My “Before”

Sunday 13 September 2026

This is the post I promised in August, and it has taken this long because it needed to be right.

Before I do anything else — before I write a glossary, before I email anyone, before I draft my own first story — I need to write down what I am not going to do. Because I think most of the ways this could go wrong start with saying yes to the wrong thing early.

Here is the list.

• I am not going to run a forum, a group chat, a Discord, or any direct messaging between kids. I am fifteen. I should not be the person responsible for keeping other kids safe in a chat room. Any community stuff for under-18s has to happen inside an established organisation’s child-safety rules. Their adults, their policy, their procedures.
• I am not going to give medical advice. I am not going to give legal advice. I am not going to give psychological advice. The site points people to professionals; it does not pretend to be one.
• I am not going to campaign. Not for surrogacy, not against it. People who want to campaign are doing important work elsewhere. This is different work.
• I am not going to publish any teen’s story without named consent — from them and from a parent or guardian — and a clear way to take it down. Ever.
• I am not going to publish any photo of an under-18 without the same double consent.
• I am not going to launch without adults attached. Three to five named advisors, visible on the site. Not friends of my dads. People who have read the plan and signed off.
• I am not going to start any of this properly until there is a faculty advisor at school. I am asking Ms. Shafqat this week. If she says no, I find out who the right yes is.

Reading that list back, I think it is the most adult thing I have written since June. Writing down what I am not going to do has made it much clearer what I actually am going to do.

The list goes on the homepage. Right at the bottom. Visible, not hidden.

— D.