Community Profile

In the corner of Main Street and Drifter's Lane, in a quiet little part of the Internet, sits a quaint little café. The décor is lovely and exactly to the taste of every visitor, though it seems that everyone has a little different impression on what a café should look like. There are many kinds of drinks on the menu, so you can always find your desired beverage. People from all corners of the world with various interests all get along and the conversations are lively. It seems too good to be true.

Perhaps in the real world, it is impossible, but here, only our imagination is the limit. Much like the coffee shops in the real world, the e-Café is an electronic meeting place for the creatively inclined. Our visitors should be authors, artists and other creators, who are looking for company to keep them going when the times are tough, or who are simply in need of another someone to blip into existence now and then, proving that somewhere on the other side of the world, there is life.

In short, this is a community where creators can talk shop about their ongoing projects. For the most part, posting is free-form, but to keep us all on track, the Host will serve drinks (make a post) every week, inviting the ever-thirsty café-goers to share something about their progress or just to rant about why it was utterly impossible to work under the circumstances they were subjected to. All types of creative endeavours are welcome here, be it writing, drawing, or anything else such as making paper-dolls.

Every person may take as much pressure upon themselves to perform as they prefer; none or some, whatever works for you. There are very few rules and none of them require you to produce something on weekly basis if you'd rather just coast along and talk about how it's been years since you last wrote/drew/crafted anything, hoping that something will eventually give and you'll actually pick up the keyboard/pen/tool-of-trade. The e-Café welcomes creators of both original and fannish content.

To keep the e-Café safe (and to avoid those random loud and obnoxious customers known as trolls), the membership to the community is invite-only. The Host will invite friends and friends of friends, so you need to know one of the members in order to be invited. You are expected to make a brief introductory post about yourself so we know who you are.

The membership is granted only to those who are over 18 years old, because the e-Café conversations may contain adult material.

~ The Rules ~
While the Host would like to keep this venture quite relaxed and free-form, in the vicious world of the Internet, some rules are always necessary. Check these points to make sure we're all working with the same premise. If you disagree with a point, this place isn't for you.

#1 -- Keep your posts member-locked. This rule is in place to keep the Café a closed, safe space for all members. The e-Café is not intended for promotional purposes of your creative endeavours, it is a place to talk about your unfinished work and your experiences revolving around the sometimes-painful process of giving birth to stories/art/paper dolls/whatever happens to be your cup of tea.

#2 -- No ads / promotional posts. You are more than welcome to link us to your work wherever else it resides, for example in order to explain what the story you are working on is all about, and by no means is it forbidden to share random links during conversations; this place is all about the off topic! But the e-Café is *not* a channel to promote yourself or your work.

#3 -- No stealing / copyright violations. This too should go without saying, but let's put it out there. In case someone shares their unfinished work at the café, do not steal it. Without going into detail of what constitutes as intellectual theft -- use common sense. Do not copy content and post under your own name elsewhere. Do not plagiarise another person's work. It is not forbidden to be inspired by someone else's talent, but it is just plain bad manners not to give credit where credit is due.

#4 -- Be polite. This should go without saying, but the Host has seen a great deal of the kind of jerktasticness the Internet has to offer, and wants none of it here. The e-Café is meant to be a place to help the creative flow of everyone concerned, so everything from passive-aggressive hostility to outright trolling is forbidden.

#5 -- Participate. There are no minimum posting/commenting requirements, but the e-Café is not a place for lurkers or those only interested in self-promotion. You don't need to have something to say every week, but remember that this is a place where people go specifically in order to get feedback. Try to provide it to everyone equally -- give and you shall receive.

#6 -- Have fun! After laying out the law for five bullet points worth, this deserves a mention. :D We are here to let loose and encourage creativity. (Having said that, it doesn't mean you have to put up a happy face all the time. Rants and depressed posts about not getting anything done are fine, of course.)

~ Host Weekly and on Crossposting ~
Every week, the Host will publish a weekly post, which will be your invitation to gather round for a cup of your chosen beverage and a chat with your fellow café-goers. Each weekly post will be complete with an issue number and separate tags so you can always find them easily. These posts are free-form, may or may not contain news, inspirational images, fun links, or whatever your Host happens to catch that week. Members are more than welcome to volunteer for hosting the weekly issues any time, just drop a note to the Host (e_cafe_host)! Please note that the Host account is only used for administrative purposes.

The e-Café has a presence on both LiveJournal and Dreamwidth sites. Feel free to post on either, or both, whatever is your preference. The Host shall make all the weekly posts on both sites and link them to each other for ease of access.

LiveJournal mirror is here: The e-Café on LiveJournal