Guidelines

Toshokan empowers anyone to connect with others around what they love. With that mission comes a responsibility to keep every Toshokan user safe and happy. So we went ahead and created a set of universal community guidelines that apply to every single Toshokan.

Copyright & Intellectual Property

In general, if you post something, you should either own it or have gotten permission to post it. Don’t claim authorship over content that you didn’t create. Why not draw something yourself instead, or take a picture of a plant?

Harassment & Hate

Be kind. Communities are about people coming together because they share something in common. We take this very seriously, and explicitly ban:

• Hate speech. Content that attacks or vilifies people based on things like race, color, religion, national origin, sex (including gender presentation and sexual orientation), or disability is not allowed. Some examples include:
  • Using slurs or epithets, attacking profanity, or expressing hatred toward a group of people
  • Holocaust denial, glorifying the suffering of a group of people, expressing supremacism, or alt-right, etc.
• Harassment and bullying. Making others feel unsafe is not allowed. Some examples include:
  • Doxxing (sharing personal information), or publishing content with the intent to embarrass or harm another person
  • Telling someone to hurt themselves or to commit suicide
  • Creating fake accounts to impersonate another person and harass them or disrupt their use of Amino, etc
• Threats, violent, or dangerous behavior. Safety is paramount on Toshokan. The following types of threats are prohibited and may also result in Amino reporting you to law enforcement or emergency officials:
  • Terrorism or mass violence
  • Physical harm or murder
  • Hacking or threatening
  • Self-harm or suicide
  • Blackmail, etc.

• Making inappropriate or unwanted requests for personal information or photos. Context matters here but, generally speaking, asking for other’s contact information or for them to send you photos is prohibited.

If you feel harassed on Toshokan, we encourage you to block that user. Then take a breath and flag them for review. Lastly, take some time to compliment yourself, because you’re great.

Spam and Self-Promotion

We want everyone to enjoy the content and discussions they want. Some activities ruin that experience. Some examples:

• Super annoying, off-topic messages
• Promoting yourself, or anything else about you in a repetitive or impersonal manner
• Automated posting, messages, comments...or automated anything
• Making the same post, message, or comment over and over and over and over and over again (really, once is enough)

If you feel the compulsion to do any of these things, maybe take that energy and put it into something productive, like messaging your elected representatives.

Sexual Content & NSFW

Just like your favorite ocean, let’s keep it clean. We aren’t going to list off every type of weird thing we don’t allow, but a good rule of thumb is: if you think it’s too sexual, it probably is, and it shouldn’t be posted here.

• Nudity is not allowed.
• Explicit sexual content is not allowed.
• Implicit sexual content is not allowed. Some examples of this include:
  • Undressing
  • Simulating sexual acts
  • Overly sexual facial expressions
  • Cuddling nude, etc.
• Art depicting nudity, or over 50% of sexual body parts, is allowed as long as:
  • The medium is a painting, drawing, sculpture, or similar (ex: not a photograph or video of real people)
  • It’s not intended to arouse
• Content that encourages or celebrates sexual violence, exploitation, prostitution, or sex trade is prohibited.
• Text-based sexual content is prohibited in any areas (post or direct messages). 
• Protecting Teenagers:  
  • People under the age of 18 on Toshokan have to follow more strict policies when it comes to sexual content.  
  • We remove all sexually suggestive content depicting people under 18, even if it was unintentionally suggestive, so as to protect teens from having their content used in an inappropriate or unsafe manner by others. Examples of the type of content that teens cannot post include:
    • Dancing in a sexual manner
    • Making sexual facial expressions or gestures
    • Appearing in underwear, wearing swimsuits indoors, or dressing in overly-revealing clothing
    • Posting sexual text or dialogue along with imagery of teenagers
  • Any behavior or content that sexualizes minors is strictly prohibited and may result in Amino reporting you to law enforcement agencies.

Self-Harm

Anything that promotes, glorifies, or encourages self-harm or eating disorders isn’t allowed on Toshokan. If it could intentionally physically, emotionally, or mentally harm an Amino community member, it has no place here.

If you see someone on Toshokan discussing harming themselves or others, let us know. And if you are going through something yourself, know you are not alone and that there are resources out there to help you through it.

Other Kinds of Graphic/Gross Content

Pretty straightforward: don’t post real gore or graphic violence to shock other members. Don’t post anything that depicts the mutilation, torture, or harm of human beings, animals, or any thinking, feeling being. And don’t post anything that glorifies any of the above. What, are you trying to ruin someone’s day?

Mildly objectionable content and art are allowed as long as they aren’t repulsive and intending to shock viewers. To determine whether content crosses the line, we review the general context of the imagery and take things into consideration such as:

• If it depicts actual torture, pain, dismemberment, or violence involving real people or animals
• If it invokes a feeling of shock, sickness, or pain in the viewer
• If it depicts bodily fluids
• If the content is abnormally grotesque or exaggerated
• If it is historical or famous, etc.

Our policies aim to remove content that depicts actual torture, pain, dismemberment, or violence involving real people or animals. Art, special effects, TV shows and media, or other fictional portrayals are generally not in violation of these guidelines. If we think it might be real, we’re going to remove it.

Unsafe or Illegal

• Content depicting actual illegal, unsafe, or criminal activity is not allowed on Amino. Some examples of this include:
  • Anything that could harm minors
  • Dangerous activity involving regulated goods or services (ex: alcohol, drugs, weapons etc)
  • Violent crimes or terrorism
  • Self-harm or harm to others, etc.
• Please note that roleplay, TV shows and media, or other fictional portrayals of the above are not generally considered a violation of these guidelines.
• It is prohibited to offer raffles, sweepstakes, games of chance or merit, or the opportunity to gamble, if you require users to pay in order to potentially win a prize. You are welcome to offer prizes as long as people don’t have to pay to enter to win.
  • For example, ‘give props for a chance to win’ is not allowed, but stating ‘add a comment for the chance to win’ is.