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Guidelines

Gay Authors Site Guidelines & Community Standards

Gay Authors has community standards to help members enjoy the site, protect reader trust, support authors, follow the requirements of our business partners, and minimize disruption to the community. These rules apply to all areas of Gay Authors, including stories, forums, blogs, clubs, comments, reviews, private messages, profile content, images, signatures, and any other member-submitted content.

Please follow these guidelines while using the site so we can all enjoy the community.

  1. Member Rules Accounts and Member Identity
    1. Members are allowed to have only one (1) account unless otherwise approved by Site Administrators.
    2. Authors with existing multiple pen names should use the Contact Us link at the bottom of the site to discuss multiple accounts before attempting to create or use them.
    3. We understand some authors may wish to keep different pen names for different purposes or audiences, and we may be able to accommodate this. However, we strongly recommend authors use one writing name whenever possible so they can concentrate and build their audience. Unless an author is highly prolific, separating works between different pen names will probably hurt more than help.
    4. Members should not allow others to use their accounts. If they do, they will be held responsible for anything that occurs under that account.
    5. Members may not create accounts, pen names, profiles, avatars, biographies, or other identifying material that impersonates another member, author, moderator, public figure, organization, or business. This includes impersonation through AI-generated images, AI-generated biographies, automated posting, or similar tools.
  2. Age Range Requirement
    1. Due to the inclusion of minors on this site, all members must have an accurate age range listed in their profile.
    2. This data is not visible publicly and will only be used for moderating the site and enforcing site rules.
  3. General Conduct Standards
    1. The following rules apply to all areas of Gay Authors.
  4. Disruption of the Site
    1. Posts, messages, uploads, or other behavior that are intended to disrupt, or have the effect of disrupting, the forums, the site, staff operations, or the Gay Authors community will not be tolerated.
    2. This includes, but is not limited to:
      1. Posting in all caps.
      2. Repeatedly posting the same or similar material.
      3. Posting inflammatory or intentionally disruptive content.
      4. Posting derogatory comments about religion.
      5. Discussing politics outside designated areas.
      6. Attempting to provoke other members into rule violations.
      7. Evading moderator instructions or site restrictions.
  5. Harassment
    1. Harassment will not be tolerated. Anything deemed harassment may be removed, and the member responsible will be subject to disciplinary action as deemed appropriate by site management.
    2. Members may not target, intimidate, shame, stalk, threaten, or organize pressure against another member, author, reader, reviewer, moderator, or staff member.
    3. Public accusations that another member used AI, plagiarized, lied about authorship, violated site rules, or engaged in misconduct should not be made in story comments, reviews, forums, clubs, blogs, private campaigns, or other public site areas. Members should use the Report feature and allow staff to review concerns.
  6. Member Privacy
    1. Do not post private information about other members. This includes, but is not limited to:
      1. Full names.
      2. Places of employment.
      3. Schools.
      4. Email addresses.
      5. Street addresses.
      6. Telephone numbers.
      7. Private social media accounts.
      8. Personal or family information not already shared publicly by that member.
    2. Do not use AI tools, search tools, public records, or other methods to identify, expose, profile, or track another member without their consent.
  7. Spam
    1. Spam will be removed, and the member responsible may be subject to disciplinary action.
    2. Spam includes, but is not limited to:
      1. Multiple identical or similar posts.
      2. Repeated promotional messages.
      3. Low-effort automated posting.
      4. Bot-generated engagement.
      5. Fake comments, reviews, ratings, testimonials, likes, or reactions.
      6. Content posted primarily to drive traffic away from Gay Authors.
      7. Content generated or posted in bulk to manipulate site visibility, search, recommendations, or engagement.
  8. Promotion, Solicitation, Fundraising, and eBooks
    1. Gay Authors allows reasonable author promotion in approved locations, but the site may not be used primarily as an advertising, solicitation, fundraising, or traffic-driving platform.
    2. General Solicitation
      1. Spamming the forums, blogs, clubs, comments, reviews, or other site areas with repeated advertisements is not allowed. This includes posting the same notice, message, or link in multiple locations for the sole purpose of advertising.
      2. Advertisements for for-profit sites, including but not limited to pay-for-view story sites or pornographic sites, may be removed, and the member responsible may be subject to moderator action.
      3. Links to personal profit or fundraising sites, such as Patreon, GoFundMe, Ko-fi, Buy Me a Coffee, Substack, or similar services, are not permitted without prior approval except in the approved locations listed below.
    3. Approved Promotion Locations
      1. A link to Patreon, GoFundMe, Ko-fi, Buy Me a Coffee, Substack, or a similar account is allowed in your profile in the field designated for such links.
      2. Linking to GoFundMe campaigns for anything other than author- or book-related causes must be approved by site staff.
      3. Authors may link to Patreon, GoFundMe, Ko-fi, Buy Me a Coffee, Substack, or similar services in their Story Notes and Chapter End Notes, provided the links do not violate the rules below.
    4. Prohibited Promotion Practices
      1. Members are not allowed to hold stories on Gay Authors hostage.
      2. Examples of prohibited hostage tactics include:
        1. “I will post a new chapter when I reach X goal.”
        2. “The next chapter will be released after X number of donations.”
        3. “This story will continue only if enough people subscribe.”
        4. “I will only finish this story if enough readers support me financially.”
      3. Members are not allowed to post popular stories with links on Gay Authors and then continue those same stories or series only on Patreon, Substack, another paid platform, or to higher-level supporters after gaining an audience on Gay Authors.
      4. Members are not allowed to use Gay Authors for bait-and-switch posting.
      5. Examples of bait-and-switch include:
      6. Posting a handful of chapters and then telling readers to buy an eBook for the rest.
      7. Posting earlier stories in a series and then making later stories available only elsewhere.
      8. Posting a story to build an audience and then removing it for publication.
      9. Repeatedly posting and removing work to redirect readers off-site.
    5. eBook Promotion
      1. We understand that authors may wish to promote their eBooks on Gay Authors.
      2. If you are an actively posting author, you may:
      3. Post one link to your eBook in your signature.
      4. Post a link to your eBook in your Story Notes.
      5. Post a link to your eBook in your Chapter End Notes.
      6. You may not hold your stories hostage.
      7. You may not engage in bait-and-switch posting.
      8. Removing a posted story because you have had it published may prevent you from author promotion at Gay Authors. If you plan to self-publish or submit your story for e-publishing and do not intend to leave the story available on Gay Authors, do not post it on Gay Authors.
      9. In some instances where publishing was not planned, authors may request a move of their content to our limited-subscriber Premium area. This is handled on a case-by-case basis and is not guaranteed to be approved.
  9. Post, Comment, and Discussion Content Language and Formatting
    1. Posts should be in English.
    2. Do not use all caps.
    3. Post links to articles instead of reposting the full article itself.
    4. When responding to another member, quote only the portion of the post needed for context. Please do not fully quote an entire long post.
  10. Vulgarity and Sexual Explicitness Outside Story Content
    1. If you cannot say it during prime time on network television or the radio, do not post it in general site areas such as forums, comments, reviews, clubs, blogs, profiles, or private messages.
    2. Do not attempt to bypass this rule by inserting symbols, punctuation, or partial censoring.
    3. Certain words on Gay Authors are automatically filtered to comply with advertising rules. If you violate those guidelines, your post may require moderator review.
    4. Story content is governed separately by the Gay Authors Stories Archive rules, ratings, tags, and required warnings.
  11. Images and Visual Content
    1. Uploaded images or direct image links may not contain the following content:
      1. Nudity.
      2. Strategically covered nudity, such as arms or legs covering genitals or breasts.
      3. Sheer or see-through clothing.
      4. Lewd or provocative poses.
      5. Close-ups of breasts, buttocks, or crotches.
      6. Partially clothed underage persons below 18 years of age.
    2. These restrictions apply regardless of whether the image is photographed, drawn, rendered, edited, AI-generated, or otherwise created.
    3. Members are responsible for ensuring they have the right to upload, link, or display any image they post.
  12. Copyright, Attribution, and Ownership
    1. Do not publish, post, distribute, upload, or attach material you do not have the right to use.
    2. This includes, but is not limited to:
      1. Copyrighted text.
      2. Images.
      3. Audio.
      4. Video.
      5. Software.
      6. Files.
      7. Translations.
      8. AI-generated or AI-assisted content that violates the rights of another person.
      9. Material protected by intellectual property laws.
      10. Material protected by privacy or publicity rights.
    3. Do not upload or attach files that contain viruses, corrupted files, malware, or any other software or programs that may damage another person’s computer or device.
    4. Do not delete author attributions, legal notices, proprietary designations, labels, watermarks, or source information from files or content uploaded by others.
    5. Do not falsify the origin or source of software, files, images, text, or other material.
    6. Do not download any file posted by another user if you know, or reasonably should know, that it cannot legally be distributed in that manner.
    7. In plain language: if it does not belong to you, do not post it without permission and proper attribution.
    8. AI-generated or AI-assisted content must still comply with copyright, attribution, privacy, publicity, and intellectual property rules. The member posting the content is responsible for ensuring they have the right to post all text, images, translations, files, and other material they submit.
  13. Artificial Intelligence / AI Tools
    1. Gay Authors recognizes that AI tools may be used by members for brainstorming, editing, grammar checking, formatting, accessibility support, metadata suggestions, image generation, coding assistance, and other productivity purposes. Responsible use of AI tools is allowed.
    2. Gay Authors also values human creativity, reader trust, honest authorship, and community integrity. Members must not use AI tools to misrepresent authorship, violate copyright, impersonate another person, create spam, evade moderation, scrape site content, or deceive readers, authors, staff, or the community.
    3. Additional rules for AI use in stories and creative content are listed under the Gay Authors Stories Archive section.
    4. Prohibited AI Uses
    5. Members may not use AI tools to:
      1. Impersonate another member, author, moderator, staff member, public figure, real person, organization, or business.
      2. Imitate another Gay Authors author’s distinctive style, characters, series, or story world without permission.
      3. Generate fake reviews, comments, ratings, likes, reactions, testimonials, recommendations, or other artificial engagement.
      4. Create spam, automated posting, or bulk low-value content.
      5. Evade moderation, filters, warnings, bans, account restrictions, or site security.
      6. Create or distribute malware, phishing content, scams, or deceptive links.
      7. Upload AI-generated content that violates copyright, privacy, publicity rights, or site content standards.
      8. Publicly accuse, harass, or target members based on suspected AI use.
    6. No Scraping or AI Dataset Creation
      1. Members may not scrape, harvest, export, copy, compile, or bulk download Gay Authors stories, reviews, comments, profiles, member content, or site data for AI training, dataset creation, model fine-tuning, automated republication, commercial reuse, or similar purposes without permission.
    7. This rule applies whether the activity is done manually, by script, by browser extension, by crawler, by bot, by AI tool, or by any other automated or semi-automated method.
  14. Signature Rules
    1. Signatures must follow the system settings displayed where you create your signature.
    2. Signatures should not contain flashing or animated graphics that are distracting.
    3. Signatures must also comply with all other site rules, including rules on promotion, images, harassment, copyright, and AI-generated content.
  15. Gay Authors Stories Archive
    1. The Gay Authors Stories Archive is intended for authors to post their work and leave it available for readers for as long as Gay Authors exists.
    2. Members may, at any time, remove their selected works or all of their works without any further obligation to GayAuthors.org, its site management team, or its parent company, CDEJR Web Services, LLC.
    3. However, Gay Authors reserves the right to maintain the story details in the system with a notification that the story has been removed, including the author’s reason if provided. This is intended to reduce site disruption caused by removed stories.
    4. Removing content you have posted may adversely affect your membership at Gay Authors unless it is replaced with content of equal or greater value. This includes being barred from promotion on the site up to and including the complete removal of all content.
    5. For example, if you repeatedly post and then remove content, we may bar you from posting new content.
    6. Story Content Requirements
      1. Stories posted at GayAuthors.org:
      2. Must not be solely adult in nature. All stories on Gay Authors must have a plot that exists beyond the sexual theme of the story. We recommend no more than 50% of the story be focused on sexual activities or sexual themes.
      3. Must have a minimum of 1,000 words to be listed as a story on its own. Flash fiction, short stories, and poetry that do not meet the 1,000-word minimum must be grouped into a story collection by using the Chapter feature for individual short works.
      4. Must have characters that are of like age groups when romantic or sexual content is involved. A 15-year-old and an 18-year-old couple in high school may be considered a like age group even if one is technically overage. A 13-year-old and a 19-year-old couple are not a like age group. Minors and adults are never considered like age groups.
      5. Must not romanticize or sexualize children or preteens.
      6. Must not portray children or preteens in a way intended to appear sexually arousing to adults.
      7. Must not contain necrophilia.
      8. Any stories with the following themes are subject to further moderator review and may be rejected:
      9. Rape or sexual abuse used for titillation.
      10. Glorifying suicide.
      11. Glorifying drug use.
      12. Bestiality.
      13. Cannibalism.
      14. Stories containing sensitive or potentially disturbing content, including but not limited to drug use, abuse of any kind, incest, suicide, self-harm, sexual violence, or similar themes, must be properly rated, properly tagged, and include written warnings in the story notes and/or chapter notes so readers are not unaware of the story or chapter themes.
      15. Stories that do not meet these requirements may be removed by Site Management.
    7. AI Use in Stories and Creative Content
      1. Gay Authors allows responsible AI-assisted use, but requires transparency when AI materially generates creative content included in a story, chapter, poem, image, translation, or other creative work.
    8. AI-Assisted Use
      1. AI-assisted use does not require public disclosure when the member remains the primary creative source of the work.
      2. Examples of AI-assisted use include:
        1. Spelling, grammar, punctuation, or typo correction.
        2. Suggestions for sentence clarity, structure, or readability.
        3. Brainstorming titles, summaries, tags, tropes, outlines, or story ideas.
        4. Formatting help.
        5. Metadata, blurb, or story note suggestions.
        6. Accessibility support.
        7. Translation assistance where the member substantially reviews and controls the final result.
      3. Gay Authors will not require members to disclose ordinary spelling, grammar, editing, brainstorming, formatting, or accessibility assistance.
    9. AI-Generated Creative Content
      1. Disclosure is required when AI materially generates creative content that is included in a posted story, chapter, poem, image, translation, or other creative work.
      2. Examples of AI-generated creative content include:
        1. AI-written scenes, chapters, dialogue, poems, lyrics, or story passages.
        2. AI-generated rewrites where the AI substantially creates the final prose.
        3. AI-generated cover art, character art, maps, banners, illustrations, or other story-related images.
        4. AI-generated translations posted as story content.
        5. AI-generated bonus material, fictional interviews, in-world documents, or similar creative additions.
      3. Members must not misrepresent AI-generated creative content as solely human-created.
      4. Until the Story App includes a dedicated AI disclosure field, authors who post AI-generated creative content must disclose that use in the Story Notes and, when appropriate, the relevant Chapter Notes.
      5. A suitable disclosure may be simple and factual, such as:
        1. “This story contains AI-generated cover art.”
        2. “This chapter includes AI-generated translation assistance.”
        3. “This work contains AI-generated story passages that were reviewed and edited by the author.”
      6. Once Gay Authors provides a dedicated AI disclosure field, authors may be required to use that field instead of, or in addition to, Story Notes or Chapter Notes.
    10. Author Responsibility for AI Content
      1. The member posting the work is fully responsible for all content, whether AI-assisted, AI-generated, or entirely human-created.
      2. AI use does not excuse:
        1. Plagiarism.
        2. Copyright violations.
        3. Inaccurate ratings.
        4. Missing warnings.
        5. Improper tagging.
        6. Harassment.
        7. Impersonation.
        8. Spam.
        9. Violation of any Gay Authors rule.
      3. The author is responsible for reviewing, editing, rating, tagging, warning, and ensuring the appropriateness of all content they post.
    11. AI and Contests, Anthologies, and Events
      1. Gay Authors contests, anthologies, prompts, and writing events may set additional AI rules.
      2. Unless an event states otherwise, AI-assisted editing, brainstorming, grammar checking, and formatting are allowed.
      3. AI-generated story prose, poetry, or major creative content must be disclosed and may be restricted by event-specific rules.
    12. AI Enforcement
      1. Gay Authors will not investigate ordinary grammar tools, spellcheckers, brainstorming tools, or private writing workflows.
      2. Enforcement will focus on:
        1. Undisclosed AI-generated creative content.
        2. Deception.
        3. Impersonation.
        4. Plagiarism.
        5. Scraping.
        6. Spam.
        7. Fake engagement.
        8. Other violations of site rules.
      3. Concerns about AI use should be reported privately using the Report feature. Members should not publicly accuse, harass, or challenge other members over suspected AI use.
    13. Bait and Switch
      1. Bait-and-switch tactics are strictly forbidden.
      2. Posting content on Gay Authors and then removing it for publishing is considered bait and switch.
      3. Authors who intend to publish a work elsewhere and do not intend to leave it available on Gay Authors should not post that work on Gay Authors.
    14. Story Archive Fields and Formatting
      1. The Story Archive offers multiple ways to enter data. Authors are required to use each field as intended.
      2. Chapter Notes go in the Chapter Notes box.
      3. Chapter titles go in the Chapter Title box.
      4. Chapter text is for chapter text only.
      5. Images, links to photo galleries, promotional links, AI disclosures, and similar material belong in Story Notes, Chapter Notes, or other appropriate fields, not in Chapter Text or Story Description unless specifically permitted by site functionality.
  16. Using the Report Feature
    1. If a member finds fault with a post, story, comment, review, image, message, or other content, or discovers something that may be against site rules, the member is expected to use the Report feature.
    2. This feature can be found on pages of Gay Authors where members are allowed to post content.
    3. Using the Report feature alerts Forum Moderators and Site Administration to the potential issue.
    4. Posting a public response may escalate the situation. Please use the Report feature instead. Failure to use the Report feature and posting a public response may result in member involvement in moderator action that they were trying to avoid.
    5. The Report feature acts like an emergency phone system, so please do not file false or frivolous reports.
    6. If a member believes content violates the AI Usage policy, they should use the Report feature and provide specific reasons for the concern. Members should not confront the author publicly.
  17. Warning System and Moderator Action
    1. When a warning is issued, it is visible to the member until it is acknowledged.
    2. The warning system operates on a sliding scale of severity. Several small incidents in a short period may have the same effect as one larger incident.
    3. We use the warning system to give guidance to members about what is and is not acceptable in our community.
    4. The site management team will never disclose any details of a disciplinary action without the prior consent of all parties involved. This includes Site personnel, complainants, witnesses, and the member who received disciplinary action.
    5. Intentional deception, impersonation, scraping, fake engagement, repeated failure to disclose AI-generated creative content, or repeated violations of site rules may result in stronger moderator action.
  18. Rule Lawyering
    1. Using published rules to attempt to escape, manipulate, or mitigate the final determination of the Site Moderation Team or Site Administrators is a violation of community standards and will not be considered a defense.
    2. Gay Authors management will always act to enforce the spirit of the rules, not merely the exact wording.
  19. Management Authority
    1. CDEJR Web Services, LLC, GayAuthors.org site management, and Gay Authors Administration retain the right to change, update, remove, interpret, and enforce these Member Rules & Community Standards at any time without prior notification.
    2. This copy of the Gay Authors Site Guidelines & Community Standards supersedes any previously posted or publicly available copies.

This copy of Site Guidelines & Community Standards--posted 5/29/2026 -- supersedes any previously posted or publicly available copies.

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