UPDATED 7/2019 Forum General Rules

The Forum Rules have been revised and updated on 7/10/2019. Please take the time to review them below.

This is intended to be a living document, forum rules will change over time to reflect the needs of the community.

If you’d like to see how our moderation works, and more specific definitions of our rules, please head over to this thread!

If you have a question about our rules and guidelines, feel free to reach out to our moderator/admin @Sydney_H via DM.

If you have a question about the app, please contact our support team here: https://episodesupport.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

Forum General Rules

  • This forum is only for discussing the Episode platform, the stories on it or other specific topics. To balance our community’s diverse members interests, we will remove inappropriate or off-topic content. This includes topics that encourage spam replies, inflation of responses and any forum rule violations.
    • This is not a place to debate politics or religion. This includes debates about personal beliefs that may be seen as offensive to other community members.
    • Posts or threads asking for or offering mental health advice or therapies will be removed. If you need these services we have resources listed in Safety Concerns.
  • We maintain the right to remove posts and threads. We need to make sure that material posted in the forums is not potentially harmful to our community or its members. For this reason, we may edit, hide or remove any post, icon, image or display name that includes but is not limited to: methods or detail of suicide, self-harm or sexual abuse, hate speech or images, or any post or thread where the intent is to shock, alarm or anger individual members of the community at large.
  • We do not tolerate harassment or cyberbullying anywhere in our community. This may include, but is not limited to:
    • Abusive comments, hate speech, harassing, incessant, threatening, sexual or otherwise uncomfortable messages.
    • Posting negative content or creating content that paints other members in a negative or hurtful light.
    • Inciting violence or harassment towards Episode, Episode Community members, or Episode staff. Threats of violence or harassment, even as a joke, are prohibited.
      • If you have concerns about forum staff you can contact @Arlene or send a ticket to Support, where it will be escalated to senior staff.
    • Racism or discrimination is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
    • No “flaming” or “badgering” (members writing hostile or insulting messages aimed at other members for their views, opinions, identity, comments, status within the community or any other reason). Anyone can disagree with someone’s views and still offer a polite response.
    • No “trolling” (when a member posts controversial, upsetting, sometimes off-topic messages with the intent of baiting other members to reply or start an argument). Please do not feed the trolls. Rather than engaging with them and their disruptive comments, please flag the posts or comments so the moderators are notified and action can be taken as necessary.
  • Your behavior in our community matters! The moderators reserve the right to remove any member who is not positively contributing to the community. The sorts of behaviors that lead to being permanently removed from the forums include:
    • Repeatedly starting arguments with other members.
    • Repeatedly hijacking threads for off topic discussion.
    • Backseat moderating other members posts or behaviors. If you see something, please use the flagging system or DM a moderator.
    • Repeatedly breaking any of the rules listed here.
  • Please do not alter, bypass or otherwise change current Episode Forum settings, filters, or layouts. This includes, but is not limited to:
    • Creating multiple accounts for any purpose.
    • Bypassing any language filters set in place by the Episode Team
    • Artificially manipulating the voting system
    • Circumventing a ban or suspension. This includes creating or maintaining multiple accounts for the purposes of rejoining the platform after being removed.
    • Abusing or encouraging others to abuse of the Flagging system
    • Posting spam and/or re-posting closed, modified, or previously deleted content. Examples include, but are not limited to:
      • The plugging and/or advertising of non-Episode related websites, items, or content;
      • Posting links to phishing, hacking, keygens or cheating apps or software in order to gain more passes/gems;
      • Posting or linking to pornographic or pirating sites;
      • Creating threads with no topic of conversation. (IE: I’m bored, random chat thread, Rant/Unpopular Opinion threads etc.)
      • Creating threads or replies with oversized or excessively large font styles.
    • Repetitively posting in the wrong forum (ex: sharing stories in the Episode Fan Community or creating content in the incorrect sub forum). If you are unsure where to post something our moderators are happy to help!
  • Please respect your own and each others’ privacy.
    • Do not publicly post personal information. (Ex: addresses, phone numbers, emails, Instagram accounts, etc.)
    • Revealing personal information about Staff or other forum members such as names, email addresses or other social media accounts is strictly prohibited. This includes pretending to be an Episode staff member.
    • Any behavior that threatens the integrity of our community can result in immediate removal from the Episode Forums and/or the Episode platform - including any published stories. Examples include, but are not limited to:
      • Stealing, revealing or blackmailing personal information.
      • Withholding account information from original owner, exposing where a member lives, works or any other information that may compromise their safety or privacy.
      • Accessing another member’s account without permission or damaging / deleting another author’s work.
  • Bumping is only allowed once per thread per 24hrs.
    • Bumping is replying to a thread with the intention of boosting it to the top of the thread list so that more people will see it.
  • For more info on how the flagging system works please visit our Forum Flagging FAQ here. Please consider the Flagging FAQ as an extension of the forum rules and must be followed
    • If you see something blatantly bad or definitely spam, take advantage of the Flag button! Please remember that flagging should not be abused. Abuse of the flagging system is considered a violation of forum rules and will be handled as such. We cannot stress enough, please do not flag posts or topics that are not violating the forum general rules.
  • Helping Our Moderators
    • Our active moderators and admins are: Admins: @Arlene, @Tory, @Liz. and @Sydney_H
    • If you have any concerns that need to be addressed by forum staff, please send your questions or feedback in a private message.

Violation of any these guidelines can result in one or more of the following actions: written warnings, accounts being silenced and temporary or permanent suspension from all or parts of our platform.

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