All persons interested in stories and discussions about The Silmarillion are welcome to join SWG! Above all else, we want SWG to be a place that is welcoming and friendly to all of its members and guests. In order to assure this, we require all persons to agree to our code of conduct and terms of service before joining SWG.
Obviously, you can join the group without first reading the terms. However, we strongly recommend that you read the code of conduct and TOS carefully before joining. All members will be expected to follow the terms outlined here, and ignorance is not an excuse. Please also be aware that these terms apply to all groups affiliated with SWG: our website and archive, our mailing list, our LiveJournal community, our Dreamwidth community, and our Tumblr blog.
If at any time you have a question about becoming a member or our expectations of our members, please do not hesitate to contact us at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org. We are more than happy to help you.
Site Etiquette
- Abusive or derogatory behavior will not be tolerated at any time or in any part of SWG. We do not welcome or allow any content in our group that is designed to be hurtful or insulting.
- If at any time, you have a problem with another member while at SWG, it is your responsibility to contact a moderator about it. As moderators, we do our best to keep on top of what goes on in the group, but we are human, and we sometimes miss things; therefore, it is your responsibility to inform us if another member is violating the etiquette outlined here.
In keeping with this, members are not to attempt to solve conflicts that occur on this site. More often than not, this only makes the problem worse. Please take your concerns to a moderator. - SWG is a group that focuses on The Silmarillion and other works related to it. While most of us also like stories based on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, SWG does not accept stories the focus solely on these books. Many are the archives that do, so please keep material shared here Silmarillion-related. If you are in doubt about whether your work is appropriate for our group, please see our FAQ on "Silmfic" or contact a moderator.
- SWG is a drama-free group. While some groups relish personal conflict and drama, we do not. If you cannot get along with other group members, ignore them. If you cannot ignore them, rethink your membership in SWG. SWG is also not a place to “wank” over people, sites, or stories that you dislike. Please keep this to your personal blog or within groups that like that sort of thing.
- Under no circumstances should you publicly share another person's personal information on any part of SWG. This includes their full or real name, email, instant messaging screen names, address, telephone number, or any other information by which that person can be identified or contacted against their will.
- We recognize that no one is perfect and that members may forget and fail to follow our conduct guidelines. As such, we try to be lenient and understanding. If you make an honest mistake, we're not going to suspend or delete your account. In general, we will observe a "three strikes rule" before taking any action against a member. However, if our moderators feel that someone is acting deliberately to harm SWG and/or its members, we reserve the right to delete that person's account without prior warning.
- Our site moderators are also contributing members of the SWG who interact with other members through public forums like the site's review system or the email discussion list. Members should be aware that moderators will never address private issues or concerns through any public systems. All such correspondence will be conducted through private email and will be clearly identified as official group business. Any official group business conducted by an individual moderator using tools such as the email discussion group or the LiveJournal community to reach the entire membership base will be clearly labeled as such. In all other matters, moderators carry the same status as SWG members.
- Each member is permitted to register for one account on the archive. The sole exception to this rule is the creation of a second "pseud" account that participates on the archive independently from the identity of the primary account. Anyone interested in setting up a pseud account should read the Pseud FAQ before doing so.
Author Etiquette
- This group was designed as a place where authors could get help and feedback on their writing. As such, you should expect constructive criticism on the work that you share here. If you are seeking only praise for your work, then this is probably not the best place to share it.
Along the same lines, if you choose to reply to your reviewers, please do so politely. Not everyone will like every aspect of your work. You are welcome—and encouraged—to contact your reviewers for clarification when necessary, not to strike up arguments or berate the reviewer because s/he did not like certain aspects of your work.
In the instance that you feel that a review is inappropriately harsh, please contact a moderator. There is Reviewer Etiquette here as well! Please do not reply to the review. We will gladly handle the situation for you. - Stories must include correct ratings and warnings (if applicable) unless you choose the option Author Chooses Not to Rate and/or Author Chooses Not to Warn. Teen- and Adult-rated stories must include warnings or use the option Author Chooses Not to Warn. (View our rating and warning policy for more information.)
- While SWG is intended as a place for authors to get constructive feedback on their work, and works-in-progress are welcomed, authors should nonetheless observe minimal standards of professionalism when presenting their work. Work shared on our site should be proofread by the author, run through a spell-checker, and organized in manuscript format. (That is, stories should be separated clearly into sentences and paragraphs.) While everyone makes the occasional error and we do not require perfection, we do expect that these minimal standards be met.
- There should be only one copy of each story on the archive. Do not post a new story for each draft or revision.
- The SWG archive is that--an archive--and we encourage new members to archive their older Silmarillion works with us. However, in order to achieve a balance between these works and new stories by other authors on the Most Recent List, we ask that authors who plan to add more than ten stories all at once to the archive, to contact the moderators first so as to work out a schedule for the posting of these stories. If you have added more than ten stories to the archive at once, the archive moderators may contact you for permission to backdate some works so that new additions can remain on the Most Recent list.
- Please take care to properly reference any sources that you use in your writing. This includes direct quotes from Tolkien’s works, direct quotes or original source material that belongs to other authors, and secondary source material, such as song lyrics or books. Failure to do so constitutes plagiarism and is considered unprofessional and unethical. (View the SWG Plagiarism Policy for more information.)
In order to protect SWG from copyright infringement, it is important that you do not reproduce all or most of a copyrighted work on the site without permission from the copyright holder. As this group is home to writers and artists, it is important that we protect the rights of all writers and artists—and so protect ourselves.
Likewise, while we allow the use of images in certain areas of the archive, members who use images in their stories, profiles, reviews, and other areas of the site must be legally allowed to use the image, provide proper credit to the artist or photographer, and follow other archive policies related to image use. Members who want to use images are strongly encouraged to view the SWG Image Policy for more information.
Reviewer Etiquette
- SWG was founded as a place for authors to get feedback and help with their writing. As such, constructive criticism is welcomed here. However, diplomacy is required. Reviewers are expected to be courteous and respectful of all authors and stories that they choose to review. If you are not familiar with the concept of diplomatic reviews, then I highly recommend that you read our diplomacy guidelines before beginning to submit reviews. These are the standards to which all reviewers will be held on this site.
- Never attack or criticize the author. If your review begins, “Because you’re a teenager/a woman/a new writer/Chinese/gay/straight/American/male/whatever,” then you need to seriously rethink your review. We critique stories here, not authors.
- If a story warns that it contains “such and such” and you are a vocal opponent of “such and such” in stories, then it is a good idea to skip reading that story. It is not acceptable to criticize an author about his or her choice of genre (i.e. slash, AU, Mary Sue) or content (i.e. sexuality, violence). If you feel that a story is improperly rated or does not include the correct warnings as described in our rating and warning policy, please use the "Report This" link on the story or contact the moderators.
- Just as we expect a minimum of professionalism from our authors, we expect the same of our reviewers. No one will be checking your spelling or grammar, but your review should be in sentences and should not use “netspeak.”
Terms of Service
- You retain all rights to and control of the materials that you share on SWG.
- You assume all liability for using the site(s), services, and features associated with SWG. We are not liable for any damages that occur during the use of our site(s).
- The SWG archive and other group services are not intended to serve as a document backup system. In the event of a data loss, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to restore any or all of the materials that you have stored on the site(s), and we will not be held liable for any lost information. Please make frequent and careful backups of your work.
- In accordance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, SWG does not accept members under the age of thirteen. In joining SWG, members are acknowledging that they are thirteen years of age or older and members under the age of eighteen are acknowledging that they are doing so with the knowledge and permission of a parent or guardian. Parents and guardians should be aware that SWG may contain adult content, and while we have systems in place to limit accidental exposure of children to this content, then we make no guarantees that these systems will be properly and consistently used, and we assume no liability in the event that a child is exposed to adult content on our site(s).
- The SWG archive utilizes a combination of ratings and warnings to assist our members and visitors in avoiding content that they may find offensive. However, SWG does not guarantee that these systems will be properly or consistently used and does not take responsibility for any material posted on our site(s) that is incorrectly rated or labeled and/or that may be offensive to some visitors.
- SWG may link via our site(s) to Internet content outside of SWG. Such content has not been reviewed or approved by SWG, and we make no guarantees to the veracity, suitability, or safety of such content. Users of the SWG site(s) access such linked material at their own risk.
- Using SWG-provided features including the review system, discussion forums, private messaging, or any other means of contacting SWG members via the SWG site(s) to harass, threaten, or spam other members may result in termination or deletion of the user's account.
- Upon registering with our archive or any future site features that the SWG might offer, members will be expected to provide a working email address. If an email address is found to be not working, the account will be locked, and the member can contact the moderation team to have the account unlocked and email address updated. In the instance of mass registrations of invalid email addresses that do not appear to be intended for legitimate use of the site, or other suspicious activity, the SWG moderators reserve the right to delete these accounts. An account with any legitimate past or present activity (including but not limited to entry of information into the bio page, review activity, posting stories or podfics, or creating a Favorites list) will never be deleted under this rule.
In joining SWG, you are acknowledging that you have read and understand the terms above. You are agreeing to abide by these terms or risk having your member account suspended or deleted. Questions should be directed to our moderation team at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org.
All new accounts are locked and must be approved by a moderator before you will be able to log in and use your account. We will notify you when your account is unlocked. This generally does not take more than a few hours, but please wait at least 24 hours before querying.
It is extremely helpful if you include something Tolkien-related in the bio section, which lets us quickly confirm that you are indeed a Tolkien fan and not a spammer. Please see our FAQ for more information.