A story can contain darkness that would never be acceptable behavior toward another community member.
The standard
Lantern welcomes difficult fiction and expects decent conduct. Characters may be cruel; community members may not. Moderators consider context, pattern, severity, intent, and impact rather than applying a popularity contest or demanding universal comfort.
What belongs here
- Original serialized fiction across genres, including imperfect alpha work with real narrative intent.
- Good-faith discussion of craft, characters, themes, and reading experience.
- Specific, respectful criticism that addresses the work or product rather than attacking a person.
- Clearly labeled spoilers and content notes.
- Bug reports, accessibility concerns, disagreement, and criticism of Lantern itself.
Harassment and personal safety
- Do not threaten, stalk, sexually harass, dogpile, intimidate, or repeatedly contact someone who asked you to stop.
- Do not publish private identifying information, encourage off-platform harassment, or organize retaliatory reviews.
- Do not attack people based on race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, disability, sex, gender, sexual orientation, age, caste, or another protected characteristic.
- Criticism of ideas, institutions, genres, and fictional conduct is allowed; dehumanization and targeted abuse are not.
Reader conversations
- Discuss the story, not an author’s worth as a person.
- Mark spoilers and keep major reveals out of unmarked opening text.
- Do not demand updates, sexual attention, free labor, personal access, or explanations of trauma.
- Do not manipulate comments, coordinate praise or attacks, impersonate readers, or spam promotional links.
Author conduct
- Do not retaliate against negative but good-faith feedback.
- Do not direct readers to harass reviewers, moderators, other authors, or platforms.
- Do not purchase or trade fake engagement, submit under deceptive identities, or coordinate rankings.
- Do not use reader email addresses or moderation information for personal marketing.
- Disclose conflicts when volunteering as a moderator and never review your own work or that of a close collaborator.
Prohibited material
- Sexual content involving minors or characters presented as minors, including sexualized age-play framed as a minor.
- Material created through real exploitation, nonconsensual intimate imagery, or sexual deepfakes of identifiable people.
- Instructions, solicitation, or coordination for imminent violence, trafficking, abuse, or other serious wrongdoing.
- Plagiarized, scraped, pirated, impersonated, or knowingly rights-infringing material.
- Malware, credential theft, scams, spam, or attempts to bypass Lantern security.
Dark and controversial fiction
Lantern may host fictional violence, horror, abuse, coercion, morally difficult relationships, explicit sexuality between adults, prejudice depicted in context, and other challenging themes when lawful, honestly labeled, and not created through real-world exploitation. Depiction is not automatically endorsement. Content notes help readers choose; they do not require authors to spoil every plot event.
Moderation responses
Possible responses include a private reminder, label or content-note correction, comment rejection, requested revision, temporary hiding, removal, account restriction, or permanent exclusion. Immediate removal may occur for credible threats, exploitation, doxxing, malware, or apparent infringement. Alpha decisions may be appealed by emailing katesegerauthor@gmail.com with the relevant story, comment, or account and a concise explanation.
Report concerns
Use the Alpha Feedback button for ordinary community or product concerns. For urgent safety concerns, privacy exposure, or harassment, email katesegerauthor@gmail.com with links, screenshots if available, and a description. Copyright complaints should follow the separate Copyright & Plagiarism Policy.