Community Guidelines

01A catalogue we build together

Almost everything on Novella — works, editions, authors, series, genres, tags — is community-editable. There is no separate class of appointed editors: anyone can contribute from their first day, and the catalogue is the shared record everyone builds on.

Because it is shared, treat it as shared. Describe books truthfully and to the best of your knowledge, respect the work other contributors have already done, and edit to make the record more accurate — not to promote, deface, or push an opinion.

02How editing works

Anyone can submit any edit. What differs is how much review that edit gets before or after it goes live — resolved automatically from how much a field matters and how established the contributor is. There are three outcomes:

• Goes live immediately — most edits from trusted contributors, and low-risk edits (like tags or a cover) from newer ones. Applied at once, revertible if wrong.
• Goes live, then reviewed — applied straight away and added to a review feed, where an experienced contributor can confirm or revert it.
• Held for approval— sensitive changes (like a canonical title or an author’s name) from a brand-new account wait, invisible, until a reviewer approves them.

Brand-new records — a missing book or edition you add — always go live immediately, marked unverified, so you can log a book the moment you have it in your hand. They are then reviewed like any other contribution.

03Trust bands

Your history earns you trust, grouped into bands. Higher bands mean your edits face less friction and, eventually, let you help review others’ work. You climb by contributing well — approved edits and edits that survive review — and you slip back if your changes are repeatedly rejected or reverted.

• New — where everyone starts. You can edit immediately; sensitive edits get more review.
• Established — a handful of clean edits behind you; routine changes stop needing pre-approval.
• Trusted— a consistent clean record; unlocks the ability to review other contributors’ edits.
• Veteran — a long, proven track record.

This is the same reason repeat vandalism doesn’t scale: accounts whose edits keep getting reverted sink to a band where everything they touch waits for approval, quietly, without anyone having to police them by hand.

04Reviews and ratings

Ratings and reviews are personal opinion — they don’t go through the catalogue’s edit review, but they do have norms, and they can be flagged. Keep them honest and first-hand:

• Rate and review books you have actually read, in your own genuine opinion.
• Don’t trade ratings for money or favours, and don’t coordinate with others to inflate or bury a book’s score.
• One account per person — no rating the same book twice.

Spoilers

Be kind to people who haven’t finished. If your review discusses major plot points, mark it as containing spoilers so it stays collapsed behind a warning. For a single revealing sentence in an otherwise safe review, wrap just that passage in spoiler markup (>!like this!<) so it stays hidden until a reader chooses to reveal it.

05What isn't allowed

The catalogue and the community only work if a few things stay out. Don’t:

• vandalise records, or make deliberately false or misleading edits;
• impersonate an author, publisher, or rights-holder, or claim a page that isn’t yours;
• use records, reviews, or lists to advertise, spam, or manipulate discovery;
• manipulate ratings — paid, coordinated, or multi-account;
• harass, threaten, or abuse other people;
• post unlawful or hateful content, or unmarked spoilers that ruin a book for everyone else.

06Flagging and moderation

If you see something that breaks these guidelines, use the flag controlon the review, list, tag, profile, or record. Flagging sends it to a moderation queue where an experienced community member can act — hiding content, removing a bad tag, clearing an offensive profile field, or dismissing the report if there’s nothing wrong.

Moderation here is a community responsibility, carried out by trusted contributors, not a distant admin team. When your content is hidden, you’re told why, so you can understand the decision.

For anything the flag flow doesn’t cover, our contact page explains how to reach us. The Terms of Service are the binding rules that sit behind these guidelines.