[Q] Question about Past Event Reporting, other questions

[Sedgistan]

I have to imagine that the cost of not taking the more careful approach of just spot deleting offending posts (as long as the player has a history of good faith with the community-at-large) has to be large. Is that the case? If so, could we get some insight on this?

I don't think I can give more guidance than when a "significant proportion" of a player's content violates the rules, we are likely to remove it all. There's not a percentage threshold.

Or was Kraven’s case less about risk to the site and more about an assumption on the player’s nature?

A large part of their content could be summarised as "Nazi fetishism" and "torture porn" (neither meant in the sexual way), and we have little tolerance for either. Kraven got the benefit of the doubt on their intent, as those who are roleplaying will generally do (i.e. that they were not an actual Nazi supporter intending to glorify its atrocities, despite the way it came across). That's a large part of why their nation was restored.

How can players do that if there is such an enormous amount of posts spanning back years (e.g. anywhere above 1000) that they can't possibly check and amend all of them? At best you can only expect slow, patchwork fixes, and if they miss some or a lot of posts that are later judged to still be substantial violations by the mods, are they going to be DEATed like Kraven?

Putting all of the responsibility on players, and punish them if they fail is lazy and, I dare say, idiotic enforcement.

Players have always been responsible for ensuring their own actions fall within the rules. If people haven't posted malicious, obscene etc. content in the past, they don't have a problem.

[Chrinthanium]

I have to imagine that the cost of not taking the more careful approach of just spot deleting offending posts (as long as the player has a history of good faith with the community-at-large) has to be large. Is that the case? If so, could we get some insight on this?

I don't think I can give more guidance than when a "significant proportion" of a player's content violates the rules, we are likely to remove it all. There's not a percentage threshold.

Or was Kraven’s case less about risk to the site and more about an assumption on the player’s nature?

A large part of their content could be summarised as "Nazi fetishism" and "torture porn" (neither meant in the sexual way), and we have little tolerance for either. Kraven got the benefit of the doubt on their intent, as those who are roleplaying will generally do (i.e. that they were not an actual Nazi supporter intending to glorify its atrocities, despite the way it came across). That's a large part of why their nation was restored.

How can players do that if there is such an enormous amount of posts spanning back years (e.g. anywhere above 1000) that they can't possibly check and amend all of them? At best you can only expect slow, patchwork fixes, and if they miss some or a lot of posts that are later judged to still be substantial violations by the mods, are they going to be DEATed like Kraven?

Putting all of the responsibility on players, and punish them if they fail is lazy and, I dare say, idiotic enforcement.

Players have always been responsible for ensuring their own actions fall within the rules. If people haven't posted malicious, obscene etc. content in the past, they don't have a problem.

Sedge, I've been around here 18 years. I have over 15,000 posts on this nation alone. I'm going on the benefit of the doubt that all posts of mine across this and all puppets are perfectly fine because if Moderation doesn't have the time to read 18 years worth of Kraven's posts, why should I find the time to do it myself? Also, when you say "illegal" are you meaning against site rules or against Federal/State/National etc... law? As this site is owned by an author, I ask that because words, as Max would tell you, are quite important.

[Deamonopolis]

Law is pretty subjective here. What is illegal in, say, the EU could be perfectly legal in the USA.

[Picairn]

Players have always been responsible for ensuring their own actions fall within the rules. If people haven't posted malicious, obscene etc. content in the past, they don't have a problem.

This is what I'd call "mindless legalism", that you guys prefer to punish & delete than to guide & assist. Y'all are giving Inspector Javert a run for his money.

[Sedgistan]

Sedge, I've been around here 18 years. I have over 15,000 posts on this nation alone. I'm going on the benefit of the doubt that all posts of mine across this and all puppets are perfectly fine because if Moderation doesn't have the time to read 18 years worth of Kraven's posts, why should I find the time to do it myself?

If you think you have some graphic torture or Nazi roleplaying in your posting history, you would be well advised to check over those posts. That doesn't apply to most people. The overwhelming majority of site users have absolutely no need to go and check any of their posting history off the back of this.

Also, when you say "illegal" are you meaning against site rules or against Federal/State/National etc... law? As this site is owned by an author, I ask that because words, as Max would tell you, are quite important.

Site rules unless specified otherwise.

Players have always been responsible for ensuring their own actions fall within the rules. If people haven't posted malicious, obscene etc. content in the past, they don't have a problem.

This is what I'd call "mindless legalism", that you guys prefer to punish & delete than to guide & assist. Y'all are giving Inspector Javert a run for his money.

We don't write the rules and the various pinned forum guides because we find it fun. There is plenty of guidance across them, this forum, and also the ability of players to ask questions of us.

[Chrinthanium]

Sedge, I've been around here 18 years. I have over 15,000 posts on this nation alone. I'm going on the benefit of the doubt that all posts of mine across this and all puppets are perfectly fine because if Moderation doesn't have the time to read 18 years worth of Kraven's posts, why should I find the time to do it myself?

If you think you have some graphic torture or Nazi roleplaying in your posting history, you would be well advised to check over those posts. That doesn't apply to most people. The overwhelming majority of site users have absolutely no need to go and check any of their posting history off the back of this.

Also, when you say "illegal" are you meaning against site rules or against Federal/State/National etc... law? As this site is owned by an author, I ask that because words, as Max would tell you, are quite important.

Site rules unless specified otherwise.

I feel this is more than just "Nazi torture RP porn" though. Because the way it feels as if it's being presented is that if those whose sole duty in life is to read through 18 years worth of posts find enough rules being broken (even if it's not Nazism/torture/graphic stuff) that all our posts are belong to Mods, so to speak. So I want to make sure the stuff I write isn't going to be tossed out en masse because one person got their senses offended because of one too many f-bombs in an RP.

[Dawn Denac]

I believe the ruling on Kraven - that their content was a persistent and significant violation of the rules over a period of many years - indicates the opposite. Given the protests from many players that no such violation took place, it is clear that there are players amongst the roleplay community whose idea of what is acceptable within the Malicious and Obscene Content rules, is incorrect and needs to be adjusted.

This site has had: Torture, teen pregnancy, eugenics and pod babies on its own issues (oh right, a few Nazism/supremacy things too). It's allowed: Slavery/child slavery threads, not to mention those that border on prostitution or outright sex trafficking (with more on RMBs now refounded or otherwise unavailable, or current).

One of the issues with Kraven's entire situation is the removal of his posts, which pretty much makes it impossible for him to defend himself (yes yes, offending posts are split to evidence, could still allow them in this case to at least skim over their posts with the staff in order to make a case if you really intend on enforcing this), as well as the fact literally every roleplayer on this site, including myself, is likely guilty of some sort of rule violation now. If this doesn't work for YouTube or Twitch, why do you think this sort of retroactive enforcement would work for NS.

[No endorse]

I am concerned about this, so I'll ask directly: Are you authorizing, abetting or allowing future accusers to scour up decade-old offending posts of people they dislike to invite punishment on said people?

No. If they're doing it to target people for punishment because they don't like them, that's mods-as-weapons. Suffice it to say that we are discussing internally how we want these reports to be handled going on into the future and we are taking lessons from this saga (for lack of a better word) on how to improve.

Hey UC, since you're a technical moderator, you can probably take this to whomever would be best to work on this as one clear way to improve:

If y'all want folks to go through a decade+ of old posts and make sure there's nothing offending in there to the current rules, please make it easier to clear or delete old posts. One button click would be best. I've been way less active here than I was on Jolt, but I'm not jonesing go through a cumbersome edit/delete process on >500 posts during my free time, which is much more limited these days than when I joined NS in high school. TBH it's easier to purge old Facebook content than NS content.

[Torrocca]

I believe the ruling on Kraven - that their content was a persistent and significant violation of the rules over a period of many years - indicates the opposite. Given the protests from many players that no such violation took place, it is clear that there are players amongst the roleplay community whose idea of what is acceptable within the Malicious and Obscene Content rules, is incorrect and needs to be adjusted.

This site has had: Torture, teen pregnancy, eugenics and pod babies on its own issues (oh right, a few Nazism/supremacy things too). It's allowed: Slavery/child slavery threads, not to mention those that border on prostitution or outright sex trafficking (with more on RMBs now refounded or otherwise unavailable, or current).

One of the issues with Kraven's entire situation is the removal of his posts, which pretty much makes it impossible for him to defend himself (yes yes, offending posts are split to evidence, could still allow them in this case to at least skim over their posts with the staff in order to make a case if you really intend on enforcing this), as well as the fact literally every roleplayer on this site, including myself, is likely guilty of some sort of rule violation now. If this doesn't work for YouTube or Twitch, why do you think this sort of retroactive enforcement would work for NS.

Y'know, I wasn't really gonna post in this thread, but the underlined does raise a very interesting point. It even got me to take a look at my issues panel that's gone untouched for probably a year or two at the least now, and one of the issues on there was...

about incestual relationships.

Now, while the tone for issues may and usually do lean toward the more humorous side, it does still beg the question regarding creative freedom and a double standard now, since this cat's out of the bag. More importantly than that, it calls into question another review of RP content that's been moderated upon, including the now-whisked away and invisible-to-us posts by Kraven, given that all sorts of topics that'd likely and evidently warrant warnings, bans, and post deletions in an RP context have free existence in the gameplay side of things via issues. It's even weirder there since only the forum follows an as-of-now-to-my-personal knowledge very vague PG-13 regulation, given that under-13 players aren't banned from the gameplay side of the website.

[Picairn]

We don't write the rules and the various pinned forum guides because we find it fun. There is plenty of guidance across them, this forum, and also the ability of players to ask questions of us.

But are you going to assist players with editing/deleting old offending material, though? Or it's "Fuck you, sift through 1000+ posts on your own and fix any offending post you can find, and if you fail we will punish you in the next report"?

[Dawn Denac]

This site has had: Torture, teen pregnancy, eugenics and pod babies on its own issues (oh right, a few Nazism/supremacy things too). It's allowed: Slavery/child slavery threads, not to mention those that border on prostitution or outright sex trafficking (with more on RMBs now refounded or otherwise unavailable, or current).

One of the issues with Kraven's entire situation is the removal of his posts, which pretty much makes it impossible for him to defend himself (yes yes, offending posts are split to evidence, could still allow them in this case to at least skim over their posts with the staff in order to make a case if you really intend on enforcing this), as well as the fact literally every roleplayer on this site, including myself, is likely guilty of some sort of rule violation now. If this doesn't work for YouTube or Twitch, why do you think this sort of retroactive enforcement would work for NS.

Y'know, I wasn't really gonna post in this thread, but the underlined does raise a very interesting point. It even got me to take a look at my issues panel that's gone untouched for probably a year or two at the least now, and one of the issues on there was...

about incestual relationships.

Now, while the tone for issues may and usually do lean toward the more humorous side, it does still beg the question regarding creative freedom and a double standard now, since this cat's out of the bag. More importantly than that, it calls into question another review of RP content that's been moderated upon, including the now-whisked away and invisible-to-us posts by Kraven, given that all sorts of topics that'd likely and evidently warrant warnings, bans, and post deletions in an RP context have free existence in the gameplay side of things via issues. It's even weirder there since only the forum follows an as-of-now-to-my-personal knowledge very vague PG-13 regulation, given that under-13 players aren't banned from the gameplay side of the website.

Hell, if I cycled issues on my puppets for a while, I could probably find all of the things you underlined and more. This is the issue when we try to be retroactive like big sites and faceplant onto the concrete: Yes, the forums are PG-13, but retroactively nuking someone because they mentioned their officers look like the Waffen-SS as they beat some civilian up 12 years ago is -very- silly. Most of those posts are so old they likely won't ever be seen unless you actually dig for them.

[Tinhampton]

There's been some misunderstanding about Anagonia's second question, so here goes: A rule is introduced in 2024. A forum poster has made two posts, in 2010 and 2012, that violate the new rule. Can this poster be punished in (or after) 2024 for having violated the new rule with their 2010 and 2012 posts, even if they have not violated the rule with any of the posts they have made since it was enscribed into the OSRS?

~~~~~~~~~~

Since I'm aware mods frown on hypothetical questions: the only precedent I'm aware of for situations like this is Legal age in your nation?, a thread with 184 pages which was created in 2013. The original 2013 questionnaire contained questions about what the age of consent in your nation was. In 2020, a moratorium was reintroduced which, among other things, banned discussion about where the age of consent should be set.

The age of consent question was mod-removed from all of the responses on the first page of the thread for this reason, despite all of those posts having been made before the 2020 moratorium was finalised. I can, however, see the point in this: users after 2020 could have copied and pasted one of the 2013 response forms thinking it was the form they had to fill in, despite the fact they contained a question which it was against the rules to answer. If you're taking part in an International Incidents roleplay that's somehow survived from 2013 to the present day, you aren't just going to copy and paste one of the first responses (however rules-abiding it may be), tinker about with it a bit and call it your roleplay.

(Conflict of interest: my response to this survey, made in September 2019, originally contained the age of consent question. I have removed it and more broadly updated my post to reflect IC/RP developments in Tinhampton. I'm highly confident that all of my ~13k other posts, on this and my puppets, are either legal or - on the rare instances they weren't - have been punished appropriately by the moderators.)

[The Rio Grande River Basin]

Y'know, I wasn't really gonna post in this thread, but the underlined does raise a very interesting point. It even got me to take a look at my issues panel that's gone untouched for probably a year or two at the least now, and one of the issues on there was...

about incestual relationships.

Now, while the tone for issues may and usually do lean toward the more humorous side, it does still beg the question regarding creative freedom and a double standard now, since this cat's out of the bag. More importantly than that, it calls into question another review of RP content that's been moderated upon, including the now-whisked away and invisible-to-us posts by Kraven, given that all sorts of topics that'd likely and evidently warrant warnings, bans, and post deletions in an RP context have free existence in the gameplay side of things via issues. It's even weirder there since only the forum follows an as-of-now-to-my-personal knowledge very vague PG-13 regulation, given that under-13 players aren't banned from the gameplay side of the website.

Hell, if I cycled issues on my puppets for a while, I could probably find all of the things you underlined and more. This is the issue when we try to be retroactive like big sites and faceplant onto the concrete: Yes, the forums are PG-13, but retroactively nuking someone because they mentioned their officers look like the Waffen-SS as they beat some civilian up 12 years ago is -very- silly. Most of those posts are so old they likely won't ever be seen unless you actually dig for them.

Especially because there are still remnants of torture porn, literal porn, child porn, etc. I could dig up, but won’t.

[Sedgistan]

This site has had: Torture, teen pregnancy, eugenics and pod babies on its own issues (oh right, a few Nazism/supremacy things too). It's allowed: Slavery/child slavery threads, not to mention those that border on prostitution or outright sex trafficking (with more on RMBs now refounded or otherwise unavailable, or current).

Y'know, I wasn't really gonna post in this thread, but the underlined does raise a very interesting point. It even got me to take a look at my issues panel that's gone untouched for probably a year or two at the least now, and one of the issues on there was...

about incestual relationships.

Now, while the tone for issues may and usually do lean toward the more humorous side, it does still beg the question regarding creative freedom and a double standard now, since this cat's out of the bag. More importantly than that, it calls into question another review of RP content that's been moderated upon, including the now-whisked away and invisible-to-us posts by Kraven, given that all sorts of topics that'd likely and evidently warrant warnings, bans, and post deletions in an RP context have free existence in the gameplay side of things via issues. It's even weirder there since only the forum follows an as-of-now-to-my-personal knowledge very vague PG-13 regulation, given that under-13 players aren't banned from the gameplay side of the website.

The difference is in the detail. No-one is saying you can't mention torture in a roleplay, but going into heavy detail of where each implement is being used, the internal organs becoming external organs, and what bodily fluids are coming from where, is obviously across the line. The same point applies to the above.

<snip>

Technical suggestions belong in the Technical forum.

We don't write the rules and the various pinned forum guides because we find it fun. There is plenty of guidance across them, this forum, and also the ability of players to ask questions of us.

But are you going to assist players with editing/deleting old offending material, though? Or it's "Fuck you, sift through 1000+ posts on your own and fix any offending post you can find, and if you fail we will punish you in the next report"?

As stated several times before, it is the responsibility of players to ensure the content they submit complies with the rules. If they have submitted illegal content and cannot rectify it (e.g. because the thread is locked) they should contact us to resolve it.

Especially because there are still remnants of torture porn, literal porn, child porn, etc. I could dig up, but won’t.

You are going out your way to state you are being unhelpful. In particular you are saying you are apparently aware of child porn on the site and aren't going to report it. That is not a good look.

[Sedgistan]

Yes, the forums are PG-13, but retroactively nuking someone because they mentioned their officers look like the Waffen-SS as they beat some civilian up 12 years ago is -very- silly.

This seems like a complete mischaracterisation of someone who spent well over a decade playing as a Nazi, that theme infused throughout their nation, and which included photos of actual Dachau concentration camp victims being tortured in posts that gleefully boasted of such things happening in their own nation.

[Torrocca]

This site has had: Torture, teen pregnancy, eugenics and pod babies on its own issues (oh right, a few Nazism/supremacy things too). It's allowed: Slavery/child slavery threads, not to mention those that border on prostitution or outright sex trafficking (with more on RMBs now refounded or otherwise unavailable, or current).

Y'know, I wasn't really gonna post in this thread, but the underlined does raise a very interesting point. It even got me to take a look at my issues panel that's gone untouched for probably a year or two at the least now, and one of the issues on there was...

about incestual relationships.

Now, while the tone for issues may and usually do lean toward the more humorous side, it does still beg the question regarding creative freedom and a double standard now, since this cat's out of the bag. More importantly than that, it calls into question another review of RP content that's been moderated upon, including the now-whisked away and invisible-to-us posts by Kraven, given that all sorts of topics that'd likely and evidently warrant warnings, bans, and post deletions in an RP context have free existence in the gameplay side of things via issues. It's even weirder there since only the forum follows an as-of-now-to-my-personal knowledge very vague PG-13 regulation, given that under-13 players aren't banned from the gameplay side of the website.

The difference is in the detail. No-one is saying you can't mention torture in a roleplay, but going into heavy detail of where each implement is being used, the internal organs becoming external organs, and what bodily fluids are coming from where, is obviously across the line. The same point applies to the above.

Well, personally speaking, I feel like that's creating a divide between PG-13 as the site's choosing to define it and the PG-13 label on actual media, which now means (and probably has meant for a while) that you're creating a lot of confusion here for roleplayers who see PG-13 mentioned in the rules and base their writings off that.

My reasoning for this will refer to Star Wars as an example: one of the most iconic scenes from the prequel movies comes from the climax of Anakin and Obi-Wan's battle in Revenge of the Sith, which, of course, is labelled PG-13. Anakin gets defeated by having his arm and two legs, of course, diced off, and then starts burning alive. It's shown pretty damn graphically yet the movie's no less PG-13. Going by what you've said, if I were to describe what happened exactly in an RP post, how he suffered and so on, I'd be flagged for a rules violation, even though my writing was ultimately no different from a visual depiction of what's considered a PG-13 scene of a man burning alive. In fact, there's quite a few depictions in the movies and the shows that, if described in roleplay, could potentially be dinged for that. Which, of course, is weird and confusing.

See, I bring this specific example up because many, many millions of people know Star Wars, and it's not at all unlikely or unreasonable to assume a sturdy deal of RPers on this website have grown up with that particular media influence in their lives. So you've got a bunch of folks who know these films and shows are PG-13, depict extensively a fascist regime, etc., see that the rules say, "hey, keep it PG-13/don't be obscene/don't glorify/etc.," and go, "well, X, Y, Z happened in this PG-13 fiction/this wasn't considered obscene by the ratings board/the emperor was having a fun time being evil even though Lucas said the series is a criticism of fascism and an analysis of how its rises, so my own fiction should be fine dealing with that," and are probably being hit with warnings to their own frustration. I feel this kinda factor should be considered especially for pre-2021 or whenever clarifications/changes to these kinds of rules, especially if age-old roleplay posts are going to be trawled and mass-deleted for what one could reasonably assume is an appropriate amount of creative freedom.

Detracting a bit from the obscenity point, I bring up that part about glorifying fascism since, from what I've read and been told, for the example case that's lead to these threads, Kraven's posts and nation weren't designed or intended to be an endorsement or glorification of those evils, but a critique. Now, I haven't read said posts, and I can't either, considering they've been voided, but if that's the case, then couldn't it be reasonably assumed there were simply missteps taken in that regard, like there could be for others with old posts trying to do the same, rather than malicious intent? Though, considering there were pictures of the Holocaust involved, I'm very much in agreement that it's far more than reasonable to lean toward otherwise and delete those posts.

That said, for more nuanced situations, the last thing I'd want to do, personally, if my shoes meant I had to dictate fictitious content's legality in regards to the rules, is assume there's an endorsement of said fiction being written, especially if it's unclear to begin with and afterward said to be a criticism. At the very least, on my own end, if I ever wrote such, I'd hope it was heavily scrutinized and I was asked about it before I got death-of-the-author'd and had my works sent into the shadow realm, most especially since knowing myself any writings I'd make about fascism or similar such things as a roleplay topic would never ever be an endorsement or glorification, even if on the surface it seemed like such, discussing their actions from their view to flesh out these evil characters and regimes and what-have-you. It just feels like a weird and wrong and unnecessary restriction to roleplay that makes more sense in the context of general discussion but way less when writing fiction.

I dunno, maybe I'm ranting now lmao, I'm tired so hopefully what I'm saying is sensible!

EDIT: Also gonna take a relook at the rules as written in case I've made a flaw in what I've written here lmao

[Dumb Ideologies]

This version of the forum has been here since 2009. Some posters have been posting here for decades and made many thousands of posts. Nobody can reasonably be expected to remember all their posts from years, decades ago. Nor can they be expected to comb through potentially many thousands of posts.

There may be the odd very notable thread which users may be able to remember and rectify or self-report if it's locked. I can understand why you might want them to do so in such cases, but hopefully you will also recognise that such cases will be the exception for 'historic offences'. Many users will feel perturbed and 'at risk' even though they can't remember doing anything wrong, as there may be something somewhere, they don't know what the potential penalties might be, and there is no practicable way of securing themselves.

If people cannot be expected to go back over all their posts, then surely there would be no bar to a general statement that the approach to any such posts being reported will tend to err towards simply deleting the offending posts without current-day sanctions against the user, unless there's evidence of something that might suggest criminal harm and danger to others. This would help to rectify the potential issue of people using moderation as a weapon - for people with long-term grudges to go digging and send you a carefully curated portfolio of posts in the hope of getting somebody a retrospective punishment. If you set out at the outset that current-day punishments are unlikely unless a very high bar such as the above is met, this would seem to discourage any malicious behaviour.

It's quite possible that you're already considering the above while putting together your guidelines for how moderators will handle any such cases. For ordinary users who don't see these backstage communications though it is easy to assume the worst, particularly when feelings are already running high after a recent controversial decision. It would be reassuring even to get an acknowledgement that these are real and worthy concerns rather than the slightly blasé comments that nobody should have any worries about this policy direction because surely if they're concerned they can just go fix any potential issues they may have by themselves.

[Dimetrodon Empire]

I think the biggest issue here is that the standard is defined as "PG-13."

There is no "PG-13" standard. It's just a subjective label given to a film by a specific board of parents here in the U.S.. Not to mention that other countries probably have slightly different "criteria" for what it means.

While it goes without saying that the content on the forums should be suitable for those 13 and up (No "adult" content, especially since this site is used in schools), the movie rating system is an absolute mess and is subjective.

I am not the first person to mention this, but unfortunately, it's something that needs long, drawn out discussion and clarification like the "Ban on specific topics."

[Torrocca]

I think the biggest issue here is that the standard is defined as "PG-13."

There is no "PG-13" standard. It's just a subjective label given to a film by a specific board of parents here in the U.S.. Not to mention that other countries probably have slightly different "criteria" for what it means.

While it goes without saying that the content on the forums should be suitable for those 13 and up (No "adult" content, especially since this site is used in schools), the movie rating system is an absolute mess and is subjective.

I am not the first person to mention this, but unfortunately, it's something that needs long, drawn out discussion and clarification like the "Ban on specific topics."

Not to detract too much from the topic at hand, but I do think these are very important considerations that do tie into the discussion here.

From what I could see, the neither PG-13 nor things such as "obscenity" have a solid, misunderstandable definition to them in regards to the site rules. For example, going off just the quick, Google-provided definition of obscenity, which is, "offensive to moral principles; repugnant," there's a VERY massive room for interpreting what could constitute such. The current cultural zeitgeist, online or otherwise, from what I've seen, doesn't consider an honest depiction of warfare to be offensive or repugnant, but rather the opposite, with sanitized, campy portrayals of such to be obscene (The same rings true of depictions of ideologies such as fascism, but for here I'm simply going to focus on a more easily-disseminated topic). Yet the former, describing what happens to a person shot, describing the mental anguish of it, describing its products - the harm to civilians and soldiers, war crimes, genocide - could lead to warnings or bans under NS's vague idea of obscenity. Yet sanitizing it, reducing it to mere numbers or a simple and blase idea, or even making it a light-hearted adventure wouldn't.

Say, as an example, a hard line is drawn, and a specific subject - genocide - becomes banned as a topic to be portrayed in roleplays, under "obscenity". Not even critiques of such escape, since it's a hard line, something easy to understand for anyone and everyone. This creates a simple fallacious problem wherein you've now sanitized such a deep-rooted and integral part of NS - warfare, international incidents - to the point where that itself is obscene, not because of its content but because of its portrayal. You also sanitize any portrayals of fascism and thus any criticism of such in written fiction and make yet another very weird conundrum where either fascism in fiction must be banned - creating an issue where there's much less room to depict conflict between nations in roleplay - or it has to be accepted that fascism in fiction is now going to be sanitary rather than genuinely and truthfully depicted as the disgusting thing it is.

It's an interesting thing to consider, and I really hope a very long, deep, and thoughtful consideration is put to this, both for future roleplay and for past roleplay, so that people are lorded over neither by such vagueness in the rules nor by overly-dictated hard lines that could just as easily create their own issues.

[Dimetrodon Empire]

There will always need to be judgement calls, always be borderline cases that can be ruled either way, etc.

I'm not saying that we should go overboard with hard lines. Rather, that "PG-13" doesn't really mean as much as some think it does.

[Torrocca]

There will always need to be judgement calls, always be borderline cases that can be ruled either way, etc.

I'm not saying that we should go overboard with hard lines. Rather, that "PG-13" doesn't really mean as much as some think it does.

Oh no, I'm not saying you're saying that! In regards to PG-13 specifically, I agree it doesn't mean that much, but if it's going to be namedropped as a standard then for consistency's sake it should ideally follow a standard set by how the rating's been used in media. As it is, it feels even vaguer than that.

EDIT: TO CLARIFY: It feels specifically like the way PG-13, as a standard and a rule, works on the site is a vague amalgamation of some elements of old-school PG, PG-13 following its debut in the 1980s after the debacle with Indiana Jones and Gremlins, PG-13 as its currently been after puritanical pushes for more restricted media, and I feel PG of the same current era. Which, again, is very vague, more restrictive in some instances than some (and occasionally all) of these, and in others more lenient than them, which is already enough of a mess given how they've evolved on their own. That's why I think there needs to be solid guidelines here, since right now it's a painfully frustrating way to gauge things and hurts roleplay in particular immensely.

I'm certain if I or someone else wrote a roleplay post in the vein of and equivalently descriptive of the violence of those example movies with their still-beating hearts being cut out, living creatures being microwaved alive, or, say, Jaws with people being delimbed and eaten alive (which got a PG rating and likely would've gotten a PG-13 one at the time), it'd be dinged as rulebreaking. Which, again, isn't a good thing, it's a confusing mess that hurts players acting in good faith that isn't made any better when people can dig and find examples of old posts - some by mods - that could be considered on-par graphically yet aren't seen as rulebreaking, and then find others of equal weight that are; again, it's very frustrating and I can only imagine for how many it is concerning given how extensively many RPers on this website have posted over years if not decades.

[The Ice States]

That absolutely depends on content and context. If someone has repeated posts gorily detailing Nazi clowns violating babies with scissors, and sends in an "aw, shucks, you got me" GHR, we're going to purge it immediately and they're going to get kerb-stomped regardless. I hope that this is only a hypothetical, so yes - in general if a player brings some of their content to our attention with a genuine concern it's illegal or contrition that it is, they are treated more favourably. That happens occasionally in other contexts, e.g. someone accidentally sends out a mass recruitment TG that they forgot to tag as recruitment; if they come to us with that they're treated much more leniently than if they don't.

Thanks for the response.

I would also like to ask what prompted the decision to permit reports for very old content at this time? Moderation has in the past let people off for violations because of it being very ancient, eg [1][2]; so I imagine there has been a policy change since then resulting in this situation.

[Sedgistan]

I think there's a post of mine further up that talks about the nature of offences related to their age. Someone taking a bit of content from an RL document for a WA proposal is utterly minor as offences go.

[Dimetrodon Empire]

In regards to PG-13 specifically, I agree it doesn't mean that much, but if it's going to be namedropped as a standard then for consistency's sake it should ideally follow a standard set by how the rating's been used in media. As it is, it feels even vaguer than that.

I probably went too far in saying that it should be similar to the "prohibited topics" section of the OSRS. But yeah, more clarification is needed.

As for using PG-13 as it is used in media, I doubt you'd want that. Ever seen a forum post with two f-bombs in it? Well, if that post was a movie, it would likely get an R-rating. A different number of other profanities are allowed however under the rating when it comes to movies.

Vagueness aside, it's a really bad series of guidelines.

[Torrocca]

In regards to PG-13 specifically, I agree it doesn't mean that much, but if it's going to be namedropped as a standard then for consistency's sake it should ideally follow a standard set by how the rating's been used in media. As it is, it feels even vaguer than that.

I probably went too far in saying that it should be similar to the "prohibited topics" section of the OSRS. But yeah, more clarification is needed.

As for using PG-13 as it is used in media, I doubt you'd want that. Ever seen a forum post with two f-bombs in it? Well, if that post was a movie, it would likely get an R-rating. A different number of other profanities are allowed however under the rating when it comes to movies.

Vagueness aside, it's a really bad series of guidelines.

Hey, now, if it does follow the standard for language, just go for the standard set by Gunner Palace! Forty-two free "fuck"s!