Code of Conduct

This is a Civilized Place for Public Discussion

The intfiction.org forums are a place for all authors and players, long-time enthusiasts and newcomers to discuss Interactive Fiction.

Please treat this discussion forum with the same respect you would a public park. We, too, are a shared community resource — a place to share skills, knowledge and interests through ongoing conversation.

These are not hard and fast rules, merely aids to the human judgment of our community. Use these guidelines to keep this a clean, well-lighted place for civilized public discourse.

Improve the Discussion

Help us make this a great place for discussion by always working to improve the discussion in some way, however small. If you are not sure your post adds to the conversation, think over what you want to say and try again later.

The topics discussed here matter to us, and we want you to act as if they matter to you, too. Be respectful of the games, stories, topics, and the people discussing them, even if you disagree with some of what is being said.

One way to improve the discussion is by discovering ones that are already happening. Please spend some time browsing the topics here before replying or starting your own, and you’ll have a better chance of meeting others who share your interests.

Be Agreeable, Even When You Disagree

You may wish to respond to something by disagreeing with it. That’s fine. But, remember to criticize ideas, not people. Please avoid:

Name-calling.
Ad hominem attacks.
Responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content.
Knee-jerk contradiction.

Instead, provide reasoned counter-arguments that improve the conversation.

Your Participation Counts (Not Just Your Posts)

The conversations we have here set the tone for everyone. 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.

Let’s try to leave our park better than we found it.

If You See a Problem, Flag It

Moderators have special authority; they are responsible for this forum. But so are you. With your help, moderators can be community facilitators, not just janitors or police.

When you see bad behavior, don’t reply. It encourages the behavior by acknowledging it, consumes your energy, and wastes everyone’s time. Flag any messages to identify posts which may require moderator intervention. Multiple flags will automatically hide a post until it is reviewed. Use this to improve your own experience, and everyone else’s, too.

How to flag a post for review...(click here)

Click the three dots below the post…

Click the flag…

Let us know what’s happening.

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 before they are made public, except for new users’ first post, as a means of catching spam. The moderators and board administrators 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 offensive, abusive, hate speech, violence, and don’t advocate for any of these things. By the same token, don’t advertise/recruit for any group or movement involved in the same.
Keep it clean. Don’t post anything obscene or sexually explicit directly in a post. (See below about linking to adult content.)
Respect each other. Don’t harass or grief anyone, impersonate people, or expose their private information.
Don’t Argue What IF is or is not. Intfiction.org promotes a broad definition of Interactive Fiction. Don’t claim a type or style of game already accepted by the community doesn’t belong. If in doubt, ask questions or see if it has been previously discussed.
Respect game/story authors. When an author posts in a thread about their game, provide constructive feedback. If you dislike the game, be sure to explain why, or how it might be improved.
When you disagree with a decision that someone has made in their game, feel free to express that disagreement. However, if they continue with their design choices, stop arguing.
If the author asks you to stop arguing about a design decision, please do so.
Don’t disrespect any group of people. Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and other kinds of bias make others feel uncomfortable.
Avoid subtle -isms. These are small things that make others feel uncomfortable, things that we all sometimes do by mistake. For example, saying “It’s so easy my grandmother could do it” is a subtle -ism.
Apologize. If you make other people uncomfortable on our forums, especially by mistake, apologize, or say nothing.
Don’t argue about civility on public channels. Don’t defend yourself, don’t defend others, and don’t pile on to someone who made a mistake. If you see a problem, flag it; don’t reply.
Respect our forum. Don’t post spam or otherwise vandalize the forum.

These are not concrete terms with precise definitions — avoid even the appearance of any of these things. If you’re unsure, ask yourself how you would feel if your post was featured on the front page of the New York Times.

This is a public forum, and search engines index these discussions. Keep the language and images safe for family and friends.

Regarding Off-site Harassment

The Staff of this forum take online harassment very seriously. While it is not our specific job to police other websites and social media, verifiable threats, egregious examples of hate-speech, and campaigns of harassment targeted at any member of the IF Community at-large - whether on this website or any other - may be grounds for revocation of posting and/or membership privileges, temporarily or permanently at the discretion of forum Staff.

Content Warnings When Linking to Games

We generally allow links to games that include adult content, though we recommend they are clearly marked as “adult” in some way. This includes games with intense horror themes, graphic descriptions of violence, explicit sexual content/erotica, or rape (explicit or implied). Use your best judgment.

We also recommend providing trigger warnings, which are designed to prevent people who have an extremely strong and damaging emotional response to certain subjects from encountering them unaware. An example could be “Warning: discussion of suicide and self-harm”. Again, use your best judgment.

If any discussion about adult-only games becomes offensive, the moderators reserve the right to censor the objectionable posts and close or remove the thread.

Minors: If you are a minor, you should not follow links that are explicitly marked as “adult”. If you do follow those links, we take no responsibility for what you find there. Furthermore, if you are a minor, and you tell us that you are a minor, and you post in a thread explicitly marked as “adult”, we will censor your posts.

Keep It Tidy

Make the effort to put things in the right place, so that we can spend more time discussing and less cleaning up. So:

Don’t start a topic in the wrong category.
Don’t cross-post the same thing in multiple topics.
Don’t post no-content replies. (This includes “BUMP”ing dead threads.)
Don’t divert a topic by changing it midstream.

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.

AI or LLM generated content is not considered “Your Own Stuff” and we recommend you cite the source and clearly demarcate generated prose when discussing it. It’s okay to use AI to assist your writing, but please don’t use an AI to generate the content of your message.

Accounts that use AI to deceptively post as a real person in an attempt to fool people or pass the Turing Test will be banned. An AI cannot agree to the Code of Conduct and cannot be moderated, so they are not eligible to inhabit an account.

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