Community Guidelines.

The idea

Storylines is a place to tell branching stories, including stories set in worlds that other people created. We want writers to have room to explore, and readers to be able to choose what they see. So we judge fiction mainly by whether it is labelled honestly, and we judge behaviour toward real people much more strictly.

Dark fiction is allowed

Fiction can deal with violence, abuse, grief, crime, addiction, war and other hard subjects. Depicting something is not the same as endorsing it, and we do not remove a story just because some readers find it offensive. What we ask is that you rate and warn accurately, and stay within the hard limits below. Because Storylines is distributed through app stores, those limits are stricter than on some websites.

Ratings and warnings

• Mark a story explicit if it contains graphic sexual content, or extremely graphic violence or gore. Explicit stories are only shown to accounts that have turned explicit content on, and only adults may do that.
• Use the story's tags and description to warn readers about major content such as graphic violence, sexual violence, self-harm or suicide, and abuse. If you would rather not give specifics, say that the story contains content some readers may find disturbing.
• Cover images, titles, capsules, profile pictures and display names must be suitable for all users, even on explicit stories. No nudity or sexual imagery there.
• If a story is labelled wrongly, moderators may correct the rating or tags, hide the story until it is fixed, or ask you to revise it.

Never allowed

These are removed regardless of rating, warnings or fictional framing:

• Sexual content involving minors. No sexual or sexualised content involving anyone under 18 or any character who is, appears to be, or is described as under 18, in text or images. "They are really 1,000 years old" does not change this. We report child sexual abuse material to NCMEC and law enforcement and permanently ban the account.
• Sexual images of real people without their consent, including fake or AI-generated ones, and any intimate image shared without consent.
• Photorealistic sexual or gory imagery. Explicit stories may describe sexual content in text and use stylised art, but not photographic or photorealistic sexual images or real-world gore.
• Real-world harm. Credible threats, incitement to violence against real people or groups, content that promotes or glorifies terrorist or violent extremist organisations, and instructions that give real help to commit serious harm (for example making weapons or drugs, or methods of self-harm presented as advice).
• Hate directed at real people: content outside fiction that attacks or dehumanises people based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, caste, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age or serious illness.
• Illegal content, including content that infringes copyright as described in the Copyright Policy, and anything illegal to possess or distribute under U.S. law.
• Malicious files or links: malware, phishing, or files disguised as something else.

Real people

Stories about real public figures (sometimes called real-person fiction) are allowed, but treat them as fiction about a public persona:

• Do not present them as true, or as written by the person.
• No sexual content involving real people who are, or appear to be, under 18, and no sexual images of any real person.
• Do not send or target the story at the real person, or encourage readers to contact them.
• Stories about private individuals (classmates, co-workers, exes, neighbours) are not allowed without their permission.

Personal information

Do not post anyone's private information without their permission: legal names tied to an online identity, home or work addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, private photos, health, financial or identity documents, or anything that reveals where someone is. Do not reveal who is behind another user's account. This applies to yourself too if you are under 18: keep identifying details out of your profile and stories.

Harassment

Do not bully, threaten, stalk or intimidate other users, or organise others to do so. We look at the context: whether behaviour is repeated, targeted at someone, hard to avoid, or part of a pattern. Disagreeing with someone or leaving honest criticism of a story is fine. Repeated unwanted contact, pile-ons, slurs aimed at a user, and filing false reports against someone are not.

Plagiarism and copying

Publish your own work. Fan fiction that tells a new story with existing characters and settings is welcome. Copying someone else's text, art or audio, including another Storylines user's story, and presenting it as yours is not, even with small edits or a credit. Short quotations and epigraphs are fine. Remixing is fine when the original story allows remixes. See the Copyright & Fan Works Policy.

AI-assisted stories

You may use Storylines AI or other tools to help you write, as long as the result follows these guidelines and you have reviewed it. You are the author of record and responsible for what you publish. Do not use AI to copy a specific living author's or artist's work, or to mass-produce low-effort stories.

Profiles and comments

Display names, bios, profile pictures and comments are seen by everyone, so they must be suitable for all audiences and must not impersonate other people, Storylines staff, or brands. Keep comments about the story; do not post spoilers without warning on stories that ask you not to.

Spam and promotion

No spam, repeated identical posts, scams, or advertising for products or services. Mentioning your own work elsewhere is fine; selling things or soliciting payment on Storylines is not, unless we launch a creator programme that allows it.

Reporting

To report a story, comment or user, use the report option in the app where available, or email storylineshq@gmail.com with a link or the story title, what is wrong, and which rule it breaks. For copyright problems, use the DMCA notice form instead. If someone is in immediate danger, contact local emergency services first.

We read every report. We keep the reporter's identity private from the person reported, except for copyright notices, where the law requires the notice to be shared.

What we do, and appeals

Depending on how serious the problem is and whether it has happened before, moderators may:

• change a story's rating or tags;
• hide a story and ask you to revise it, with a note explaining what to change;
• remove a story, comment or profile item;
• warn you, limit features such as publishing, commenting or AI, or suspend the account for a period; or
• permanently close the account. We do this at once for the most serious violations, such as sexual content involving minors or credible threats.

Where it is safe and lawful, we will tell you what we did and which rule it was about. If you think we got it wrong, email storylineshq@gmail.com within 30 days with the subject "Appeal", and a different person from the original reviewer will look at it where possible. The original decision stays in place during the appeal. If we reverse it, we restore what we removed where we still can.

A suspended account may still ask us for a copy of its data or for deletion under the Privacy Policy.