Community Rules

Rooms is where people write fiction in public and readers leave editorial notes on it. The rules are short because the idea is simple: constructive criticism is fine but nastiness will not be tolerated.

What we welcome

• Honest editorial notes about the work — what’s landing, what isn’t, and why. “The opening image is doing a lot of work — trust it longer” is a great note.
• Specific, actionable suggestions an author could actually use.
• Enthusiasm. Telling an author what you loved is editorial data too.
• Disagreement about craft, argued in good faith.

What we don’t allow

• Attacks on the person instead of the work — insults, mockery, or pile-ons aimed at an author or another reader.
• Harassment of any kind, including following someone across stories to needle them.
• Hate speech, slurs, or demeaning generalizations about groups of people.
• Spam, self-promotion disguised as notes, or off-topic derailing.
• Threats, doxxing, or sharing anyone’s private information.

The short version: jerk behavior will not be tolerated. If a note would make you wince to receive on your own story, don’t post it on someone else’s.

Notes are signed

Every editorial note carries your display name, linked to your public profile. There are no anonymous notes — standing behind your words is part of the deal, for exactly the same reason it works in a real writers’ room.

Enforcement

• Authors can hide any note on their story, no justification needed. Hidden notes disappear from public view.
• Anyone signed in can report a note; reports go to the Writers Room team for review.
• Accounts that keep at it lose note-writing privileges, and in serious cases the account itself. We’d rather have fewer notes than mean ones.

The fine print

These rules sit on top of the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, which govern licensing, privacy, and everything else legal. Where this page and the Terms differ, the Terms win — but they were written to agree.