Tome Community moderators are expected to maintain their communities. Our mods are volunteers, entrusted with the task of shaping the experience of their Communities. We expect all mods to both abide by and enforce Tome’s Code of Honor, this means removing and reporting content that is in violation of our rules. Our team will be forced to step in if we do not see you upholding these standards. Additionally, moderators must be over 18 years of age.

Build and maintain a stable and friendly Community environment:

• Mods are expected to keep their Communities in compliance with Tome’s rules and guidelines. This means not only abiding by them, but working to create a Community that similarly abides by them.

• Your Community should be open to anyone, provided they behave in good faith. Communities are not exclusive.

• Creating, approving, enabling, or encouraging rule-breaking content or behaviors is seen a major violation of this rule. This primarily refers to actions that occur within the Communities you mod, but can also be applied to behavior observed elsewhere on Tome. Showing us that you are an untrustworthy shepherd of your Community may result in action taken by our team.

• Encouraging, inciting, or otherwise weaponizing your Community against any other Communities or individuals is seen as a direct violation of Tome’s Code of Honor and will be taken extremely seriously. This includes creating content celebrating banning or suspending a user from your Community.

• This means creating a positive environment through tools like announcements, rules, posts, comments, etc

Set reasonable and relevant rules:

• Tome’s initial Communities come with rules, we will eventually allow our mods to review and edit them. As we launch there will be a grace period, where the rules are fixed, to prevent chaos. We ask that if you want to update your Communities rules, you reach out to us as hello@tomebooks.com.

• Tomies in your Community should have an understanding of what content they can expect to see, and what they are allowed to post (or not post) based on the rules set within your Community

• Be as clear as possible, be respectful of and flexible around the natural changes that may occur within your Community as it grows, encourage the accurate labeling of content that is NSFW, denote whether or not your Community is officially linked to a brand, author, etc.

• Enforcing your Communities rules fairly, and without personal bias towards individuals or subjects (if they are relevant to your Community)

• If you are struggling to create rules, consider viewing other Communities’ rules, contacting other mods, or reaching out to the team!

Engage regularly with your Community:

• It is important to be a consistent presence within your Community

• Inactivity without warning the team and/or your co-moderators may result in removal from the position

• If you need to take a leave, please just give us a heads up… We encourage you to recommend someone who may take on some of the responsibilities of moderating your Community in your absence

Be fair, and have integrity:

• Content and actions taken within your Community should be authentic, we expect our mods to maintain our trust in them by taking action when necessary (and only then), and by communicating with the team when they feel assistance is required. We also explicitly prohibit our moderators to take action in exchange for any goods or services (material or digital). Violating this rule will result in removal.

• If you timeout or ban someone, our team will be made aware, and may choose to assess the situation. Under most circumstances we prefer to allow our moderators to make their own decisions, but if an action appears inappropriate or unnecessary, we may choose to intervene.

Take action, when necessary:

• The most important part of your job as a mod is to create a welcoming and fair Community. Content moderation and Community management are essential elements of this. We expect our moderators to use their best judgement, keep a level head, and not give in to personal biases when making tough calls around this.

• We are also entrusting you to view content by users who may have blocked you, or been blocked by you. This is important because as a moderator, you are expected to review any content that might not belong in your Community, regardless of the identity of its creator. You will be able to view, comment on, and take action on posts by all users (regardless of blocked status) WITHIN your Community. You cannot view or interact with content posted outside of it, or their profiles. We are trusting you not to abuse this power.

• As a moderator you can take action such as:

  • Setting and updating rules as your Community grows

  • Removing content from your Community if it is irrelevant or not in compliance with your Community’s rules.

  • Removing and reporting content or users who violate Tome’s Code of Honor. Your reports as a mod will have flair.

  • Giving a “Timeout” to a user who is not behaving cooperatively.

  • Banning a user from your Community if they commit a serious infraction, or return after a timeout and continue to create chaos or break rules. Banning is serious, but only applies to your Community. The banned user will likely remain on the wider Tome app, and may attempt to appeal the ban. Please use this feature sparingly.

  • Please note: The Team will have record of, and may choose to evaluate any and all moderation that occurs within any Community.

Keep it transparent:

• We do not allow affiliated Discord servers, external groups, or chat rooms of any kind. Any links to such will be removed. This is because we cannot provide or enforce Tome’s Code of Honor off of our platform, so we therefore are not affiliated with any external communities. This does not apply to the official Tome Discord, which is for beta testing and bug reports.

• As a mod, you may participate in, follow, or post about book clubs. We only ask that you do so with discretion within the Communities you are part of, as we see this as a conflict of interest.

Collaborate with our team:

• If a member of Tome’s team or an admin reaches out to let you know you have violated the Moderator Code of Conduct, we will do our best to resolve the issue as quickly and painlessly as possible. Your swift reply and cooperation are essential here. If we feel you are not able to collaborate with us, we may remove your moderator privileges.

• Modding is a privilege and a responsibility! The Tome Team can revoke your status as a moderator if we feel you are not wielding your power appropriately.

• Additionally, if we have reason to believe you have not behaved in a trustworthy manner, have ulterior motives, or have a history of violating our Terms of Service and/or Code of Honor, we may decide you are not eligible for moderation.

• Failure to perform mod duties, excluding extenuating circumstances, may result in removal from the position.

• The team reserves the right to take action in any way deemed necessary. This includes, but is not limited to:

  • Giving warnings

  • Manually removing content that violates our rules

  • Removing an unfit moderator

  • Manually adjusting the rules of a Community

  • Prohibiting an individual from becoming a moderator or creating a Community

  • Suspending an account either temporarily or permanently

  • Banning a Community

Suggested course of action for moderators: