Rules & Other Meme-Related Important Policies Post

[gammods]

Latest Rule Revision: June 24, 2011



Please note that all rules are to be followed and the moderators have the discretion to change the rules at any time, if there is reason to do so. By commenting on the meme, you agree to follow the rules below.

1. Prompting


• Filling


• Discussing & Searching


• Other Meme-Related Policies


2. Reaching a Mod

Prompting

1. Stay Current: Only the present meme post is to be used for posting prompts. Any prompts added to previous meme posts will be deleted. However, fills for prompts on previous meme posts are allowed (and encouraged). The current meme post is here.
   
   This extends to Re-Posting of Prompts. Any prompts that are reposted will be deleted. However, as many prompts can be similiar, please check the Delicious archives first. Some ideas have been prompted with great frequency, but that doesn't mean you can't still prompt along those lines. Being familiar with what's come before means that you'll be able to give some new twist on the idea, increasing the likelihood of a fill!.



2. Avoiding Wank: No troll or wank prompts are allowed on this meme. While such comments are difficult to determine, we are mainly looking at prompts that appear to be particularly offensive and will cause significant upset among the meme. If your prompt appears to be a particularly offensive one, please provide an adequate explanation to eliminate (or at least reduce) the potentiality of wank.
   
   The Moderators reserve the right to delete the prompt if there is no or an inadequate explanation, and the prompt will cause upset within the meme.



3. Spoiler policy: SPOILER and the episode number must be in the title of any prompts that are relevant to new episodes. Any comments that do not have this will be immediately screened without warning and it will be up to the prompter to re-post the comment correctly.
   
   For canon outside of Glee, we also strongly request that you warn for anything that has been published/screened in the last 2-3 years. We will not moderate on this, but please, as much as you can, be courteous to your fellow members.
   
   The spoiler episode requirements will change regularly over time. It is up to you to make sure you're current, and erring on the side of caution never hurts.



4. No Bashing: This is related to the point above, but consideration of this rule will help significantly to avoid unintentional drama. Whereas a troll post is clearly designed to stir up trouble, phrasing choices in well-meant prompts can cause it just the same. Avoid using language in your prompts and comments that is hostile toward the characters and especially toward others in the fandom.
   
   This does not mean that you can't point out characters' flaws. But neutral, non-judgmental phrasings go a long way toward avoiding arguments.
   
   An example of using canon, distasteful behavior to prompt without bashing: "Given that Josh Groban said that he loves alcoholics, I'd like to see a story of him taking advantage of a character in an addicted state. Maybe April?"
   An example of bashing: "Was anyone else totally grossed out by that sicko Josh Groban going after someone who couldn't give informed consent? Let's see him get his rapeface on, you know he does it."
   
   Please go for the first kind of prompt. Otherwise we may well ask you to rephrase and repost.
   
   Also, it can appear to be bashing when one prompts a situation that uses a character's POV to describe someone else. For example, a prompt made from Rachel's POV may use such judgment as calling Shelby "heartless," reflecting what Rachel feels and not necessarily the prompter himself/herself. This type of prompt has caused wank in the past. Prompters, please consider whether any inflammatory language in this sort of prompt is clearly from the character's POV, or whether you should establish that a little more. In return, readers, if you're unsure as to whether a prompt is a POV issue or is outright bashing, please give them the benefit of the doubt. If you want to question a prompt, please contact a moderator rather than attempting to self-moderate, as that will only end in deletion.
   
   Due to some prompts being accused of character bashing when they are reasonable, if you seem to be someone who is continuously replying and accusing of character bashing, we will genuinely consider banning you from the meme as you are simply creating threads that are likely to cause wank. Please contact a moderator instead.



5. Trigger Warnings: to allow people with triggers to scroll past a prompt, prompters need to warn for trigger in the subject line of their prompt. The triggers that require a warning are:
   
   
   • Abuse- to be separately identified as either Emotional, Physical, Relationship and Sexual abuse or any combination of these three, e.g. ”Trigger Warning: Physical Abuse and Sexual Abuse”
   
   
   
   • Physical Assault
   
   
   
   • Attempted and/or Successful Suicide
   
   
   
   • Character Death
   
   
   
   • Child Abuse- to be separately identified as either physical, emotional or sexual child abuse or any combination with these three, with an added warning if it involves a family member, e.g. “Trigger Warning: Parental physical child abuse”, “Child emotional abuse”
   
   
   
   • Food & Body Image issues
   
   
   
   • Incest
   
   
   
   • Mental Illness- to be identified out as either PTSD, Anxiety or Mental Illness Disorder
   
   
   
   • Sexual harassment and/or sexual assault, and/or Non-consent/Dub-con
   
   
   
   • Self harm behaviour
   
   
   If a prompt has these triggers and there is no trigger warning, the prompt will be re-posted below with the appropriate header.
   
   This policy also extends out to fillers of prompts however we are flexible as to where the trigger warning is. The title would be preferred, although if the warning is at the beginning of the chapter and can be clearly seen before the story content beings, this is still acceptable.
   
   For fillers with long fills, we understand that a fill may have a trigger in only one part of the fills and you may not know whether a trigger is involved when starting a fill. Therefore for fillers of long fills, we ask fillers to place a trigger warning on the part that involves the trigger only. If your fill leads up to this trigger, we ask you to be conservative and place the trigger warning where you feel the lead-up starts in your story.
   
   For authors that have incomplete fills, we do not expect you to re-post any previous parts that had triggers, but we would appreciate it if you warned for triggers in the title for any new parts that you post.
   
   We understand this can be difficult to remember what may or may not need a trigger warning when prompting or fills
   
   
6. Courtesy: Filling a prompt takes considerable effort. If someone is kind enough to fill your prompt, please be kind enough in return to offer thanks!

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Filling

1. Labeling: This is a high-volume community. It's helpful to include an indication in your subject line that your post is a fill. For example, "[FILL]" or "FILLED:" are both obvious indicators of what lies within. This will not only make sure that potential readers see your story, but it also helps the Delicious taggers.



2. Where to Post: There are two ways to post your fills: in the comment thread to the prompt or in an off-site location. While you will see a lot of prompts being filled in the comment fields here, it is absolutely fine to post a link to a page on your journal/fanfiction.net account/etc.



3. Types of Fills: We've gotten questions about non-fic fills, such as art or comics. These are perfectly fine! Any fill is exciting. However, please do not directly post artwork to the meme. Whether hosted on your personal site, DeviantArt, or TinyPic, please provide a link to the image file instead of directly embedding it in your fill.



4. Number of Fills: Sometimes a prompt will fire up more than one person's imagination. This is excellent! Feel free to write a fill for a prompt that has been claimed by others. However, given that there is such an imbalance between prompts and fills, we want to strike a balance. A maximum of three fills per prompt is allowed.

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Discussing & Searching

1. Searching for fics & prompts: All fic searches/prompt searches are to be posted in the fic search thread of the discussion post, and not the meme prompt post. Any comments found in the prompt post will be immediately deleted and it will be up to the commenter to re-post the comment in the fic search thread.



2. Identifying problems: No personal insulting or calling of wank comments. Any comments that are of personal insult to the OP or to any other commenter, or are comments that call "troll" or "wank", will be immediately deleted and the thread will be frozen. This includes comments of self moderation. If you see an issue that needs to be addressed, please make use of the contact options provided at the bottom of this post and let the moderators know.



3. Scroll On By: Sometimes there will be prompts that you don't like or whose premises you disagree with. Sometimes you will be tired of reading posts related to a trope, couple, character, or episode. Assuming the prompt does not actually violate any rules, in which case you should contact a mod, the answer is always: scroll on by.
   
   Someone else wants to read these fills, and that is okay. Other people don't share your opinions, and that is okay. Meme space is not a limited resource. While we don't condone spamming and will take steps if needed to counter it, enthusiasm is a positive. We can always open up new prompt posts as demanded.



4. Hijacking prompts: Most OPs are happy with added suggestions, particularly when it's a comment that takes a sentence and speculates in line with what they want in their prompt. This speculation, especially if the OP agrees, gives more information to help a potential filler outline their fill.
   
   However there comes a point when the speculation reaches "hijacking" category. This side of speculation is purely subjective, with no defined rules, but we have some definitions we will be moderating with:
   
   1) If you ask for a different ending when the OP has already specified or indicated an ending, then this is hijacking & the comment will be deleted.
   
   2)If you take a sentence out of the OP's prompt and speculate on it, to an extent that what you want to see happens is substantially different to the rest of the OP's prompt, then this is hijacking & the comment will be deleted.
   
   This is reasonably subjective and we do not want to discourage discussion about prompts, but what we are mainly trying to crack down on is suggestions that are reasonably different to what the OP is wanting, implied or otherwise. If you like an OP's prompt but wish it were different somehow, please make your own prompt.



5. Seconding prompts: You can second. You can even third. We understand that people don't always notice a prompt until this happens, and it's a good way of helping a prompt get noticed among the sea of prompts. It's also good for the OP because if discussion occurs, it not only increases visibility, but it helps potential fillers by giving more information.
   
   But any more than that? We'll delete. If you want to comment in agreement to the prompt, please think of something that would add value to the prompt, whether it be a comment like "Kurt talking to Rachel in this context makes sense because neither of them have had any prolonged contact with their mother. Fourthed!"
   
   If it simply says "Fourthed", it's simply getting deleted.



6. Discussing prompts: While minor discussion regarding a prompt is natural, fic posts should be the only comment threads to grow very deep on this meme. Although the meme has made use of a dedicated discussion post in the past, we will be more rigorously enforcing its use from this point out to keep the prompt post more focused.
   
   If your comment to the prompt post falls into one of these categories, it is fine to post at the prompt post:
   
   
   
   
   • Prompts
   
   
   • Seconds/Thirds
   
   
   • Questions for the OP
   
   
   • Short discussions
   
   
   • Fills
   
   
   • Comments about fills
   
   
   However, if you are looking at a longer discussion, you should take your discussion to the dedicated discussion post. Although there is not a hard and fast line, just remember: the prompt post is for prompting and fills. Any discussions need to be short, and directly relevant to events in a potential fill. If you're scrolling down the page and see a deep comment thread, you would naturally assume it to contain fic, not sociology discussions.

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Other Meme-Related Policies

1. IP Logging: Please remember that IP logging is on for anonymous users.



2. Affiliates and Promotion Policy: We are happy to be affiliated with other glee communities. While we are happy to have posts promoting these communities, in the long run, they tend to push other Glee Angst Meme community posts down further the page. Even with the sticky-post, it can still affect things.
   
   Therefore, we've decided that you are more than welcome to post to promote your community. However after one week, we will delete the post and add the community to our side-links bar, as well as affiliate list in the user profile. The list in the profile will be updated as soon as possible.
   
   You are also welcome to promote any fic challenges that are coming up in your community if you are affiliated with us. When the challenge ends, we will delete the post.



3. Prompt Post Layouts: Through various community input, we have been able to establish a prompt post layout to help the community run smoothly. We will take prominent Glee episodes and other factors into consideration when carrying-out this guideline.
   
   We will close future prompt posts at 6000 comments, which is roughly 65-70 pages. A One-Week Prompt Freeze will occur in this time, and we will open a new prompt post as the freeze ends.
   
   Within a prompt post, we will conduct 2 fic challenges, one at 2000 comments and one at 4000 comments to give some attention to other Glee-related fic genres. These challenges will only be for 4 days from a Friday to Monday, and the challenge is not restricted to an angst genre. Over this weekend, main prompt post will be frozen for new prompts; however, as always, comments, reviews and fills are allowed on the prompt post.
   
   If you have any other suggestion in helping to elevate the rate between unfilled prompts to fills that doesn't include an honour system (such a system will be too difficult to implement in our community), please feel free to comment below and we will take such considerations into mind.

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Reaching a Mod

The moderators may be contacted in three ways:

1. A comment to the The Page-a-Mod and Questions, Suggestions & Complaints post


2. By a private message to the gammods account

Please feel free to use any of these methods if you have cause for concern over a thread that needs particular attention. While the community is currently being tracked by the moderators via email, the moderators may be away from the computer at certain points or LJ may not send comment notifications. Taking this extra step helps ensure that they are alerted to problems before they spiral out of control.

Finally, please do contact the moderators rather than attempting to manage wank yourselves. It will lead to a much smoother experience for everyone, and we thank you in advance.

For any questions about any of the Rules or the meme itself, we can either be contacted by the methods detailed above or in the discussion post.

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Thank you,
Glee Angst Moderators