The IC Code of Practice
Updated: May 19, 2026
The Interlude Café exists to make life after the old script stops working easier to see, discuss, and think about.
That requires a particular kind of space.
One where people can disagree without performing outrage.
One where contributors can bring different perspectives without turning complexity into noise.
One where readers, writers, practitioners, partners, and organisations can examine difficult questions with care, accuracy, and respect.
This Code of Practice sets the standard for how we expect people to engage with The Interlude Café and with one another.
It applies to comments, submissions, community spaces, events, partnerships, contributor relationships, and any future IC initiatives.
Our Principles
Respect without performance
We welcome thoughtful disagreement.
We do not welcome harassment, personal attacks, trolling, intimidation, bad-faith arguments, or behaviour designed to shut others down.
Our aim is not to force agreement, but to make better thinking possible.
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Careful language over stereotypes
The Interlude Café is careful with language.
We do not reduce people to age brackets, life stages, demographic clichés, or easy assumptions about what someone should want, need, or be capable of.
We reject language that treats people as too old to matter, too set in their ways to change, or too close to the end to be worth taking seriously.
The stereotype has never been accurate. It has never been less useful than it is now.
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Evidence over noise
We value curiosity, expertise, lived experience, and careful argument.
We do not publish or encourage misleading claims, unsupported advice, disguised promotion, plagiarism, or content that presents speculation as fact.
Where topics involve health, money, law, employment, policy, science, or other specialist areas, we expect care, evidence, and proper context.
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Complexity without cynicism
The Interlude Café exists because the old explanations and labels are no longer enough.
That does not mean every inherited idea is useless, every institution is wrong, or every story should be dismissed.
We are interested in what is changing, what still matters, what no longer fits, and what better questions might make visible.
We take the work seriously without making it gloomy.
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Reader-first integrity
The public site is reader-first.
Everything else must earn its place by strengthening that trust: contributors, partnerships, tools, learning spaces, events, and commercial initiatives.
Any collaboration should help readers see the wider pattern more clearly. It should not dilute the work, mislead the audience, or turn The Interlude Café into a promotional platform.
How We Expect People to Engage
We ask readers, contributors, members, partners, and participants to:
- Engage with respect, even when disagreeing.
- Make claims carefully, especially on sensitive or specialist topics.
- Avoid stereotypes, lazy generalisations, and language that flattens experience.
- Distinguish clearly between fact, interpretation, opinion, and personal experience.
- Disclose relevant interests, affiliations, or conflicts where appropriate.
- Avoid self-promotion unless it has been agreed in advance.
- Protect the privacy and dignity of others.
- Help keep conversations useful, thoughtful, and grounded.
Content and Contributions
All submissions and contributions should fit The Interlude Café’s editorial purpose: helping people understand what is changing after the old script stops working.
For more details on how we commission, review, edit, fact-check, and update work, see our Editorial Process.
We are not looking for generic inspiration, motivational reinvention stories, or content that treats age as the most interesting part of the story.
We are looking for work that helps readers see something more clearly.
Contributions may be edited, declined, removed, or updated where they do not meet our editorial, ethical, or accuracy standards.
Community and Events
As The Interlude Café develops, it may include community spaces, discussions, events, learning groups, fellowships, briefings, or partner initiatives.
The same standards will apply there.
We want spaces where people can ask sharper questions, share useful insights, and think carefully together.
We do not want spaces built around noise, performance, harassment, promotional behaviour, or simplistic answers to complicated lives.
Moderation and Enforcement
The Interlude Café reserves the right to moderate, edit, remove, decline, or refuse content, comments, submissions, partnerships, or participation that breaches this Code of Practice.
This may include behaviour that is abusive, discriminatory, misleading, exploitative, promotional, plagiarised, or otherwise inconsistent with the purpose of The Interlude Café.
Where possible, we will act with fairness and proportion.
But protecting the integrity of the space comes first.
Corrections and Concerns
If you see something on The Interlude Café that appears inaccurate, misleading, harmful, or inconsistent with this Code of Practice, please contact us.
We will review concerns carefully and make corrections or updates where appropriate.
If your concern relates to accuracy, sourcing, corrections, or editorial standards, you may also want to read our Editorial Process.
This Code exists to protect the quality of the work and the trust of the people who take part in it.
