The Rules

The cafe’s main rule is simple: “Be Excellent to Each Other.”

It is not “Be Excellent to each other unless ...”

Being excellent to each other means being supportive, listening without judgment, and keeping this a safe space. That said, we all have bad days. We ask that you be compassionate to everyone in the cafe, including yourself. Be willing to ask for forgiveness or accept a sincere apology.

If you feel a member is being abusive, contact us. Depending on the severity of the problem, the admins may handle it with a warning or outright ban. Or we may disagree that the conduct was abusive, in which case we’ll talk to you about it. Screenshots may be helpful if you want to make a report.

Additional Rules:

• • The cafe is for those over the physical body age of 18. Content may not be appropriate for minors. Child alters in adult systems are welcome here, but we ask that legal minors use another platform.

• • We are not trained or equipped to deal with people in a major mental health crisis. If you need that kind of help, please check out our list of emergency numbers and helplines. Don’t just jump on Discord and hope for the best. We are your peers, not your emergency therapists.

• • Understand that no one here is acting as a mental health professional. We can’t diagnose or treat anyone. And unless you are an experienced, licensed medical professional, neither can you. Please see the blog entry on Fake-Claiming, Invalidating, and Self-Diagnosis for more on our official stance on these matters.

• • Respect that not everyone has the means to get a formal diagnosis. We strongly recommend seeing a good mental health care practitioner whenever possible, but sometimes, due to location, finances, or other factors, it can’t be done at present. If someone struggles with dissociation or is an ally of those who do, they belong here, diagnosed or not. (If you are considering a self-diagnosis, please read this wiki article.)

• • If you choose to use PluralKit on Discord, please set a system tag (pk;system [system] tag [tag]). We set ours with pk;system T-E-C tag | T-E-C. Using PluralKit is not required, so if you didn’t understand that, no worries. We purposefully choose not to use it most of the time.

About Triggering Content and Trigger Warnings:

• • Several areas of the website (Blogs, DissociaBook, the Danger Zone forum) and Discord (#trigger-territory, #rant-n-rave) have permanent trigger warnings. Be kind to yourself; if you’re not in a good place, don’t go there. No further warnings are required in those areas.

• • Be considerate of your fellow cafe members and avoid graphic details unless necessary. It’s usually possible to talk about abuse without going into details. However, if you need to talk about a potentially triggering topic, you may do so. Just keep it in the designated trigger warning areas and out of the more general chat areas.

• • It is impossible to know everyone’s potential triggers in advance. Sometimes people post triggering content without meaning to, and that’s OK. If someone finds a topic triggering, though, please move the conversation to a designated trigger warning area.

One last thing…

• • Party On Dudes! 😉