Below I present a few refinements to our
existing guidelines. Nothing big there, but if you have the time, please quickly skim through them.
Keeping things family- and work-friendly
TL;DR: It is not permitted to post sexually explicit or erotic content.
We pride ourselves on being a family- and work-friendly community. Children visit this forum and, for better or worse, our conduct sets an example that can either foster or hinder a life-long interest in reading books. We also want parents to feel confident that this community is safe for their children to visit.
It goes without saying that flaming, cursing and trolling are not acceptable.
What's more difficult to define is where we draw the line with explicit content. It's been our policy for as long as I remember that users must not publish images or video that contain adult content, sexually oriented material, or might otherwise be considered offensive. Also sexual connotations or references have no place in this community. Yet, as of late we've noticed a trend among a handful of authors presenting literary works that would clearly fall under the rule of not being family-friendly. By clearly I mean the kind of content that you wouldn't want a child to see or that you might be embarrassed to view at work in front of colleagues. This could be a cover image, a book summary,
or even endorsing links to said book. We will not accept this type of content any longer and reserve the right to remove posts that we deem inappropriate (yup, it's a judgment call).
Examples of related content not permitted include, but are not limited to, nudity, pornography, extreme profanity, erotica, sexually suggestive or explicit text.
Trust me this is not an expression of conservative views. Rather, it's about what we consider inappropriate when welcoming a broad audience including children from all over the world. Overall, I'm just repeating what I guess everyone already knows and it shouldn't affect much of our community.