Rules

Respect & OOC Conduct

In-character conflict is part of professional wrestling. Out-of-character hostility is not required to make it work.

Treat the people behind the characters with respect. Personal attacks, harassment, bullying, discrimination, deliberate intimidation, and behavior intended to make another member uncomfortable or unwelcome are not acceptable.

You do not have to like every character. You do not have to agree with every creative decision. You do have to remember that there is a person on the other side of the screen.

Communication & Activity

Real life comes first. Nobody is expected to pretend otherwise.

Participation can be as light or as involved as you genuinely have the capacity to manage. What matters is communication. If you make a commitment and something changes, tell Management. A simple heads-up is almost always easier to work with than silence.

Commitments and Deadlines

If you are booked or otherwise committed to a production cycle, know what is expected of you and deliver it by the deadline.

Do not take on more than you can reasonably manage. Missing a deadline is not automatically a crisis. Repeatedly disappearing from commitments without communication is.

Hiatuses, Departures & Inactivity

The escalation for missed deadlines without communication is locked as follows:

The point is accountability, not punishment for having a life. Communicate early and honestly, and staff will work with you.

If you need time away, let staff know. If you want to leave, communicate with staff and an appropriate exit can be discussed. If you disappear and stop communicating, the Network may eventually have to move forward without your character, including writing them off television.

Multiple Characters & Responsibility

Multiple characters are allowed as long as you can actually manage them. There is no benefit in collecting characters you do not have the time or attention to support.

Each additional character is an additional responsibility. Management may intervene if a member's workload is clearly harming their own participation or the production.

Character Ownership and Control

You control the character you submit and the promos you personally write. Your character's official application remains the foundation for who they are.

Once that character enters SHOWTIME!, they also become part of a larger collaborative production. Booking, storylines, performance, relationships, victories, losses, and Management mandates may influence how the character develops.

This is not a promise that nothing will ever happen to your character without your preferred outcome. It is a promise that the character will be handled as part of a shared television production.

Collaborative Writing & Use of Other Characters

You may interact with other characters through segments, matches, and your own promos. You may allude to them, challenge them, insult them, threaten them, or throw verbal jabs at them.

You may not write another member's character's dialogue, thoughts, actions, decisions, or reactions as though you control them unless that person is directly involved and has agreed to the material.

Creative Authority

Management and the Creative team develop the official stories and book the official matches. Community members are welcome to bring ideas and suggestions. Listening to a suggestion does not obligate Management to use it.

Every official match and storyline exists for a reason. The Network is not built around random pairings or directionless activity.

Content Boundaries

Content boundaries are established during the application process. Those boundaries are part of the agreement that allows people to participate comfortably.

Do not assume a subject is acceptable merely because wrestling television has done something similar elsewhere. If you are unsure whether an idea crosses a line, ask before proceeding.

Staff Decisions & Network Authority

Management has final authority over official decisions. That authority is not a requirement that everyone remain silent or agree automatically.

If you have another perspective, present it respectfully. Staff will listen. When a final decision must be made, however, the production needs a final decision.

The Reasonable Person Rule

You do not need a rulebook for every imaginable way to make a community worse.

Use common sense. Do not look for technical loopholes around the spirit of the rules. Do not create problems because you assume something has to be explicitly prohibited before it counts as a bad idea.

If you are treating people reasonably, communicating honestly, respecting boundaries, and trying to contribute to the production rather than make it harder to run, you are probably doing fine.

The rules exist to protect the production and the people making it. SHOWTIME! is meant to be collaborative, ambitious, occasionally chaotic on screen, and sustainable behind it.

Communicate. Be accountable. Respect people. Make good television.