General-purpose boundaries: sexual discussions.

[Jiggy]

No matter what, we're not allowing full-on graphic detail. But how much leeway should we have with everything else? Let everybody act as if their hormones rage nineteen hours per day, or stomp it all out and make people keep it to themselves? Let them be, but only in specific threads or a subforum?


I'm pretty easily offended by what most guys act like and say openly, so if I wanted to force my own decision, I'd make one of the most prudish gaming forums ever seen. :P You'd be able to say what's cute or hot and that's about it--you're out if you start objectifying body parts or talking about which characters you'd like in the bedroom. I'd maybe--maybe--allow single, independent, this-is-it-and-nothing-else threads for discussing hot video game girls/guys, and all risque material would go in there.

Anyway, I'm slightly extreme--but even so, most gaming forums really do allow lots of this stuff. If you want to sell me on the same kinds of rules you can get anywhere else, you have an uphill battle ahead, but not impossible! Nothing contradictory about wanting to be like other forums in one way (sexual discussion) and different in others (e.g. no flaming).

[Iam Canadian]

I picked the second and third options because I'm kind of in the middle between those two options. I don't want us to be so restrictive that people feel too censored, but I also don't want full-on graphic detail either. Maybe have a thread for that stuff and allow it to a minimal degree in other threads if it comes up.

[Rotanibor]

I think we should be able to post pictures of ******* straight up on the forum.

edit: due to the horrible language filter, you can now only guess what sort of awful things I was talking about.

[Jiggy]

I probably need to clarify that option about anything going if it's not illegal; I mainly added it just out of fairness, assuming nobody would vote for it anyway, but basically Google would pretty much exclude us from search results if we allowed everything straight-up.

The worst we could allow, I believe--though I'll have to look through how their search results work again--would be links to other sites' horribly pornographic whatever, without direct posting.

[Rotanibor]

You should just assign me to be the moral police. After all my joking around, I still do have a healthy and balanced view of what should and shouldn't be allowed on a forum

I hearby declare no word censorships unless the forum somehow ends up with a large population of pre-teens. Besides, most bad words are pretty contextual. Teabag wasn't even filtered until you looked it up and censored me!

So yeah, if someone uses the word **** to just show anger or dispare, its completely different to saying they want to **** her up the ass (*****).

In short, I think censorship of words is wrong, and should instead be judged on a contextual basis. What is bad or wrong to say I would say is another matter entirely, but I think we should kick the word censorship in the butt before moving on.

[Jiggy]

Maybe I should merge this and the language thread. They are closely-linked subjects and considering that I only separated them because this thread is concerned with pictures too, maybe the question of pictures is what should be its own thread. Not sure yet--but thanks for helping me think even further about what needs to be done around here, by the way. (Regardless or whether you mean to trigger my pondering or not on a case-by-case basis. :P)


Anyway, I'm not necessarily trying to aim for what's healthy and balanced; I just want to find whatever will draw people in. (Which does, of course, mean that if word censors offend you and others then it may be a reason to get rid of them.) I'm going to make a new thread to explain what I mean in a few minutes here...

[Rotanibor]

Well if you want to appeal to the broadest area of people, I'd say have the forum rules lean more towards liberal rather than conservate. Just basing that on the very nature of the internet and the typical nature of the videogame market.

As far as pictures though, I'd simple say no nudity/pornography or pictures depicting extreme violence in real life.

I mean it can get questionable if someone starts posting pictures from a Victoria's Secret ad, at that point I'd say its up to you how far you want to go. The extreme violence thing I'd make a note that videogame and cartoon violence clearly wouldn't be a problem.

I honestly can't think what else picture wise you'd want to block, if you give some examples maybe I could lend my imput on how you should handle them.

[Jiggy]

The typical nature of the video game market might be exactly my problem. I've held back on my thoughts somewhat, but:



Hive's comment in the banner thread, whether it was a joke or not, reminded me that I think it would be really cool if in the future we could eventually be one of the most female-friendly gaming forums anywhere. (Not intentionally advertising it that way or anything, but just by natural design.)

And yes, I know that "one of the most female-friendly gaming forums" isn't a very high goal considering what most gaming forums are like. Still, when I see hundreds of guys acting and talking like they're under permanent pressure to prove that Freud was right, I find it pretty disgusting and in poor taste. They've figured out independent sexual references to describe jerks, braggarts, dedicated fans, people who love what games they're playing, frequent posters, companies who overcharge, fans who buy games even after companies overcharge, and more, and throughout all of it I can't help but wonder when people decided that everything in the world should be compared to male body parts at every opportunity. A person can't so much as earn an achievement in a 360 game without someone making the reference. I hate it.

Granted, it could be that I'm simply one of the world's most over-sensitive souls--but whatever I might be, I don't think I'm alone. There should be others like me; even if nobody else, Canadian and Prax aren't quite so extreme but they do feel it to a lesser extent. One way or another, there should be some untapped audience of people who don't like typical gaming forums.

Those are my thoughts.

[Hive]

haha this topic is funny ^^

Any comments meant to objectify women are a big no-no.
Other than that, it's all fun and games~

[Rotanibor]

The typical nature of the video game market might be exactly my problem. I've held back on my thoughts somewhat, but:
What I mean by that in the context that I used, I was getting at is that the gaming market mostly consists of young people, which are generally more liberal and free when it comes to rules. I do get what you're getting at yourself here though.



Hive's comment in the banner thread, whether it was a joke or not, reminded me that I think it would be really cool if in the future we could eventually be one of the most female-friendly gaming forums anywhere. (Not intentionally advertising it that way or anything, but just by natural design.)


Sounds like a good goal.



haha this topic is funny ^^

Any comments meant to objectify women are a big no-no.
Other than that, it's all fun and games~

That is a fair idea, but I would try to avoid objectifying men as well. Stereotyping them here like Jiggy has done is somewhat along the same lines of how men will only think one way about women.

It is not fair to either sex.

[Jiggy]

I edited a couple things out of both my post and Rotanibor's because I don't really want to go in the direction of gender discourse, but I do want to be clear that I'm not trying to stereotype males or at least not in this thread--just males on gaming forums. :D

[doomed1]

edit 2:

oops, looks like i posted in the wrong thread: anyway, as for sexual discussion, as long as it's mature, whatever. i remember an anal sex thread in the OT of GAF that went on for pages when it finally died. there was alot of kind of kinky stuff posted in there, but it was all very mature, with men and women alike posting. keep it mature, and there will remain a positive and productive atmosphere. to prevent anything would just be plain stifling.

[Jiggy]

Hmm, maybe I need to be more clear. Your example is about a dedicated thread that would be (...presumably) labeled with fair warning.

Stuff with advance notice is an important concern and something I'm keeping in mind (though I'd still much rather have a dedicated subforum for it; I'm way too squeamish for it myself D: ). But mainly I'm trying to get at the question of how far anyone should be allowed to go when they don't give warning. Basically the most general purpose rules.

Renaming this thread for clarity...

[Hive]

I would consider creating an pseudo-'Anything Goes' subforum in the General Discussion forum, otherwise you could be alienating a lot of potential members by micro-managing what they want to discuss/read.

Oh, Jiggymon, please answer your PMs. Thanks ^^

[Prax]

Hey people! :D

Well, my thoughts on the issue is that overly explicit images not be posted (porn, implied sexual abuse, gore), and that "risque" images.. such as girls/guys in lingerie should have NSFW warnings to them and only be linked.

As for the pure text/discussion part: I'm not very impressed with many forum's relating everything to sex, especially when using language related to rape to describe things. I don't care for discussions devolving into would do/won't do banter about people/characters, and that stuff gets pretty annoying so I hope to not see much of that. Also not impressed with overuse of cussing, so I'm okay with censoring the big main words. I'm not very sympathetic about "needing" to use such language to get a point across! (although I'm partial to saying "screw you" to things.. but I'm really thinking of screws.. is this censored? XD)

If anyone really wanted a "Sex advice thread" of some sort, I suppose that can go into its own sub-forum for those types of things. I just don't know who would want to moderate that type of almost-anything-goes subforum!

[Rotanibor]

I just don't know who would want to moderate that type of almost-anything-goes subforum!

Yo.

[Hive]

I just don't know who would want to moderate that type of almost-anything-goes subforum!

haha

why not? we're adults(!)

[Prax]

I just figured if it were me, there woudl be a LOT of mindnumbing things I'd have to eventually read through and I'd end up hating everybody in the world. xD

But if you guys are so inclined to read through it.. and maybe as long as it doesn't devolve into gameFaqs-eque "discussion" (a reason why I left to go to GAF and never looked back!), it should be good!