Community rules

These rules cover everything you make public on Onwarder: book pages and covers, scenes shared for public critique and the critiques left on them, character cards, tier lists and the books added to them, and your public profile and name.

Your private writing is not covered. Nobody reviews it, and these rules do not reach it. A public page can carry a story about difficult things; these rules are about what a public page shows and how people treat each other.

What is not allowed on public pages

Sexually explicit content

Explicit sexual description or imagery, in a blurb, a sample, a shared scene, a cover or a critique. Romance and implied intimacy are fine; explicit detail is not.

Sexualising children

Anything that sexualises a person under 18, real or fictional, in words or images. There are no exceptions. We remove it, stop the account publishing and report it to the authorities, including the Internet Watch Foundation in the UK.

Hate

Content that attacks or demeans people for who they are: their race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age or similar. A character in a story can hold ugly views; a public page cannot be used to promote them.

Threats and violence

Threatening anyone, or encouraging violence against real people or self-harm.

Harassment and bullying

Targeting a real person with abuse, mockery or unwanted attention. Using a critique to attack the writer instead of discussing the writing. Sharing anyone's private information, such as an address, phone number or private messages.

Illegal content

Anything that is illegal to publish, such as terrorist material, or content that helps sell drugs, weapons or stolen data.

Infringement and impersonation

Someone else's work without permission: copying a book's text, using a cover image you have no right to use, or pretending to be another writer or person.

Spam

Advertising, repeated posts, links to scams, misleading pages, or extra accounts used to make something look more popular than it is.

Critique

Discuss the writing, not the writer. Say what worked as well as what did not. Keep it brief and about what matters. The writer reads in silence and owes you nothing back.

How to report something

Every public page has a Report link, and so does each critique. Choose what is wrong, add a note if it helps, and send. You do not need an account, and you do not have to give your name. You can leave an email address if you would like us to be able to ask you a question.

Use Report this person when the problem is someone's behaviour rather than a single page.

The person you report is not told who reported them. You can also email hello@onwarder.com. If someone is in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services first.

Blocking

When you are signed in, you can block someone from their critique or from a scene they shared. Once blocked, you no longer see their critiques or shared scenes, and neither of you can leave a critique on the other's work. They are not told. You can unblock them at any time from your account settings, under Blocked people.

What happens after a report

A person reads every report, and aims to do so within two working days. They can:

• leave the content up, if it does not break these rules;
• hide it from public view;
• stop an account from publishing anything new in public.

Hidden content stays in the writer's account; only the public page changes, and visitors see "This page is unavailable". Editing or publishing it again does not bring it back; a review does.

An account that is stopped from publishing can still write, read and export everything in it. Publishing in public stays closed until the restriction is lifted.

For the most serious cases, such as sexualising children or a credible threat to someone's safety, we remove the content at once, stop the account publishing and, where the law requires or allows, tell the authorities.

Asking for a review

If we hide something of yours or stop you publishing, we email you the reason. The same decision appears in your account settings under Community decisions, with Ask for a review. If you made a tier list without an account, the decision appears on the list's edit link instead. You can also reply to the email.

Tell us what you think we got wrong. A person reads every request. If we got it wrong, we put the content back or lift the restriction, and tell you.

Agreeing to these rules

Before you publish a book page or cover, share a scene for critique, post a critique, or publish a character card or tier list, Onwarder asks you to agree to these rules. If they change in a way that matters, we ask again before your next public post. Content you published before stays up unless it breaks the rules.

These rules sit alongside the terms, which still apply.