The ground rules.

Few, and all of them kept by the software rather than by goodwill.

1. Write to the person in front of you. Every new letter is checked against every other letter on the platform — not for style, for whether the same paragraphs have been sent to somebody else. Reused mass messages are held, and can lead to a ban.
2. Adults only. Eighteen, from the date of birth you give; the desk cannot be set up otherwise.
3. 3 conversations at a time. A friendship you have both agreed to holds no seat; a conversation set aside to rest keeps its seat. There is no way to buy a fourth.
4. Nobody is told who pressed first. Being the only ones, and being friends, both need both of you, and neither is told the other has asked.
5. You may pass on any question, at no cost to the level and with nothing held against you.
6. Addresses, numbers and links are removed from letters until a conversation reaches level 16. After that, giving them is yours to decide; the platform never gives your email address to anybody.
7. A person looks at every photograph before it can turn over for anyone. A person looks at every photograph before it can turn over for anyone. There is no fixed turnaround; your own page shows where it stands.
8. What is said about you is only ever kind. The words a former correspondent may choose from are a fixed list of good ones; there is no free text about a named person anywhere in the product.
9. Block, report, leave. Blocking needs no reason and ends everything between you at once. Reporting freezes the conversation and puts it, with the letters as evidence, in front of a person; the other side is never told. Leaving hides your letters at once and erases you after thirty days.
10. Silence closes a door; it does not open a file. Four quiet weeks and the Post Office closes a conversation itself. Nothing else about how you write, or how often, is ever shown to anybody.

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