Accounts, Settings, and Privacy

Accounts, settings, and privacy

You can read most visible stories without an account. An account lets you save stories and chapters, comment, like, follow authors, receive notifications, keep signed-in game progress, and publish your own work.

Create an account

Choose Sign Up and enter:

• a unique username containing 3 to 50 letters, numbers, hyphens, or underscores;
• an email address that you can access;
• a password with at least 8 characters.

Complete the verification check, then choose Sign up.

After signing up, choose Send confirmation link if you have not already sent one. Open the message from CHYOA and follow its activation link. Email confirmation is required before all account features become available.

If the message does not arrive, check the address shown on the confirmation page and your spam or junk folder. You can resend the link or update the email address from that page.

Log in safely

Log in with your username and password. Remember me keeps the login available for longer, so use it only on a device you trust.

On a shared or public device, do not select Remember me, and choose Log Out from the profile menu before leaving the device.

Reset a forgotten password

Choose Forgot password? on the login page, enter the email address on the account, complete the verification check, and choose Send reset link. Follow the link in the email, enter the new password twice, and save it.

If you no longer have access to the account's email address, use the Contact page for the available account-help options. Never send anyone your password.

General settings

Open the profile menu and choose General Settings. The page is divided into cards that you can edit separately:

• Username changes your public name. Usernames can be changed once every 30 days.
• Password requires your current password and a new password of at least 8 characters.
• Email address requires your current password. A changed address may need confirmation.
• Reading and editor preferences controls your time zone, rich text editor, and online-status setting.
• Story controls contains account-wide preferences for stories and chapters you publish:
  • Opt out of story adoption for all my stories marks every story you own as opted out. Turning it off later keeps existing story-level opt-outs until you edit those stories.
  • Disable AI ads for all my stories prevents AI-related ads from appearing on stories you own.
  • Disable AI ads for all my chapters prevents AI-related ads from appearing on chapters you wrote or contributed.

Changing your username also changes the name shown with your existing CHYOA stories, chapters, comments, and messages.

Edit your public profile

Open your own profile from the profile menu. On the About tab, use the edit control beside a field to change details such as your gender, birthday, location, homepage, and the short sections about you and your writing. Your avatar has its own upload control.

Save each field after changing it. Profile information is visible to other people who can view your profile, so leave out anything you do not want to share publicly.

Appearance

Open Site theme in the header to choose White, Black, or Sepia. This choice is available while signed out as well as while signed in.

A story's Element Theme can change the appearance of tables and interactive story elements inside the chapter, but it does not replace your overall site theme.

Online-status privacy

The Show online status preference controls whether other members can see that you are online. Turning it off hides activity details such as your current or recent online status.

This setting does not make your profile, published work, followers, or following list private. Avoid putting personal information in your profile, stories, comments, or messages unless you are comfortable sharing it with the people who can view that area.

Messages and ignoring a user

Choose Messages from the profile menu to read private conversations. Select New to start one, choose the recipient, write the message, and send it. Use the same page to return to an existing conversation.

To ignore someone, open that person's profile, open the additional actions menu, and choose Ignore this user. Ignoring unfollows the person, prevents new conversations they start from appearing for you, and suppresses notifications they trigger. It does not hide their public profile or published work, and it is separate from your online-status privacy. Choose Unignore this user from the same menu to reverse it.

Notification settings

Choose Notification Settings from the profile menu to select the story, chapter, and community events you want to receive. These include activity on your work, updates to favorites or bookmarks, discussion replies, likes, followers, awards, and publications by authors you follow.

Delete an account

Account deletion is permanent. In General Settings, open Account deletion, choose Delete account, and confirm with your username and password.

Your profile and account data cannot be recovered after deletion. Stories and chapters you published remain on CHYOA, but they are no longer attached to your deleted account. If you merely want to stop email or site updates, change Notification Settings instead of deleting the account.