories be treated similar to reader retention? For example… If you have 1 million reads, but only 1000 people have reported it, that’s only 0.0001% of readers who have reported it. But if you have 100 reads and only 10 report it, that’s 10% of your readers.
Oof… No. That could cause a lot of problems. That would mean that if a story is popular, it would be significantly harder to get Episode to review it while small authors could get their stories removed almost instantly, sometimes by people who want to get it removed out of spite. Small authors already don’t have much power on this platform; I wouldn’t want to make it more difficult for them.

7. Have you had a story of your own reported? If so, what was your experience? You don’t have to share it if you don’t want to.
Never (: And I hope it doesn’t happen. I make sure to follow the rules as best I can (or lightly break some in a tasteful way).

8. Anything else?
Oof… I think there’s so much more we could all say. But I don’t exactly want this post to turn into a novel :grin:

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I resonate so much with this. It happens everywhere on so many platforms. This makes my blood boil. This is how people used to get videos removed on Youtube. Now, that doesn’t happen anymore, thankfully (at least not near as often).

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1. What do you do if you read a story that violates guidelines?
It depends. I’m not really the reporting type BUT there are exceptions. I once read/reviewed a story that was clearly plagiarising a Choices story (not just the same idea). I read the two stories side by side and took multiple screenshots where the author had ripped off the Choices version- it clearly wasn’t just “inspired” by. I reported this story. Plagiarism is one thing that I’d report.
I’ve also reported one story with extremely descriptive rape (I mean descriptive in “he forced her legs open and shoved his **** in side her” descriptive, not just “they made love” with groaning noises lol).

1.a. Should you message the author privately or report the story straight away?
I think it depends. In the plagiarised story, plenty of people had already approached this author privately and she flat out denied it numerous times. There was no point trying to reason with her.

2. What do you think the process should be for readers to report stories?
At the moment, after you report a story you get the choice to keep it or remove it from the app (previously, it was automatically removed), but I wish there was a way of knowing when your “report” is addressed like on Instagram. Like maybe just a little message like, “We have addressed your report on the story [Blah blah] by [Person A] and found that it does/does not violate our guidelines.”

3. What do you think the process should be for authors once they’re story has been reported?
I believe everyone should have a chance to fix their stories HOWEVER I do feel that there are some exceptions. That plagiarised story? It wasn’t fixable. I read the entire thing and nearly every scene was identical to Choices. But I do think that in most cases, a story would be fixable and the author should have a chance to fix their mistakes.

4. Should every story that gets reported go through the same process?
See above- in general yes, but I do think that there will be some instances where a story just isn’t “fixable” (complete plagiarism would be the main one). I’m on the fence about stories getting removed while they’re being reviewed. If there was a story with extremely descriptive sex scenes, should it stay up for more 13 year olds to read while it’s being reviewed? Or should it be taken down?

5. Should trigger warnings and/or the choice to skip violent or sexual scenes be taken into consideration when a story is reported?
No. You can’t get “around” the PG-13 rating by using warning cards. However, I still think warnings are important.

6. Should reporting stories be treated similar to reader retention? For example… If you have 1 million reads, but only 1000 people have reported it, that’s only 0.0001% of readers who have reported it. But if you have 100 reads and only 1 reports it, that’s 10% of your readers.
No. A violation is a violation.

7. Have you had a story of your own reported? If so, what was your experience? You don’t have to share it if you don’t want to.
Well kind of. I had a story suspended because there was an Apple logo on one of the (already approved) backgrounds :rofl:. I thought someone reported it but the next week I was featured on a shelf.

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yes a discussion

  1. I’m a bit harsh on this, but I would report the story rather than talking to the author privately. In most cases that I have reported a story, it is very clear the author has broken the guidelines. I don’t think that ‘I didn’t read the guidelines’ is a valid excuse, because gosh darn it’s accessible. I haven’t been in a situation where this wasn’t clear. The one case I did message an author was because I was reviewing her story, and she admits she was inspired by the thing she copied, and wasn’t going to change her story. I’d also like to add, I won’t report a story, unless I’ve read it.
    1a. I’ve reported a few stories for being rip offs of the Divergent series is an example of why I would report a story. Fan-fictions are not allowed, clearly in the guidelines.
  2. Good Question. Assuming the process right now is you click and add details. With reading above, I think screen shots would be a great idea, however, I don’t know if that possible on the app. If the creators moved the reporting ticket to a separate app I believe less people would report because it’s more difficult. I do wonder if authors could be able to see what readers are reporting about.
  3. I think a suspension from the app should take place first, this is where the story is hidden from the app while the team investigates- if not found wrong, then their story can be placed back in the app. If found to be breaking the guidelines, keep it suspended until fixed. If the story breaks the guidelines (in a similar or extreme way) again, I would ban the story.
  4. I think it should, even if it’s a minor guideline break, I think that every user story should go through the same process.
    4a. As mentioned in three, I think a story gets two chances.
    4b. Yes
  5. I think this is a bit worse, because not only are you acknowledging your story has violence- but including it. Almost always, when I come across this choice in stories, it makes me think that the violence is going to be worse than it actually is.
  6. Ahh I don’t know what to think about this… part of me wants to say yes, and part of me wants to say no… I am going to go with yes. Now don’t flip out, let me explain. (Side note, 10% of 100 is 10) I would be very uncomfortable posting a story if one even one of my readers reported my story. However, every author would have to go through this process before they even hit 1M reads. If a story breaks the guidelines, I doubt they would make it that far.
  7. I haven’t had any of my stories reported / taken down.
  8. I’m super conflicted after reading above that some readers ignore stories that break the guidelines. This bothers me on like a deep level (prob in part that I am a criminal justice major) and I can’t explain it.
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1. What do you do if you read a story that violates guidelines?

It depends on what aspect of the guidelines it has violated.
In my time reading, I have reported three stories in total. Those reasons included CLEAR plagiarism, and graphic scenes that made me, a 35 year old woman who writes difficult topics, nearly throw up (especially with no trigger warning).
I have read a few I knew violated guidelines, like the 5 f’s and the victim/weapon/blood restrictions, and I message the author to let them know their story violates guidelines, and I would hate for it to be reported.

1.a. Should you message the author privately or report the story straight away?
As stated above, for me, it depends on the violation.

2. What do you think the process should be for readers to report stories?
I think there should be a marker for when the person reports the story, like at which line number, so that Episode can closely examine what part of the story was flagged. This would help them better identify violations, but also weed out those people who report a story for stupid reasons. Obviously, if the story was grossly offensive to the reader, the story should be reported at the exact time of the violation.

3. What do you think the process should be for authors once they’re story has been reported?
I have been flagged before for my story, and I had no problem with the process. It was removed from ranks, I was emailed with specific things including line number of things that violated guidelines. In question of certain issues (portrayal of emotions tied to self-harm) I worked WITH Episode to formulate better wording that still was impactful, but did not violate guidelines. It was stressful to be reported, but I the interaction with the review team was pleasant.

4. Should every story that gets reported go through the same process?
Yes. Saying that, if someone violates guidelines in the SAME manner several times, there should be a strike policy.

4.a. Should ALL authors of reported stories be given a chance to amend it or are some violations just too bad that they don’t deserve a second chance?
I think it depends on what the violation is. I believe in three strikes, but it has to be the same issue. Perhaps one time was language, another time blood, another time sexual content. Perhaps the author was not fully aware of the specifics of those individual guidelines. Now, if an author keeps getting reported for graphic sex scenes or excessive vulgar language… then it deserves to be removed.
Personal opinion.

4.b. Should ALL reported stories be removed from the app while they are being reviewed?
Depends on the violation. If it is something vulgar and offensive, it should be removed.
If it is something minor, like the 5 f’s or wording of certain things, I think removing from ranks is sufficient.

5. Should trigger warnings and/or the choice to skip violent or sexual scenes be taken into consideration when a story is reported?
Trigger warnings do not give an author permission to violate guidelines.
Trigger warnings and skips give readers that MAY be triggered the opportunity to be forewarned, or to skip a scene that may be triggering. It does not have to be graphic to be triggering. I have recently told a friend not to read a story because she recently lost a child and certain aspects of the story may be triggering to HER, but in no way shape or form violates guidelines.
Trigger warning and skips do NOT excuse violations.

6. Should reporting stories be treated similar to reader retention? For example… If you have 1 million reads, but only 1000 people have reported it, that’s only 0.0001% of readers who have reported it. But if you have 100 reads and only 1 reports it, that’s 10% of your readers.
I think if the number of reports in relation to number of reads is high, it should be a priority to look into violations.

7. Have you had a story of your own reported? If so, what was your experience? You don’t have to share it if you don’t want to.
Yes I have. Yes, I was stressed out, panicked, but I now tell people that have been reported to not stress too much about it. Make the changes, and don’t make the mistakes again. If there are any questions on if something violates guidelines, ASK. I have NUMEROUS times, just to make sure.
I sent Episode my complete list of possible questionable crude humor in my comedy to make sure they did not violate guidelines. Each time I have a difficult scene, I ask if I can say “…”.
It is always better to be safe, than sorry.

8. Anything else?
It would be nice if Episode published some of the specifics on the guidelines that only those who have violated or those around them know about. Example: 5 f’s rule and the victim/blood/weapon rule.

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I haven’t thought about this, but it’s totally true. This would be very nice to see

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1. What do you do if you read a story that violates guidelines?
1.a. Should you message the author privately or report the story straight away?
I have only ever come across stories that violate guidelines while doing reviews. I normally link them to the guidelines and explain how they can reword it to fit. More often than not, they reply thanking me for pointing it out and explaining it and fixing it. If they reply and get all defensive and try to explain it or just reject what I’m saying even though I sent them the guidelines or quoted it on the post, then I’ll report it.

2. What do you think the process should be for readers to report stories?
Well, I like how it is now, in that you can do it via the app. Then I think it should be a little drop down menu or a tick the boxes of all that apply, where all the possible violations are list. Kinda like how on forums we can flag posts for different reasons I guess.

3. What do you think the process should be for authors once they’re story has been reported?
I think they should definitely be sent an email, and be told what they’re story has been reported for and if possible, what scene or episode specifically. Then given a period where they have time to amend it.

4. Should every story that gets reported go through the same process?
If we’re to go off of what I said above, yes. All authors deserve to be notified (I’ve heard of some people who never get an email and it’s just taking down without any warning).
4.a. Should ALL authors of reported stories be given a chance to amend it or are some violations just too bad that they don’t deserve a second chance?
I think it’s fair to give them all a second chance, though ones that are complete rip offs of something will need to do more than just amend it. They’d have to come up with a completely different idea.

4.b. Should ALL reported stories be removed from the app while they are being reviewed?
Yeah. Controversial opinion I guess, and I’m going to make an even more controversial comparison, but it’s like if a teacher is accused of sexual assault. They’re always suspended from teaching while there’s an investigation, are they not? So I do believe all reported stories should be treated the same… Whether that means removing them from the app or just hiding them or something, is a different story.

5. Should trigger warnings and/or the choice to skip violent or sexual scenes be taken into consideration when a story is reported?
No! Whilst I think warnings are great to include and appreciate the choice to skip scenes I might find uncomfortable, that doesn’t mean you’re allowed to break the guidelines.
Also, I really hate people who put a warning splash saying it’s only for 16+. I’ve reviewed stories that have included this, and I’ve always said you simply can’t make your story 16+, you need to change it so it’s suitable for 13+

6. Should reporting stories be treated similar to reader retention? For example… If you have 1 million reads, but only 1000 people have reported it, that’s only 0.0001% of readers who have reported it. But if you have 100 reads and only 10 reports it, that’s 10% of your readers.
No, this would be slack. I do think every report should be looked into - even if it is only someone being a meanie and reporting you for no reason. But if there’s a story being reported 1000 times, the team should probably escalate that one before looking at the story that that’s only been reported once or twice.

7. Have you had a story of your own reported? If so, what was your experience? You don’t have to share it if you don’t want to.
No… But last week I posted an episode with something that I thought would get reported… And I checked the guidelines a trillion times and searched everywhere to see if Episode had ever officially spoken of it and they hadn’t so I full had a response worded in my head in case it did get reported but it hasn’t, so…

8. Anything else?
Yes… I couldn’t really work this into any of my other answers, but I think since I’m saying it should be the same across all stories, I think that should include Episode Official stories. We should have that option. But I feel as though if that were to be implemented now, people would abuse it. Whereas if we had the option to report the official stories from the start, that wouldn’t be the case.

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1. What do you do if you read a story that violates guidelines?
Honestly, I don’t know because I think it can be very hard to find out what’s considered violating the guidelines. I see some pretty violent and mature content in some stories and at some point, I think they’re violating guidelines but at the same time, they don’t. For the time being, I don’t do anything unless it’s very serious guideline violation, in which case I’d probably leave a fan mail for the author saying that they should be more aware of what they’re writing about in their story and how they write it. If I find out they don’t care, I might end up reporting the story but again, only if it is a serious break of the guidelines.

3. What do you think the process should be for authors once their story has been reported?
I think they should be given a chance to rewrite it, but if they don’t and the story is majorly breaking the rules, I kind of think it should just be removed. It may sound harsh but rules are rules and there are very young people playing Episode who (whether they agree or not) do get affected by the stories they read.

4.a. Should ALL authors of reported stories be given a chance to amend it or are some violations just too bad that they don’t deserve a second chance?
I think all authors should be given the chance to rewrite their story. However, if some authors find that their violations are an important part of how they tell the story and therefore they won’t change it, I think it should just be deleted. It’d be better for these authors to find another website etc. where the guidelines aren’t as strict so they can write their stories however they want.

4.b. Should ALL reported stories be removed from the app while they are being reviewed?
It’s a really hard question to answer because I think it depends a lot of what the violations are. If an author are way overstepping the guidelines, then yes, it should be removed while being reviewed but I bet that some reported stories only contains minor violations that could easily be changed and it doesn’t seem quite fair to remove their story while being reviewed then. But then again, people are different and some might find some violations worse than others so for the sake of all, all stories should probably be temporarily removed when being reviewed.

5. Should trigger warnings and/or the choice to skip violent or sexual scenes be taken into consideration when a story is reported?
Yes, without a doubt it should.

@JemU776 said it all :muscle:t4:
Reporting a story that has both trigger warnings and the possibility of skipping inappropriate scenes should simply not be an option if you choose to read the ‘hidden’ content anyway.

6. Should reporting stories be treated similar to reader retention? For example… If you have 1 million reads, but only 1000 people have reported it, that’s only 0.0001% of readers who have reported it. But if you have 100 reads and only 10 reports it, that’s 10% of your readers.
Ouch, I really don’t know about this. I’d say yes but even 1000 reports on a story with a million reads is a lot in my opinion, even if the percentage is very low.

It’s all very difficult to answer because when is reports enough reports, and when is violating the guidelines bad enough to remove/delete a story? It’s so subjective - maybe some people are being very literal about understanding the guidelines and maybe some are just very loose? It’s so hard.

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Ok, some follow up questions and comments now…

Actually, this reminded me… Am I the only one who gets an email of the guidelines from episode when you get up to writing your third episode of a new story? It’s something like “We see you’re almost ready to publish, so check this out first blah blah blah”

I can imagine though that some people would read it anyway, simply because of the temptation. It’s like in Australia, we have this magazine Dolly, and there’s a section that’s sealed because it’s all things sex related, and I always read that bit just because it was tempting to see what was being hidden. I would have been like 12.

I’m so glad you said this!

I was also hoping someone would bring this up too. I still remember when they announced something about having the word “sexy” in titles (or maybe it was story descriptions) wouldn’t come up for in the search, I think it was? I think it was also on the old forums that I saw it. Then of course …In My Bed!!! came out…

:astonished: There is?? I’d love to see these kinds of things (I’m assuming there’s more things like this) added to the guidelines, so every one knows EXACTLY what is considered a violation.

Interesting… Because tbh, I know gang stories are pretty popular on the app. (I’m putting mafia’s and gang’s in the same boat.) Do you think My Teacher, My Gangster would be considered promoting mafia/gang violence?

Wait, I think I might have misunderstood this… So if you report it you can say whether you want it to actually be removed, or?

Good question… It would suck to have your story removed if there was nothing wrong with it and you just had to wait for it to go through the review process… But I don’t think any of us like seeing stories that should be taken down still topping the trending section while they’re under investigation. If anyone’s reading this, I’d love to see others thoughts on this question

So really… Should you be the one suspended or should it have been the person who approved it? :confused:

I’m not flipping out hehe, but I am surprised you went this way… Also thanks! No one else pointed out my typo :woman_facepalming: Do you think if it worked this way, it could spark up more debates about small authors vs. big authors?

I like this idea.

So does this mean, it was still visible on your profile, you were still able to find it through search and that you could still post new episodes while this was all happening?

Not really a question for you, but quoting you because if anyone else who has had a story reported (and is reading this) could answer this: Did you work with Episode when fixing your story? Or were you notified and left to fix it on your own?

Is this… is there a limit to 5 f-words per episode or something?

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