forum Question
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@EldritchHorror-Davadio health_and_safety emoji_events

Hello friends! Wanted to ask the two of you a thing but wasn't sure if Site Support was really the place and Nyx's profile says not to PM her so I wanted to try to be respectful of that. Also didn't wanna bother our benevolent overlord with this.

So, it's come up a few times (not with me personally but with others, particularly the younger denizens of Notebook) that things that are overly dark or triggering will get warnings, even if TW'd and all that stuff. Y'all are doing a great job.

My question is about the RP rules. andrew (Our Supreme Lord and Overseer)'s list is short, (bless him for trying to give us freedom to do what we want) and while it contains a PG-13-preferred rating, it only talks about sexually explicit content. When you read the rules, a person would typically also assume and understand that to mean also don't be super dark and painfully edgy.

But some of our dear citizens don't have the common sense to make that assumption. My question is if there's a way to maybe add a clause specifically about dark and heavy content? It might help avoid more comments about 'Oh, is that a new rule, nobody else gets warned, nyah!'

Anyway. Just a thought. This is a long protracted post to ask a short question XD

@Serpentess health_and_safety language

That actually is a good question. And, I’m just going to go ahead and @andrew (Our Supreme Lord and Overseer) so he can see this as well, and brainstorm along with us. I’ve honestly been wondering how this same issue could be handled, I just couldn’t come up with any ideas. That’s a good idea though, and reasonable.

Edit: Plus I don’t want to attempt any rule changing/clause adding without andrew (Our Supreme Lord and Overseer) present, lol. I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes, least of all his.

@EldritchHorror-Davadio health_and_safety emoji_events

I fully understand (and appreciate) wanting to leave the rules somewhat vague, to give people freedom to do what they want. I just feel like a specific clause would give you mods (particularly Nyx) more boilerplate when confronting people.

And for sure! I'm not trying to go around andrew (Our Supreme Lord and Overseer) or anything. I just didn't know if maybe y'all had already had conversations about this, and me asking would be just repeating and rehashing something he's already made decisions about.

@Serpentess health_and_safety language

It makes complete sense and I agree that it would indeed help, just all around/in general.

I know. And, as far as I know, there hasn’t been any conversations about it. Or, if there has, I don’t know about them. So, no worries, grin.

@Nyx-is-with-frost health_and_safety brightness_7

Hey! Sorry I was sleeping, davadio you can pm me whenever you want man I know you and we already have a pm, I only put that there because I don't like random people messaging me privately and clogging shit up lol.

Now I usually get a little iffy about most stories with heavy violence, suicide, abuse, Etc- so whenever I see one I give them a warning, but it's usually just a reminder even if it doesn't seem that way! I'm just trying to make sure everyone on the site is safe. I also go based off of reaction of other people when they see those posts they get very uncomfortable an they just don't want to see that stuff. (I might be miss reading something I'm half asleep rn so I apologize to anything that doesn't make sense or spelling errors. bows)

@EldritchHorror-Davadio health_and_safety emoji_events

Youre ok! Get that rest!

You know, the pm's thing makes sense. It was early though, cut me some slack ;)

I wanna be clear, Nyx, I'm not saying "Well, actually it's not in the rules so why do you keep giving out warnings." I am saying that you're doing a good job of warning and making it clear that content of that sort isn't for this site. At least not out in the open. PM's are a different animal.

My question was if andrew (Our Supreme Lord and Overseer) or one of you mods could add a rule or clarify a rule to make it very clear that that's a thing. That way, when you give warnings, it's all right there in the rules, really clear and obvious. So that people can't be like "Oh, it's not in the rules, you're just mean, nyah!"

Does that make more sense? I'm not attacking you for giving too many warnings or anything like that. I'm on your side of the issue, wondering if there's a way to make your job easier :)

@Nyx-is-with-frost health_and_safety brightness_7

😴

Lmao ofc ofc, but please if you ever have any questions or concerns that you'd like for me to help you with totally pm me dude! We're friends and your not a stranger so you don't ever have to worry about it❤

Oh okay I totally read it wrong I'm sorry 😭 but
thank you! I've been trying to make that a bit more clear but Understandably people get confused! And that's okay I get confused a bunch too we're only human 🥲 so I'm understanding when it come to that but I will come off as a bit pushy to make my point known, but I'm not being mean.

@the-void-phantasmic language

I have a question regarding this and I’m glad it was brought up, so if you don’t mind me butting in for a second…

One of my closed group rps is gonna have a section with quite a bit of violence, will I need to add a trigger warning or just move that section to pms?

@Serpentess health_and_safety language

I have a question regarding this and I’m glad it was brought up, so if you don’t mind me butting in for a second…

One of my closed group rps is gonna have a section with quite a bit of violence, will I need to add a trigger warning or just move that section to pms?

So, with explicit violence, it is stated in the rules that, as long as it’s stated in the beginning of the rp that it will happen, then it’s fine.

My bigger concern regarding this whole situation is Sharing/Critiques. Most of the rps I’ve looked at are set up like the rules say, or, alternatively, the players, at least, are aware of what will happen because they’ve talked through PMs. The Sharing/Critique category is slightly different, and I know I’ve asked one person to adjust their excerpt because of triggering content, and Nyx did basically the same the other day. With that, I’ve been going with a ‘Trigger Warning and Spoiler Tag’ sort of thing, so that it allows the writer to share without totally risking anyone’s mental health. But, otherwise, I’m a bit lost on how to handle it.

@andrew health_and_safety flash_onAdmin

Great questions all around! I wrote the original rules very quickly and they were intentionally very vague because I didn't know what struggles we'd face; although they've served us (relatively) well for years, I agree they could be a lot more specific and helpful.

In my eyes, @Nyx- and @Serpentess have done a wonderful job looking out for users and providing warnings about writing about darker content within the given rules, and I appreciate that. :)

That said, trauma and emotionally-charged, sometimes-dark experiences are a core part of writing for a lot of people, and I'm okay with allowing some of the darker topics with some caveats. Importantly, I think they should be allowed under the following conditions:

  1. They have proper trigger warnings at the beginning of any thread that plans to include them
  2. They aren't sexualized, glorified, or excessively explicit

So it sounds like we might want to update the following rule:

For the time being, let's make sure all RPs are R at most, but ideally around PG-13: in other words, no explicit sexual content, please. If you're going to include explicit violence, please make a note that it's OK/accepted at the start of the thread.

Would something like this be better? (changes are in bold)

For the time being, let's make sure all public RPs are R at most, but ideally around PG-13: in other words, no explicit sexual content, please. If you're going to include explicit violence or especially-triggering content (suicide, abuse, etc), please make a note that it's OK/accepted at the start of the thread and to what extent they may appear as a warning for those who might be upset by those topics. Please don't sexualize, glorify, or be overly explicit with these topics when writing them.

Of course, I'm always happy to adjust the rules (or the proposed changes) as needed and I'm open to your feedback as well. Would a change like this help out?

@EldritchHorror-Davadio health_and_safety emoji_events

I'm glad this was profitable :) Thanks for all your hard work, andrew (Our Supreme Lord and Overseer)! We appreciate you!
Also, thanks mods! Y'all do a great job. Hopefully this makes things a little easier. It at least gives clear written expectations that can be quoted and referred to. Well done all!