Chat Guidelines

### **What is Discord?**

Discord is a chat program that allows both text based communication and voice chat. For the time being we will only host text chats but if there is enough interest we may hold a few voice chat events. Discord is great because you can view it through your web browser, an app on your phone, or through a program you install directly on your computer.

We have several different rooms for participants to enjoy:

General Chat (All Participants) This is the catch-all chat.

Match Making Chat This chat is to help you find a partner for the challenge if you do not want to solo post. Mods are no involved in finding you a partner.

All these chats are all housed under the same server so you will only need to worry about following the initial invite link that we will provide. The mods will invite you to the rest. There is no need to rejoin the chat room every time you log out. Once you are in the chat room discord will never remove you unless you tell it to. You will automatically join each time you open discord.

### **What are the rules?**

1. Absolutely no wank or drama. We are not a recruiting ground for your angry mob and pitchforks must be checked at the door.
2. All Tropefest chat rooms are private and you are not allowed to take a screenshot or paste conversations to anyone outside of the chat. If we find that you have done so with the intention of causing drama you will be immediately removed from the chat. Caveat: Sometimes we say funny things. Sometimes you might wanna share that on social media. If you show the screencap you want to share in our chat and everyone who spoke in the screencap is okay with you sharing it, you may do so.
3. Please don’t make sexual statements about other participants. We are not a dating service and most people are looking for a safe place to chat with friends and not be hit on.
4. The General Chat is a place for everyone to hang out. We encourage people to make friends and share personal stories but please refrain from oversharing. We don’t need to hear about your explicit sexual exploits or see a picture of the toe you just lost in a wood chipper.
5. Please do not talk about your challenge partner (or anyone else) in the chat room unless it is with gushing pride and admiration. This includes complaining about communication issues and personality differences. For this challenge you are the person who picked your partner and if you have a problem with them... that is up to you to deal with.
6. While you are welcome to share your stories and art with other participants, we ask that you don’t use the chat room as your personal promo space. Please understand that no one in the chat room is obligated to read your story/view your art or give you feedback. Please do not press this issue and continually ask other participants if they have read your story/seen your art.
7. Please do not critique other artist/authors in the chat. If someone wants this kind of feedback from you, they will ask you and you can provide it to them in a private space.
8. We have a wide variety of participants in this fandom. Please be aware of this before starting discussions such as “Don’t you hate it when other fanfic writers do this?” or “I hate this trope/head canon.” or any variation of this. Remember your peers share this space with you and any attempt to try to antagonize people over this will be considered wank. (Please see rule #1
9. Be nice. This is really what all of the above rules mean. Please let a mod know if something is bothering you. We will do our best to try to fix the problem if it is within our control.
10. HAVE FUN! We know there are a lot of rules. We know that it makes us sound stuffy. We promise we aren’t! All of the above rules have come about due to complaints from previous chat participants and we are trying to make the best most loving version of chat that we can!

#### What are the consequences of breaking a rule?

For the most part, you will receive a warning to please move on to a new topic. If you persist in breaking the rule, we may have to ban you from the channel. Depending on the severity of your actions this could be a ban for a day to help you cool off or it could be a permanent ban. You will not be banned from the challenge unless you do something truly awful.

#### Why did you stop using Twitter for the chat rooms?

Twitter was a wonderful platform for small groups to chat. However, there was a set limit to how many people could be invited to the room and for this challenge we simply need more space. Twitter also did not allow us to create spaces for each kind of participant without creating multiple chat rooms. Finally, Twitter has no mod controls. The only way to remove someone from a chat was to block them. Since we had no admin privileges we could have theoretically been banned from our own chat. All in all this gives us more control and a much more creative space to play in.

### Okay! Okay! How do we join the damn thing already?

Joining discord is very easy. You should receive a direct link to the chat room in your welcome email.

You will then be prompted to sign up for the service. Once you are signed up you should automatically see the Tropefest chat room. Upon entry you will only have access to the General Chat. In order to obtain entry to your appropriate chats, you will need to confirm with the mods the name you signed up with. We will then assign you a role so that you can join the other chats appropriate for your registration. Only registered Tropefest participants may join the chat. Everyone else will be removed.