I don't think the no rules thing is working

Discussion in 'That's So Meta!' started by versi2, Oct 18, 2017.

?

are there rules?

  1. no

    5 vote(s)
    9.3%
  2. technically, no

    4 vote(s)
    7.4%
  3. yes

    9 vote(s)
    16.7%
  4. sort of, yes

    9 vote(s)
    16.7%
  5. I can't even tell

    16 vote(s)
    29.6%
  6. I mean, there's one, I guess, but it's very vague and unhelpful

    11 vote(s)
    20.4%
  1. chaoticArbiter

    chaoticArbiter an actual shiny eevee (destroyer of worlds)

    I'm asking about 'what level of NSFW isn't allowed' outside the 18+ content, because while I don't do it often, I may do things like make an NSFW joke about a topic somewhere that isn't the 18+ forum--I'm asking to know what level of thing should be spoilered. I pretty much never go in the 18+ area these days. doesn't mean I never in my entire life say something that might be kinda NSFW, or that other people always make every single post that might be viewed as NSFW in the 18+ area. like, yes, presumably in-depth discussion of sex and stuff would go in the 18+ area, but sometimes a person might make an NSFW joke because it fits the topic at hand in a different thread--I want to know what things are likely to need to be spoilered, even though I will typically err on the side of caution with spoilering things.

    also, as one of two people who has expressed having brainbugs like that, I'm not asking for clear perfect guidelines. I'm asking for some idea of what is and is not a thing that should be spoilered in certain cases. I realize judgment may vary but I need a groundwork to build upon and I didn't see that. the flowchart is a pretty good start, I think, but I and the other person who expressed that brainbug problem haven't asked for perfect guidelines, if I'm not mistaken--just something to start from. (I don't think CT has expressed having these brainbugs, I apologize if I'm wrong.) if I don't have a clear basic idea of what is and is not acceptable in general, it's a bad time for me! and just because the brainbugs are a personal issue doesn't mean I am not allowed to request a reasonable basic set of guidelines to help me minimize the brainbugs?

    .....I am having a problem here, namely: CT is the only one asking for perfect guidelines as it is, and CT has not expressed having these brainbugs to my knowledge. the only people who have openly expressed this, me and someone else, have not, to my knowledge, requested perfect guidelines. it is making me feel a bit like you are putting words in my mouth, a thing I have major problems with and do not appreciate. I am also slightly peeved by "sounds like your problem" because....yeah, but it can be helped by other people doing a thing? and the wording of "sounds like a personal problem" makes me feel....dismissed, in the sense of 'yeah but that's a YOU issue, so why should we do anything about it at all', and perhaps that's not the reading you intended but it is very much how it's coming across for me.
     
  2. Maya

    Maya smug_anime_girl.jpg

    I wasn't talking to anyone specific, if that's what you're taking issue with. I was speaking in general and to the attitude currently being given to the mods that they're not doing enough to communicate guidelines that don't yet exist, or personal issues (such as issues with moving a roleplaying game to another area of the forum when to my knowledge moving it was never demanded or even requested) being brought up as if this was forced upon the game master and as if this was because of the unspoken rule of "don't talk about sex where kids might see it!" (a rule that doesn't exist).

    The fact of the matter is we, being the people on this thread, have not made much if any headway with getting Seebs to agree to interject clearer guidelines. At this juncture, talking about the specifics of those guidelines is bound to get lost in discussion of whether or not we should have them in the first place. I think the sudden bringing up of NSFW guidelines is an unfortunate derail at best and a malicious "how do I make this about me" at worst, and I think some of the thought processes (such as CT begging mods tell her who reported her so she can talk to that person or those people privately) presented as a part of this derail are erring on the side of "how do i make these people shut up" in very uncomfortable ways. To date everything I've reported is because talking to the person privately is only bound to go south due to my personal feelings on the subject at best, or I'd be guilted into silence at worst, and I wanted mod assistance with making sure the thing I was reporting was valid to be uncomfortable about in the first place. The idea that mods should out me or my abuse history with users on this website in my very short time here is extremely fucking creepy and scary
     
    • Agree x 1
  3. spockandawe

    spockandawe soft and woolen and writhing with curiosity

    I know it's extra frustrating to get guidance in bits and pieces, but in most cases I've seen, sex-related jokes as a category tend to strike me as less strongly nsfw than plain regular discussion of sex (the only significant exception I can think of is if you joke about an actual person there doing a sex thing). It's not an absolute, and there are always degrees of how explicit things are, etc. But if this angle is a significant source of stress for you, my personal read has been that I don't recall seeing much in the way of unspoilered sex jokes that I thought needed a spoiler cut. It's probably... happened at some point, but I'm blanking on examples right now. And more specifically, I don't remember seeing any posts like that from you that struck me as inappropriate.

    While we're stuck in an awkward limbo without a usable general guideline structure pinned down, I do want to repeat that I'm definitely open to questions about narrower issues like this that I can speak more easily about. The RP guidelines that exist are great for RP, but by its nature, those are for a very specific situation with a smaller group of people who all share a similar let's-do-RP-together goal. It's hard for me to generalize from those to the full set of [all conversation], because the number of angles people approach nsfw discussion shoots up fast. I hadn't thought of jokes until this post, for example, so thank you for bringing that side of things up.

    I can't speak for all mods, but if anyone wanted to ask things more privately than this thread in like, the caring void, or tag me into their brainbent thread, I'd be willing to have a stab at answering those questions. Even if I can't say definitively whether something is nsfw, I can probably lay out reasons why people would or wouldn't think it was. Like with the wiggler, I can't guarantee my explanation will fully satisfy the person asking, but I'm willing to give it a serious try. Things like the subtle differences between real-life fantasies and discussion of what someone finds personally appealing about a fictional character, that's the sort of social hair-splitting I love, and I do want to be helpful if I can.
     
    • Like x 4
    • Agree x 1
    • Informative x 1
  4. spockandawe

    spockandawe soft and woolen and writhing with curiosity

    Also, I have a comment from a user who wants to remain anonymous:

     
    • Agree x 12
  5. seebs

    seebs Benevolent Dictator

    The flowchart strikes me as pretty close to the thing, and also as being close to as good as things will get in the absence of major breakthroughs in the field. Humans have been trying to figure out what induces distress about this kind of thing for a while, and the answer is we don't exactly know.
     
    • Agree x 2
    • Informative x 1
  6. seebs

    seebs Benevolent Dictator

    On the broader topic of guidelines: The biggest problem, for me, is the tendency to conflate guidelines for "what moderators might do something about" and guidelines for "acceptable behavior" which has moral connotations. Moderation is not about the moral question of whether you were "right" or "wrong" to make a post.

    I am aware that the lack of things clearly identified as okay or not-okay is scary. It is, in fact, fucking terrifying. But. The lack of such things, and the reliance on personal judgment calls at all levels, is intentional. It may be a bad idea, you may not like it, but it's not an accident or oversight. You are going to have to make your own judgment calls sometimes. Here, at least, we can tell you that the institutional power structure is richly populated with people who are vehemently opposed to punitive responses to honest mistakes, and who don't march in lockstep on moral questions in general.

    Would many people feel safer with clear lists of things it would be "okay" to do? Probably. But you will sooner or later have to do without, and this is an environment intended to let you try it out a bit without most of the usual risks. You do still have the risk that you'll hurt people, but we always have that risk, no matter what rules we follow.

    The lack of incentives to change behavior is also specifically considered and intentional. Seriously, do you honestly think that "and then seebs uses authority and power to mold people into the kinds of people they'd find interesting" would be a good thing? Haha no. I am not interested in handing out cookies and punishments. I am interested in providing an environment where you can try to be a kind of person you want to try to be, without coercion looming over you. Moderation is directed at being the minimal actions needed to mitigate harms, and does not constitute a moral judgment. I have pear-wiggled posts that were truthful and morally justified, because they would have kicked off Another Round Of That Fight. I have left posts up that were mean-spirited, shallow, and cruel, but which no one was likely to respond strongly to.

    If you want a moral authority, look elsewhere.

    ... but if you want more guidance about what moderators are inclined to do, look here, but give me some time and maybe stop exploding for a bit. I do think we need clearer guidelines about moderation. But the most fundamental guideline will be this:

    Moderator actions are not a moral judgment, in either direction.
     
    Last edited: Oct 24, 2017
    • Like x 4
    • Informative x 2
  7. Fucker

    Fucker Well-Known Member

    I think certain people have shown behavior that is not very considerate of the boundaries of minors, and that that should be accounted for there and then so it dosent spiral down to a mess and a blame of “whos guilty” and instead they should just like apologize and not argue weather there was an overstep and cause a fuzz
     
    • Agree x 4
  8. Lerxst

    Lerxst salty parabola

    Uh. Further upthread one of the mods said "we mention stuff we're doing on the Discord if we don't mention it here" and I have Problems with that.

    Not everyone is on the Discord. Not everyone wants to be on the Discord. Even if they are on the Discord, they are not monitoring every word typed on it 24/7.

    If you are doing mod things on the forum and you're wanting to give heads up about them, you need to do that ON THE FORUM where everyone can see it.

    [edit to clarify and apologize: I totally misread that and I'm sorry.]
     
    Last edited: Oct 24, 2017
    • Agree x 10
  9. chaoticArbiter

    chaoticArbiter an actual shiny eevee (destroyer of worlds)

    on mobile so gonna tag instead of quote, my phone likes to glitch if too much text

    @Maya that makes sense. I guess it just felt pointed to me because in this thread, I’d seen only two people express brainbug stuff in post and I was one of them—but I can grok that you meant it more generally, thank for explain.
    I’ll admit I’m not aware of a lot of what’s been happening on the forum—I mostly jumped in because I’ve been watching this specific thread as a topic of interest, and as a person who does benefit from at least vague guidelines, CT’s request was of interest to me. I’m not really equipped to say if I agree it was derailing, since I’ve no clue what’s been up for a bit, but that’s just why I added my two cents.
    that said, I’m pretty happy with the response I got, the flowchart is helpful and tbh I was mostly just explaining why NSFW guidelines were of interest to me personally.

    @spockandawe thanks for the reassurance, but I was mostly explaining why I asked about guidelines to start with—I appreciate the flow chart and what you said, and am less concerned about “what do spoiler” now. although I am gonna continue to err on the side of caution eternally :P

    @seebs you’re right. I think I more meant “is a good start for my internal catalogueing”? the flowchart is v helpful, thank for flowchart.
    fwiw I am not looking to you or other mods for moral authority :P just brainbugs like to yell about Wrong Thing, and it is nice to have thing to point at and go “yeah but I won’t do that in the future because have learned and guidelines exist”
     
    • Like x 2
    • Agree x 1
  10. seebs

    seebs Benevolent Dictator

    I think I'm still waiting for a clarification about tildes. I do not know the intended meaning of putting tildes around a word. You may have missed that post.

    I am also unclear on what you're communicating here. Were you under the impression that we thought that "mentioned on Discord" was a substitute for announcements here? Because I'm pretty sure no one ever thought that. (Consider: Which Discord? There's at least three I know of. Obviously, that wouldn't be a viable formal channel.)
     
  11. Lerxst

    Lerxst salty parabola

    I have no idea what "tildes" you're talking about, or what they have to do with the post you replied to. Unless you're referring to some instance elsewhere where I may have used them as a sarcasm-font indicator or an eyeroll or jazz hands or some such thing. In any case, it's not relevant to what I am talking about right now.

    I am communicating that if you are going to explain actions taken on the forum, that explanation needs to be made on the forum. No, I am not "under the impression that [you] thought 'mentioned on Discord' was a substitute for announcements here," I am referencing this post:

    Were the affected parties present in whatever Discord the explanation was offered in (Which Discord? You tell me, I don't know any of them), at the time it was offered? If not, then it should have been done in the thread.
     
  12. Beldaran

    Beldaran 70% abuse and 30% ramen

    Pm's are a thing on discord. We work with people how they feel most comfortable.
     
  13. Lerxst

    Lerxst salty parabola

    OK, then it looks like I misunderstood what Chiomi meant, and I apologize. I parsed it as the explanation being dropped in chat, not PM'd directly to the affected parties. Sorry about that.
     
    • Like x 2
  14. thegrimsqueaker

    thegrimsqueaker 28 Moribunding Mouse Aggravates the Angry Assholes

    Chiomi talked to me in discord about a post she wiggled (and gave me the option of deleting or putting it in the pear wiggler, and since it was a dong joke how could I pass up the chance to say that Chiomi wiggled my dong?) bc I'm more likely to see and respond to things quickly on discord
     
    • Like x 7
  15. Beldaran

    Beldaran 70% abuse and 30% ramen

    Discussion for the policy thread is gonna be in the policy thread now.
     
    Last edited: Oct 24, 2017
    • Like x 3
    • Agree x 1
    • Winner x 1
  16. Azurite

    Azurite Just Floating

    In case using spoilers hasn't been hashed out enough, this is my personal guideline.

    When to use spoilers, in threads like tumblr.txt: "Is this likely to conjure up a detailed mental image of sex/violence/death? Spoiler it."

    No spoiler: "I only know of one case where two afab people sexually transferred HIV to each other."
    "The only case I know of where two afab people sexually transferred HIV involved oral sex while the infected partner was menstruating."
     
    Last edited: Oct 24, 2017
    • Like x 5
    • Agree x 5
    • Useful x 3
  17. seebs

    seebs Benevolent Dictator

    That's a pretty good starting point. It doesn't cover everything, but it's very unlikely to hurt anyone to do that.
     
    • Like x 5
  18. Re Allyssa

    Re Allyssa Sylph of Heart

    Same here! I like to debug social things and I'm usually hyper sensitive whether people will react to something negatively (though there are exceptions, especially if I'm miscalibrated to a person or situation).
     
  19. Verily

    Verily surprised Xue Yang peddler

    Y’all are my favorite tetrapyloctomists. I hope you know this.
     
    • Like x 2
  20. cleverThylacine

    cleverThylacine cuddles for the weird and the fierce

    I'm actually not asking for perfect guidelines; there's no such thing.

    What I want is something more specific than "you'll know if you did it wrong when someone complains and your post gets moved."

    I want that for a number of reasons. I want that because I don't have the kind of brainbugs you do, but I know you and other people have them, and I think your request for guidelines that will help you keep them in hand is extremely reasonable.

    It's pretty apparent to me that there is a not insignificant group of people whose standards are significantly different from mine.

    Most of my concerns are the same as yours. I joke about sex kind of a lot. I spoiler things that I think are really blatant and that I would not say in front of people I didn't think I was friendly acquaintances with, but I hang out on sites like Gaia and Subeta with actual rules about what you are allowed to say where a much larger proportion of users are minors and I never get into trouble on those sites. I have a Cartoon Network account.

    I don't have scrupulosity or problems with feeling "unclean". I have paranoid ideation that was essentially learned from having a fucked-up abusive family AND being bullied a lot in school.
     
    Last edited: Oct 25, 2017
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