Yotsugu Platform Rules

Version 0.1, prelaunch draft
Effective: [[EFFECTIVE DATE]]

These are the complete public conduct rules for Yotsugu. They apply to public content, private submissions sent to Yotsugu, integrations, representative claims, and attempts to manipulate the service.

Examples explain the rules but do not create separate offenses. A moderator must cite at least one rule ID in an enforcement decision.

U. Rules for everyone

U1. Keep people safe

Do not use Yotsugu for credible threats, targeted severe harassment, sexual exploitation, non-consensual intimate material, encouragement of self-harm directed at a person, or content that creates a clear and serious safety risk.

Discussion of difficult fiction is allowed. Targeting a real person is not.

U2. Respect privacy

Do not post or solicit private personal information, credentials, financial information, private communications, precise location, or identifying information about a pseudonymous person without authority. Redact unrelated personal data from screenshots and evidence.

U3. Be honest about identity and authority

Do not impersonate a reader, creator, translator, group, source website, rights holder, or Yotsugu staff member. Do not claim organizational authority, copyright ownership, a license, official status, or exclusive rights without a reasonable basis.

Parody and clearly labeled fan identity are allowed when a reasonable person would not mistake them for the real party.

U4. Do not manipulate Yotsugu

Do not buy, trade, coordinate, or automate fake ratings, reviews, follows, reports, clicks, release records, or engagement. Do not brigade another listing or user. Do not fabricate or alter evidence.

Inviting readers to leave an honest review without directing the outcome is allowed. Incentives tied to a positive or negative result are not.

U5. Protect the service

Do not introduce malware, phish, disrupt the service, evade access or rate controls, test security without authorization, abuse undocumented endpoints, or use automation that creates unreasonable load.

Good-faith security research must follow [[SECURITY DISCLOSURE URL]]. Yotsugu will not penalize compliant research.

U6. Follow lawful access boundaries

Do not upload copied chapter bodies without permission, distribute stolen credentials, bypass paywalls or entitlements, or direct people to methods whose main purpose is defeating lawful access controls.

Factual metadata, ordinary quotations permitted by law, reviews, commentary, and normal links are treated separately from hosting a chapter body.

U7. Do not weaponize process

Reports, corrections, legal channels, verification, support, and appeals must be used in good faith. Do not mass-report criticism, threaten reports for leverage, file knowingly false claims, or retaliate against someone for using Yotsugu's processes.

Being mistaken is not itself abuse. A pattern of knowing or reckless falsehood is.

U8. Keep public contributions fit for the community surface

Do not use reviews, profiles, reports, or catalog submissions for spam, pornography, graphic gore, praise or recruitment for violent extremist activity, or attacks on people based on protected characteristics such as race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, caste, disability, sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation.

Good-faith discussion of how fiction portrays difficult subjects is allowed. Necessary, limited references in criticism or evidence are treated differently from promotion or targeted abuse.

R. Reader and contributor rules

R1. Review the edition, not the person

Reviews may strongly criticize plot, prose, translation quality, editing, translation method, pricing, release practices, or the reading experience. Do not turn that criticism into harassment, slurs, threats, speculation about private identity, or attacks on a contributor's unrelated personal life.

A reviewer does not need to finish a work. They should make the basis and extent of their experience clear when it matters.

R2. Make reviews independent and relevant

Do not copy another review, post unrelated advertising, use a review to settle a personal dispute, or rate a work you did not meaningfully encounter. Disclose if you worked on the edition, represent its source, received compensation, or have another material conflict.

Yotsugu allows one review per account per edition. Editing a genuine opinion is allowed. Coordinated duplicate accounts are not.

R3. Label spoilers

Use the spoiler control for details that reveal major outcomes, identities, twists, deaths, relationships, or late-story developments. A work's premise and clearly labeled early setup are usually not spoilers.

An accidental borderline spoiler normally receives a label correction, not a penalty. Deliberately and repeatedly exposing major spoilers may lead to removal or restriction.

R4. Keep profiles suitable for a general community surface

Display names, avatars, bios, and interests must not impersonate others, expose private information, contain explicit sexual imagery, promote hatred or violence against protected people, or function mainly as advertising or harassment.

The existence of mature fiction in the catalog does not make public profiles an explicit-content surface.

R5. Submit useful corrections

Identify the affected work, edition, source, release, or mapping and explain what is wrong. Include a reliable source when available. Clearly distinguish direct evidence from inference.

A rejected correction is not misconduct. Repeated copy-paste reports, fabricated evidence, or attempts to force a disputed opinion into a factual field may violate U4 or U7.

R6. Do not punish lawful criticism

Readers, groups, and website representatives may respond to criticism with facts and context. They may not pressure Yotsugu to remove a review solely because it is negative, organize retaliation, expose the reviewer, or condition access on changing an honest review.

G. Translation group rules

G1. Claim only a group you can represent

A group claim requires evidence under the verification process. Verification may cover a specific group name, project, website, or account. It does not automatically cover similarly named groups, former members, mirrors, or every project ever associated with the group.

Representative status permits management of verified catalog fields. It does not give a group control over reader reviews, competing listings, legal claims, or Yotsugu moderation.

Yotsugu may freeze protected fields while competing claims are reviewed. A first claim or larger audience is not decisive evidence.

G2. Keep project identity accurate

Use one stable translation-project identity for the same edition, language, and translating party. Report mergers, splits, renames, handovers, and mirrors rather than creating misleading duplicates.

Do not merge distinct translations merely because they cover the same chapter numbers. Do not claim another group's releases as your own.

G3. Describe status and releases truthfully

Release labels, links, timestamps, parts, access requirements, and availability must reflect what readers can actually reach. Do not create placeholder or duplicate releases to inflate activity.

Yotsugu records declared project status separately from observed release activity. A long gap does not automatically mean “dropped.” Representatives may declare ongoing, completed, or hiatus status for projects they control. Otherwise Yotsugu may show unknown and the date of last observed activity.

G4. Be transparent about translation method

When a method is declared, use the available labels honestly:

• Human: the translated prose is primarily produced by a person.
• Machine-assisted: machine output materially assists the translation, with human translation or editing responsibility.
• Machine: the published prose is primarily machine generated, even if formatting or light edits are performed.
• Unknown: no reliable declaration or verification is available.

Yotsugu will not infer a method from writing quality alone. A method label is descriptive, not a quality score. Knowingly false declarations may be corrected and enforced under U3.

G5. Do not claim platform exclusivity

Yotsugu may list simultaneous, competing, continued, retranslated, licensed, fan, and original projects when accurately distinguished. Being first, more active, more popular, or a Yotsugu partner does not let a group suppress another valid listing.

Legal exclusivity claims belong in the legal notice process and require evidence. Yotsugu support does not adjudicate copyright ownership through popularity contests.

G6. Submit only material you may use

You must have permission for logos, cover uploads, chapter text, files, and original descriptions you ask Yotsugu to host. A link or factual metadata submission does not give Yotsugu permission to host the linked chapter body.

If Yotsugu offers internal reading, a separate rights grant must cover the underlying work, the translation, the specific content, its term, and reader entitlement.

G7. Treat readers and other groups fairly

Do not brigade ratings, trade access for favorable reviews, threaten readers over criticism, impersonate another group, sabotage source records, or misuse correction and copyright channels in a translation dispute.

Factual public responses and good-faith legal claims are allowed.

W. Source website and integration rules

W1. Verify control before managing a website presence

Yotsugu may verify control through a DNS record, a file or token on the site, an email at the site's domain, an authenticated site account, or comparably reliable evidence. Social-media popularity or control of an unrelated domain is not enough by itself.

Verification establishes site control. It does not establish rights to every hosted work.

W2. Keep destinations honest and safe

Source links must lead readers to the described release or a clear canonical landing page. Disclose login, payment, region, age, or subscription requirements through the available fields.

Do not use deceptive redirects, forced downloads, malware, credential collection, domain parking, or unrelated advertising destinations. Ordinary advertising is not prohibited, but harmful or misleading navigation may cause a warning label, disabled link, or delisting.

W3. Respect integration boundaries

Feeds, webhooks, APIs, and approved checks must follow agreed origins, credentials, fields, rates, and security requirements. Do not send chapter bodies when only metadata is approved. Do not use an integration to access a Yotsugu user's private library or progress without specific user consent and scoped authorization.

Representatives may request a change to polling frequency, report a technical fault, rotate credentials, or end a voluntary integration. Yotsugu may preserve historical factual metadata and user-created private references when lawful.

W4. Separate source facts from rights claims

A website can confirm what it hosts, its access terms, publication times, and its own relationship with a translation group. Claims about underlying copyright, licenses, or another site's authority require separate evidence.

Yotsugu may mark a fact disputed or unknown while reviewing it. A website claim does not automatically remove another source.

W5. Do not buy control of neutral systems

Advertising, donations, integrations, or partnership cannot purchase a favorable moderation result, exclusive catalog control, removal of criticism, or an undisclosed ranking boost. Sponsored placement must be labeled.

S. Rules for dealing with support

S1. Use the right channel and one complete ticket

Use the category that matches the issue, provide exact URLs or record IDs, describe the requested outcome, and attach the minimum necessary evidence. Add new information to the existing ticket instead of opening duplicates.

S2. Protect sensitive evidence

Tell support when evidence contains personal, confidential, security, or legally restricted information. Redact unrelated data. Never send passwords, authentication cookies, private keys, or payment credentials.

S3. No pressure tactics

Do not threaten, bribe, harass, dox, or mobilize followers against support staff or another party. Publicly discussing a decision or criticizing Yotsugu is allowed. Coordinated intimidation is not.

S4. Staff must follow the same record

Staff must not decide cases through private friendships, popularity, payment, or off-platform pressure. A staff member with a material conflict should recuse when practical. Material decisions belong in the ticket and audit record, not only in private messages.

How these rules are enforced

Yotsugu uses the least restrictive action reasonably suited to the harm, intent, history, and ability to correct the issue. The normal action ranges and appeal rights are in the Moderation, Reports, Appeals, and Support Policy.

Immediate temporary action is allowed only for a reasonable safety, security, legal, evasion, or service-integrity concern. It is not a license to invent permanent rules. The final decision must cite a published rule or end the restriction.