Den of Mamas · Community Standards

Version 0.2 · Effective: [EFFECTIVE DATE] · Applies to: Den of Mamas, run by Motherhood Diary Media Company, [COMPANY ADDRESS] · Questions: [CONTACT EMAIL]

In plain words

Den of Mamas is a room for mothers, kept safe by a real person. These are the house rules. They come down to one idea: the mother who found the courage to share is protected first, always.

Three things are worth knowing before you decide whether to read on. Your Den is your own local area, and it has one feed — the mothers near you, newest first. The Den carries a small number of sponsored cards from local businesses, and the only thing they know about you is which Den you are in. And private messages pass the same crisis check as posts, so that a mother in trouble is not missed because she wrote it quietly.

If you post with honesty and kindness, you will never need to read past these few lines. The rest is here so you know exactly what happens if something goes wrong, and so you never have to wonder.

1. What this page is

Den of Mamas is free. It is for mothers, and for adults only. There is one feed in each Local Den. And there is one person reading everything that is held: Makenna, who founded The Motherhood Diary and moderates the Den herself.

You accepted the five standards below when you joined. They were shown to you as five plain lines, not a scroll of legal text, and we keep the date and time you said yes.

This page sits alongside two others. Our [Terms of Service] say what you agree to when you make an account. Our [Privacy Policy] says what we hold about you and why. This page says how we treat each other here, and what we do when that goes wrong.

We wrote it the way we would explain it to a friend at the kitchen table. That is deliberate. A rule you cannot understand is not protecting anyone.

2. The five standards

2.1 No judgment. Every mother is doing her best.

Nobody here has it figured out. Some days the pantry floor is the right place to be, and the Den is a place where you can say so.

What belongs

"I lost my temper tonight and I feel awful. Has anyone else been here?"
"We do screen time before dinner because that's the only way dinner happens."
"I went back to work at eight weeks. I needed to, and I also cried in the car."

What does not belong

"I would never let my child do that."
"Well, that's what happens when you don't sleep-train."
Any reply that ranks one way of mothering above another, however gently it is worded.

2.2 Support, not unsolicited advice.

When a mother shares something hard, she is usually not asking to be fixed. She is asking to be heard. Offer advice when it is asked for. Offer company the rest of the time.

What belongs

"That sounds exhausting. I'm here if you want to talk it through."
"We had a similar stretch. If you'd like, I'll tell you what helped us — only if you want it."
"You asked what worked for others, so here's ours. Every child is different, though."

What does not belong

"You should really..." / "You need to..." / "The only way is..."
A list of what she is doing wrong, sent to a mother who asked for nothing.
Advice that arrives as a correction rather than an offer.

2.3 Every story matters. No experience is ranked.

A mother of one and a mother of five. A mother in her first week and a mother whose children have children. A mother who conceived easily and a mother who waited years. None of these is more of a mother than another, and none has the harder story by default.

What belongs

"I've only got one and I'm drowning. I know others have more. It's still hard."
"My youngest left for college and the house is so quiet. I didn't expect to grieve it."
Reading someone's story and simply saying: "Thank you for telling us."

What does not belong

"At least you only have one."
"Wait until they're teenagers, then you'll know what tired is."
Comparing your way in to somebody else's, or comparing anyone's loss to anyone else's.

2.4 Honesty and privacy. Never share identifiable information about another person's child without consent.

Your story is yours to tell, and honesty is why this place works. But other people's children did not choose to be here. Their names, faces, schools, diagnoses and birthdays are not yours to share, and that includes the children of family, friends and other mothers in the Den.

What belongs

Telling your own story, in your own words, about your own family.
"A friend's daughter is going through something similar" — with no name, no school, no photo, nothing that would let a stranger find her.
Asking a mother's permission before you refer to her child in a reply.

What does not belong

A photo of somebody else's child, even a happy one, even at your own party.
A name, a school, a street, a medical detail or a date of birth belonging to a child who is not yours.
Screenshots of the Den shared anywhere else. What is said here stays here.

A word on your own children: you may write about them freely. We ask you to write about them the way you would want someone to write about you. They may read it one day.

There is no share button. Nothing you write here produces a link that works outside the Den. "Copy link" opens only for a signed-in member of your Den. What the code cannot do is stop a screenshot, and we will not pretend otherwise. So we say this at the door, and we mean it:

What's shared here stays here. That's a promise we ask you to keep, because it isn't one we can enforce with code.

2.5 This is a safe space. The person who shared is always protected first.

When a mother posts something raw, she has taken a risk. Everything about the Den is arranged so that risk is honoured. If a reply, however well meant, makes her feel foolish, ashamed or unsafe for having spoken at all, the reply goes and the post stays.

What belongs

"I'm so sorry. I'm glad you told us."
"Are you okay? I'm here."
Silence, if you have nothing kind to say. Reading is enough.

What does not belong

"Why would you post this?"
"At least..." after a loss.
Anything that tells a mother she should have kept it to herself.

The four reactions

There are four ways to react to a post, and only four.

Holding you — for grief, fear, the hard days.
Me too — for solidarity.
That helped — for advice that landed.
Celebrating — for good news.

There is no laugh, no anger and no thumbs-down. That is a standard built into the software rather than written on a page. A laugh reaction under a birth-trauma story is a Standards violation delivered in one tap, and the safest fix is not to build the tap.

Counts are shown. Who reacted is shown to the mother who wrote the post, and to nobody else.

Your name and your profile are held to the same five standards

The standards are not only about posts. Your display name and your "a little about me" pass the same check as everything else you write. So does a comment, a help request, a poll, a meet-up and a message.

3. The Moderation Prime Directive

Every decision made in the Den is made against this one sentence. It is quoted here word for word from our playbook, because we want you to be able to hold us to it.

Moderation Prime Directive: When in doubt, protect the person who shared. A comment that makes a contributor feel foolish, ashamed, or unsafe for having spoken at all is always removed — regardless of intent.

"Regardless of intent" is the part that matters. We are not judging your heart. We are protecting hers.

4. What happens when something is held

4.1 The filter, then a person

Everything written in the Den passes through a filter before it reaches anyone. Every post. Every comment. Every help request, every poll question and every poll option. Every meet-up. Your display name and your profile text. Every private message. And every sponsored card a business sends us, before it is ever scheduled.

The filter is a list of words and patterns, nothing cleverer. It cannot read tone and it does not try to. Its only job is to decide whether something can go straight through or should wait for a human.

When it waits, Makenna reads it. Not a team, not a contractor, not a machine. Her.

Private messages are the part mothers are most surprised by, so section 5.5 says exactly what it means and exactly what she sees.

4.2 Held is not deleted

A held post is not gone. It is waiting. Nothing you write in the Den is destroyed by the filter, and that is built into the software, not just written into a policy.

Here is the whole of what is kept, and for how long:

A moderation record. If something is held or removed, it stays in our records, unpublished, with the rule it matched, the decision and the reason. That record is kept. If you ask why, the answer exists.
An audit entry. Every decision anyone makes about your account is logged, and those entries are kept for twelve months.
A post you delete yourself. It leaves everyone's view at once, and the record is purged after thirty days. Our [Privacy Policy] says the same.
An edit. You can edit anything you write, any time. It is marked "edited," and the original is kept for Makenna, because moderation needs what was actually said.

4.3 Things that are held for care, not for fault

Some things wait for a person because they deserve a person's eyes, not because anything is wrong:

Your first post. Every new member's first post is held so Makenna can read it herself and welcome you personally when it goes live. It will take a little longer than the rest. That is on purpose.
Grief and loss. These are never removed by the filter. They are read, and they are held gently, and they go through.
A hard day. Writing that is hard on yourself is read by a person before it is published, so that if you need more than a feed, you get it. See section 5.
A link. Outside links are held while we check they are safe and relevant. Links to our own Blog pass straight through, without a hold.
Politics. Read by a person before it goes up, because a room this warm can turn cold fast.
Shouting. A long stretch in capital letters is flagged so a person can check the tone.

None of these count against you. A care hold is not a strike, and it never touches the ladder below.

We aim to read everything held within 48 hours and usually manage it much sooner.

4.4 The ladder

If a post or a reply falls short of the five standards, this is what happens. It is a ladder, and you always start at the bottom. Nothing on it is ever public, at any step.

A note. A private message from Makenna saying what was held and why, and how it could go through. Every hold is written down in our records — that is 4.2, and it is true from the very first one. Most things end here.
A second note. If it happens again, a second private message, this time as a clear warning. This is the step where it begins to count against you.
A 48-hour pause. A third time, and you will not be able to comment for 48 hours. The composer tells you, warmly, the exact date and time the pause lifts, so you are never left guessing. You will get a personal message explaining why, and you can still read. When the pause ends, you are back. [CONFIRM WITH FOUNDER: whether posting is paused as well as commenting — the playbook specifies a 48-hour comment restriction.]
Removal. If it keeps happening after all of that, your account is closed. You will be told, and told why. That email address cannot be used to apply again.

4.5 The things that are removed at once

There is no ladder for these. The post comes down straight away, the account is closed, and where the authorities, or any service that needs to know, should be told, we tell them:

Hate directed at who someone is.
Threats of violence.
Anything that endangers a child, or describes doing so.
Sexual harassment.
Spam, or flooding the feed with sales.

"Removed" means taken out of the Den. It does not mean destroyed. A record is kept, for the reasons in 4.2 and because it may be needed.

4.6 Asking why, and asking for a second look

You can always ask what happened to something you wrote, and you will always get an answer from a real person. Write to [CONTACT EMAIL]. If you think we got it wrong, say so in the same message. Makenna will read it again with fresh eyes. She is the last word on the Den, and she takes that seriously.

Every quarter we go back through everything the filter removed on its own, looking for the times it was wrong. When we find one, we fix the filter.

4.7 Reporting something

You do not have to write an email to raise something. There is a report action on every post, every comment, every message, every profile, every poll, every meet-up and every sponsored card.

The reasons you can choose are the five standards, plus two more:

"I'm worried about her." This is not a complaint and it is not treated as one. It goes straight to Makenna as a crisis flag, in red, and the mother you were worried about gets the same care described in 5.1.
"This ad shouldn't be here." A sponsored card in the wrong place, or one that should never have been sold. See section 6.

What happens next: we tell you we have it, and a person reads it. The mother you reported is never told who reported her. Not by us, and not by anything in the design that would give it away.

Reporting a message works a little differently, and you are told so before you confirm. Reporting a message shares that message and the thread above it with Makenna, because one line lifted out of a conversation cannot be judged fairly. You see that sentence, in those words, before you tap.

5. If you are struggling

5.1 The check-in message

Sometimes a mother writes something that suggests she is in real pain or real danger. When that happens, the filter does not remove it. It holds it for Makenna, and it sends you a message within seconds.

The message comes from Makenna's name. It arrives in the Den, and by email too if you have email switched on, under a plain subject line: "A note from The Motherhood Diary." Nothing on the outside of the envelope says what it is about.

It is not a warning. It is a hand on your shoulder. It says: we saw what you wrote, we are glad you wrote it, a real person is on her way, and here is someone you can talk to right now. It gives you the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — call or text 988 — and the Crisis Text Line — text HOME to 741741. Both are free, any hour, in the United States.

Your post stays where you can see it, exactly as you wrote it, while she reads. Nobody in the community can tell that anything happened. There is no marker, no notice on your post, no sign to anyone else — not then, not later.

5.2 A real person will reply within two hours

When that message goes out, Makenna is told at once, on every channel she has, and this cannot be switched off. She will reply to you personally within two hours, in her own words.

We are mothers, not counsellors, and we will not pretend otherwise. What we can do is stay with you and put the right people within reach.

5.3 Where to turn now

If you are in immediate danger, call your emergency number: 911 in the United States, 999 in the United Kingdom, 112 across the European Union.
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (US): call or text 988.
Crisis Text Line (US): text HOME to 741741.
Where you live: [LOCAL CRISIS RESOURCES LIST — to be completed with the crisis-response plan being built with support services and shelter directors, including UK and EU equivalents, before the Den goes live]

5.4 What we do with what you told us

Nothing, except help. A crisis check-in is between you and Makenna. It is never used to sort you into a list, and it is never shown to any partner. The only place it is ever counted is Makenna's own admin screen, so that she knows what her week holds. It is never a figure anyone outside that screen sees.

One thing does change, and you should know about it, because it is a use of that flag. Advertising switches off for you. For thirty days after a check-in, and for as long as you have an open help request, no sponsored card is shown to you at all. The business that bought the card is never told — its reach for those days simply reads a little lower, and it never learns why. Nothing is sold to a mother the system has just found reason to worry about.

The software cannot build a list of "mothers going through a hard time" for anyone outside the admin portal, because the data to do it does not exist in the part of the system a partner can reach. That is by design.

5.5 Your private messages

The same crisis check runs on messages, and you should hear that from us plainly rather than find it out later.

If a message matches, Makenna sees the flag and that message only. Not the conversation around it. Not the thread. Only the line that matched — unless somebody reports the thread, and then the report brings that message and the thread above it with it, as 4.7 describes. The same check-in reaches the mother who wrote it, exactly as it would after a post.

Our [Privacy Policy] says exactly this, in the same words. If you ever find the two disagreeing, tell us. That would be a mistake, not a policy.

A few other things worth knowing about messages:

You can only message a mother who is your friend, and friendship is mutual. There are no message requests from strangers, because that path was never built.
Groups go up to eight, and everyone in one must be a friend of the mother who made it.
No read receipts. No typing indicators. A mother who cannot reply yet should not owe an explanation for having read something.
No advertising appears in Messages, ever.

6. Sponsored cards, brands and links

6.1 What a sponsored card is, and why it is here

The Den carries advertising. One small, particular kind of it, and it is only fair that you know exactly what it is before you meet one.

A sponsored card is a single card in the feed of one Local Den, bought for a term by a business local to that Den. The bakery. The swim school. The dentist who is good with frightened four-year-olds. The card carries the business's own photograph, its name, up to two sentences, one call to action, and a link that opens outside the Den.

At the top of every one is a label: Sponsored · Local to [Den]. At the top, where you see it before you read a word, and never in smaller type than the words you are reading now.

It is here because local reach pays for a Den that stays free to join. The whole thing is built around one sentence, and every rule below is that sentence made enforceable:

The Den sells local reach. It never sells a vulnerable moment.

Before a card ever appears, Makenna checks that the business is genuinely local — located in, or serving, your Den's ZIP codes — and approves the card herself. The card passes the same filter your posts pass. And there is no door marked "buy ads" anywhere inside the Den. A business applies from the Blog. You will never be shown a way to advertise while you are trying to talk to your neighbours.

6.2 What a sponsored card never does

These are not settings. They are built in, and there is no switch on any of them.

It is targeted by Den, and by nothing else. Not your life stage. Not what you wrote. Not what you reacted to or searched for. No retargeting, no outside data in, no outside data out. This is enforced where the data lives, not in the design of the screen.
No ad-tech script, tag or pixel runs inside the Den. Ever. Nothing in here is watching you on anyone else's behalf.
Delivery is counted as daily totals for a Den. Never per member. There is no record anywhere of which mother saw which card, and we could not produce one if we were asked for it.
Never beside a hard moment. A card never sits directly above or below a help request, an anonymous post, a post about loss or grief, or an event thread. It moves down the feed until it is clear.
Never in the first three positions of your feed. The top of the feed belongs to the community.
At most one card in every ten posts. Makenna can make that sparser. Nothing can make it denser.
Never inside a conversation thread, Messages, notifications, profiles, search, the composer, sign-up, this page, or the crisis check-in. There is no slot on those pages to switch off, because none was ever built.
The same card no more than once a day.
Paused across the whole Den for 48 hours around each dedication day.
Switched off for you entirely for thirty days after a crisis check-in, and for as long as you have an open help request. The advertiser is never told (5.4).

6.3 The three things you can do with any card

Every sponsored card carries all three, always:

"Why am I seeing this?" — and the answer is one line, because there is only one line to give: "Because you're in the [Den] Den. That's the only reason."
Hide this ad.
Report this ad. It reaches Makenna as "This ad shouldn't be here," and she reads it herself.

6.4 What will never be advertised here

Some businesses are turned away before we get as far as asking anything else:

Direct sales and multi-level-marketing recruitment — anything you would have to recruit other mothers to profit from.
Payday and predatory lending.
Alcohol, gambling and firearms.
Political campaigns and issue advocacy.
Anything aimed at a mother's body or her weight.
Anything that is not a real local business with a real address or service area.

6.5 Members and selling

Sponsored cards are the only advertising in the Den, and they are bought, checked and labelled. Your posts are not advertising. No promo codes. No affiliate links. No "message me for details." No post that exists to point at a product.

Talking about a product you love is human and it is fine. "We swear by this bottle" is a mother being helpful. But if a single post names the same brand three or more times, the filter will hold it and a person will look. If it is a mother being enthusiastic, it goes through. If it is an advertisement wearing a mother's voice, it does not.

Outside links are held while we check they are safe and relevant. Links to our own Blog pass straight through.

If someone keeps promoting after being asked to stop, their posts are removed and their account is restricted. They are told once.

6.6 Our own partners

The Motherhood Diary works with a small number of brands. They appear on the Blog, in our newsletter, and as sponsored cards in a Den. Wherever a partner appears, it is disclosed at the top, in plain sight, before you read a word. If we ever mention a partner in something we have written ourselves, we say so in the same breath. You will never have to guess whose voice you are hearing.

7. Your Den, and the one feed inside it

Your Den

Your home Den is a named local area — a county, a township, a stretch of coast, whatever the mothers there would call it. It was set from the ZIP code you gave us when you joined, and your feed is your Den's feed. The mothers in it are the mothers you could actually meet at the park on Saturday.

What "local" never means here:

No map, no distance, no "0.4 miles away," no "near you." A local community that shows distance is a locator, and we are not building one.
Nothing finer than a ZIP code is stored. Not your street, not coordinates, not your phone's location. Not asked for, not collected, and there is nowhere in the system to put it.
The Den's name is the only piece of location anyone but Makenna ever sees — on your profile, and under your posts. That is all of it.
Photographs are stripped of location and device data before they are stored. Only the stripped copy ever exists.
When you move house, you change your Den in settings. Your friends come with you. Your old Den's feed does not.

One feed inside every Den

There are no sub-groups. No newborn corner, no twins group, no rooms by age or by anything else. One feed, and every mother in the Den in it.

Groups become cliques. Not through anyone's bad intent, just through gravity. Someone is in and someone is out, and the mother who most needs to be heard is usually the one who does not know which door to knock on. In one feed, the mother in her first week and the mother whose children are grown are in the same room. The empty-nester answers the question the newborn mother did not know how to ask. That is the point of the Den, and it does not survive being sorted into rooms.

A Local Den is not one of those groups, and the difference is the whole design. Sub-groups sort mothers by who they already resemble, which is how cliques form. Dens sort mothers by where they live, which is how neighbours form. It is the most deliberate choice in the whole place.

One feed also means one person can keep it safe. There is no forgotten corner where the standards stop applying.

The one way something crosses a Den line

A mother you chose. Follow a mother in another Den and her posts appear in your Following tab, never in your home feed. That is the only crossing there is, and it only happens along a connection you made yourself. Your Den and Following are the whole of the navigation. No Explore, no Trending, no Suggested.

The feed is in time order

Newest first. No ranking, no "top posts," no algorithm deciding what you see. The reason is written down so that it survives the first person who suggests otherwise: an engagement-ranked feed rewards the post that gets the most reaction, and in a room where mothers write about grief, the most reaction goes to the most pain. Time order is the only ordering that does not put a thumb on that scale.

The feed ends. When you reach the last post since you were here, it says so — "That's everything since you were last here" — and stops. There is no scrolling on into last month.

Comments go one level deep, oldest first. A conversation, not a contest.

No numbers to be behind on

No follower counts, no friend counts, no post counts on any profile. No badges, no streaks, no leaderboards, no "most active this week." A number on display becomes a number somebody feels behind on, and this is not a place to feel behind.

8. Meeting in person

Some Dens will want a Saturday at the park. There is a meet-up post for exactly that, and it comes with rules we do not bend.

Public places only. The venue field asks for "a park, a café, a library," and the form says why.
The venue is words, never a map. No pin, no address lookup, no directions.
Every meet-up carries one quiet line: The Den introduces; it cannot vouch. We check that a member is a mother and an adult. We do not know her. Meet the way you would meet anyone from the internet — somewhere public, in daylight, and tell someone where you are going.
RSVPs are visible only to the mothers who have RSVP'd. Nobody outside the meet-up can see who is coming.
Makenna can cancel any meet-up, and will, if anything about it worries her.

9. Your words and your privacy

A few things worth knowing, because they shape how safe it is to be honest here. The full account is in our [Privacy Policy].

Your words are yours. You keep the copyright in everything you write here. Nothing written in the Den appears anywhere else without us asking you first.
"May I share this?" If Makenna would like to use something you wrote, she asks. The request names every place it would go — the newsletter, the Blog, social, the magazine — and you choose, for each one separately, whether it appears with your name on it or anonymously. You can say no to all of it, or yes to one and no to the rest. Nothing leaves the Den without that record on file.
Where you live: your ZIP code, and nothing finer. It is there to put you in the right Den. No street, no coordinates, no location from your phone.
Nothing about your children. The form never asks. Not names, not ages, not birthdays, not due dates, not how many. A local list of children's names and ages, each one tied to a mother's name and her area, is the single worst thing this place could hold, so it does not hold it. What you write about your own children, in your own words, is entirely yours.
Your name is the name you choose. Makenna does the checking at the door; the name on your profile is yours, and it does not have to be your legal one.
Life stage is optional, and advertising cannot read it. Not hidden from it — unreadable by it, where the data lives.
We do not keep your IP address. Your sessions carry a device label only, so you can see where you are signed in and sign out everywhere in one tap.
Nothing here is public. No page renders to anyone who is not signed in. Every page is set to noindex. A link to a Den post, pasted anywhere else, shows nothing at all — no title, no preview, no photograph.
Anonymous posting. Any post or comment can be posted anonymously, and it shows as "A mama in [Den]." It is anonymous to the community and not to Makenna, and the composer says so in exactly those words, every time, before you post. Help requests can be anonymous too. Poll votes are anonymous to everyone, including the mother who asked the question.
Safety is never a list, and never something we sell from. Anything held about you for your safety is for Makenna's eyes only, and is kept out of everything a partner or an advertiser can reach.
You can take your words with you whenever you like. Download everything you have written — posts, comments, messages, photographs — yourself, without asking anyone.
If you leave. Ask us to delete your account and it disappears from view at once, along with everything you posted. The records purge within thirty days. The only thing that outlives that is the audit log the Den keeps so that decisions can be answered for, and after twelve months it goes too. In it, your name is already replaced by "former member."

Wherever you are, you have the right to see what we hold about you, to correct it, to have it erased and to take it with you. UK and EU readers have these rights under the GDPR and UK GDPR. California readers have them under the CCPA. Write to [CONTACT EMAIL] and a real person will answer.

Keeping yourself safe

These are not settings buried three screens down. They are how the Den is built.

Block is total, and it goes both ways. She cannot see your posts, your comments, your profile or your name in the directory, and you cannot see hers. She is never told. What she experiences is absence, not a notice.
Your friend list is private. Only you can see it. In a room this local, a list of who a woman is close to is a map, and the person who most wants that map is the one she most needs not to have it.
A mother you follow can see that you follow her. Nobody is watched here without knowing.
No contact upload, ever. No "people you may know." Those were not built, so they cannot be switched on.
New accounts can send ten follow or friend requests a day for their first fourteen days.
Quiet Mode keeps you out of your Den's directory and out of name search. You are reachable only through the connections you already have and the posts you choose to make. It is offered at signup, in plain words, and you can change it any time.
If you lose access to your email, recovery beyond "resend the link" goes through Makenna personally. A lost email can be a safety event, and a system should not resolve one of those on its own.

10. Changes to these standards

If we change these standards, we will say so in the Den before the change takes effect, and we will keep the old version where you can read it. We will not change the five standards themselves or the Prime Directive without telling you plainly why.

Last changed: [EFFECTIVE DATE] · Previous versions: [LINK TO VERSION HISTORY]

For the attorney

This draft is written to be published, in this voice, once the points below have been confirmed or corrected. Each one is a place where we have either used a placeholder, made a promise that needs to be legally safe, or found a gap between what the playbook says and what the law may require.

Entity, jurisdiction, incorporation

Entity details. Confirm the legal name of Motherhood Diary Media Company, [STATE OF INCORPORATION], [COMPANY ADDRESS] and [CONTACT EMAIL]. Confirm whether Den of Mamas should be named as a trading name or product of the company.
Governing law. [GOVERNING LAW] and venue are not stated on this page. Confirm whether they belong here or only in the Terms of Service.
Incorporation by reference. Confirm that these standards are incorporated into the Terms of Service so that the ladder in 4.4, the immediate removals in 4.5 and the account closure they lead to are contractually enforceable, and that the Terms and this page do not contradict each other.
Effective date and version control. Confirm how changes must be notified (section 10), whether continued use constitutes acceptance, and what notice period is required for UK/EU members under consumer-contract rules. Note that the promise to keep and publish previous versions is an operational commitment with no other source; confirm we should make it at all.

Membership and eligibility

Mothers-only, adults-only membership. Confirm that restricting membership by sex and parental status is lawful in the relevant US states (public accommodation and civil-rights statutes as applied to online services) and in the UK (Equality Act 2010 single-sex service and association exemptions) and EU member states where readers may join. Confirm the wording in section 1.
Verification. Both paths are now built, and a setting chooses between them: self-attestation by checkbox, which approves automatically, and personal review, which routes the application to a waiting queue. The build defaults to personal review. Confirm that whichever is switched on is proportionate under GDPR data-minimisation, that the free-text "tell us a little about you" collected at signup does not become a special-category record, and that the description of the method belongs in the Terms of Service rather than on this page. Acceptance of the five standards is timestamped at signup (section 1) — confirm that is the record we should rely on.
Minors. The platform is adults-only and COPPA is assessed as not applying. Confirm the age of majority to apply for UK and EU members (18) and the procedure if a minor is discovered to have joined, including deletion of any data collected.

Moderation, retention and rights

Retention, reconciled (4.2, 4.5, section 9). Four clocks now run: the moderation record of a hold or removal is retained indefinitely; audit-log entries are retained twelve months; a post a member deletes herself leaves view immediately and is purged after thirty days; a deleted account purges within thirty days. Confirm each is compatible with GDPR/UK GDPR storage limitation and the Art. 17 right to erasure, and with CCPA deletion rights and their exceptions. Confirm the lawful basis for the indefinitely retained moderation record (legitimate interest) and whether a defined maximum should be stated on this page instead. Confirm this page, the Privacy Policy and the Terms state the same four periods.
Erasure and the thirty-day purge (section 9). On deletion, the account and everything posted disappear from view immediately, records purge within thirty days, and only audit-log entries persist for twelve months with the display name replaced by "former member." Confirm this satisfies erasure under GDPR/UK GDPR and CCPA; confirm the residual audit entry is adequately justified and adequately described here; and confirm that "former member" meets the standard for pseudonymisation or anonymisation as applicable. Note that replies from other mothers lose their context when a member's posts go — confirm we are content with that trade, and that no notice to other members is required.
Section 230 and moderation language. Confirm that describing the ladder and the Prime Directive does not create a contractual duty to moderate, or an implied warranty of a safe environment, that would undermine Good Samaritan protection under 47 U.S.C. § 230, and that "always removed" in the Prime Directive is acceptable when quoted on a public page.
Mandatory reporting for the immediate-removal list (4.5). Confirm what is legally required rather than discretionary: in particular, obligations under 18 U.S.C. § 2258A (reporting apparent child sexual abuse material to NCMEC) and any preservation obligations that follow, and the equivalent duties in the UK and EU. Confirm the wording "where the authorities, or any service that needs to know, should be told, we tell them."
Appeals and statements of reasons (4.6, 4.7). Confirm whether the EU Digital Services Act applies to TMD as a hosting service with EU recipients, and if so whether micro/small-enterprise exemptions apply. If in scope, Art. 17 (statement of reasons) and Art. 20 (internal complaint handling) may require more formal wording than sections 4.6 and 4.7 carry. Confirm equivalent duties under the UK Online Safety Act 2023 for a user-to-user service (illegal content risk assessment, terms-of-service and complaints duties) and whether TMD is in scope. See also item 42 on the crisis hold.
Blocking a removed member from returning (4.4 step 4). A permanent removal closes the account, retains the record, and blocks that email address from being used to apply again. No IP address is stored on a member, so no IP-level block is possible or promised. Confirm that retaining a blocklist of removed members' email addresses is lawful under GDPR/UK GDPR (lawful basis, retention period, the data subject's rights against it) and CCPA, and that the promise in 4.4 is one we can keep. Reconcile Playbook E4's "IP-level block where possible" so the playbook, this page and the Privacy Policy agree.
Naming the sole moderator. This page names Makenna personally as the only person reading held content, flagged messages and crisis flags. Confirm whether this is advisable from a personal-safety and business-continuity standpoint, or whether "our moderator" should be used publicly with the personal welcome kept in the message itself.
Political content review (4.3). A private service in the US may moderate viewpoint; confirm the wording does not create exposure under any state law on viewpoint moderation that may apply, and that it is acceptable for UK/EU members. Note that political campaigns and issue advocacy are also refused as advertisers (6.4).

Crisis response

The two-hour reply promise (5.2). The playbook requires distress flags to reach the founder immediately and cannot be switched off; the two-hour human reply is stated in the brief for this page. Confirm (a) that this promise is operationally achievable at all hours by a sole moderator, including illness and travel, (b) whether a stated response time creates a duty of care or liability if missed, and (c) whether the promise should be softened, backed by a named deputy, or paired with an explicit disclaimer. This draft keeps the promise because it is the heart of what the Den offers.
"We are mothers, not counsellors" (5.2). Confirm that this, together with 5.3, is sufficient disclaimer that TMD is not a crisis, medical or mental-health service, and whether additional language is required in the Terms of Service.
Automated crisis detection as processing of special-category data. The filter infers a possible mental-health crisis from a member's words — including words written privately to a friend — and stores a flag. Confirm the lawful basis under GDPR Art. 9 and UK GDPR (vital interests, substantial public interest, or explicit consent), whether a Data Protection Impact Assessment is required, whether this is "profiling" requiring specific notice, and the CCPA treatment as sensitive personal information. Confirm the Privacy Policy describes it, and that this page's description in 5.1, 5.4 and 5.5 is accurate and sufficient.
Crisis lines and local resources (5.1, 5.3). 988 and 741741 are US services. Confirm permission and correct attribution for naming the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline and Crisis Text Line, and complete [LOCAL CRISIS RESOURCES LIST] with verified UK and EU equivalents from the crisis-response plan being built with support services and shelter directors. The Den cannot go live until this list exists. Confirm the emergency numbers stated (911, 999, 112) are accurate for the readership.

Advertising in the Den

Local Den ads (section 6). The Den now carries advertising: one sponsored card in the feed of one Local Den, sold for a term to a business local to that Den, targeted by Den and nothing else. This reverses the earlier "no inventory in the Den" position and supersedes it. Confirm that every promise in 6.1 and 6.2 is one the company is prepared to be held to as a public representation, that the Terms of Service reserve the right to change the model on notice, and that this page, the Privacy Policy and the advertiser agreement describe the same product in the same terms.
Partner disclosure (6.6). Confirm the disclosure standard meets the FTC Endorsement Guides (16 CFR Part 255) and, for UK readers, the CAP Code and CMA guidance on incentivised endorsements, and that "disclosed at the top" is sufficient placement.
Member promotion rules (6.5). Confirm that removing commercial posts by members and restricting accounts for repeated promotion is consistent with the Terms of Service and with any consumer-protection rules on account restriction in the UK/EU.
The label and the transparency line (6.1, 6.3). Confirm that "Sponsored · Local to [Den]," placed at the top of the card and never smaller than body text, is adequate advertising identification under the FTC Endorsement Guides and .com Disclosures, and under the CAP Code for any UK reader. Confirm that "Why am I seeing this? — Because you're in the [Den] Den. That's the only reason." is an adequate transparency statement, and whether DSA Art. 26 applies and requires more.
Advertiser selection (6.1, 6.4). Confirm that qualifying advertisers on the basis that they are local to the Den, and refusing the listed categories — direct sales and MLM recruitment, payday and predatory lending, alcohol, gambling, firearms, political campaigns and issue advocacy, body and weight products, and anything that is not a real local business — is lawful advertiser selection in the relevant US states and in the UK/EU. Confirm in particular that refusing political and issue advertising creates no exposure, and that the refusals appear in the advertiser agreement as well as here.
"There is no record of which mother saw which ad" (6.2). Delivery is counted only as daily totals per campaign per Den; no per-member impression record exists. Confirm this is a promise the company is prepared to be held to, that it is stated identically in the Privacy Policy and the advertiser agreement, and that no ordinary business need — a billing dispute, fraud, or a subpoena — would require us to break it.
Suppressing ads after a crisis flag or an open help request (5.4, 6.2). Advertising is switched off for a member for thirty days after a crisis check-in and while she has an open help request. Although protective, this is a use of an inferred health-related datum to determine what she is shown. Confirm the analysis under GDPR Art. 9 / UK GDPR and CCPA sensitive personal information, whether it needs a lawful basis distinct from the crisis response itself, and whether 5.4 gives sufficient notice.

Messages, meet-ups and reports

Scanning private messages (4.1, 5.5). The rules engine reads private messages between mutual friends for crisis indicators. Makenna sees the flag and the matched message only, never the surrounding thread, unless the thread is reported. Confirm: the consent the Terms of Service must obtain and how it is presented at signup; the position under the US Electronic Communications Privacy Act and Stored Communications Act (provider and consent exceptions, and any state all-party consent statutes); the lawful basis and Art. 9 condition under GDPR/UK GDPR; and any duty this creates or discharges under the UK Online Safety Act and the DSA. Confirm that this page, the Privacy Policy and the Terms describe it in identical terms, and that "the matched message only" is a limit we can hold to technically as well as in policy.
Reporting a message (4.7). Reporting shares that message and the thread above it with Makenna, and the reporter is told so before she confirms. Confirm the notice is adequate for the other participants in the thread, who have not consented at that moment, and whether they should be told afterwards.
"I'm worried about her" (4.7). A member can report another member out of concern, which routes as a crisis flag. Confirm the treatment of a third-party report about a named individual's mental health as special-category data she did not disclose herself, the lawful basis for acting on it, and whether the subject should ever be told a report was made. Confirm that reporter anonymity — "the mother you reported is never told who reported her" — is a promise we can keep against a legal request.
Meet-ups (section 8). Confirm whether TMD is an organiser, a facilitator or neither when a member posts a meet-up; whether "The Den introduces; it cannot vouch." is an effective disclaimer in the relevant US states and in the UK/EU; whether the public-place rule, the RSVP visibility limit and the admin cancellation power help or hurt that position by suggesting control; whether a waiver, an assumption-of-risk clause or insurance is needed; and whether meet-ups should ship at launch at all. Confirm the corresponding wording in the Terms of Service.

Children, privacy and copyright

Standard 2.4 and other people's children. Confirm the wording on sharing identifiable information about a child who is not the member's own, its interaction with privacy and publicity rights in the relevant US states, UK GDPR Art. 8 and the ICO Children's Code (even though the service is adults-only, the data subjects may be children), and whether a consent standard should be stated more precisely.
Screenshots and "what is said here stays here" (2.4). Confirm this is presented as a community standard rather than an enforceable confidentiality obligation, and that no member could reasonably read it, or the quoted onboarding line, as a guarantee of confidentiality by TMD.
Copyright in member posts (section 9). Members retain copyright. Confirm the Terms of Service grant TMD the licence needed to display posts inside the Den, to retain the original of an edited post, and to retain the record of a held or removed post — and nothing wider. Confirm that re-use anywhere outside the Den requires the separate permission captured by "May I share this?", that the per-destination, named-or-anonymous choice described in section 9 matches the permission record the system stores, and that the licence ends on deletion consistently with item 9.
Data-minimisation statements (section 9). Confirm each factual statement about what is and is not collected matches the built system and the Privacy Policy before publication: ZIP code stored and nothing finer; no fields of any kind about children; no IP address on a member record, with sessions carrying a device label only; display name of the member's choice; life stage optional and unreadable by the advertising system. Confirm the summary of GDPR, UK GDPR and CCPA rights is accurate and complete enough for a page that points to the Privacy Policy for detail.
Quasi-identifiers (sections 7 and 9). A display name, a home Den, a life stage and a ZIP code together may identify a member in a small Den even without her legal name. Confirm this is defensible under data-minimisation, that showing the Den name only is the right mitigation, and whether a minimum Den size should be set before a Den opens.
Anonymous posting (section 9). An anonymous post is anonymous to the community and not to Makenna, and the composer says so. Confirm this disclosure is sufficient, that it matches the Privacy Policy exactly, and that anonymous posts are handled correctly on erasure and in a data-subject access request made by anyone else.
Edit history (4.2). The original of every edited post and comment is retained for moderation. Confirm the lawful basis, the retention period, whether it is disclosed sufficiently here and in the Privacy Policy, and whether it must be included in a member's self-service download.
The crisis hold that looks live (5.1). A post held under the crisis rule stays visible to its author exactly as she wrote it, and she is not told it is held. This is deliberate — a hold notice in that moment is one more thing to carry — but it is a moderation action taken without notice to the member. Confirm against DSA Art. 17 statement-of-reasons duties (extending item 12), the UK Online Safety Act, and any US state duty, and confirm the description in 5.1 is the one we should publish. The founder should confirm the exact wording of what she sees.
Processors (this page points to the Privacy Policy). The Den runs on Supabase (database, and private file storage served through signed, expiring links), Vercel (hosting), Resend (transactional email, including the crisis check-in) and Stripe (advertiser card authorisation). Confirm each is named as a processor in the Privacy Policy with the required Art. 28 terms and international-transfer mechanism, and that this page needs no list of its own. [CONFIRM: the payment processor for advertiser fees is not finally decided; Stripe is the build assumption.]

Operational promises that need confirming before publication

The 48-hour review window in 4.3.
The crisis notification path (5.1, 5.2). The check-in reaches the member within seconds, and Makenna is notified on every channel she has, uninterruptibly. The playbook's fifteen-minute standard is the ceiling for an ordinary flag, not the target for this one. Confirm the "every channel, cannot be switched off" statement is one a sole moderator can honour, and that "within seconds" is safe to publish.
The quarterly false-positive review in 4.6.
The personal welcome on every first post in 4.3.
The 48-hour pause (4.4 step 3). The playbook specifies a 48-hour comment restriction. Confirm with the founder whether posting is paused as well as commenting before this page promises either, and remove the bracketed note once it is decided.
The label failure rule (6.1). If the "Sponsored · Local to [Den]" label fails to render, the card is pulled. Confirm this appears in the advertiser agreement as well as in the product.

End of draft.