Authors -

When rating your stories, please bear in mind the following: graphic sexual scenes deserve an NC-17 rating. If you're going into detail - meaning vivid descriptions using technical or slang terms to describe body parts - you can forget the "R". We do understand that accidents happen, and some stories might be given a lower rating by mistake in haste to get it published. Please make sure you look over EVERYTHING before hitting submit, especially if you're an author who has earned automatic validation. In those cases, since the mods don't see it before it posts, we hear about it from readers who unwittingly stumbled upon material for which they were not looking.

In the case of stories that WILL be NC-17, go ahead and give it the higher rating. There doesn't have to be graphic sexual content in every chapter for a story to merit an adult rating. It's preemptive and considerate of your readers. 

To those authors with automatic validation: remember, this is a privilege, one we can revoke if we receive too many complaints. You earn this privilege by demonstrating you understand the TOS and have consistently contributed above-par submissions. If a member is found to be abusing the privilege, it goes away, and we'd rather have more authors posting than waiting for the mods to police their activity, especially if they're known for exceptionally stellar work.

On a similar note, if a mod ever contacts you pertaining to your work, or a problem we've stumbled upon (a TOS violation, a missrated story, etc), please respond in a timely manner. In these instances, five days is more than fair.