19 Nov, 2007, Guest wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
Alright. I guess we need a clean thread to do this in.

These are the current rules governing posting and uploading and such to the site, fairly laxed, possibly too laxed. Apparently too ambiguous.
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A few simple rules:

1. No spamming, trolling, or flaming allowed. This forum is for civil posters only. If you can't find a decent way to say it, then don't say it.

2. No harrasment. Racial, sexual, or otherwise. Complaints will be investigated. Violators posts will be deleted and violators potentially banned.

3. No posting of copyrighted content unless you own the copyright. This includes, but is not limited to, avatars, stories, game content, code, and areas.

4. No signature or profile links to sites belonging to known violators/code thieves/etc.

5. If all else fails, use common sense. If it seems wrong, don't do it.


Since I'd prefer not to consider new rules before consulting the people who apparently want some, this is your chance to do so. I'll start off by listing general things I'm guessing we need at this point:

The Obvious

* No hate speech. Racism, sexism, degrading speech about religions and such.
* No harassment. Race, gender, creed, etc.
* No promotion of illegal activities. IE: Warez downloads, bomb manuals, child pornography, "how to" crime instructions, that sort of thing.
* No porn. We're a PG site.
* No libelous posts. Accusations of any kind had better be backed up with irrefutable evidence.
* No spam. Covering pretty much anything dealing with unsolicited advertising. Stuff you normally see from bots.
* No submission of copyrighted material you don't own without permission.
* No sig/profile/post links to known copyright violators, code thieves, etc.

The not so obvious would include regulations on offensive material, flaming, trolling, antagonizing the staff for your own amusement, keeping things civil, etc. The kind of enforcement actions that generally go hand in hand with charges of censorship being leveled at the administration for daring to enforce it.

Since it's been stated already that people want offensive material regulated, I'm not expecting too much disagreement with drafting a new set of more specific rules. Also keep in mind that just because it's not enumerated in the rules doesn't mean we won't retain the right to deal with it anyway. We're all human, and we all have imperfect judgment. So situations are bound to arise from time to time that don't fit neatly into the printed words.
19 Nov, 2007, Zeno wrote in the 2nd comment:
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No porn. We're a PG site.

Does that prevent uploading PG-13 rated codebases and listing PG-13 rated MUDs?
19 Nov, 2007, Guest wrote in the 3rd comment:
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Not necessarily. That's something that may need refinement. Pretty well guaranteed that X-rated material is out since this site has no age verification and we'd prefer not to be sued by some prudish parent with nothing better to do with their time. :)
19 Nov, 2007, David Haley wrote in the 4th comment:
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This rule concerns me a little:
"Accusations of any kind had better be backed up with irrefutable evidence."
Who decides what is irrefutable evidence? The administrators, presumably. What if an administrator is making the accusations?

The PG thing also concerns me a bit since MUDs can be anywhere from G to PG-13, maybe even R (blood splattering, goring, and heads/limbs chopped off seems to be pushing the PG-13 limit). X is pretty obviously out of bounds, yes.

Otherwise the rules seem fine as long as everybody is held to the same standards.
19 Nov, 2007, bbailey wrote in the 5th comment:
Votes: 0
Samson said:
Not necessarily. That's something that may need refinement. Pretty well guaranteed that X-rated material is out since this site has no age verification and we'd prefer not to be sued by some prudish parent with nothing better to do with their time. :)


Does this mean that file repository submissions will be unpacked and reviewed for things like "x socials" before being made available for download? If so, what kind of screening process and criteria do you envision?
Would you be comfortable with ad-hoc judgment calls, or would implementing an established rating system (like the ESRB's rating system, e.g.) be preferable for consistency?

Is any screening of content being done currently, or do you rely on the community reporting objectionable material?
19 Nov, 2007, Guest wrote in the 6th comment:
Votes: 0
DavidHaley said:
This rule concerns me a little:
"Accusations of any kind had better be backed up with irrefutable evidence."
Who decides what is irrefutable evidence? The administrators, presumably. What if an administrator is making the accusations?


That's why we're hammering this out now so as not to sandbag people with it later. However, it concerns ME that people are a bit quick to play the gotcha game where an administrator is concerned. My hope would be more along the lines of people not making rash accusations ( ala Cratylus ) with nothing but flimsy proof to offer. Maybe if we leave out the "irrefutable" clause? Libel does have a pretty good legal standard of meaning already.

@bbailey:

I think it's reasonable enough to assume that we don't have the time to stop and pick apart everything in the repository and remove those which might be covered under an X-rating. So I'd imagine this would require some level of community involvement to report such things. Personally I object to the use of ESRB and MPAA style ratings - I'm more of a personal responsibility type in that regard. Parental control of children online and all that. But we live in a world where that's not legally feasible anymore due to the threat of lawsuits. At least in the USA. Right now there's no active content screening in place, and I'm not really sure it would uncover much if there was.
19 Nov, 2007, Davion wrote in the 7th comment:
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I think another area we should discuss is the actual enforcement of said policies and the punishments behind them. Obviously we'll have to handle things case by case. But it seems one of the main gripes is with admins engaging in the same discussion and moderation. Anyone have possible solutions to this?
19 Nov, 2007, bbailey wrote in the 8th comment:
Votes: 0
Samson said:
Personally I object to the use of ESRB and MPAA style ratings - I'm more of a personal responsibility type in that regard. Parental control of children online and all that. But we live in a world where that's not legally feasible anymore due to the threat of lawsuits. At least in the USA.


To clarify: I am not advocating applying ratings to submissions. I would, however, be interested in having a consistent and definitive answer to the question "What is X-rated material?". Presumably there are existing ratings systems that have this pretty well hashed out that would be easy to adopt, as compared to coming up with your own guidelines. However, I'm also comfortable with administrators relying on their own judgment about what is and is not acceptable providing that it's made clear in the rules that it is a judgment call and results may vary. Personally, using terms such as "PG" and "X-rated" implies the use of a rating system for which those terms are defined, so it might be better to describe it in more general terms of, e.g., "explicit sexual content" if that is an undesired impression.
19 Nov, 2007, Guest wrote in the 9th comment:
Votes: 0
bbailey said:
Personally, using terms such as "PG" and "X-rated" implies the use of a rating system for which those terms are defined …


Yes, those ratings are part of the Motion Picture Association of America's rating system.

G = General audiences. Usually suited for people of any age.
PG = Parental Guidance suggested. There might be some content unsuitable for young children.
PG-13 = Parental Guidance. Content generally unsuitable for children under 13.
R = Restricted. Content is generally unsuitable for children under 17. Often requires ID before they'll sell you the movie ticket. An adult over 17 must accompany the children to the movie as well.
X, XX, XXX, and NC-17 are somewhat interchangeable, but are generally used for a hard enforcement relating to sexually explicit material and porn. Theoretically it can also be used for extreme gore, but I've never seen it used that way. Children under 17 are not permitted regardless of who accompanies them.

The ratings are generally applicable to software as well, but the ESRB was created to cover that.
19 Nov, 2007, David Haley wrote in the 10th comment:
Votes: 0
Samson said:
Libel does have a pretty good legal standard of meaning already.

Sort of – you still need to go to court and all that jazz. Presumably nobody here is interested in forming committees to act as courts to determine libel and so forth. The main reason I am bringing up the administrator question is because you've made it quite clear that you would like to participate, and so in that light I'm just trying to clarify what the rules are for everybody and whether or not people are on an equal footing when it comes to applying these rules. So sure, dropping the "irrefutable evidence" claim would be a good start unless it's made clear who decides something is irrefutable, and what happens if the person(s) doing said determining are involved in the dispute.

What happened with Cratylus is a fairly good example, actually. Clearly, you thought that his evidence was insufficient, but then again he was making accusations about you. Should you be the one to judge in that case? My inclination would be to suggest that an administrator not make judgments in "cases" (for lack of a better word) involving themselves. (And please note that I'm really not trying to say if you were right or he was right or somebody else was right; I'm just trying to ask what happens when there is a conflict of interest.)

Samson said:
I think it's reasonable enough to assume that we don't have the time to stop and pick apart everything in the repository and remove those which might be covered under an X-rating. So I'd imagine this would require some level of community involvement to report such things.

I also think this is reasonable. If somebody objects to something (or thinks it's otherwise objectionable to somebody), they say so, and as a community we'd discuss it; after such discussion the administrators decide one way or another if they feel it's appropriate.

I think the MPAA/ESRB ratings are pretty stupid (decapitation = PG-13 but flash of nipple = R? wtf?) so I'd be much happier with something other than that. :smile:

bbailey said:
Personally, using terms such as "PG" and "X-rated" implies the use of a rating system for which those terms are defined,

That's a pretty good point. I think it might be safer to make broad claims about the content of the material; i.e., "this material contains sometimes graphical depiction of fantasy violence". People can make their decisions from there.

Samson said:
NC-17 are somewhat interchangeable, but are generally used for a hard enforcement relating to sexually explicit material and porn. Theoretically it can also be used for extreme gore, but I've never seen it used that way.

NC-17 and the X ratings are different in that X is typically reserved for actual depiction whereas NC-17 is still implied. NC-17 is also used for extreme violence, be psychological or physical. If you search IMDB for NC-17 movies you'll see a number of them, but not that many (58 during 2000-present). Kill Bill 1 & 2 are NC-17, for instance. (Well, the "special edition" versions.)
19 Nov, 2007, Conner wrote in the 11th comment:
Votes: 0
Having read the posts through #10 (just in case someone posts while I am…), I think Samson's got it pretty well covered in his initial post.
Samson said:
These are the current rules governing posting and uploading and such to the site, fairly laxed, possibly too laxed. Apparently too ambiguous.

Actually, while a little additional clarity might help, I really think the existing rules pretty well covered it already, but if we're going to add some clarification to them allowing a general bout of input beforehand as your doing here is quite plaudible.

Samson said:
The Obvious

* No hate speech. Racism, sexism, degrading speech about religions and such.
* No harassment. Race, gender, creed, etc.
* No promotion of illegal activities. IE: Warez downloads, bomb manuals, child pornography, "how to" crime instructions, that sort of thing.
* No porn. We're a PG site.
* No libelous posts. Accusations of any kind had better be backed up with irrefutable evidence.
* No spam. Covering pretty much anything dealing with unsolicited advertising. Stuff you normally see from bots.
* No submission of copyrighted material you don't own without permission.
* No sig/profile/post links to known copyright violators, code thieves, etc.

Very nice revisions, even those who feel they are the very embodiments of free speech champions should be able to agree that 'hate speech', harassment (of any kind), libel, & plageurism are not appropriate and do not help promote free speech.

Samson said:
The not so obvious would include regulations on offensive material, flaming, trolling, antagonizing the staff for your own amusement, keeping things civil, etc. The kind of enforcement actions that generally go hand in hand with charges of censorship being leveled at the administration for daring to enforce it.

For these I think we need to consider what kind of enforcement is involved if we want to avoid such charges (which are silly in a privately run forums anyway, but..), but that goes more with what I said below in response to Davion's point anyway.
I think offensive material is sort of already covered above with the hate speech clause, but maybe it needs to be spelled out a bit more broadly for some folks, I don't know.
I think flaming qualifies as part of the harassment clause, no?
Trolling should be in there somewhere, unless we're lumping it in with the offensive material/hate speech/harassment?
I definitely think that "antagonizing the staff for your own amusement" & "keeping things civil" should be included (and combined) with something short and sweet like "be respectful to all members".

Samson said:
Also keep in mind that just because it's not enumerated in the rules doesn't mean we won't retain the right to deal with it anyway. We're all human, and we all have imperfect judgment. So situations are bound to arise from time to time that don't fit neatly into the printed words.

I see no reason at all not to include that in with the new rules too, it's very appropriate and there's no reason to not reserve the right to address situations not explicitly covered as they arise.

Davion brings up a very valid point in saying that:
Davion said:
I think another area we should discuss is the actual enforcement of said policies and the punishments behind them. Obviously we'll have to handle things case by case.

I don't think there's anything wrong with handling things case by case, as long as they do get handled. But maybe for certain types of offenses, an established general guideline would help discourage people from needing to be addressed by the admins?

I appreciate that the definitions which are going to be used here for the aforementioned "PG" are being openly discussed as I happen to agree with David that sometimes the ratings boards seem to have some rather warped ideas as to what qualifies as PG, PG-13, or R, but I also agree with Samson that it's only reasonable for the members to be expected to take the burden of self-policing uploads rather than asking the admins to disect every upload for inappropriate content.

Finally, I'd like to say that I think the whole concern about an administrator needing to be treated differently is silly at best. Aside from having additional powers to be able to run the site and enforce the rules, they are still members too and still have to follow the same rules or be taken to task for it just like another member would be.
19 Nov, 2007, KaVir wrote in the 12th comment:
Votes: 0
Samson said:
Yes, those ratings are part of the Motion Picture Association of America's rating system.


That's for movies though - we're (mosty) running text-based games. Is there any sort of rating system used for books? If so, that might be more appropriate. How old do you have to be to buy an adult novel, or a story containing violent subject matter?
19 Nov, 2007, Guest wrote in the 13th comment:
Votes: 0
I'm not aware of any sort of MPAA/ESRB style rating system for books in the US. I don't think one exists.

As far as I know, adult novels would fall under the same umbrella as adult magazines, you'd have to be 18 or older to buy it. But that varies by state, some make you wait until you're 21, others allow it at 16, but the vast majority use 18. This covers sexually explicit material, I'm not aware of any sort of restrictions on buying books with violent content in them.

The movie rating system was just an example, but I guess it's not widely known enough in international circles.
19 Nov, 2007, KaVir wrote in the 14th comment:
Votes: 0
But once again, adult magazines have pictures, and what we're talking about here are text-based games.

I am familiar with the movie rating system (having ordered numerous DVDs from the US), but I'm not sure how appropriate it is for text-based muds. If you want to avoid muds with sexual content, I'm afraid you may need to remove most of the GodWars derivatives from the Code Repository, as they include a very explicit interactive sex system.

Note that God Wars II does not include the sex system, although it does contain some extremely violent and gory combat messages - certainly way beyond PG rating (if it were a movie). What sort of rules will apply for mud listings? Is it acceptable to list muds with extremely violent and/or sexual content?



As an aside, while trying to find any information about book rating systems, I stumbled across this - as part of the Australia classification for video games:

"The ā€œEā€ rating indicates material that is exempt from classification. Games exempt from classification usually include online titles (such as The Sims Online and World of Warcraft) in which the content cannot be regulated, and educational games."

Once again, this is talking about graphical computer games - but I could imagine the same reasoning being applied to text-based muds for much the same reason (the content cannot be regulated).
19 Nov, 2007, Guest wrote in the 15th comment:
Votes: 0
I'm inclined to drop a formal ratings system entirely if there's no precedent for regulating the content of online games. If the graphical MMOs have no such regulation then it's reasonable to assume MUDs don't either. By extension the software which drives a MUD would also be unregulated.

So I'd be comfortable with MUD listings for games with extreme violence or sexually explicit content not being allowed to use that in their descriptions, and perhaps carry a voluntary warning that their games contain such content. It might be a good time to consider adding some checkbox options to the MUD listings so people can indicate this easily.
20 Nov, 2007, David Haley wrote in the 16th comment:
Votes: 0
The reason that online games are typically not rated (in the States you usually get that warning to the effect: "experience may change during online play") is that it's not reasonable to expect an administration to control at all times what other players say to you. For instance, it's not reasonable to expect them to intercept some person's sexual comments. (Ironically enough, "E" means "for Everybody" in the US… :smile:)

That said, again in the States at least, the games do usually come with ratings based on what the game allows you to do. For example, if a game involves violence, it will state that; depending on the kind of violence, the rating will go up.

Violence is pretty easy to judge IMO; either a MUD involves graphic depiction of violence or it doesn't. (I believe almost all combat-oriented MUDs do. Some go further with limbs being chopped off etc.) Sex is harder to judge because you need to figure out if it's something that is merely enabled (via emotes) or encouraged (by theme or whatever). Since a MUD is an online multiplayer game, I do not believe it's fair to expect a MUD to police everybody's emotes at all times. That said, if a MUD were to have some kind of sexual theme, or otherwise known to be a place where such behavior is encouraged/expected, that would deserve a content warning of some form or another.
20 Nov, 2007, Conner wrote in the 17th comment:
Votes: 0
For what it's worth, from what I've seen (admittedly not that much) with regards to MMORPGs, they usually (even if they don't come as a boxed release which usually carries a rating like other games)at least include something in their EULA or TOS about needing to be 13 to play. I suspect that's a purely legal liability protection measure, and of course the games like the one by Disney that's specifically targeting younger children as their audience instead require parental consent, again, probably for the same reasoning. But, the implication is that they're really only broken down to two categories: PG & PG-13. I don't kow if Second Life has this same sort of "rating", but the news has certainly made it appear that they'd qualify for much higher if they were a movie..
20 Nov, 2007, syn wrote in the 18th comment:
Votes: 0
Conner said:
For what it's worth, from what I've seen (admittedly not that much) with regards to MMORPGs, they usually (even if they don't come as a boxed release which usually carries a rating like other games)at least include something in their EULA or TOS about needing to be 13 to play. I suspect that's a purely legal liability protection measure, and of course the games like the one by Disney that's specifically targeting younger children as their audience instead require parental consent, again, probably for the same reasoning. But, the implication is that they're really only broken down to two categories: PG & PG-13. I don't kow if Second Life has this same sort of "rating", but the news has certainly made it appear that they'd qualify for much higher if they were a movie..


Generally speaking, they list (in the US) a rating of T for Teen, then note a clause that online gameplay may change, and the rating is not a direct reflection of actual content. Mainly this covers the 13+ to play area. The only MMO I know of so far coming out with an adult rating is Age of Conan.
21 Nov, 2007, Fizban wrote in the 19th comment:
Votes: 0
Quote
Yes, those ratings are part of the Motion Picture Association of America's rating system.


Since when are MUDs motion pictures? I'd consider them more like books in which violent material can be bought by any 8 year old, so can any romance novel, and hell about the only thing that can't is porn.

At the most extreme I'd say rate on an ESRB-type scale as that also at least is based on video games albeit ones which are graphical in nature.
21 Nov, 2007, Hades_Kane wrote in the 20th comment:
Votes: 0
In the same way it's illegal for an adult to engage in cyber sex with a minor, I think a similar school of thought would apply to the interactivity with MUDs. Sure, IM sex is still nothing but text, but that doesn't mean because it isn't "rated" you can do whatever you want with whomever you want.

I think a bit of common sense in regards to 'rating' MUDs can really go a long way.
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