Submission Rules - Share Ideas

One rule that I have on my archive is that authors aren't allowed to put special characters in their title (@#$~%^&*, etc.) That drives me crazy!

We're pretty similar to the default with our rules, just with some editing and adding to fit in with our archive. We have some notes about character/'ship bashing, too, but I think that's mostly because of my thoughts on the matter. Oh, and a few notes about smart quotes - they always mess up, so we ended up giving some guidelines on turning them off in Word. It's just easier that way.

(Btw, thanks for making this forum! I think it's going to be useful, and as a newbie to archive owning, it'll be good to learn from people with more experience.)

One rule that I have on my archive is that authors aren't allowed to put special characters in their title (@#$~%^&*, etc.) That drives me crazy!

I also ask for no CAPSLOCK!titles. Don't they scream: "Please, read my story, just don't look at the other ones!" to you? (Just like using strange characters as a decoration for the title helps the story to be listed as first when they're ordered alphabetically.) And then, it's also anti-aestethic (except when _all_ titles are in capital letters).

I've got a very long page of submission rules, but half of it is about the idoneity of the story. Something like "Correct use of punctuation / Correct spelling / etc."

Then I also add some specific rules for the posting, like: "Do not select more than 5 characters", because there are also users that select every character in the list just to be listed as a result of every search.

Sometimes I think that most of the rules - that seems quite obvious and related to commons sense - are there just because in my Country authors are not accostumed to moderated archives.  🙁

(Btw, thanks for making this forum! I think it's going to be useful, and as a newbie to archive owning, it'll be good to learn from people with more experience.)

You're welcome. That was the idea.

My submission rules are mostly specific to my archive, but I have found it very handy to also spell out what we will not accept, as well as what we will. This is pretty easy for me because the scope of my site is small.

In my submission rules I ask my authors to select all the correct genres and warnings. I don't want them to leave them blank or put too little information.

I also ask one-shots to use the story title as the chapter title, as those show up automatically, and for authors not to include "The End", "TBC" and the story/chapter information because those also show up automatically on my archive. Header information in the story text are throws off the word count, like Tammy said, and it also duplicates information.

My main submission rules really only list the top rules, and a couple of the top problems, and then I have links at the bottom to topics in the complete submissions rules, which explains what Round Robins are, how co-authors work, ect.

You can see my complete submission rules here:
http://www.potionsandsnitches.net/fanfiction/viewpage.php?page=rulesall

Then I also add some specific rules for the posting, like: "Do not select more than 5 characters", because there are also users that select every character in the list just to be listed as a result of every search.

Yes, this is the next addition I'll be making.  I have the same problem.  I probably won't set a limit, but word it like "Please select only characters that are the focus of/featured in your story and not every character that appears."

I really don't care what people do with their titles.  Most of the time on my site, my authors are pretty reasonable.

My submission rules mainly ask proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation and to be put in the proper category.  The rest is up to the author and so far, I haven't had any major issues.  Authors who overselect characters are pretty few.

I used to have a problem with HUGE summaries, but I modified the story submissions page so it checks for summary length and kicks back an error if it's ridiculously long.

http://www.lunaescence.com/fics/rules.php

Our rules are pretty specific to the archive and mostly predate my involvement, but recently I've been enforcing a policy of 1) having a valid email address and 2) not having more than one account.  This second rule is my new pet peeve and actually very relevant, what with the 8823 members and growing 15-20 per day.  Trying to view authors takes a while now.

But the action log is awesome for catching people with multiple accounts!  I love the IP logging.

If anyone is interested:
Rules (Recently updated to be less wordy)
TOS

I should have originally included that the help page gives a pretty good idea of the problems encountered regularly, since that goes back to the point behind Tammy's original post.
Help page

This is a bit off topic, and so please feel free to delete or move this comment.

Just reading Tammy's bandwidth theft. I had same problem, especially with live journal, and found a script and a mod to .htaccess that got around this nicely. They can steal all they want now, but no images shows up. I am sure it is not a complete solution, someone ALWAYS finds ways around it, but it has stopped the vast majority of people who have no coding knowlegde at all.

I am trying to find the link for you now, stupid me didn't bookmark it. But if i cant, i have the script and htaccess mods if anybody wants them, and it was relatively easy to do. Also you can allow 'safe' sites, so if you want to let certain domains hotlink yuo, you can add them to be excluded from the block. It has worked really well for me so far.

sorry if i hijacked this topic

jacci

I noticed this at Deviantart, but some passionate fans enjoy acting as an unruly mob and comment/harrass people who think ill, mock, or plagiarize works. I made it a special note (tho my rules are far from complete) that mob rule is not tollerated.

.htaccess? try this link: http://corz.org/serv/tricks/htaccess.php

Out of the three archives I have, one is really only open to submissions, and one that's open for NaNoWriMo submissions.  The other's not open to submissions

Because of the nature of the works for my fully open archive, I'm a stickler for the rule about choosing the appropriate warnings and correct rating.  I do that mostly because a of any reader that's not aware of what's usually seen in WoD RPG influenced writing.  I have this posted in my welcome: Authors, please do your best to assign the best rating for your work and add all applicable warnings when you submit.  I also require age verification for reading anything as well and disclaim responsibility for anyone that falsifies that.  It's mostly for the people of the 'I didn't know that that Mc D's coffee was scalding hot it could cause burns' fare  😆  Beyond that, nothing's changed much from the default.  Like with everyone that's posted, could change with anything that becomes problematic and needs guidance on

One change I made a few months ago was:

If your story contains sexual references, it must be rated T or above.

Added after I noticed a story with slash warnings was rated K.  Kid friendly and sexual content do not mix to my way of thinking.

1) having a valid email address

That's something I've been having to crack down on lately. I have a large archive too (over 8k members) and every day I get emails bounced back. Just yesterday I think I deleted 200+ accounts that were using invalid ones.

We had some problems with people having the actors rather than the characters appear in their stories, hence the following:

Rule#9- In regards to actual persons: Depictions of actual persons, famous or otherwise, as well as portrayals of actual events which may draw attention to the identity of actual persons will not be accepted in the fiction/fanfiction categories.

  1. Since we do have a section for artwork, depictions of famous and/or actual persons will be allowed in this category but must conform to ToS.
  2. We will accept factual stories in the nonfiction category, but a disclaimer must be added stating that the events in said story are true to your knowledge.
  3. Fiction/fanfiction stories which explore historical situations are permitted to include factual persons who are deceased. For example, in the event that you are writing about WWII, you may actually use Hitler. You may write about the life and times of historical persons. For example if you wanted to write a fictional piece about the relationship between Percy Shelley and Mary Wolstencraft-Shelley, such a story would be acceptable. These people are deceased and are deemed historical /public figures.
  4. References to public figures or cultural icons are permitted if used to enhance realism of the setting or time period. i.e. A character in an 80's piece says, "I love that Billy Idol song, turn it up," or "As a kid we used to play doctor, he always got to be George Clooney," are acceptable uses. Mr. Idol or Mr. Clooney come to her house to make out with said character, not acceptable unless this is a nonfiction memoir and then it should contain the above mentioned disclaimer. If you are uncertain about your story and whether or not it is acceptable please feel free to contact a member of the staff.

There's a lot more to the subject and not being lawyers we don't have all the answers but this keeps the worst offenders away.