These rules are taken from our EponaAuthor.Social/Mastodon rules page and are expanded to include the entirety of the Epona Author Community.

1 You must be an author or publishing professional to join. We don’t care if you’re published or not, but ideally you should be seeking publication in some manner. Why? Because otherwise you’re going to be bored, since this community is aimed toward authors and our community includes a directory of author promotional opportunities and places to submit your work.

2 No hate, bullying, or harassment. Period. Seriously. This community is owned and operated by a queer, disabled, neurodivergent trans person. Intersectional marginalized identities are welcome here. Anything that suggests hate or violence or harassment towards another individual or another group will be dealt with swiftly and firmly. IDIC is our guiding star.

3 Keep blatant political posts, memes, and/or promotions to a minimum. I get it. For many of us our very existence and especially what we write is not just political, it’s under serious attack right now. It is a privilege to be able to “ignore politics”. So political discussions are going to happen within the context of other issues. (When it does, please keep it civil.) What I’m referring to would be signatures, memes, images, jokes, etc. that are posted to the community as if it’s your own personal Facebook page. Don’t do that.

4 Use content warnings generously, not just on Mastodon. CWs (or content warnings) are part of the “rules of the road” for Mastodon, but I’d like to extend that to the entire server, including our Discord. When discussing sensitive topics (such as violence, abuse (including emotional and sexual), eating disorders, graphic depictions of blood, bodily functions, etc. This list is not exhaustive.) please use a content warning at the top of the post. Please also include content warnings for images which show direct eye contact.

The usual format is– CW: topic, or multiple topics

5 Alt text please. If I forget, you’re free to call me out. Mastodon and WordPress (which this community is built on, including our directory) include this functionality. If you’re not sure how to use it or are on a service that doesn’t, then put it in the text of your post.