Decency, the SCW, and You

[Tavish]

When discussing things about the SimChamber World, the subject of decency of material cropped up. Sytax, Rooster, and myself discussed various standards (including film rating standards of multiple countries, oddly enough), as we drafted a set which we thought would suit the multinational nature of the SimChamber. For now, these are what the SimChamber World will operate by, but it was decided that some further, board-wide discussion and input might be appropriate.

Our current set is as follows. Because there are various concerns in the matter, I wrote it to address all parts. Overall, the general intent placed it around the PG-13 level of the MPAA, or Classification 2a of the Hong Kong Film Censorship Ordinance.

Sexuality: Nothing that is overt, or overtly implies sex. "He ravishes her with his eyes" is an overt implication and inappropriate. Anything more is certainly out.

Nudity: To be honest, it's a text-based format. If you say, "She's naked!" then so be it. But if this ventures into an erotic context or description, then it falls under sexuality.

Violence: As before, the fine line is how much. Characters can still slap each other around, it simply means that gore is not explicitly described. As a general guideline, also, you cannot "force" another person to have something happen to their character without their consent.

Profanity: Excessive use of profanity, especially when it bleeds into the other categories, is frowned upon and will win a punch in the face.

Are there any comments, questions, objections, or suggestions on other facts of life we need to shield the audience from?

[Julius Firefocht]

Despite being a pervy person myself, I must agree with these rules, simply because of the range in age of all Simchamber players, and as mentioned above, our multi-national nature. Indeed, what is acceptable in one country may not be so in another country.

[Trigger]

I don't have any problems with these rules. I Know it's not a biggie in the SCW, but where would something like using illegal drugs would fall? (Not like Cigerettes or Alcohol, but like Marajana and Cocanie).

Again, I don't think it's a big problem, but better safe than sorry right? XD

[MaullarMaullar]

I'd just like to point out that violations of these guidelines--and worse--pop up with some regularity in other parts of the board, and quite a bit in the chat. If we're to clamp down on "inappropriate" material in the SCW, we must be prepared to clamp down on such material everywhere. Obviously virgin eyes aren't going to remain glued to the SCW forever.

Furthermore--we're agreed that PG-13 is an acceptable standard, right?--PG-13 seems to allow a bit more than what you've proposed. Consider these PG-13 media that contain "questionable" scenes:

Titanic
Tomorrow Never Dies
The World Is Not Enough
Goldeneye
Groundhog Day (PG, actually--and yes, it's implied quite clearly he takes the blonde chick for a fling.)
Friends (TV-14, but come on, one year difference.)
24 (also TV-14)
The Simpsons (actually TV-PG-D, IIRC.)
Futurama

Consider also SEED--you should know what part I'm referring to. While SEED did air late in the U.S., it's a fair assumption that most of the SC has seen it and has thus been exposed to implied sex already.

[Berrik]

MaullarMaullar said:

I'd just like to point out that violations of these guidelines--and worse--pop up with some regularity in other parts of the board, and quite a bit in the chat. If we're to clamp down on "inappropriate" material in the SCW, we must be prepared to clamp down on such material everywhere. Obviously virgin eyes aren't going to remain glued to the SCW forever.

Furthermore--we're agreed that PG-13 is an acceptable standard, right?--PG-13 seems to allow a bit more than what you've proposed. Consider these PG-13 media that contain "questionable" scenes:

Titanic
Tomorrow Never Dies
The World Is Not Enough
Goldeneye
Groundhog Day (PG, actually--and yes, it's implied quite clearly he takes the blonde chick for a fling.)
Friends (TV-14, but come on, one year difference.)
24 (also TV-14)
The Simpsons (actually TV-PG-D, IIRC.)
Futurama

Consider also SEED--you should know what part I'm referring to. While SEED did air late in the U.S., it's a fair assumption that most of the SC has seen it and has thus been exposed to implied sex already.

As long as people arn't posting lemons masquerading as RP posts I won't complain

[Trigger]

Maullar> You're Also forgettting some PG-13 Movies that really sould be rated "R" too ( like The New Guy or the Infamous Kangaroo Jack [PG Accually] ).

[MaullarMaullar]

The point stands that even in a relatively conservative society such as the U.S., 13-year-olds are exposed to this kind of thing. Legitimately.

Furthermore, all Internet forums, the SC included, have a minimum age of 13 for members. It's unreasonable that we should be more restrictive than other media that's permissible for 13-year-olds.

[Avitar Diggs]

As a 16 year old boy, I can tell you that at 13, we were already swearing, knew about sex, and had seen plenty of violent movies. (Chucky, Hellraiser, Lawnmower Man, etc.) I really don't like the raiting system in america. It's inconsistent and leans torwarfds chhristian values I don't think should be imposed on everyone, but for liability reasons, I suppose PG-13 is fine. Just keep in mind, PG-13 is beccoming more relaxed nowadays.

[Seth Valentine]

Well, most forums won't allow you to sign up unless you're 13 or older, and granted, while some people lie about this and let themselves in anyway, if they do this they should be preparing themselves for 13-or-over stuff.

That's not to say that we should allow all kinds of things in the SCW. Granted, none of us wants to know about how Mary-Sue got some from Jack, especially not in extreme detail. But say now two people left the room, with sexual intentions, without actually including sexual descriptions, would that be allowed?

And it's definitely agreed that lemon's shouldn't be posted at all. >.<

- - - - - - - - - -

Also, on the violence front, how violent can we actually get? Obviously we can't kill another person's characters without permission. But in the event we are given permission, or kill off one of our own characters, which would be better?

He quickly slit the fool's throat, and he dropped to the floor, his life taken from him.

Or...

As he ran the knife's blade through the victim's throat, the crimson liquid gushed from the opening, and he fell to the floor, slowly drowning in his own blood.

I prefer the second, but would it be allowed? I'm not arguing either point, I'm asking in the interest of more elaboration.

- - - - - - - - - -

And finally, will some profanity be allowed? I know I'm foul-mouthed, but when RPing, I try to only use it to emphasise and express my characters' extreme feelings at certain times. But if profanity is banned altogether, it makes descriptions of emotions that much harder to write (Yes, I'm lazy when it comes to descriptions, but even if I used eloquent English to describe it, there's only so many ways you can say it before you get bored and repetitive).

[Berrik]

The second isn't that bad. As long as you don't go into slasher movie levels of detail, you should be OK on the violence front.

[Blaine Kodos]

I think a lot of the stuff that can get really out of hand has to do with character contexts. I mean, some people have characters that are extremely foul-mouthed, and it wouldn't feel right to have them use replacement words or bleeps (even FF7 let Barret get away with "shit" pretty often). I don't think anyone wants their Harley-riding chain-smoking scar-wearing badass to tell people they can "fruit themselves".

I have a character I'm eventually going to bring into my story that is, quite frankly, a psychotic murderous freak. And given that, when I get into a groove, I can go for almost hours describing in detail what's going on, since I like to paint a picture. "He was killed by his friend" doesn't grasp you as much as "The space he had been occupying seconds before was now vacant, as his body took an unexpected movement into the wall behind him. He felt a tightness in his stomach, and something wet. To his right, he could see the face of his best friend--grinning from ear to ear. In the last few moments of his life, he saw the hand, covered in his blood."

........... *cough*

I wouldn't be against the additions of warnings to SCW posts, if that particular post has an act of violence or implied sexual conduct (definately no descriptions of the act, but you can probably paint a picture to let people know that they're not trying on hats). Just something like [Warning: Post contains (graphic acts of violence/implications of sexual conduct). Viewer discretion advised.]

[Yanbetari]

These rules aren't all that restrictive, really. You shouldn't be writing anything sexually explicit in the SCW anyway. While you do have to register to read the boards, it's still a very open part of the internet. Not to mention it might be violating Proboard's Terms of Service.
As for violence, I think Blaine gave an excellent example of the kind of things you can do with atmosphere and imagery. You'll notice he never explicity states that the victim was stabbed in the stomach. The reader is left to infer that from the images and sensations presented.
And for profanity, I think the key word is "excessive". No one's going to fault you if your character screams "Oh, fuck!" when something suddenly goes massively wrong. It's just to avoid people who use expletives every other word, I figure.

[Lyonesse]

I agree with having a disclaimer. If still read through it and complain, their own fault.

[Aslan Cross]

We're not so much after hard-and-fast, written rules here, so while I did propose these rules, I see them more as a call to responsibility instead of a solid moral imposition. We can't make rules for each and every case out there, let alone enforce them.

While it is true that most of the SC's members are regularly exposed to sex anyway and some are even notorious perverts, I still believe it would make sense for our members to NOT post deliberately explicit material.

Again, we're not looking for hard-and-fast rules here, but here are examples of what I think are acceptable and what are not. These are examples for the sake of illustration.

He plunged repeatedly and violently into her, and her screaming and moaning only encouraged him to.....

Okay, let's stop that before it gets worse. This is definitely and obviously not acceptable. Now, not to single Signal out, but here's an example we're mostly familiar with:

As then Sayuka started to lick his Sundae cone seductively.

I would say that this is unacceptable. While it's just an implication, it's pretty graphic and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't see something like this in PG-13. If this were animated, you'd see Sakuya doing it slowly and provocatively, with really horny bedroom eyes and a full-blown blush.

Now, something like this:

"He intertwined his fingers with hers as he reveled in the memories of last night. He pulled her close and kissed her forehead, deeply inhaling the scent of her hair."

I'd say this is acceptable. It's also an implication, but I wouldn't say it's pornographic in the least. In fact, I'd think it's kinda sweet.

As the rule is worded right now, I think it's pretty clear that overt implications are a no-no, as with actual portrayals of the act.

Now with gore, I agree with the general sentiment that as long as it serves a purpose (ie, isn't like Elfen Lied, which has graphic and senseless deaths), it's fine. It's text and doesn't really have any traumatizing effect on people as far as I know. Not to bring religion into the picture, but for example's sake, the Bible has a lot of disembowelling scenes. To me it's not really that big an issue. I've RPed some (imagined) gore myself, and made sure that it wasn't just for show or amusement but an important part of the character development. Here it is for the sake of example:

She closed her eyes and imagined herself pulling the trigger. For a fraction of a second, there would be a sharp pain in her head as her skull shattered. Fragments of bone, cartilage and metal would slice through her gray matter, slaying both her and her demons. She would slump down onto the ground, her blood seeping out onto the floor and staining it forever.

Regarding cursing, I personally make sure I don't RP any coarse slang. The worst word I ever use is "damn." But again I'm not imposing here, just asking you to be responsible. I think Blaine hit it on the head with his post, saying that occassional swearing is fine. I do occassionally swear in real life, anyway, albeit rarely.

Now, while a majority of the board's population is American, I think it would be sensitive to still treat this place as an international community and remember that you might offend people from more conservative cultures given the chance that they look around. I myself come from a far more conservative background but I don't believe in unnecessarily codifying things into laws.

All told, I think that the rules should stress the following:

We are not imposing values or ethics on anyone. We implement and enforce these guidelines in the interest of responsibility and sensitivity to everyone. You need not be a prude, we're only asking you to be responsible person.

[Signal]

Heh... *bumps his head a bit*

Kinda went overboard on that one, anyway... im avoiding to write those anymore and making a more PG13 suitable RP given the situation calls for by my RP path as well as my faction and other people involved in it.

As for the rules, i guess everything is fine as it is but sometimes there are moments that might need an excuse or assessment from the standard issue.

Another thing in mind is to consult SCW mods as much as you RP. Given me i mostly consult Kyousuke or Sytax regarding other issues or if i were to post something i let them know first and let them assess it if given it has a bit of tendency to be a bit indecent. It also allows you and them to form several ideas about your RP that might prove a striking point for Events, Fights and others.