Question: Sexual threads

abnegation said:

Currently it's only prevalent in our "General Chat" and "Discussions and Debates" sections, as you say. If I were to give a recommendation, it would be to limit mature threads to these sections alone. We don't have much need for discussions outside of them, and for sections that actually have mature themes (such as some of the creative writing, and art aspects of the forum) a prefix or forewarning has sufficed up until this point.

I would personally rather keep all Pokémon related sections appropriate for all audiences if at all possible. We have no need of Poképhelia topics and the likes, here. So I would suggest applying such a filter to GC, and D&D. From there, we can see how it goes. If there is ever a situation in which we need to consider a filter for other sections then we can discuss that if the time comes. I would wager that this would be unnecessary, however.

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I'm perfectly okay with this. It's nice to see that it's been brought up in HQ.

Altairis said:

I do not think that the forum should decide whether or not you are mature enough to view or post in, and that the members should decide whether or not they are mature or not to view or post in those sorts of topics. It could be hidden by default, however, it would achieve the same effect that Gav described, that the threads would only be visible to those who wanted to see it and it would be silly for anyone to complain if they themselves enabled it. I am going to quote Dipu and say that "age and maturity do not go hand in hand." I am 17, but I believe I am mature enough to post in any type of thread that's here on PC. Or at least view it, if I want to, and I know it's not a big deal to change my age to 18 I think it would be a little silly for me to have to do it. If this is really what it comes down to, if I see that a thread has a [Mature] tag next to it, I know what kind of topic I'm going looking at (although, about the thread in question, I don't see how anyone could click on the thread titled "Sex Drive" and not expect a "mature-rated" discussion, but whatever).

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I wholeheartedly agree with you, however because of such topics' nature, it would be in the best interest of the legal safety of the PokéCommunity to force it being hidden for those under 15/16/18/whatever while looking the other way for those who lie about their age, as at that point PC is not to blame for a child's viewing of such content when faced with some angry overprotective parent with ten grand to spare on a lawsuit. To me that seems to be what Gavin was getting at with disabling visibility to minors, or at least it seemed that way. It would make sense.

abnegation said:

So be it. At least this way people will have the knowledge of which topics are rated mature, and which are not. It doesn't really matter what people set their age to (COPPA aside), since it can be hidden anyway. Again, at least this way people have freedom of choice, and mature topics will be tagged appropriately.

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If it's going to be a toggle that anyone can turn on and off at will, why bother tying it to age at all? Why not just make it a toggle and let people decide for themselves without having to give up the age part of their info just because they're mature enough to handle the content?

I doubt there's an actual legality issue, as the law about verifying that you're over 18 before accessing inappropriate content was struck down in 2009. Unless there's a law in california since that's where the servers are iirc, there's no legal reason to restrict it by age.

Oryx said:

If it's going to be a toggle that anyone can turn on and off at will, why bother tying it to age at all? Why not just make it a toggle and let people decide for themselves without having to give up the age part of their info just because they're mature enough to handle the content?

I doubt there's an actual legality issue, as the law about verifying that you're over 18 before accessing inappropriate content was struck down in 2009. Unless there's a law in california since that's where the servers are iirc, there's no legal reason to restrict it by age.

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It doesn't need to be a toggle, no. But prefixes are important at the very minimum. However, there's SEO to worry about. If someone types "Sex" and "Pokémon" into google, they very well may find this forum to be near the top of the list of results. I don't find that to be favourable, since that's not what the forum is about. I'd rather [Mature] topics to be hidden by default, so that we don't get awkward standings in Google results. So if staff decide against a toggle (which is also perfectly reasonable), I would 100% advise against allowing topics with that tag to be seen on the index by guests.

The toggle could just come down to how strictly staff wish to hold onto the PG-13 label, which is pretty loose already. I would actually ask Rukario how he feels about that before anyone else, personally.

abnegation said:

It doesn't need to be a toggle, no. But prefixes are important at the very minimum. However, there's SEO to worry about. If someone types "Sex" and "Pokémon" into google, they very well may find this forum to be near the top of the list of results. I don't find that to be favourable, since that's not what the forum is about. I'd rather [Mature] topics to be hidden by default, so that we don't get awkward standings in Google results. So if staff decide against a toggle (which is also perfectly reasonable), I would 100% advise against allowing topics with that tag to be seen on the index by guests.

The toggle could just come down to how strictly staff wish to hold onto the PG-13 label, which is pretty loose already. I would actually ask Rukario how he feels about that before anyone else, personally.

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Is there any particular reason one would have [Mature] material visible to guests at all? I'm just wondering. I get the whole "freedom of choice" bit with members, but I personally don't hold guests with the same liberty, which might be wrong of me. Could be a double standard that I just set up, idk.

As long as it turns out better than the 18+ areas I've seen on other forums (perverted ♥♥♥♥holes), and people are mature about it, it doesn't seem like it would hurt much. Can't say that I personally would pay much mind to such topics, but there are plenty of people who causally discuss it. From the looks of things, this thread is brainstorming a good tagging / hiding methods for it, so I don't see what it would hurt. I like PC how it is, and I'd rather it not change, but I think that figuring that allowing such topics would cause the forum to do a 180 is over-thinking it.

Gaiaonline is a PG-13 forum and I've seen a lot more mature and sexual subjects on there than on here so I think we're pretty good at maintaining a PG-13 forum. (On top of that the f word is considered acceptable there even though it was a PG-13 forum). I'm sure there's many 13 year olds who know of masturbation and probably have tried it themselves. So I really saw no point in locking that thread.

I do think there should be a (Mature] tag though for people who aren't as comfortable with sexual topics and for some younger users. I know at 13 I wasn't completely comfortable with sex topics yet. Even today, I set the mature tag on my tumblr and Devianart cause unless I'm intentionally looking for pornographic and sexual content, I don't want to see it on my Dashboard or DeviantArt's homepage.

Adventure said:

Why would you want to talk about sex, masturbation, incest, child pornography etc on a Pokémon forum?

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Exactly, some people will use the thread to mask them self, but they are really preying on certain people here, to whom they like.

forestguardian said:

Exactly, some people will use the thread to mask them self, but they are really preying on certain people here, to whom they like.

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What exactly do you mean by mask themselves. And keep in mind it doesn't take a sexual thread for someone to prey on someone. God forbid it happens, but if it does, it'll be dealt with. I very highly doubt the presence of sex threads that are being monitored and censored in some ways turns on that dangerous switch.

It does, however, encourage sexual discussion over other PC-associated mediums- IRC, Server, VMs, PMs. And it's definitely not always reported when someone is uncomfortable or feel like they got in over their head. That kind of thing could easily be taken off PC areas and into personal communications. Sexual threads really do need to be closely monitored to protect the younger people who can participate in the discussion. Just because they have opinions and want to talk doesn't mean they realize they could get in over their heads or that they're prepared for people taking it too far (even accidentally). Too often, nothing is said by anyone. And it's the staff's job to keep PC safe. So if sexual threads are things that will stay, I ask that they are closely watched preferably by multiple members, staff or otherwise.

forestguardian said:

Exactly, some people will use the thread to mask them self, but they are really preying on certain people here, to whom they like.

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Your post confuses me. If by mask themselves you mean , they pretend to bean age that they aren't ,then that's hard to prevent. As for predators, like Dakota said, there's bound to be some even if there weren't sexual threads and if someone suspects someone as one then they can easily report said member and PC staff will address the issue right away.

The interesting thing is if there is any such predation going on; allowing these threads would probably make it MORE obvious and would probably result in people being more open about anyone preying on them.

Threads of a sexual nature are fine by me. They're more scandalous than your average sort of topic which recurs "what do you like about yourself" "do you dislike this about yourself" "are you deep and dark" "are you secretive" "express your hatred towards other people and the world" x400000

And good god, if topics basically allowing you to mention your least favourite form of torture as you die are fair game, I think a lot more should be. Or maybe the clamp down should extent a little further if we want to be delicate snowpetals.

tl;dr: I'm in favour of them. It's grey area when it comes to what passes and what doesn't but tagging to keep the easily offended out might help.

definitely not doing this to be highly amused by shallow perverts that's not my MO at all okay

Dakota said:

Is there any particular reason one would have [Mature] material visible to guests at all? I'm just wondering. I get the whole "freedom of choice" bit with members, but I personally don't hold guests with the same liberty, which might be wrong of me. Could be a double standard that I just set up, idk.

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Perhaps you mis-read my post, but that's what I'm suggesting. I would rather that mature material and discussions should be kept hidden from guests from the get-go, primarily as it may attract a crowd who may get the wrong idea about what this forum is about. PC is a Pokémon forum, first and foremost. Mature discussions make up a miniscule amount of the forum's discussion base. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with people searching "incest" or "sex" or something similar, along with "Pokémon" in the same query, and finding their way to PC from it. For whatever reason, I feel as if that may occasionally attract people looking for something that PC does not offer.

To add to that, I think that we would see an influx of bots coming onto the forum if we started having more mature topics. They would see words like "sex," "pornography," "cocaine," or something similar in thread titles when they skim Google results. And so we could see more "dangerous" bots if more of our search engine results involved key words of the more mature nature. Kind of an odd one, but it's worth making an effort to prevent.

Jude Mathis said:

As long as it turns out better than the 18+ areas I've seen on other forums (perverted ♥♥♥♥holes), and people are mature about it, it doesn't seem like it would hurt much. Can't say that I personally would pay much mind to such topics, but there are plenty of people who causally discuss it. From the looks of things, this thread is brainstorming a good tagging / hiding methods for it, so I don't see what it would hurt. I like PC how it is, and I'd rather it not change, but I think that figuring that allowing such topics would cause the forum to do a 180 is over-thinking it.

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Kouzan said:

Gaiaonline is a PG-13 forum and I've seen a lot more mature and sexual subjects on there than on here so I think we're pretty good at maintaining a PG-13 forum. (On top of that the f word is considered acceptable there even though it was a PG-13 forum). I'm sure there's many 13 year olds who know of masturbation and probably have tried it themselves. So I really saw no point in locking that thread.

I do think there should be a (Mature] tag though for people who aren't as comfortable with sexual topics and for some younger users. I know at 13 I wasn't completely comfortable with sex topics yet. Even today, I set the mature tag on my tumblr and Devianart cause unless I'm intentionally looking for pornographic and sexual content, I don't want to see it on my Dashboard or DeviantArt's homepage.

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Yeah if I'm honest, I don't think adding a [Mature] tag will change PC much at all. I foresee us having a lot more topics on sexual activity, narcotic use, and so on, but not a whole lot to change the kind of forum this is.

While I am very happy to see such a tag come in, I hope it doesn't change the content allowed on PC, too much. More mature discussion should by all means become more popular afterwards, in GC & D&D. However, I certainly don't think that PC should become an area whereby users are allowed to share pornography during a discussion on the field, or display graphic imagery and such things in general. Again, I feel that mature discussion should become less taboo, but PC rules will probably not change a whole lot to reflect this change. Like I say, mature discussion makes up a very small amount of PC's topics, PC doesn't need to shape its way around those topics, but more that these topics need to be integrated into PC better.

Add a [Mature] tag for Discussions & Debates, and General Chat. Hide these discussions from guests. Leave it at that. Let the sections themselves reference the mature topics in their rules/guidelines if they so wish, but allow for these kinds of topics to become less taboo, and integrate them into PC better. From there we can see how it goes, members can offer feedback and suggestions if there's room for improvement as they always have. In my eyes, nothing else needs to change or happen after that.

abnegation said:

Yeah if I'm honest, I don't think adding a [Mature] tag will change PC much at all. I foresee us having a lot more topics on sexual activity, narcotic use, and so on, but not a whole lot to change the kind of forum this is.

While I am very happy to see such a tag come in, I hope it doesn't change the content allowed on PC, too much. More mature discussion should by all means become more popular afterwards, in GC & D&D. However, I certainly don't think that PC should become an area whereby users are allowed to share pornography during a discussion on the field, or display graphic imagery and such things in general. Again, I feel that mature discussion should become less taboo, but PC rules will probably not change a whole lot to reflect this change. Like I say, mature discussion makes up a very small amount of PC's topics, PC doesn't need to shape its way around those topics, but more that these topics need to be integrated into PC better.

Add a [Mature] tag for Discussions & Debates, and General Chat. Hide these discussions from guests. Leave it at that. Let the sections themselves reference the mature topics in their rules/guidelines if they so wish, but allow for these kinds of topics to become less taboo, and integrate them into PC better. From there we can see how it goes, members can offer feedback and suggestions if there's room for improvement as they always have. In my eyes, nothing else needs to change or happen after that.

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I can definitely agree with you there. I see that when people are restricted from something, we tend to want to do that thing more. So a [Mature] tag could definitely increase the number of sexual thread on PC. As long as they're not pornographic, I think we'd be fine. The tags will also prevent those who aren't okay with sexual threads not see them so there's benefits and drawbacks of the tag I guess.

I'm confused as to why some people seem to think this will change the entirety of PC into some predator-filled wonderland. It's just allowing a larger variety of content to be discussed in a safe environment.

I don't like the idea of age-restriction indefinitely, since some of us minors can take part in mature discussions without giggling at everything naughty, but by default, I think hiding it for those who are not registered and those who are under eighteen is a good idea. Everyone should be able to toggle it though, even if you are underage.

Luck Hax said:

The interesting thing is if there is any such predation going on; allowing these threads would probably make it MORE obvious and would probably "result in people being more open about anyone preying on them".

Threads of a sexual nature are fine by me. They're more scandalous than your average sort of topic which recurs "what do you like about yourself" "do you dislike this about yourself" "are you deep and dark" "are you secretive" "express your hatred towards other people and the world" x400000

And good god, if topics basically allowing you to mention your least favourite form of torture as you die are fair game, I think a lot more should be. Or maybe the clamp down should extent a little further if we want to be delicate snowpetals.

tl;dr: I'm in favour of them. It's grey area when it comes to what passes and what doesn't but tagging to keep the easily offended out might help.

definitely not doing this to be highly amused by shallow perverts that's not my MO at all okay

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I have to agree with "result in people being more open about anyone preying on them".Theres sexual forums out there that's meant to be for that, After all this is a Pokemon forum. You guys can do what you wan't, this is not my website but what i say is just words of wisdom, i could care less what you people say or choose to fallow. Nuff said, peace.

Make an adult section. Make it 16+ to view it/respond (just an example age). if someone signs up with a fake age and suffers horrible consequences of people writing they jerk off once a day then that is their fault. I don't understand why this site is out to protect the young children of the world with internet access aka access to anything sexual. Sometimes I swear it is just butt hurt members.

Luck Hax said:

Threads of a sexual nature are fine by me. They're more scandalous than your average sort of topic which recurs "what do you like about yourself" "do you dislike this about yourself" "are you deep and dark" "are you secretive" "express your hatred towards other people and the world" x400000

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I agree with this. I feel like I read the same 20 threads over and over. Why can I know who likes coffee and how they like it along with how much they hate themselves and how often they shave, but not if they jerk off once in a blue moon? I'm here to read it all.

Adventure said:

Why would you want to talk about sex, masturbation, incest, child pornography etc on a Pokémon forum?

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I find it a tad ridiculous that your argument was that it's a "Pokémon forum"... Like, most of the members I know of are of a mature age, I'm pretty sure they could handle themselves in the right way. And clearly some members, such as myself, don't mind mature discussion. I mean, there are some pretty grim discussions on this site sometimes in the Off-Topic Discussions section sometimes but as soon as sex is mentioned...



I agree with the idea of tags and filtering. I understand and acknowledge some people don't want to see mature discussions about certain topics but they shouldn't be able to stop others who want to from doing so. Some people just need to shove their sensitivity up their **** and be done with it.

forestguardian said:

You guys can have whatever you want, its your choice, not mine, i earned my place in life already, im to smart. But if reading messages about some girl touching herself turns you guys on, don't be freaked out if you find out its really a dude behind that account. Better yet a police officer imposter.

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Come on, why can't you and others as well, be more openminded about things.

At least try to know what you're talking about.

I don't think you know what's legal and what isn't. Child pornography for example is illegal so it's obvious that's out of bounds to discuss. A legal girl touching herself however and describing it in whatever way she wants, is actually legal. I doubt that's what would be talked about however.

What I'm getting from this entire discussion is that it would allow a place for people to ask questions and discuss matters they might not dare to do anywhere else and in the process get more comfortable with themselves. Or to have actual discussions about stuff that might not be suited to everyone. Those are all positives, and whatever else will be discussed won't hurt anyone.

How I see it: if you don't like it, ignore it. It won't ruin the forum for you, it won't change the forum at all. You might even learn something from it!

It's all about compromise.

Can we seriously cool it with the insults over whether or not mature discussions can be allowed here? I understand that everyone wants to show how mature they are, but sarcastically insulting the other side is not the way to do it.

The flared tempers need to calm down. Any more insults and off-topic posts will be met with warnings and infractions.