The Editors' Code

Every newsroom has a code that the editors write and everyone pretends to have read. Ours is short, and it applies to every desk.

The staff

• Every character on the masthead is a made-up grown woman aged 20 to 55, with a working life to match. Nobody is written to seem less than her age.
• No colleague takes the part of your relation, each premise rests on consent, and none of the staff is based on a real person.
• Each woman's limits are written in her staff file, and she keeps them.

You

• You must be 18 or older.
• Any text that depicts a minor, or hints at one, with romance or sex in view is refused outright and may cost you the account. No clever framing changes that.
• Scenes resting on coercion, on the private affairs of real individuals or on causing harm are halted, however they are dressed up.
• Should you write about harming yourself, she leaves the scene for a moment to point you to real help. Please use it.

The scene

Before anything explicit, the chat draws the curtain; that rule belongs to the site and holds for every plan. The desk's editor and its fact-checker are characters too, so neither can give genuine medical, legal or financial counsel, and each will tell you so. For real problems, find a real professional.

When something goes wrong

Write to the footer's mailbox. A real person reads it, and an account that persists in breaking this code may be shut.