Forums » Smalltalk » Community discussion: Policy changes for adult RP

EDIT:

The following changes have been decided on:

• A "Looking for Adult RP" forum, visible only to those 18+ who have checked some setting saying they want to see it, where all requests for "sexy" RP would need to go.
• Preventing RP Finder requests flagged for certain kinds of content from appearing outside of the original poster's own age group -- for example, a RP Finder request posted by an adult 18+ and flagged with a sexuality warning would only be visible to other members who are 18+ years old.(DONE)
• Some changes to the RP Finder to make it clearer how "adult" a RP actually is or isn't.

To answer some common questions about this plan that have come up:

• The new forum would be an OOC forum, so no RP would occur there.
• It would NOT be an un-moderated wasteland where we moved stuff we didn't want to have to deal with. People would NOT be allowed to go there to flame one another or be disrespectful or engage in other forms of harassment. The standards of moderation would be in effect there as well.
• It's likely to be more like "R" rated than "X" rated. I don't really plan to allow for much more raunchy language than is already allowed on LFRP, it'd just move all of these requests to one board so that people who don't want to see requests for "yaoi" or "erotica" or even the less flowery term "sex" wouldn't have to anymore. If someone wanted to get ridiculously in-depth and graphic about their fetishes in their post, we'd still ask them to go elsewhere.
• The forum would be opt-in, so unless you go into your settings and request to be allowed to see it (and are 18+), none of the posts will appear in your notifications, in the "recent posts" widget in the sidebar, or whatever else. So for people concerned about a possible sudden increase in the number of these types of posts that they don't want to see, they will literally not see any trace of them. Even if there were 10x the number of erotic RP requests posted a day, it'll be like they simply don't exist and never happened.

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Hi Community!

There's been a lot of discussion lately about how to handle requests for 18+ RP in the public areas of the site, especially via the RP Finder and the Looking for RP Forum.

We're reaching a point where we need a much more clearly defined policy on how this stuff is handled, as there are a lot of topics that put the site (and its members!) into potential shakey legal territory. For example, an underaged member posting a request for 18+ roleplay without disclosing their own age is essentially advertising for adults to unwittingly commit a felony with them. I know it feels like no big deal to underaged members, and many of you feel mature enough to handle this type of content. Unfortunately, the law doesn't agree and can still punish your RP partners severely, publicly, and permanently.

Having potential issues like this unaddressed is just plain bad for the site, in so many ways.

Therefore, I am considering implementing the following changes:

1. A "Looking for Adult RP" forum, visible only to those 18+ who have checked some setting saying they want to see it, where all requests for "sexy" RP would need to go.
2. Preventing RP Finder requests flagged for certain kinds of content from appearing outside of the original poster's own age group -- for example, a RP Finder request posted by an adult 18+ and flagged with a sexuality warning would only be visible to other members who are 18+ years old.
3. Possibly some system of adult verification for those who want to be really careful about making sure their RP partners are the age they say they are. This would probably involve us checking your driver's license or other identification against public records. Need to do more research and consult some lawyers before we could implement this. This would be optional - if you don't want to get verified, you wouldn't have to.

The only other real alternative would seem to be banning these types of RP requests from the site entirely.

These are rather large changes, so it seemed fitting that we have a community discussion around the issues before anything was done.

What are your concerns? What are your suggestions?

I believe that if more of us would ask some questions about the rp more so than we do now, such as asking if they are in fact 18+. I know this wouldn't always work, but if we could, and list some of the consequences for the felony, perhaps we could prevent it? I am not a legal expert, but I believe by asking questions before starting rps would help at least somewhat.


Or even having a separation of generations would help somewhat. I know that some websites such as IMVU, have the 13-17 year
old separated until they are 18. Then they can only get into the 18 year old parts of IMVU. Maybe, if possible, we could do that?
I know I'd hate to go to jail over a story. thank you for addressing this!

I like option 1 and 2 equally! Having both implemented would be really neat. I'd also be totally cool with verifying age through supplying documents and such.

Kids lie quite a bit, especially when it concerns age online. Legalities aside it's really hard to trust that someone playing an anonymous character is in fact 18 years or older, so you risk the chance of playing sexy times with a kid even if they say they're of age. I'm kind of uncomfortable with that and very hesitant to just take what an anonymous person says at face value.

I'm very, very much against separating the kids from the adults because it means you take away all opportunity to engage in kid-friendly games all the time. It would also probably cause many parts of the site to become graveyards because the activity we have is accumulated from all ages, and some areas are already slow.

We already have the ability to shield groups from anyone under 18 to protect ourselves, as the system uses the person's account age instead of their word. I think systems utilizing this technique like Kim described will be the most logical and efficient in achieving a safeguard for the entire site.

I think both options are good, but as Sanne said, the potential to have people just create a new account and lie about their age to get the RP they want is just too great. I think this is a very difficult thing to address because of that fact. I know when I was a bit younger, I never put my real age when signing up for a site because I didn't want the system to know my real age for my own security.

Part of me kind of wonders if the last option, banning it altogether, might be the best route to go. It kind of depends. I mean, there's other websites specifically for 18+ RP, sexually-wise at least. And that's in the context that we are talking 18+ as in the sexual material. Some people just want an adult partner to RP with, without such explicit content. But in my opinion, if worse comes to worst, it'd be a fairly simple matter to ban the sexual 18+ RP since there are other venues out there for it. But again, that's just because options 1 and 2 are so easy to lie on. Option 3 could be difficult because then there's the potential of websites getting a hold of your personal information. I wouldn't be too comfortable having my information out on the web like that.

So, I think the ideas are good to start, but it's a very tricky situation to deal with.

As Sanne said, Kids will lie a lot and it's hrad to take what people say at face value. I like all three options, and wouldn't mind having to pull up my license to prove I am of age. It's super important to make sure everyone is safe. Under 18 folk don't tend to understand the implications that come with looking for adult rps when you are underaged. Even laying it out isn't always a true way of having them understand it. Age verification would be great in that regard.

With the site using the age marked on the account vs word is great, but we all know that not everyone puts their true age up there, esp the underaged. Perhaps the verification can be done during account creation? With the ID's and so such, though like you said, you'd have to talk to your lawyers about all of that.

Kim has a system in place that alerts her when people do that, actually, so it's very hard to do this undetected, if not impossible.

A few things:

People lie all the time about their ages. Constantly. It is not an uncommon occurrence for the mod team to catch someone chatting about being in middle school (or whatever), and when their account is checked, they registered saying they were 23.

99% of the people who do this are doing it because they want to get away with stuff, not because of security concerns (of which there are close to none, realistically speaking).

Most of the people who lie about their age feel that they are mature enough to partake in mature content, and are willing to accept the consequences they incur for themselves by doing so. But many have never considered that there could be consequences for those that they interact with, or if they have, it feels too far-away and unlikely to be real.

That said, if you have done due diligence in asking someone to tell you how old they are, and they lie to you and do nothing to contradict that lie, that's pretty much all you can do. Millions of sites rely on simply asking people about their age for (some) legal protection.

I hesitate to make signing up as an adult require adult verification on the spot -- this is a major roadblock, requiring time and money to get taken care of, and might actually create an incentive for adults to sign up as kids so that they could get into the site faster upon signing up! It would likely have a negative impact on the growth of the site. Plus, if adult verification was required, that means when a member had their 18th birthday our gift to them would be to lock their account and demand to see their driver's license and fork over an administrative fee so we could confirm it was real.

I'd prefer to just offer it as an option for those who want to be extra careful.

However! We could make getting formally verified as an adult a requirement for entry to the proposed "Looking for Adult RP" forum. Then people who wanted to be sure they weren't playing with a kid could rest easy using that forum, and could check a person's profile for the stamp -- even if the person didn't list their age, they could at least be known to be 18 or above.

Although there are some safeguards in place, many accounts are investigated, and a fair number are caught, it is not impossible to get away with this and we will never know what percentage do.

I like this and would totally do it.

This is one of the reasons I moved an RP I'm trying to do to a group format with the IC forum hidden to users not part of the group; not because of possible sexual themes (there are none in what I'm planning and I don't plan on that changing), but due to the fact that it will likely get quite violent.

I think this could be a really good idea! That would keep all those kinds of RP searches in one area, too, so those not looking for Adult RP could roam the regular form areas.

And as far as little risk to your security by being truthful about your age, the only reason I lied back then was because my parents always warned me to be careful what I put on the internet, so I felt that if I put my age as being young, that would put me down as 'prey' to the creepy people. So I wouldn't say there's 'little risk', but it's the kind of problem where some people might do it for safety, others just so they can get what they want.

should itshow up on anonymous character's profiles as well? as long as the main account has that stamp, it should show up somewhere on anon character's, or would that not matter? I suppose if they are in the forum area for it, it wouldnt matter much, but it seems worth mentioning

Yes, do this. If they really want that adult themed rp or whatever, then they will have no problem with showing their ID. I also like the ideas 1 and 2. I really dislike it when I can't see someones age because then that requires me to ask for it(It's weird for me to do) when they say "hey I like this character, lets rp!" But said character is known for strong language and violence. If I could just get some way of knowing that they are verified for their age I do not feel pressured to make sure that they are mature enough for the rp. I tend to stay away from younger roleplayers because my rp's are violent and have many cursewords. But when I have anonymous characters contact me or people who hide their age, I tend to avoid rping with them because of this.

I totally get it. However, many sites these days, including this one, allow for hiding your age from the public. So the only security benefit would be if you thought that actual staff of the site were stalkers -- in which case, probably best not to sign up. Which is why I say there really isn't a security benefit for members to do that here.

Good thought! You are right, we'd have to make some method of checking to see if an anon character has age verification on its account. But this is a pretty small step to implement as part of the larger age verification scheme.

As Sanne said initially, I am definitely loving options 1 & 2 in equal measure, and I think we could benefit from both being implemented. Just speaking as a moderator, when I have to handle these issues of kids lying about their age and looking for naughty rp, some of them just don't want to understand it can get everyone in huge trouble. I would REALLY appreciate and feel at ease having virtual... 'barriers'??? in place, and I'm sure it'd make all those folks who are of legal age looking for that RP feel better that they won't be treading terrible waters.


Regarding option 3, however, I'm not 100% sure if we need it just yet. We very well could have it, assuming the legal end is working out fine; but if it's okay for me to mention, our moderation team is generally very good at finding and nipping these issues in the bud, and our tools for helping with things around the site are ever growing and have contributed immensely to our success on that end.


I have a question, however: how would #3 affect RP groups dedicated to the violent, swearing, sexual side of groups? This is all fine and dandy for the public forum and site safety overall, but what happens to our private areas of the RPR? Are they left alone because they have adult-only features (using whatever age you put when you signed up)?

I'd really love to see something done in general, I'm not picky about how haha. I've seen quite a few very sexual RP prompts on the RP Finder that unfortunately pokes at me (I don't really like the word trigger much anymore). Especially regarding scenes between family members or whatever else? I guess I can't stop people from having their "interests," even if I personally feel some are wrong, but would there be a way to prevent the more "illegal" things (parent/kid 'relations', etc), or would we just need to weed through them? Idk why I ask this though, I don't do erotic roleplay pfft.

I'm tired and I'm going sorta off topic I think hah. But this is probably my biggest issue with it, is that potentially harmful things are exposed for the site to see? Though it's a selfish concern because not everyone gets sad seeing that stuff haha. n.n;

Well that and kids. Underaged people asking for that kinda roleplay makes me wanna tear my hair out because there usually isn't really any thinking going on concerning what bad stuff could happen to those they're lying to.

Blahblahblah words heh.

I should nap. >.o;

Would verification be required for violence or other potential mature but non sexual rp? I have a character who is a therapist who specializes in child sexual abuse cases, but is not getting involve with any of the people he might play with. I also have an rp I want to run that would need a mature person to play with, but isn't illegal for a younger person to play. Thou, that said, I don't roleplay with anyone under 18 for legal reasons.

Option 1 and 2 seem like the best way forward at the moment.

Option 3 might be something we need to look at in the future but I'm not sure it's necessary at the moment.

I'm also thinking the penalty for anyone underage caught trying to get around these safeguards should be quite harsh as they're putting other people at risk.

I'm not quite sure I follow. Option 3 is verifying someone's age through legal documents and giving them additional benefits when interacting with other members or even allowing access to specific forums only for those who verified. How do moderators fit into that?