Community Guidelines

The short version: be the kind of person other readers are glad to lend to. The rest of this page is just us saying what that means, and then getting out of your way.

Bookfell is starting small on purpose. It's designed to be used by real people lending real books to people they know (or are getting to know). We think of it as a small circle of trust, and a place like that doesn't run on rules; it runs on the everyday good faith of the people in it. So this isn't a rulebook. It's the few things we hold true everywhere on Bookfell, and an invitation for your own communities to say the rest.

A few things, true everywhere

Be kind.

Talk to people the way you would across a kitchen table. Disagree about books all you like (that's half the fun), but never at someone's expense. There's no room here for cruelty, harassment, or contempt for who someone is. And what's shared here stays here — a neighbor's address, what they're reading, is theirs to offer, not yours to pass along.

Be someone books come home to.

Borrowing is a small act of trust. Honor it: bring books back by the day you agreed, treat them at least as gently as your own, and if life gets in the way, say so early. Lending is trust too; you decide what leaves your shelf, and when, and to whom. No one is ever owed your books.

Keep it about the books.

This is a lending library and the friendships that grow around one, not a commercial marketplace. We love bookstores as much as anyone, but Bookfell is about people, not business. In the future readers will be able to list a book as "for sale" (with some restrictions), but that's a way to help members, not an invitation to open a used bookstore. Come for the reading and the people, and you're exactly where you should be.

The few hard lines.

Some things end your time here, plainly: anything illegal, anything that puts another person in danger, and hatred or harassment aimed at someone for who they are. We'd always rather help sort out a misunderstanding than show anyone the door, but on these, we will.

The rest is yours to write.

Here's the part we mean most. Beyond those few things, every community on Bookfell is the best author of its own guidelines. A neighborhood swap, a workplace shelf, and a Friday-night reading society don't want or need the same house rules, and they shouldn't have to.

Each community will have a place to write its own — and until then, talk about it together. What does lending look like here? How do we treat a book that comes back late, or dog-eared, or not at all? What should this shelf feel like to a newcomer? These aren't questions we can answer for you, and they aren't meant to be settled once — good house rules grow and change as a community does. Write them down when you're ready, and revisit them when they stop fitting.

When something's not right.

If someone makes Bookfell feel unwelcoming, you have real tools: you can block them, which quietly removes you from each other's view, and you can reach out to us. We read what you send, we take it seriously, and we'll act when we need to. You never have to just put up with it.

Thanks for helping keep this the kind of place you'd want to be. — Bookfell