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Adult content in threads..
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Old 11-12-2007, 04:58 PM   #1
Rich Z
Adult content in threads..

A particular thread has come to my attention (Have you noticed the changes on the forum?), but quite honestly I don't have time to read all 360+ posts within it. I read the first few pages, and the last couple of pages. So perhaps something posted in the middle was important to the discussion, but I have to claim purposely forced ignorance on those posts, nonetheless.

The moderators here were pretty much given carte blanche to manage this site to the best of their abilities using their own judgement in most matters. This is why I specifically chose the vehicle of the membership choosing these moderators, rather than my attempting to pick people who may think exactly as I do. I wanted the moderators to BE what you all felt was best for this site in those duties.

As far as I can tell, they are all three doing an excellent job of it, and if the amount of negative feedback about there actions is any indication, so do you all.

But there are some things that will need my own attention, for one reason or another. There may come times when situations arise where the tools they have at their disposal in order to "fix" a perceived problem may not be enough to do the job. Quite possibly this thread mentioned above brings to light one of them....

Personally, I guess some fault will lie with me, because I did create the Chat Chat forum, but did so with little or no guidance about what really would be acceptable there. One of my faults is that I expect people to act and behave in a manner that most people would find to be sensible, adult (but not TOO adult), reasonable, and with the current and future audience of this site kept in mind. Yes, I have allowed children to have access to this site. I felt that OUR future in this interest demands that I do so. When I was a kid, I would have DIED to have something like this available to me. A place where I could soak up all the knowledge presented about corn snakes, with really no restriction other than my ability to read fast enough. And being a curious minded kid, certainly I might wander into a forum where topics might be discussed that my mom would be aghast at my reading. Maybe even aghast enough to pull my access to this site.

Is that what you all want to have happen here? Get this site blacklisted by parents because the topic matter offends THEM that their children are reading? Is that really fair?

Now, I will go on record to state that I really have no problems with adults talking about adult topics. That generally comes with the turf in ANY publicly accessible forum. The problem comes in where to draw the line. Unfortunately, that place for the line will vary depending on nearly everyone tasked with drawing it. And as such, everyone else will be dissatisfied with where that line finally becomes drawn. Realistically speaking, one person is going to piss off a handful of people no matter what he or she chooses to do.

Obviously, the best method would be to simply filter out everyone from such a forum who is not above a certain age bracket. But kids being kids, some (perhaps most) will lie about it, and then you wind up in the same pickle you started out in. No one here, especially me, is going to attempt to verify the age of everyone currently on this site and signing up in the future. So that simply becomes an impractical manner to tackle this problem.

There really are only two choices about this: Either the viewers are limited as to what they can see, or the posters are limited as to what they can say. The logistics of handling either one of those practical methods will prove to be a headache to any involved. And again, quite likely people will not like how it would be implemented, no matter how it would be so.

So here's some choices I can see, off the top of my head:
  1. ALL participants can voluntarily refrain from using language and innuendo that would likely be considered as offensive to the majority of people reading their posts.
  2. All participants can post whatever they please, but will be subject to the scrutiny of all the viewers and possibly subject to sanctions by the moderators after the fact if their post appears to be crossing an arbitrarily enforced line drawn by necessarily vaguely defined definitions.
  3. A separate "adult only" forum can be created for those who WANT such a thing, and completely inaccessible to anyone but those people who desire such access and able to prove they are actually adults.

Perhaps you can think of something else to add to this list.

Obviously #3 would be the most black and white of the possibilities, but the filtering mechanism will have to be such that it is as little headache as possible, and pretty much automated. The obvious choice would be to add it as an optional to the Contributor level membership, since the ability to pay the membership contribution pretty much rules out anyone not able to have a PayPal account or some other mechanism in order to effect payment. Or I could handle this much as I have with the FaunaClassifieds site where I have an unrestricted HELL forum, which has it's own specific payment option. But I think I would handle that differently here (and perhaps in retrospect over there) by making that particular membership LIFETIME (meaning the maximum length of time I can set up a membership OR the death of this forum or me, whichever comes first).

Anyway, I don't have time to proof this post, so please excuse any poor word choice or punctuation. This is just something being thrown out on the table, and is by no means anything that I feel required to do either way. My goal with this suggestion is to try to give as many people as possible whatever it is they want out of this site without negatively impacting the site in general or the other members. If you have a better idea of how best to do this, then take a stab at it. Bearing in mind that not everything is possible nor practical, and anything that requires my personal hand in it 24/7 or is a technical headache to implement, quite likely will not be top of the list of choices.

Oh yeah.... I'm going to post this originally in the "General Chit-Chat forum", because that is where this issue originated, then move it into the "Discussions about this site" with a forwarding link, because I believe that is where it is most appropriate to be placed.
 
Old 11-12-2007, 05:19 PM   #2
dionythicus
This isn't an easy fix. I feel that it takes time to think of something to type and in that amount of time the author could also be thinking "do I really need to say that?". More thought, less talk.

I personally would be happy with an Adults Only area. While I am fully in command of my ability to gauge a comment's appropriateness and choose to not post something inflammatory, offensive or otherwise potentially distasteful, I would like to see a place where we are not expected to watch ourselves because of children online. Even in such an environment, I would stil continue to monitor my comments, but I would enjoy a little more leeway in being able to share more explicit themes (innuendo and sexual overtones don't faze me one bit). I am careful on here because of children, yet I find nothing wrong with some of the banter that goes on between members. So if that's an option, count me in.
 
Old 11-12-2007, 05:21 PM   #3
Roy Munson
I like option 2, which is basically the status quo. Option 3 is ok too, with option 2 parameters applying to the all-access portions of the forum. I'm not ok with option 3 being a version of Fauna's "Hell" forum. I'm not saying that that was what you were implying. I just think that the rules against inflammatory posting and name-calling should stand, even in a forum where adult content is allowed.
 
Old 11-12-2007, 05:35 PM   #4
zwyatt
Personally, I think a hybrid of option #1 and #2 would be the best policy. I think most people would find it reasonable to expect that they should refrain from using language and innuendo that is likely to offend others. At the same time, drawing those lines is a gray area and I don't want anyone to feel like they are walking on eggshells and therefore reduce their participation or water-down their personality when posting.
In calling attention to things by starting that thread it was my hope that the members of the forum as a group would voluntarily be more careful about what they post, which shouldn't create more work for the moderators or you, Rich. With that said I realize there would still be times when things cross the line because placement of those lines is a gray area, and as such, there would be times when the mods might have to make judgement calls after the fact. To be honest, I sort of felt like this was always the unspoken policy on the forum...that we all do our best to play nice. Maybe some of the more recent stuff that I mentioned had just slipped through the cracks... In the end, as I have said before, the point of creating that thread was to promote greater self-moderation.

The idea of a whole new forum for "adult" conversations doesn't seem all that necessary to me. On the whole, historically, there haven't tended to be many "adult" conversations on this forum to my knowledge. Rather it tends to be the case where particular threads with innocent intentions end up with questionable content as was the case of the most recent occurence. I don't think anyone would have assumed that a thread for member portraits to put faces to names would have needed to be placed in an "adults only" forum.
 
Old 11-12-2007, 06:36 PM   #5
Rich Z
Actually, for the historical record, the HELL forum on FC was originally intended to be a repository for those threads on the BOI which just got SO carried away that they needed to be moved SOMEWHERE, but were really too important to just be deleted. I believe the concurrent incentive was an ongoing war between two headstrong opponents with the threat that if either one attacked the other anywhere else OTHER than HELL they would be banned.... I've used a variation of this "banned to HELL" theme off and on with other forums as well.

Also for the record, I personally do not like to close threads until it is about three days past being obviously necessary to do so. To me, closing a thread is much akin to telling everyone to SHUT UP, I DON'T WANT YOU TALKING ABOUT THIS ANY LONGER. So although I do reach that point more times than I actually act on it, it is not really a tool I try to use very often. But that was a learning curve thing. I used to use it much more often when I originally set up forums than I do now. It took a few instances of having it happen to ME on other forums to get a taste of what the recipient feels like when it happens to them to appreciate that perspective.......

Anyway, back to the original topic, the threat of MOVING a thread to a forum where there will be limited access to it after being moved, may be sufficient in incentive for the participating members to tone it down some. Most people like a wide audience for their antics, so having their cherished words reduced in visual scope may be helpful in some instances.

Realistically, the goal here is to not give people trapdoors to make them get banned from here. It is to try to accommodate their wants with the wants of the rest of this site, if possible. Telling someone that what they are talking about is only appropriate HERE rather than just saying it is not appropriate AT ALL on this forum, may be a less bitter pill to swallow...
 
Old 11-12-2007, 06:45 PM   #6
Nanci
Rich, (I swear I am not sucking up) your insight into this matter is amazing.

Nanci
 
Old 11-12-2007, 06:45 PM   #7
Lennycorn
Quote:
Originally Posted by zwyatt View Post
I think most people would find it reasonable to expect that they should refrain from using language and innuendo that is likely to offend others. At the same time, drawing those lines is a gray area and I don't want anyone to feel like they are walking on eggshells and therefore reduce their participation or water-down their personality when posting..
Getting someones true thoughts without walking on eggshells, I think, will be hard to do sometimes.


Quote:
Originally Posted by zwyatt View Post
In calling attention to things by starting that thread it was my hope that the members of the forum as a group would voluntarily be more careful about what they post, which shouldn't create more work for the moderators or you, Rich. With that said I realize there would still be times when things cross the line because placement of those lines is a gray area, and as such, there would be times when the mods might have to make judgement calls after the fact. To be honest, I sort of felt like this was always the unspoken policy on the forum...that we all do our best to play nice. Maybe some of the more recent stuff that I mentioned had just slipped through the cracks... In the end, as I have said before, the point of creating that thread was to promote greater self-moderation.
.
I also think the line are a little more define now. Which helps me.

And the greater self- moderation part... I agree but I believe some member (me) feel like this is home are we get relax in our conversation. And get close to the wide gray line. And it is a wide line. But as you said it's best to improve ourselves.
 
Old 11-12-2007, 07:52 PM   #8
zwyatt
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rich Z View Post
Actually, for the historical record, the HELL forum on FC was originally intended to be a repository for those threads on the BOI which just got SO carried away that they needed to be moved SOMEWHERE, but were really too important to just be deleted.
Something like that wouldn't be that unreasonable. Again, I don't believe a whole forum needs to be dedicated to creating threads with adult themes, but a "trash" forum where out-of-line threads get moved once they cross the line is something that might work.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lennycorn
And the greater self- moderation part... I agree but I believe some member (me) feel like this is home are we get relax in our conversation. And get close to the wide gray line. And it is a wide line.
Understood and I agree. This forum is like a home on the web to myself and probably many of its members. However, what we all have to keep in mind, is that this is a public home. There may not be anyone sitting in our livingroom looking over our shoulders as we type, but there are going to be a couple hundred sets of eyes peering at it online as soon as we hit 'submit'. This is an easy thing to forget with the web because, in a lot of ways, online interactions take the personal/public feel out of it. Imagine you're in a city square in front of a culturally diverse audience of ages 10-100...I certainly wouldn't say the same things in front of that audience that I would say in my own home. And I'm not suggesting that you necessarily would either. Just illustrating the point.
 
Old 11-12-2007, 07:56 PM   #9
Susan
I'll abide by whatever the eventual outcome is. At this point, I really have no preference or even see a solution that will be completely satisfactory to everybody. I'll just continue to do what I've been doing, which is to try to moderate this forum to the best of my ability.
 
Old 11-12-2007, 07:57 PM   #10
Joejr14
I think in general people need to be a bit less PC and stop freaking out about every little comment.

Guess what, folks? This is a website that has mostly adults posting here. Chances are some themes or topics are going to have some adult comments in them, and that's not a surprise. Adult conversations normally have some sort of adult humor/themes to them, even when you're talking about cornsnakes.

You know, it's not the end of the world if someone makes an off the wall risque comment on the forum. Is everyone here really naive enough to think that 15 year old kids that visit the forum aren't talking to their friends about the same things?
 

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