Forums » Suggestions & Development Discussion » Clear divisions of 18+ and under 18 RP Ads.

I'd also just like to toss in here because people seem to be confused -- that this problem seems to be about the all-ages forum and in the all-ages forum, sexual content isn't allowed at all from anyone of any age, so marking 'sexual content' or 'no sexual content' wouldn't solve this problem. As any and all posts marked 'sexual content' in the all-ages forum would be moved automatically (like they already are), and what would be left is people marking the posts 'no sexual content' to get by it and have their sexual content related posts in the all-ages forum. Where they would simply need to be reported and taken down if under age and moved if over 18.

This is not any different than the system we already have, where you simply need to report posts that mention sexual content in the all-ages forum and they will be moved or deleted.

I do however think that making it so 'disallow' doesn't show 'optional' either if people prefer, is a good idea. 'Disallow sexual content and optional sexual content' that sort of thing.

Exactly. Any 18+ ad will need to have one of three choices selected to allow the ad to be posted. That way, the selection information will appear at the bottom of the ad. ‘No sexual content’ appearing in the all ages LFRP area means someone 18+ posted it. If there is no selection information that appears at all, it was posted by someone 17-. I myself am happy with how it all works now, but thought that having a way to be able to distinguish between 18+ & 17- in the all ages forum would ease some concerns I sensed was at the core of the issue expressed here.

So, to sum up the last few posts, I think this is basically the two major things people are wanting/suggesting:

1) Disallow sexual content should exclude 'optional sexual content' in addition to 'required'

2) If posting to the 18+ LFRP, players must choose between 'no sexual content, optional, or required,' and their choice will be reflected in the bottom of the post. I think people are wanting their selection of 'no sexual content' to show up in the same way that optional or required would. 'Will not include sexual themes.'

I figure something like that would put everyone at ease over whether or not the person posting is 18+, as only people in that age range could select 'no sexual content.' Clear visible indicator just like the other two options. EDIT: This is also a good way to stop anyone from getting bothered over 'well what if they just forgot to select that they were fine with sexual content~!'

Exactly. Granted, it won’t stop 17- folk from what text they put in their ads, but it will make it obvious that it needs to be reported if the indicator isn’t there.

I agree with this as well. It'll help the adults-only LFRP narrow down specific content further since there are a lot who don't want any sexual content at all.

Like Rogue-Scribe said, it won't stop people from posting things in their actual ads, but that is a simple fix of others just reporting such ads when they are spotted.

In addition, I think an easy way to be able to view if something is 18+ just by looking at the listing on the LFRP section would be great. We have icons for sexual content, so why not some way to visibly signify that a thread is only open to adults? (If you're unsure what I'm talking about, I mean the little kissy-face thing and the moon symbol to the left of the title).

It would make reporting ads that don't belong in all-ages a million times faster, as you can usually spot the smut threads just from their title alone. People who are posting them in the wrong place typically don't have the common sense to not put that sort of thing in their thread title.

I've only skimmed, so apologies if I'm being redundant or anything, but I just wanted to say: I don't think it makes much sense to prevent "optional" sexual themes posts from displaying in the "disallow" listings. Now, I know my understanding of things is at least partly outdated because I know there's been at least one update to the LFRP system since I last went looking for anything, so it's possible none of this will still be relevant, but my reasoning on it anyway:

• "Optional" very literally includes having an RP with absolutely no sexual content. The body of the post itself may narrow this down, but if something notes sexual content as being "optional," then that is an expression of "I'm entirely okay with nothing sexy happening with this." Taking issue makes it seem like you have a problem playing with people who would even consider ever doing anything sexual.
• Sort of extending from the previous point, I'd often see people struggle with the old system because, for example, they might be open to it under very specific circumstances but would actually rather not. I'm pretty sure a lot of the requests to have an "optional" option came from people who were reluctant, but willing.
• At the very least in the old system (don't know about now), even RPs marked as allowing sexual themes were very frequently not at all about smut. Instead, they were sticking to the phrasing and acknowledging that fade-to-black, characters who might check each other out (even if there's no plan to act on it), or even just the use of crude humor all fall under "sexual themes." (I actually recall being told that even being willing to imply something sexual required the ad to be marked as allowing sexual themes.) I've actually got one friend who I've seen post ads labelled as "allows sexual themes" and then in the post proceed to clearly state that if anything happens between the characters (which was already itself a restricted option), it would never be more than fade-to-black.

I'm not actually against something that would only show ads that are exclusively non-sexual. I know there are some who are really bothered by any sort of mention of sexuality, and I know people won't necessarily always label things quite right or consider how certain terms are, themselves, too risque, so I don't think it's unreasonable to want to block that out as much as absolutely possible (nor to want to be able to combine that with also filtering out any ads posted by someone the site doesn't recognize to be an adult). But I see that as sort of a "nuclear" option that would probably end up with extremely limited results (due to some of what I mentioned above) and that should be separate from just filtering out the ones that require sexual content.

But again, I haven't actually used the updated system yet in any capacity, and I'm sure it's smoothed out at least some of the issues I mentioned.

This is basically EXACTLY what the new fade to black tag was supposed to cope with, and why it does still appear under "disallow" -- it could easily include none at all, and most of them are just totally normal RP but the person thought "Oh, I guess if we played awhile and the characters happened to get romantic there might in the natural course of things be something physical, but I don't want to focus on that, and maybe not even play it out at all even if we decide it did happen" and the like. In my experience, this is how like 90% of adult RPers who aren't exclusively playing smut operate. I just wanted to give those people a way to express that without forcing them to put the smut tag on their posts.

As someone who's had bad experiences with smut and people not respecting boundaries, I don't want ANY chance of someone shoving sexual content down my throat in the RP - optional, for me, is not something I'm interested in because it means that person still has a degree of expecting something to happen. I don't really appreciate the implication that people who want a disallow all sexual content filter are prudes who get into a fit when they see smut mentioned. Take a look at AO LFRP. The entire front page is smut except one or two posts. Disallowing that makes over half of it still include content that could go the path of erotica.

This issue is why myself and friends have either stopped RPing here or have undergone extremely reduced activity. People who want adult RP but don't want erotica have everything working against them, and telling us that we just need to continue dealing with ads that are like playing the russian roulette of smut is only going to run more people off.

People who want sexual content can use allow or required. People who want non sexual rp can use...nothing. I'm sorry, but I'm not interested in having to dig through pages of ads just to find the few ones that aren't marked, all because it's just been accepted that adult = fine with sex.

It's much appreciated! I really like being able to see the fade to black option without needing to wade through the triple X requests.

I have already affirmed that a filter that removes even those that have it as "optional" is coming soon, not to worry.

We could also talk about how any of this wouldn't have happened when we have kiddies on a highly erotic environment. You can easily access any adult content with less than ten clicks, counting the one you do to log out. I know that the United States had laws with lots of loopholes but, damn, I feel like this is a stretching a bit too far when it comes to, ahem, 'protect the safety of children'.

All it takes is a furious Karen to see what's this 'roleplaying' thing her 13 year old daughter is doing about recent cartoon shows between adults that consider the act of respecting boundaries as "prudish".

And before you gargle and vomit in my eyes; I've been writing erotica for 6 long years, I've seen it all, done it all and, as someone who keeps a friendly female persona elsewhere, I have felt on my skin on how it feels to have your boundaries disrespected against your wills. I know it means shit for proof but if you need some justification, there you go.

And I'm also screencapping this whole thread.

I can't tell if you're advocating for us to kick everyone under 18 out of the site entirely, or saying that since anyone on the internet can get erotica just about anywhere they want just by clicking a button saying they affirm they are over 18, we shouldn't bother to enforce anything.

I think what my dude's comment here kinda boils down to is that this whole issue even exists because the barrier between Adult & All Ages isn't all top waterproof; refering to the whole fact that you can easily bypass the "OwO sensitive content ahead, turn back oh ye innocent minors!"-walls by simply logging out and returning to the exact same link.

Of course, there are plenty of sites that have this problem & most of those are even more erotic and disturbing than what you can find on here, but there's quite the solid chonk of irony to the fact that a site that such an observant censorship squad (that goes out of their way to scold the owners of character profiles that already have the 'adult themes/violence/profanity' tags up for having said 'adult themes/violence/profanity' on their character pages) also has such a casual division between full-on pornographic RP requests and the kid-friendly ads.

Which brings us back to the suggestion that this thread started with: a wish for a stronger barrier between 18+ and <18 ads, as to protect both parties.

As far as the whole 'there should be more room/a seperate room for non-sexual adult RPs' thing, yeah, I agree on that too, it seems like an universally 'accepted' fact that Adults Only means adults only in the most XXX sense of the phrase. I'm personally not one who's very picky about age since I don't really do smut nor heavy romance to begin with (and have seen for myself that adults can be just as immature and rude as underage internet newbies), but I do think that it would only improve the site if there was a possiblity to keep porn & mature-players-wanted ads seperated, so that both frisky and non-frisky adults can have equal chances at finding their suitable partners.

The situation this topic was responding to was a minor posting a request for smut in the all ages part of the site. There wasn't bleed of an adult posting for smut in all ages; there was someone who had no options to post in adult areas requesting something that was against the rules for them everywhere.

You must be logged in to access the Adults Only board, so logging out to review ads for smut will not work. The only way to access it is to have an account registered as 18+.

What you are maybe referring to is character profiles that are flagged for certain types of content, not the forums. There's a long history for why this is, and plans for allowing people to make their profiles not be accessible to logged out users if they want slightly more protection from people who are willing to lie to see any content they want to see. But let's be real; it's super minimal protection. Minors can just lie when registering instead.

Are you talking about us asking that specific, super hot-button themes now use specific trigger warnings instead of only general ones? Otherwise, I have no idea what this refers to. Maybe our recent ruling against using the site to host Nazi PCs? Maybe our long-standing rule about not putting minor characters in sexual situations, even if you as a player are an adult?

I can't even begin to tell you how strongly I disagree that the division is "casual." You must be logged in, registered as 18+, and have affirmatively opted in to see ads for smut.

From the FAQ:

Requests for smut based RP do not appear unless you specifically opt in to them. If you do opt-in to them, you can also opt out of them. Even while opted in to them, you can temporarily filter them out. If you're seeing them, at some point you turned them on. This is not the starting state of the forum.

If you're referring to the "maybe, but if we do, fade to black" showing up, it's already been discussed to death in this topic that that will soon be filterable as well.

New option in comfort & privacy settings: I want to treat RP ads that are marked as allowing "optional/fade to black" sexual themes as explicit

Wow, this is amazing.

Thank-you for listening and putting up with quite a bit of needless hostility to bring us this feature.