Stories connect people and bring them together. We want StoryBilder to do the same. Here are some guidelines to help ensure our community remains a productive, helpful place.
Promoting Diversity
StoryBilder was designed to promote diversity. Unfortunately, though, licensing and copyright issues are complicated and expensive. This means our starting resources in the lending library will come from readily available, public-domain literature. We know the majority of these assets happen to be written by or feature characters and ethnicities designed for a traditionally white, male world. So while we are actively looking for stories and characters that reflect a wide range of cultures and gender viewpoints, this is going to take some time. We also don't want to eliminate the classics altogether, because not only are they culturally and historically important, but they also give us a huge repository of story formats, characters and places that give us a good place to start.
That said,if you would like us to develop a library set for any public domain works written by or featuring LGBTQIA2S+ people, marginalized genders, people of colour, and non-Western perspectives, you can:
- Drop us a line. Be sure to include the particulars of the work and tell us why you think it's important and should be made available for sharing. We'll put the work on our development list, though it might take a while for us to get to it.
- Create your own story asset collection based on any public-domain book or short story, including character profiles, locations, and an outline, and then submit them to the public library yourself. You'd be helping us out and doing your part to spread the word about lesser-known work, all at the same time! We're still building a submission process for this part of the site, so if you'd like to do this, please contact us first and let us know what you're interested in contributing. We hope to develop a fund to support this work in the future.
- Feel free to adapt and alter our classic literature assets and make them your own! Our library is meant to be a starting point, not a final word. Want to change Hamlet's gender or make them the Prince of Apple Danishes? Do it! Feel free to rewrite what you don't like and make it your own. We're making it easy for you to reimagine these characters and plots so they support your story, rather than defining it.
- If you don't like our current selection, go ahead and create your own. You're not obligated to use the library, and there are plenty of other tools and toys for you to enjoy.
StoryBilder encourages you to borrow and adapt any asset in our library and make it your own. We feel that this is a great way to learn and grow as a writer. And it's fun!
Cultural Appropriation
We believe that writing and reading stories is an excellent way to share cultural knowledge and we don't believe in restricting people from writing cultures different from their own. However, cross-cultural adaptation requires care and respect, leading with empathy and understanding that some groups hold certain cultural elements sacred or simply believe outsiders should not speak over the lived experiences of said group.
This is an on-going conversation, and we understand that cultural boundaries are always in flux. We encourage you to listen to your audience and take the time to understand the cultures you depict in your stoies, rather than employing harmful stereotypes or appropriating sacred stories or valued cultural elements.
Content or characters that uphold harmful narratives toward marginalized groups will not be tolerated in StoryBilder community spaces. See the section on Abusive/Hate Speech and Bullying for more information.
Abusive/Hate Speech and Bullying
Hate speech and bullying is not tolerated in StoryBilder forums or any of our shared spaces. We define hate speech as language that perpetuates discrimination toward LGBTQIA2S+ people, marginalized genders, and people of colour, as well as ableist, islamophobic, or antisemitic language. StoryBilder will not tolerate any material that is unlawful, libelous, defamatory, harassing, racist, or hateful as listed in the Terms and Conditions. Reported content will be reviewed and removed if deemed abusive.
