Operation Audacious Phoenix

I would like to provide an opposing voice for a moment. Before I do though, I would like to provide some context by saying that I only use the 18+ sections of RPR as I am both concerned about unintentionally exposing minors to things that they shouldn't be exposed to and the legal ramifications of doing so (even accidentally). I'm also a mom to three kids who range in age from <2 all the way to 23 years old.

I think what Kim is proposing could work very well from the user's side, but that it will be quite different in appearance from what we're used to. What she's describing with tags and filters and age badges to recognize what age category a person belongs to is a more comprehensive system for searching the postings. In essence, when you want to search through the RP listings, this should feed you only the results that are appropriate for your needs/wants, including age restrictions.

In order for that to work, some things would have to be absolutely mandatory. Anyone without an 18+ badge would automatically be excluded from results that contain sexual/violent content just as they are now. It would also mean that from the adult side, certain settings would have to auto-flag the advertisement as inappropriate for minors:

- As an example: If you are marked as 18+ at the account level and you create a LFRP ad that has checked off that you want sexual content/gore it will automatically prevent that ad from being seen by all users who are not flagged as adults.

- If you make the same ad and you are marked as "minor" at the account level, it is visible only to other minors?

- If either party made an ad that was flagged as "non-sexual" and "non-violent" then it can be visible to either age group, with the option for all adult accounts to check a box and remove posts from minors?

These kind of flags for who can access what would have to be at the account level I think in order to work properly, and as always it doesn't solve the problem of fraudulent account creation where minors lie about their age. That's always going to be a concern though, no matter what Kim does. I suspect that the mod team is kept rather busy trying to track all those who slip through as it is. Changing the way the forums look on the surface won't erase that problem, but I can see how it might make the mod team's job easier if they are only having to look into a single area instead of policing a dozen forums individually. I suspect that on the Kim/Mod side, it would move all the moderation duties into a more streamlined location and allow them easier control of who sees what.

Some of those above me have expressed concerns that they think it will be hard to locate adult partners who are willing to RP without sexual content. To them I would like to point out that many of us have stopped advertising because the ads DO get lost among the sexual content. Being able to filter that out purposefully would go a long way toward giving us the appearance of a more welcoming place to put ads for what you really want. I think it's a mistake to assume that there aren't enough partners out there who share your needs.

I also think that whether you create a "second forum" or simply build a better filtering system is irrelevant--those are cosmetic differences and in the end will accomplish the same thing. I think that much of the adult community here is divided though and that the non-sexual side has sort of lost their voice in the LFRP. Having these kind of tags and filters could make a massive difference in the quality of your search results (and provide a more comfortable platform for each to make their own ads). During your account creation or somewhere in your account settings it should be as easy as flipping as switch that says, "No minors," and then being assured that you will never see such through whatever visual system Kim has built.

I think combining ALL of the ads into a single, highly tagged and filterable forum would not be a bad idea! It would change the appearance from our (the 18+) side, but in functionality it would be no different than it is now aside from allowing us to filter out certain levels of content or be more specific in what we wanted from partners/groups.

I understand where the above is coming from, and to an extent I agree: in essence it might work. But that's if users implement the filters in the first place. Some don't, which still presents an issue of adult ads slipping through the cracks and reaching minors in an integrated forum. Players ask for sexual/violent content in the body of an ad, but don't flag it as such with the filters. As I mentioned before, if this happened in the AO forum, there would be no issues since it's contained among adults. In an integrated forum, it's more of a problem. By the time someone files a report and a mod checks it out, there's a chance that at least one minor has already contacted the OP with interest.

If the filters are one-hundred percent mandatory to be filled in before posting an advertisment, then it may just work out. However, it feels too restrictive; it can also border on annoying to fill in everything that's required before posting each time you want to send out an ad. (This is not my opinion because I adore the filters, but I know others who may feel this way.)

Yes, there will always be minors who make new accounts to access the good stuff. But it's the essence of having a safe space for adults to flee to that's one of the main draws for the AO Forum. I don't think I would mind an integrated forum, but only if there are ways to make sure non-filtered ads are removed from a minor's view. Filtering by words can be faulty, so I don't think that's much of an option. Until then, I still stand by just updating the filters.

I want to push back on these concerns a little bit.

I see a recurring theme of, it will only work if people use the filters, otherwise things will slip through and minors will see - this already happens a LOT. The mods move many topics to LFRP-AO a week. I'm not sure I'm convinced this would be any different/worse.

Regarding "it would be annoying to fill out the filters, people might not" - we're talking about one check box to determine whether something contains sexual content or not. I'm not sure this is more arduous than choosing which forum to post on.

The other bit is, a certain amount of the leakage of posts that ought to be on LFRP-AO that end up in all ages instead comes from new players who don't even know that LFRP-AO exists, because they haven't yet been through all the tutorials, help docs or settings where they might find this info. Because you must opt-in, it's invisible while you don't know about it. Is it possible that we'd see less of this leakage if their first guess of where to post a RP ad was always correct, and included a checkbox for mature themes they could immediately see? I don't know but it feels possible.

Edit: I will go through and do some individual responses to specific concerns tomorrow! It's too late tonight.

I know that on deviantArt, the "does this contain mature content?" box on uploads is both immediately visible and basically the only required thing to answer.

So, again - still not 100% on this idea, it's not at all guaranteed, and I am mightily swayed by the negative support here. However, I have this nagging feeling that part of the issue is that we are picturing different things when talking about it. I may do some mock ups.

I don't really follow this. The only way to "sneak in" or "find you" would still be lying about their age during registration - otherwise the very same filtering code that is in use now would bar minors from seeing or creating adult-flagged content on the LFRP forum.

Can you clarify what you mean by sneaking in?

We could even still have a link that said "LFRP-AO" but showed only the properly filtered posts if the concern is visual confusion? In thinking about this, I'm realizing it would be possible for me to go ahead and just make this change with very few people actually noticing if I set the links up correctly.

You still wouldn't see anything marked for sexual content without opting in to seeing it. It's likely you wouldn't notice anything except there were more adults around to RP non-sexual things with.

I'm resistant to this because

1) it's just another method of filtering, it just uses the forum id field to do it rather than a flag field

2) one of the problems I was hoping to solve with this idea was cross-posting. People already post duplicate ads to LFRP-AO and all ages because the RP could be played "with or without sexual themes." This sounds like a recipe for the same ad getting posted 3 times, no?

I already answered this earlier, but repeating it just for the sake of consolidating:

That part isn't different though - right now you have to first know about the adults only forum, opt-in to seeing the adults only forum, and remember to use it correctly. This change might actually remove one or more of those barriers to knowing how to do it correctly, in that you would not need to opt-in to knowing the filters exist.

I've been thinking more and more about this, and I think the biggest hurdle to implementing a minors only area is aging out - one day you are 17 and happily setting up a RP with your friends, the next day you turn 18 and are locked out from seeing or responding to your own topic. I'm not yet sure how to address this hurdle.
This ^^^ Still thinking...

Yeah. I've added this filter (though the LFRP-AO board still exists in current implementation) and it is always immediately visible and you don't have to fill out anything else.

Ah, I mean instances where despite the current procedures we have or set up, minors will slip through the cracks somehow via a bug in the system, even by accident.

For example: a long while ago, I was talking to someone who had their age hidden on their profile. I used to have a process of having people post on my topics in the AO Forum to prove they're adults. So I provided them a link to my open topic. They were able to access the forum and post a response on my topic fine. Thus, I assumed they were an adult...

Until I visited their profile later on to learn they were 17, not 18. I'm not sure if this was a bug, and I definitely reported it, but it had my hackles up ever since.

For me, it's the fact we're getting rid of a safe place for adults that makes me wary about merging the forums. Yes, you could filter the responses to adults-only in an intergrated forum, but it's not quite the same since those filters can be turned off at any time. The feeling of having a place for others of my age group with no kids around is what draws me to the AO forum in the first place. With an integrated forum, kids are still there: they're just hidden by the filters.

I will admit that what you're talking about and what I'm thinking could be off by a long shot, so maybe having a mock-up would be nice? But I'm thinking about the LFRP forum that has filters in place on the sidebar or somewhere similar that you can set based on your preferences. I'm not thinking about the Find RP Tool since I don't use it much (even though I should!)

Without even looking at the case, I am 99.9% sure that what happened was that they were caught lying about their age and their account was modified to reflect their real age by mods - thus, they could access the forum when you asked them to do so, and could not later.

However the filter is implemented, whether through forum id or age group flag, this situation would be unaffected.

I see; that's understandable. Initially I thought it was a bug in the system and they were still seventeen despite accessing the AO-Forum, which worried me. But your explanation is far more likely, and I'm surprised I didn't see it that way before.

I'm still iffy about the idea since it does rid us adults of an official safe space to post our ads, but if it's implemented well without much issue, then I might be able to adjust. It's something to get used to, certainly.

Edit: Now that I think about it, it may be a simple matter of toggling the two forums back and forth in a way. The actual AO format won't be gone, it'll just be hidden under the all ages forum and toggled with an option in the filters that reveals itself when you turn eighteen. If that's the case, I wouldn't mind that at all. In fact, that'd make things easier for newcomers and those who like to visit the general forum every so often.

However, you might have a lot more in mind for it, and it could even be completely different from what I'm thinking. I agree that we may need to see some mock-ups of the idea.

This is basically the core of the idea, yes. So maybe "eliminating" is not quite the right word!

To expand on that, you'd have four possible views:

1) "all ages" which would mean literally all ages, and if you're an adult that would include stuff marked for adults only, but not stuff marked as including sexual content even if you're an adult. This would be the default view starting out. This would mean you'd see all non-smut RPs that you are eligible to participate in as the default mode of existence.

2) "adult only" which would mean ONLY stuff marked as being for adults only, and posted by other adults, but NOT marked for sexual content. This would be the start of your "safe space" where only adults are.

3) "adult only + allow sexual content" which would mean stuff marked as being for adults only, posted by other adults, and would include both stuff that is marked for sexual content and not marked for sexual content. Still under the "safe space" for adults umbrella.

4) "Adult only + require sexual content" which would mean ONLY stuff that is marked for sexual content + being for adults only. Still under the "safe space" for adults umbrella.

In general, marking something for sexual content would automatically mark the "I only want other adults to see and join this RP ad" box, but marking the "I only want other adults to see and join this RP ad" would not automatically flag it for sexual content.

Does that make sense?

That makes sense to me! And, of course, if things are miscategorized (at least on a 'contains sexual material' level - I assume that the 'posted by adult' part will be taken care of automatically), moderators can be called in to fix things, much like they can be now.

Will there be a similar option for minors who don't wish to interact with adults?

We'll know whether the thing is posted by an adult or not automatically, but the box will ask about intent - much like posting on the adults only board means you only intend for adults to read it, checking the box will result in only adults being able to see it. Adults can still not check this box to have their post be available for all ages.
Yup, this will be identical.

This is something I'm not sure about yet - the complication is, on your 18th birthday, you would lose access to the posts you had made/participated in just a day before. It's a one-way transition, whereas one never ages "out" of accessing the adult section once they have it.

Ooof, that's a perplexing sort of roadblock, yeah. I mean, I suppose that one's own posts could always be available in the equivalent of 'Your Posts', but for anyone else's... Hmmn.

I would say that you could include notices that you're about to age out, but I know people are gonna ignore them.

Yes, but then if you can still post in your own threads, the other people posting in your topics lose the confidence that everyone posting in this category is actually a minor. So... major stumbling block!

I really don't want to see the AO disappear. I only use that board aside from small talk or rp discussion. I would much rather have an entire forum area for adults only with filters involved with it instead of everything crammed into one.

These forums move extremely fast, having it all combined would make it virtually impossible to keep up with the front page of them when those busier days kick up the dust.

I would personally be hard pressed to ever use the forums for LFRP purposes if it's all thrown to one forum with chunks of filters to take away this that and add the other. I would rather have it separated.

I personally see one additional difficulty with combining everything into one, and that is that posts by those under 18 may be often tagged as violent or including sexual themes, which would mean they may get thrown together with the others by the filters. I often see characters by those under 18 with the usual mature tags.

These will not be offered to those under 18 on the public forums.

I can see Kim's mind wanting to go with just the 1 forum along with filters whilst the majority of the community rather stick with the 2 separate forums. A challenge ahead, not only to implement this big change but find a way to lure the opposing view reluctant to change.

Personally I like having 2 forums apart, with filters or without.

When I come up with a plot that I really like to try out. I post it in the AO forum for a more violent take with gore, etc... and I post the same title and content in the general forum to roleplay with a wider audience which can include minors to roleplay the same plotline but without gore etc...

This often leads to 2 entirely different roleplays and outcomes out of the same 1 idea. Not sure you can "double post" the same title and content in the 1 forum with and without AO content

With the way you further detailed it, I can see where you're coming from, but Hades also brings up a very good point with the speed of how posts move on the general and AO forums. Overall, I'm still iffy on the idea: it's 45%/55% with me, the 55% leaning towards keeping the forums as is, just with better filters for each.