Community guidelines

1The one rule

In plain EnglishWrite things you would be happy to read out to somebody else’s family.

Koven is played out loud, in a room, by people of very different ages at the same time. A joke that lands with your mates lands very differently when a child reads it off a screen to their grandmother.

So the rule is the Friday night test. If a family could open your deck on a Friday night, with a ten year old and a grandparent in the room, and never hit anything they would rather not have seen, it belongs here. Family safe does not mean babyish. Be funny, be sharp, be rude about a celebrity. Just do not make somebody else uncomfortable in their own living room.

2What is not allowed

In plain EnglishThe full list of things that get removed. It is specific on purpose, so nobody has to guess.

This is what we mean by objectionable content. It applies to decks, deck items, titles, descriptions, display names, avatars, group names and anything else you can type or draw in Koven.

Child sexual content

Any content that sexualises a person under 18, in any form, drawn or written or described. There is no context in which this is acceptable. We remove it, close the account permanently and report it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and to UK law enforcement.

Sexual content and nudity

Explicit sexual content, pornography, sexual acts described in detail, and nudity. Prompts whose only purpose is to get somebody to talk about their sex life are not allowed either.

Hate

Content that attacks, demeans or dehumanises people because of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, caste, disability, disease, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or age. Slurs are not allowed even when the person using them belongs to the group.

Harassment and bullying

Targeting a real person with insults, threats or humiliation. Prompts built to embarrass a specific player, pile on, or force somebody to disclose something private.

Violence and gore

Graphic violence, injury or death described for effect, threats of violence, and glorifying an atrocity or the person who carried one out.

Self harm and suicide

Encouraging, instructing or making light of self harm, suicide or disordered eating. If a deck needs to touch on it, it must not treat it as a punchline.

Dangerous acts

Dares and challenges that could get somebody hurt, instructions for making weapons or explosives, and anything encouraging drink driving or misuse of drugs or medicine.

Illegal goods and regulated activity

Selling or sourcing drugs, weapons, stolen goods, counterfeits or prescription medicines. Real money gambling, and prompts built around it.

Personal information

Real addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, school names, bank details or anything else that identifies a real person, including yourself. Do not put your own contact details in a deck.

Impersonation and deception

Pretending to be another person, a brand, or Koven. Claiming that a deck is official when it is not.

Spam and manipulation

Adverts, referral links, repeated near identical decks, keyword stuffing, or anything meant to move players onto another service. Rigging ratings, whether by hand or with a script.

Seriously misleading content

Health or safety claims presented as fact when they are not, and content designed to deceive people about an election or a public emergency.

Other people’s work

Copying a published quiz, a book, song lyrics or another game’s content and passing it off as your deck.

One thing that is allowed, because people ask: mild rudeness. A deck can be cheeky. It can involve toilet humour and terrible puns and being unkind about a football team. That is what a party game is for.

3Names and avatars

In plain EnglishSame rules as everything else, and no real names or contact details as a display name.

Everything above applies to the name you pick when you join a room. On top of that, do not use a display name that gives away a real person’s full name, address, school or phone number, whether yours or somebody else’s.

A name that breaks the rules gets replaced with a neutral one for that room rather than throwing you out of the game. The party carries on.

4Content ratings and who sees your deck

In plain EnglishEverything starts at the safest rating and stays private until you share it. Publishing to strangers means review first.

• Every deck starts private, rated for everyone, and waiting for review. You choose when that changes.
• Share it with a code and the people you gave the code to can play it straight away, with no review. Your family does not need our permission to play your quiz.
• Publish it to the community library and it is reviewed before anybody outside your group can find it.
• Rate a deck honestly. A deck aimed at older players must be rated for older players, and rating it down to reach a wider audience is a breach of these guidelines in itself.

Community content can be turned off completely for an account. If a parent switches it off, the library disappears from the app rather than sitting there greyed out and tempting.

5Reporting and blocking

In plain EnglishReport from the screen you are on, with no account. Block a player and they are gone immediately.

Every deck, every deck item, every display name and every player can be reported from the screen you are looking at. You do not need an account and you do not need to be signed in. The person most likely to spot a problem is a parent who picked up somebody else’s phone at a party, and they should not have to make an account to tell us.

A person reads every report. We aim to review within 24 hours, and faster for anything involving a child’s safety. Content reported for the most serious categories is hidden while it is being reviewed rather than after.

You can also block another player. Blocking is immediate, it does not tell them, and it means you will not be put in a public room together or see their content in the library.

If something needs urgent attention, email support@kovengames.com with "urgent" in the subject line. If somebody is in immediate danger, contact the police first and then tell us.

6What happens if you break the rules

In plain EnglishUsually a warning, then limits, then suspension. Serious things skip straight to the end.

What we do depends on what happened, whether it looks deliberate, and whether it has happened before.

• A first minor breach: the content is removed or hidden and you are told which rule it broke.
• A repeat: your ability to publish to the community is paused for a period.
• Persistent breaches: your account is suspended.
• Serious breaches, including anything involving a child, credible threats, or content shared with the intent to harm: the account is closed immediately and permanently.

Making a new account to get around a decision is itself a breach, and it turns a temporary suspension into a permanent one.

7Appeals

In plain EnglishIf you think we got it wrong, say so. Somebody else will look at it.

Every enforcement message tells you what happened, which rule applied, and how to appeal. Reply to it or email support@kovengames.com with the details. A different person from the one who made the original decision reviews it, and we aim to answer within 14 days.

If we were wrong we restore the content, undo the strike and say so. The one category with no appeal is content that sexualises a child.

8For parents and carers

In plain EnglishWhat you can see, what you can switch off, and how to reach a human.

• You can see everything your child has published, from their account settings.
• You can turn off community content entirely, so the app only ever shows first party packs and decks your family made.
• You can turn off sharing by code, so nothing leaves the household.
• You can delete the account and everything in it, in one action, without emailing anybody.
• Guest play needs no account at all, if you would rather your child gave us nothing.

If you want to talk to a person about something your child has seen, email support@kovengames.com. Tell us roughly when and which room, and we will find it.

9For creators

In plain EnglishHow to write a deck that sails through review.

• Write for the room, not for your group chat. Assume the youngest person present reads it aloud.
• Give the deck a title and a description that say what it actually is. Review is faster when the reviewer does not have to guess.
• Rate it honestly. An honest teen rating gets approved. A teen deck rated for everyone gets rejected.
• Keep real people out of it, including yourself.
• If you are remixing somebody else’s deck, change enough that it is worth playing on its own.

Review normally takes under 24 hours. If your deck is rejected you will be told which rule it fell foul of, and you can edit it and submit it again.