Hey all! For a while we didn’t have an official post that spelled out the etiquette and rules for the comments section of our sites’ stories. We relied mostly on common sense for how to behave appropriately, and basic principles like “don’t be a jerk.” But we realize it’d be helpful to have these things spelled out concretely.
So this post spells out both our site’s general guidelines for the comments section, and our hard rules for what not to do.
First up: here are the general guidelines on comment-section etiquette!
GENERAL GUIDELINES
1. Authors love comments! So if you really liked a story, definitely leave a positive comment to let the author know. It will be appreciated, I am sure. 
2. We do ask that you be respectful when you have critiques of a story, or if you are in disagreement with another commenter.
(Please also understand that while some authors are always glad for constructive feedback, others may not appreciate criticism when it’s unsolicited—no matter how constructive you feel you are being.)
3. Please, we ask that you do not attack a story for content or kinks that you find distasteful if that content/kink is otherwise clearly labeled or tagged for.
We ask you, please, to curate your reading experience. The site does give you many filtration tools to do so, and we encourage you to use those tools. We strongly discourage leading with your disgust-response in the comments section on a site which, by nature, is a safe place to explore many transgressive kinks. It can be rude and unproductive to leave these kinds of comments, and especially when a story has done its due diligence in tagging and warning the reader of the contents.
4. If you feel that a story is inappropriate for the site, or breaks the rules (or, if you take larger issue with our site policy on allowing certain types of stories at all), we encourage you to reach out to us via the admin inbox at admin@gaykinkystories.com and raise the issue with us there.
The comments section of a story isn’t quite the right place for these kinds of conversations. Our feeling is that no author should be put on the spot to defend larger site policies which they didn’t choose or design… That’s our job. 
5. Above all, please avoid a combative tone—both when commenting on a story, and when responding to other commenters. Respect that an author’s vision may be different than your own, and respect that your fellow commenters are people too. Let’s keep things civil!
We also have a few hard rules on what not to do in the comments section.
THE HARD RULES
- No ad hominem attacks.
- Avoid contemporary political references in your comments on a story, and especially when it’s unrelated to the story.
- Avoid chain-comments of excessive length as a courtesy to others.
- Keep the comments on-topic—no spam is allowed.
- No bigoted attacks. No slurs.
Since these are the hard rules—and we will be strict in enforcing them—we’re provided detailed version of these same rules (with explanations and examples) below:
1. No ad hominem attacks.
- E.g., you can critique a story for things you find lacking, or even dislike. Do not however critique or insult the author. There’s a world of difference between ‘this story felt rushed to me, and I wish there’d been more spell-check,’ versus ‘you’re a bad writer’ or ‘you’re a freak for writing this.’ Neither comment is fun to receive, as an author. But the first type of comment is about the story; the second type of comment is an ad hominem about the author themselves as a person. The second kind of comment is absolutely not appropriate and it will be deleted.
2. Avoid contemporary political references in your comments on a story when it’s unrelated to the story.
- E.g., do not comment on an otherwise innocuous story to say something like “Wow, this story just smacks of the liberal agenda!” or “This story is proof of how right-wing Gen Z has gotten!” or so on. This is not the comments section of a clickbait news website… Please don’t do this. Plus, in the context of this being a gay erotica site, these comments are both off-topic and inflammatory, and hard to distinguish from flat-out spam. In most cases they will be deleted.
3. Avoid chain-comments of excessive length as a courtesy to others.
- A few long, detailed comments are perfectly fine. Don’t worry about that! But our comments system does begin to break down functionally if the comment-chains get too long or have too much text in them. In these cases, we ask authors and commenters to switch to PMs, or to make a thread on the site’s forum for continued story discussion.
4. Keep the comments on-topic—no spam is allowed.
- Suspected ads, spam, or obviously AI-generated comments will all be deleted. The IP address behind these comments may also be blocked. Please reach out to admin@gaykinkystories.com if you feel your IP address was blocked in error.
5. No bigoted attacks. No slurs.
- This should go without saying. This one in particular is a one-strike rule.
We’ll reiterate that if you feel a story on the site is against the site rules, please reach out to the admin team at admin@gaykinkystories.com so that we can take a closer look and take action if needed. The comments section isn’t the best place to express this kind of sentiment, as the admin team may not always see the comments in the first place.
Also please keep in mind that the admin team is human, and run fully by volunteers. We can’t be everywhere at once. We may miss some comments that are not appropriate for the site. If you see a comment that feels like it is clearly out of line, please flag it as such by using the ‘Report inappropriate comment’ button. That will allow us to take a look at the comment when we can, and then we will make a decision on how to handle it.
Please note, also, that there will be limited tolerance of someone repeatedly or flagrantly abusing the comments section—and especially if you continuously break the same rules, or repeatedly violate the same guidelines and make a menace of yourself in the comments section. If you are commenting from a user account, we may at least be able to reach out to you and hopefully hash things out more productively via e-mail or the forum’s PM system. If you are commenting anonymously, our options for how to respond to rule-breaking comments are much more limited and direct.
As always, please reach out to admin@gaykinkystories.com if you have questions.
These guidelines and rules are a live document, and they are subject to updates at any point to better align them with the site’s ethos. The most recent update was: January 11, 2024.