Forums » Suggestions & Development Discussion » Clearer on the content ratings?

I accidentally violated the content ratings and got the topic deleted, and I feel like a horrible person now. I honestly thought what I posted fit the PG 13 ish rule. Now that I know it apparently didn't, my suggestion is to make an edit to the rules clarifying what is and isn't allowed in the public forums. It might save some heartache for everybody.

DeviantArt is an example of a site that has its rule on the subject clear: https://help.deviantart.com/565/

The descriptions of what isn't allowed do get kinda graphic, so I'd suggest maybe saying something like: "These things aren't allowed on the public forums" and then put it under a collapse tag.

...Really, I feel horrible. Very horrible. Causing trouble is never my intention.

http://www.rprepository.com/help/rating-clarification

How would you improve the currently existing rating clarifications?

Just what I said, that link to the Deviant Art rules thing is clearer. Right now we just have a pretty vague thing that says PG 13 ish and the mods decide what does and doesn't cross that line.

For example, on Deviant Art they don't allow descriptions of sexual penetration and sexual fluids, and they say that. My topic that got deleted was a piece of writing I thought was funny and PG 13 ish, but it had some swearing and referenced sexual fluids in a joking manner. So if the ratings here were to add that sexual fluids couldn't be described or referenced jokingly on the public forums, it would be clearer.

I mean obviously there can be perfectly clean "PG 13 ish" discussions on those things. Like if somebody were to make a topic talking about the recent study that suggests sperm count is dropping in the West, that would be fine. But a detailed smut scene, or even what I wrote, would have to be taken elsewhere.

You didn't save a copy of it? I'm curious just how bad it was that it got deleted without a request for you to edit it or move it yourself first. I would suspect it was pretty blatant, but I didn't see it so I don't know, and don't want to make the same mistake myself.

I do have it still, yeah. If you're really curious, please PM me. On your actual account instead of an anonymously played character, preferably.

I don't think the RPR needs to tell its members that sexual fluids or the other stuff DA listed are part of sexual content - it should be pretty obvious they all are sexual in nature. Sexual jokes are also still sexual. I think that's a given, and covering every possible situation that might be sexual will make an already long page even longer, and less likely to be read. I think most of us know perfectly well what is and isn't okay in this context and can make a decision that is in keeping with the forum rules just fine. If you're not sure what constitutes as sexual content, you can always ask a moderator before you post, they're always happy to help and clarify.

I disagree that conversations of this nature can be perfectly PG-13ish. Besides the fact that discussions such as on sperm count and sexual fluids have no place in the public parts of a roleplaying website, it also poses a severe legal risk for adults who engage minors on such topics, as well as the RPR as a whole. The law is very harsh on this matter. Even intentions to educate or casual conversations and jokes can be misconstrued and land an adult in jail, or the site taken down. It's just not worth it.

I can see wanting to be safe legally, yeah. But I don't think it's illegal for minors to have things like sperm just mentioned to them. That was just an example, I know nobody in their right mind would really make a topic about that here.

I guess in the end, it's up to Kim. I guess if the PG13 ish thing was edited to say "no sexual content"? I mean right now it just has things about nudity.

'The sensibility that ultimately defines PG-13 is "I wouldn't want my kid to see that." Different people raise their kids different ways, and so we tend to err on the side of caution.'

This is from the Pg-13ish part of the rules, and that is pretty clear really.

Concerning common sense on what should and shouldn't be posted, think of this analogy:

The RPR's forum is a series of linked rooms. People gather in these rooms to talk about different subjects.

All of the sudden when you walk in, someone says, "Hey, want to hear a joke?" & starts talking about things, including sexual acts and fluids. Suddenly, because of social norms, you are uncomfortable. You didn't walk into this room expecting to hear that kind of talk.

The forums are the same way, but text-based.

Yes, sure, I can see the argument for a little more clarification, but common sense ought to also tell a person not to crack those sorts of jokes "in public".

Oh, I am curious... But I prefer my account be used strictly for logging in. It's just how I do things. Best of luck, really.

It can be really, really difficult to figure out what context those things are said in. How do we define the intent of the adult who's talking about it? An adult preying on a minor can use sex related jokes as a way to sexually solicit a minor, which is illegal. Mentioning your personal or talking about sperm count to a minor walks a very, very, very fine line between sexual education and sexual harassment.

All it takes is for one parent to point a finger at you and claim you were out to sexually solicit their child, and you could be fighting a very long and exhausting court battle even if you assume the context of your joke was clear. This is very serious stuff, and very scary considering the long term consequences even innocent jokes can have. Just be safe and reserve sexual jokes and the like for adult only areas just in case!

I see that I forgot to mention sexual content directly! I can definitely add a more direct mention of it.

One of the issues we have here is that the movie rating guidelines are a terrible system that seems to get more lenient over time, and sometimes just occasionally lets things go that would normally yield a much higher rating for no apparent reason, which leads to a ton of confusion. On the RPR, we tend to drift more in the direction of caution over time, rather than more leniency, as people test our boundaries and try to find creative and exhausting ways to get around rules and skirt the letter of the law while flaunting the spirit.

But it's also the best known system of guidelines for content, so I'm constantly torn about whether to continue using it for reference or not. It gives people a rule of thumb, but it might be a somewhat different thumb for everyone.

A great example of this is actually the Matrix movie (#1). I went to a Christian campus so we were not allowed to watch an R-rated movie in the lounges, it had to be in a personal area like our rooms. I was going to watch the Matrix with some of my friends, but ended up having to get permission from my RA because much to my surprise, the Matrix is rated R!
Now, if you've seen that movie, you'd probably be shocked at that rating because the Matrix is a pretty 'chill' movie compared to what's out today. And it's for the exact reason that Kim mentions; movie rating guidelines get more and more lenient over time. It is indeed 'a different thumb for everyone'.

That actually makes a lot of sense. Also though, you can go into a bar or something, and things like that are more acceptable. Maybe.

I'm not one to use my disability as a crutch, because that would be wrong and whiny, BUT it's worth mentioning that I am highly functioning autistic/aspergers. One of the things with that is not realizing when a social line is crossed until it's too late a lot of times. Which is why I was deeply guilty and saddened by my behavior there. It reminded me, yet again, that I am different, and my attempts to be social and funny once again failed.

I wouldn't make those jokes irl of course. But the internet is my comfort zone, so I guess I just assumed it was much different than real life public. If I start thinking of it as the same thing, I'll probably think twice.

Perhaps since the movie ratings are so...unreliable at times, maybe use the video game ratings instead? Like...say keep it T ish? Or just use both rating systems together.

i mean, the main thing in this forum seems to be "yeah, i can see why you'd want those rules explicitly stated, but... are they necessary?"

and i mean. yeah, they are. if someone has unintentionally broken a rule of any kind, when they've already known the general premise of the rule, then that rule is not defined clearly enough. what will it hurt to revise the rule, to add more detail? what will it hurt to help some people out?

plus, y'know, it's not fair to assume that everyone will know what to do in certain situations, and it's not fair to assume that everyone knows common social sense. this website is constantly growing. we're not going to have a completely neuro-typical population. and the bigger a space, the more people are in it, and so the more you need clear rules and boundaries. there's certainly a reason that big ol websites have big ol lists of rules - they don't just do it for farts and giggles. i've only been here for two years and i've seen a lot of people be confused and apologetic for violating the rating rules (i've even been one of them) - the whole thing could have been avoided by clarifying the source of confusion, i think.

plus, y'know, for Dragoncat - they need those explicitly stated rules. it's hard to discern what's acceptable and what's not for them, and that's not their fault - it's ours, because we didn't make what should be a simple matter simple enough for them to understand.

we don't need to stop saying pg-13ish, but we do need to also say... "no mention of semen. no mention of sexual actions. no mention of drug-related activities." or say, "would you walk into a classroom of third graders and feel comfortable saying or describing it?" because as it goes right now, what the rating guideline says is:

we're pg-13ish and that's kind of confusing and convoluted. don't show nudity, don't say f***.

i may be getting up in arms a little bit. i'm very close friends with someone with severe autism, so i know how confusing social norms and expectations can be. i've even shown that friend the description, just to see if i'm actually being crazy, and they said that they had no real idea of what that meant, because it wasn't concrete. of course, they wouldn't do the things explicitly stated, but there's a looooootttt of things that aren't explicitly stated. like a semen joke. or an informational news article about semen. (y'know, since all extremes and connotations related to talking about semen have been dubbed inappropriate here, shouldn't we put that on the no-no list?)

despite not being somewhat ableist when we specify our rules, we're also going to be cutting down on the potential confusion. we don't need an in-depth list, we just need something clearer than "pg13-ish, but since that's subjective, here's another subjective descriptor."

i don't think contacting a moderator is a good argument, either, because many people are too anxious to do so, and many people may not even think that what you think is inappropriate is inappropriate. they certainly wouldn't post it if they did, anyway.

Swiftly, you are my savior. Thanks so much for that!

Aha I love how you're all pointing to Deviantart as an example of solid rule structure - but even with the Mature Filter turned on it takes only a short scroll down the front page to start finding art that is very very obviously mature.

The way I see it, this was handled rather properly.

The post was removed, and the the offender (harsh word that I don't mean in a harsh way) was made aware of what happened. Since then they have come to realize what they can and can't do. Perhaps it is pretty correct to relate this to a grace period. They made a mistake, and not too terribly large of one, and the mistake was corrected.

While yes, some people need the rules more clearly laid out for them, that is why we have a caring authority here.


I made a huge huge huge mistake towards the beginning of last year. Something that was very clearly stated "hey don't do that" and I deserved exactly what I got from it. But that doesn't bring me to think that particular rule needs to be reinforced even more.

Like I said, I think this was handled properly.
And I also really enjoy our rule system here. It's, to me, much better than any other website that I've ever come across.

And it's as simple as this: Like this website? Don't do anything to harm its community and etc.

And if you do it unknowingly, then your case will be listened to.
We're all good.

Another point to bring up is that. This solution also suggests that we should reform our standards because a minority exists, instead of asking us to understand why these things happen and to accept that minority, which I do, but I have no intentions of advocating a change in a system that works because of a minority.

I think that is a good point. Having a moderator take action on a post is not inherently a bad thing. Mistakes happen even when rules are so detailed we have two dozen pages of info. First offenses, or minor offenses in general, really just get a 'Hey, we saw this happened, it's actually against our rules please don't do it again'. It's not the kind of reprimanding ruthless action we see in many other places. This only becomes an issue if you've had multiple warnings (in a relatively short amount of time) but most of the time, these actions serve as education, not as punishment.

Another factor against having every possible way to cause infraction listed is the fact people don't read, even the really good members who always mean well. The more information is available, the more likely people are going to skip over it, which makes a condensed and generalized version easier to digest and work with. Case in point: our rules clearly state is crystal clear language that you can't use any abbreviation or partial starring for an f-bomb like in your post Swiftly, but you used a partial starring to describe the word anyway.

And as Claine says, DA is not exactly known for the fact that its system is efficient or works at all. We can define the rules until we see blue in the face, if people aren't reading them and sticking to them, we're still having to rely on moderators to clean up and elaborate. There are also lots of situations that we usually don't think about that the mods will eventually run into, it would be impossible to cover all bases consistently. That's why broad spectrum covering language is used.

Case in point, what about other bodily fluids? You're excluding female bodily fluids but they are just as R-rated as semen. What about characters who may push the rules by not saying 'semen', but using innuendos about cake icing or something? That's implied sexual content, but the 'vague' language we have right now includes that it's not okay because of the sexual implications. If we were to define only semen, then it wouldn't technically be against the rules to call it 'icing', which is hugely problematic.
What about people who are RPing some really hot and heavy making out? It's not a sexual act, but it does cross the border into sexual content very quickly.
I'm a diabetic, I do drug-related activities every day when I take my insulin, so does that mean I can't talk about that ever, or RP a diabetic character taking an insulin injection? Insulin can be used as to kill someone, should we focus on the fact it's a drug, or the way it's being used? How do we define that in a single sentence that doesn't make things more confusing and vague?
Weed is not illegal in my country, how can I know whether or not it's okay for me to include in RPs?

The more in-depth we try to go, the more we end up excluding and have to further define the language. "No nudity that shows genitals or female nipples, no adult rated roleplay that includes sexual content, no usage of these specific swear words and try to keep other swear words to a minimum, try to keep your gore and violence down as much as possible as to not make other members uncomfortable" are all good ways to go about it. 'Spirit of the law' is something we use for a reason, as frustrating as it can be for neurodivergent people. Some things don't have hard lines that can be crossed by default, like gore. We can't exactly measure how much blood has been spilled, how much is too much is up to the discretion of the users involved and ultimately up to the moderators.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the need for clarifications - I'm a stickler for it myself, but I personally don't see there coming any good out of going more in depth for the reasons I listed above. People already struggle to adhere to the explicit rules we have listed so far, how is making the rules more defined (along with the problems of needing to expand because you can't define more without leaving out a lot of stuff) going to make a difference?

I sympathize with people who have social anxiety and have difficulty asking for clarification. I have the same issue, and I'm only just now slowly learning to work through this. But anonymous characters exist and can be deleted immediately after the answer is obtained. It's okay for a friend to ask for them instead. The moderators have proven over and over again how nice and understanding they are, they have created an incredibly safe space for people of all walks of life without judgment. There's only so much that can be done on the site's end, people still have the responsibility to take actions themselves in the long run.