The rules

The short version: one passage a round, one vote a round, write it yourself, and flag things instead of fighting about them.

Writing

• One entry a round. You can have one passage in the running in each round, and it has to be between 300 and 600 words.
• You can edit your passage as much as you like until submissions close.
• You can withdraw it until voting opens. After that the ballot is fixed and it stays in the running.
• Write it yourself. The story's own rules — its premise, its tone, its hard rules and its content rating — are on the story's page, and a passage that ignores them is what flags are for.
• Without membership you write in one story at a time. Reading, voting and writing are free either way.

Voting

• One vote a round. You can change it or take it back until voting closes.
• The curator of a round does not enter it and does not vote in it. They chose the ballot; voting on it as well would be choosing twice.
• If two passages finish level, the curator has 6 hours to pick between them. If that window runs out, the passage that arrived first wins, so a silent curator can never stall a story.

How a vote is weighed

Every vote is weighed the same way for everybody, and this is the whole of the rule — there is no other one behind it.

• A vote counts 100.
• From an account less than 48 hours old, it counts 25. An account made this morning to swing a round is worth a quarter of one that has been here.
• From somebody who has not opened the story they are voting on, it counts 50. Reading the story is the point.
• From a new account that has not opened the story either, it counts 12.

A flag is weighed in exactly the same way, for the same reason.

Flags

If something is wrong with a passage, flag it and say which of these it is. You can add a note, and you can flag any passage once. You cannot flag your own.

• Contradicts the story so far
• Outside the word range
• Breaks one of this story's rules
• Beyond this story's content rating
• Hateful or abusive
• Reads as machine-written
• Copied from somewhere else
• Against the law

Enough weight of flags hides a passage behind a "Show anyway" link, and that is all it does. It stays on the ballot, anybody who wants to can open it, and every vote on it still counts. Flags are a warning to readers, not a way to take a rival out of a round.

If a passage of yours is hidden that way and is still in the round, you can appeal. Write a few lines saying why it should stand, and a person reads it.

When we step in

We take a passage or a chapter down only where the law requires it. Everything else is settled by the people reading, by flags and by votes.

When an administrator does remove an entry or withhold a chapter, they have to give a written reason, and the site records who did it and when. A chapter that is withheld is hidden, never rewritten, so it can be put back exactly as it was written if the decision turns out to be wrong.

Who can do what

Anyone can read, with or without an account. Voting needs an account, which is how one person gets one vote. You need to be 16 or over to write or to curate, and the site asks you to confirm it before your first entry.

Also worth reading

How it works walks through a round from end to end, your writing says what stays yours, and what we hold about you says what is kept and why.