Community guidelines

These guidelines are a work in progress. We are a small team still shaping Forktales, and this page will change as the table grows. When it does, we update the date above.

The spirit of the place

Forktales is a small, private network: you, your friends and what you actually eat. Post what you cooked, what you ate or what you bought. If a friend made it, say so and credit the cook. There is no audience here to perform for, so you do not need to. A blurry photo of a good Tuesday dinner is exactly right.

Be kind

Comments and mentions are for the things you would say across a table: that looks great, how did you get the crust like that, can I have the recipe. Disagree about garlic all you like. Do not be cruel about someone's cooking, their body or their choices. If a friend asks you to stop, stop.

Keep it about food

Your posts land in your friends' feeds, newest first, with nothing filtering them. No spam, no promotions, no affiliate links, no dumping unrelated things into the feed. If you run a food business, share what you cook. Do not turn your friends into a mailing list.

Photos of people

• Ask before you post a photo that shows someone's face. A nod at the table counts.
• Do not post photos of other people's children without their parent's OK.
• If someone asks you to take down a photo of them, take it down.

Respect recipes

You can fork a friend's recipe: Forktales makes a copy you name and change. Your fork stays linked to theirs and theirs stays theirs. Beyond that:

• When you share a recipe you learned from a book, a site or a cook you admire, say where it came from.
• Write recipes in your own words. Do not paste in large chunks of copyrighted recipe text as if you wrote them.
• A list of ingredients is not a secret, but someone's writing is theirs. Credit generously.
• A recipe imported from a website is for your own box. Before you share it, put the method in your own words and keep the link to the original. Importing recipes has the details.

Privacy is the whole idea

What a friend shares with you on Forktales stays among friends. Do not screenshot a friend's post or recipe and repost it elsewhere, and do not share their recipes outside Forktales without asking. Friendship is mutual: if either of you ends it, access is removed both ways, immediately. That is by design, and it is why people feel free to post the honest version.

Invites

The newcomer arrives already friends with you, so invite people you know and would happily feed. Do not sell invites, and do not post invite links publicly. Inviting a friend earns you both credits when they add a first recipe. Do not make accounts to collect them.

What is never OK

• Harassment, threats or bullying of anyone, on or off Forktales.
• Hate directed at people for who they are.
• Sexual content.
• Anything illegal, or that helps someone do something illegal.
• Pretending to be someone you are not.
• Malware, scams, phishing or any attempt to break into the service or someone's account.

What happens

Most problems at a friends-only table get sorted with a quiet word. When they do not, we may remove content or delete the account. Abusive behaviour towards other members can get your account deleted, and so can making accounts to collect credits. We will act quickly on anything in the list above. If you see something that should not be here, email hello@forktales.app with a link to it, or reach us through the contact page. We read everything.

These guidelines sit alongside the terms of service, which cover the formal side of using Forktales.