Rules and terms of use

The short version

• You must be at least 13 to make an account.
• Write fiction, as dark as your story needs, but keep it out of real people’s lives.
• Start a story with an 18+ warning if it has explicit sex scenes.
• Only post what you wrote or made, or have the right to share.
• Follow the laws of the world you write in, and respect its founder’s decisions.
• Be decent in the comments.
• You own what you write.

Accounts

You need to be at least 13 years old to make an account. Use your own email address, keep your password to yourself, and don’t make accounts to get around a block or a limit. Usernames can’t pretend to be someone else or Worldboard staff.

What isn’t allowed

• Sexual content involving anyone under 18, real or fictional, ever. It is removed and the account closed, and it is reported to the authorities where the law requires.
• Explicit sex without a warning. See Stories for adults below.
• Nudity or sexual pictures, anywhere: pictures show up in feeds and on the shelf, where anyone can see them.
• Hate and harassment: posts that attack or demean real people or groups for who they are, threats, bullying, and following someone around the site.
• Real people’s private lives: their personal details, or stories that put real, private people in them.
• Other people’s work: copied writing, pictures you don’t have the right to use, or anything posted as yours that isn’t.
• Spam: ads, links meant to sell something, and the same post over and over.
• Graphic pictures: gore or cruelty in pictures. (Words can go further than pictures; see below.)
• Breaking the site: getting around blocks, limits or private worlds, or trying to get into accounts that aren’t yours.

Fiction can be dark

War, death, crime, horror, cruelty and hard subjects are part of a lot of good fiction, and they’re fine in stories. Writing about something isn’t the same as approving of it. If a story deals with things like abuse or self-harm, say so in its short introduction so readers can choose.

Stories for adults

Stories may include explicit sex scenes, but only between adult characters, and only if the story’s short introduction starts with 18+ and says what to expect (for example “18+: explicit sexual content”). Keep explicit scenes in stories and chapters: not in a world’s lore, its laws, characters or comments. If you’re under 18, don’t read stories marked 18+.

A world’s founder can still keep their world free of explicit stories, by saying so in its laws and removing stories that don’t follow them. Unmarked explicit stories are removed when they’re reported.

Worlds and their founders

A world belongs to the person who founded it. Its founder sets its laws, decides who can read and write in it, and can remove any story, chapter or comment posted there, or block a writer, for any reason, including a story that ignores the laws. Founders can’t edit what other people wrote.

A founder who deletes their world deletes everything in it, including other people’s stories. Keep your own copy of anything you care about (the reader’s Download PDF button makes one).

Your writing

You keep the rights to everything you write and make. By posting it, you give Worldboard permission to store it, show it on the site to the people who can read the world it’s in, and include it in link previews, search, and PDF downloads, for as long as it stays posted. You can remove your own stories, chapters and comments at any time.

A story set in someone else’s world is yours, but the world isn’t: its name, lore, laws and the characters other people made belong to whoever made them. If you take your story elsewhere, ask the founder before you take their world with it.

How the rules are kept

Anyone can press Report on a world, story, chapter or comment. Founders look after their own worlds; the site admin reads every report and can remove anything on the site. Serious or repeated problems can cost an account. If you think something was removed by mistake, reply to any email from Worldboard.

The small print

Worldboard is a small, free site, provided as it is. We work to keep it running and your writing safe, but can’t promise it will always be up or never lose anything, so keep copies of your work. We may change these rules; the date at the top shows the last change, and using the site after a change means you accept it.

See also the privacy policy and the questions and answers.