This Starlit Valley
We hope you enjoy your stay at the Canyon! Our forum is a shared creative endeavour; a place to invent and discuss creative works, ideas, skills, knowledge and interests, and meet others who value such a space. We are writers, artists, musicians, hackers, and more besides! As such people usually require a rather idiosyncratic blend of solitude and connection, we maintain this space in the mountains together. Please do your part to make this a vibrant, interesting and enjoyable place to visit!
These are guidelines to keep this space kind and friendly.
Improve the Discussion
Try to add something positive to the discussion, however small. If you are not sure your post adds to the conversation, there is no need to respond immediately; you can come back to it later if you want.
Please spend a little time browsing the topics here before replying or starting your own, so we do not get duplicate threads.
The community should ensure topics are accurately titled and categorised, and canyon elders will check over any posts that are reported for rulebreaking and remove if appropriate. This means that every visitor is responsible for what they choose to engage in. If you dislike a topic, ignore it, and respect the right of those who wish to discuss. You are free to make a thread of your own with a different premise.
For example, if someone has started a thread “101 reasons why I have a crush on Professor Hojo”, you may perhaps question their taste. This is fine; feel free to start a thread such as “101 reasons why I dislike Professor Hojo intensely for experimenting on my grandson”. But please do not harass the posters in the Hojo-fanclub thread to tell them why they are all Wrong, or snipe at specific forum members. This is not a culture we wish to encourage. Likewise, if you happen to have a crush on Hojo and you see a thread premised on disliking him, it is not appropriate to go in there to tell the people there that they are benighted by lamentable ignorance and he is your misunderstood husband on the astral plane. The truth of this claim aside, everyone has the same right to like or dislike whatever they wish.
This forum is firmly of the opinion that fiction is not reality; depiction is not endorsement, and so forth; if something says, “dead dove, don’t eat”, you should not expect much sympathy if you eat the dove and then complain that it was a dove. If you think all media should be didactic, our moderators do not share your outlook.
Creepy groomers are unwelcome. If you are an adult with a track record of hitting on teens, the canyon elders would like to remind you that we are all far too old for you anyway, and suggest you keep walking. We may also delete things we just think lower the tone. We’re here to enjoy ourselves.
Keep Things Agreeable
When disagreeing, try to criticize ideas, not people. Please avoid:
- Name-calling
- Ad hominem attacks
- Knee-jerk contradiction
Assume good faith in disagreements by default. We encourage everyone to reread before responding, and check if it’s possible something was misinterpreted or if your own assumptions are wrong.
Please be aware that we do not permit the promotion of gender in this space. Although proselytisation will be deleted, both atheists and people with any religious belief may join. We do not, however, permit attempts to forcefully convert others to one’s faith. Exhortations to commit violence against unbelievers will result in instant bans. We also reserve the right to ban users if we encounter this behaviour from them offsite, or any other threats or violence against women. The Canyon is a place of science and does not consider witch-hunts a respectable or reasonable practice.
Your Participation Counts
The conversations we have here set the tone for every new arrival. Help us influence the future of this community by choosing to engage in discussions that make this forum an interesting place to be — and avoiding those that do not.
Discourse provides tools that enable the community to collectively identify the best (and worst) contributions: bookmarks, likes, flags, replies, edits, watching, muting and so forth. Use these tools to improve your own experience, and everyone else’s, too.
If You See a Problem, Flag It
We are all responsible for maintaining our community.
When you see bad behavior, don’t reply. Replying encourages bad behavior by acknowledging it, consumes your energy, and wastes everyone’s time. Just flag it. If enough flags accrue, action will be taken, either automatically or by moderator intervention.
In order to maintain our community, moderators reserve the right to remove any content and any user account for any reason at any time. Moderators do not preview new posts; the moderators and site operators take no responsibility for any content posted by the community.
Always Be Civil
Nothing sabotages a healthy conversation like rudeness:
- Be civil. Don’t post anything that a reasonable person would consider abusive. But by reasonable we do actually mean ‘reasonable’; mere disagreement is not abuse and false reports will be treated as a form of vandalism.
- Respect each other. Don’t harass or grief anyone, impersonate people, or expose their private information. No brigading, coercive behaviour, or threats.
- Respect our forum. Don’t post spam or otherwise vandalize the forum.
Before replying, consider how you would feel to receive the same message from someone else.
This is a public forum, and search engines index these discussions. (This can be changed if people would prefer.)
Keep It Tidy
Along with the aesthetic value, this makes it easier for us all to find things again later, so:
- Don’t start a topic in the wrong category; please read the category definitions.
- Don’t cross-post the same thing in multiple topics.
- Don’t post no-content replies.
- Don’t divert a topic by changing it midstream.
Rather than posting “+1” or “Agreed”, use the Like button. Rather than taking an existing topic in a radically different direction, use Reply as a Linked Topic.
Post Only Your Own Stuff
You may not post anything digital that belongs to someone else without permission. You may not post descriptions of, links to, or methods for stealing someone’s intellectual property (software, video, audio, images), or for breaking any other law. And yes, we did modify some of our guidelines from fanspace, with permission.
A Group Endeavour
This site is operated by your friendly local staff and you, the community. If you have any further questions about how things should work here, open a new topic in the site meta category and let’s discuss! If there’s a critical or urgent issue that can’t be handled by a meta topic or flag, contact us via the staff page.
Terms of Service
We must protect ourselves – and by extension, you and your data. We have a Terms of Service describing your (and our) behavior and rights related to content, privacy, and laws. To use this service, you must agree to abide by our TOS.