Family friendly my arse.

[ChloChloAriadne]

Okay.. So, part outburst, part asking for other people's opinions on this. It's crossed my mind FAR before what happened today.. I recall even talking to Lily about it last week.

I think that TFF should just seriously drop the whole "Family Friendly" act. Because.. Anybody that thinks this is actually a family friendly forum is shitting themselves.

Also, there's a level of inequality going on here, too. It's a bloody huge forum. There's explicit stuff getting posted every day. So NOT ALL OF IT IS GOING TO GET PICKED UP. There are threads blatantly talking of masturbation and sex, graphically describing nudity and there are plenty of journals doing all of these. It's happened to me [getting warned/deleted posts] a couple of times and I'm pretty positive I'm not the only person, but I think it's horrid that not even half of the people that are posting anything sex or nudity related are getting warned or getting their posts deleted for it. I think it's partially a level of bias and partially people just not being able to keep an eye on everything at once.. It's impossible.

So IMO, TFF should bloody neaten up it's act, keep a closer eye on everything and actually start BEING family friendly or just drop the "zomg post warn it's not family friendly" facade, because it's become both in a way an alternate to negative rep in the bias way, and entirely unjust as half the explicit stuff here doesn't get touched.

What are your thoughts on this?

[Victoria]

Honestly, I for one agree with the two options. I mean, when was the last time TFF has gone through a spring cleaning? Aaaages ago. We need another one.

Either that or, yeah.. but I PM'd fuzz about this, since it's his website, so really. We'll see what he has to say about the topic. His word is final.

(So, er, don't delete this thread.)

[Chez Daja]

I think it's horrid that not even half of the people that are posting anything sex or nudity related are getting warned or getting their posts deleted for it.

If you see these types of things going on, should you not report them?

It's another on-the-fence type of thing. You see explicit threads asking how many times people have had sex or a masturbation thread... I personally haven't seen one indepth post about masturbation. No graphic explanation of the act of either.

I don't agree with suggestive photographs. Neither do I agree with posts of a far too graphic nature.

On that note, I don't think TFF is entirely family friendly, either. Things are attempting to keep to a minimum, but then we have smilies like this little guy; .

I don't mind references, and I don't mind threads with the odd "I've had sex this many times". But personally, graphic detailing is going a little too far, in my opinion.

Personally, I think this thread a little silly... And I think your opinion on "bias" isn't true. I think that's slight paranoia... When I see a post that I personally find explicit, I bring it up with the other staff members. If I see a post saying "I masturbate sometimes", then I'm not likely to care about it because nobodies' explained indepth to me what was going on.

I do see some of your points, but others, I'm finding a little hard to follow.

I don't want all of TFF to explode into some sex circus, but I don't see why threads like the sex one shouldn't be totally bashed on, because they weren't graphic. People wanted a certain level of sexual maturity, and you got it with threads like those. We never agreed to a full-on 18+ brand on the site.

[ChloChloAriadne]

I don't mind references, and I don't mind threads with the odd "I've had sex this many times". But personally, graphic detailing is going a little too far, in my opinion.

This is kind of what I'm talking about ><. There is actually a fair bit of graphic detailing going on, it just tends to be in the less obvious threads, not nessacarily the ones that say "18+" at all. And it is, at times, far more graphic than some of the stuff I've written.

I personally believe that things should be warned about, though. It would annoy me if I were to be happily reading through a thread and without warning come accross something graphically explicit. I think that if these things are properly warned/spoiler tagged so that they CANNOT BE MISSED in the title of the post or somewhere similar, then it should be allowed.

[Chez Daja]

This is kind of what I'm talking about ><. There is actually a fair bit of graphic detailing going on, it just tends to be in the less obvious threads, not nessacarily the ones that say "18+" at all. And it is, at times, far more graphic than some of the stuff I've written.

Okay, I get you totally.

We all kind of know what is photo-explicit, but we're not sure on what we can and can't actually type up.

Toph was mentioning this to me, and I think that could be the point. That when it all comes down to it, we need a guideline, right?

Excuse me if I'm totally missing the point, though.

[Neo Necron]

The long and short of it is, if I had kids less than say, early teens, I wouldn't let them on this forum. However, I should be able to.

This is a FINAL FANTASY forum, which I think we sometimes forget. Final Fantasy is a series which, even though not strictly only for the younger generation, is certainly developed with them in mind, and they DO play it.
This site is primarily for fans of the Final Fantasy series. Since fans largely include younger people, this site and therefore these forums should reflect that audience. However, with such threads we have these days, they do not.

Yeah, we need to clean up.

[Walter Sobchak]

If you see these types of things going on, should you not report them?

Then the mod gets mad that they have to take action on their friend, after they previously ignored it. They do not thank the poster; instead, they neg rep the reporter on a year and a half old post about something completely random. They would have gotten away with it if rep givers were not revealed later.

It comes from a lack of communication, honestly. The set rules are not that good on what is family friendly and what isn't. Mods have to make their own judgment often, which leads to conflict. Clarification from our overlord (Fuzz) would certainly help.

[Phantom]

The long and short of it is, if I had kids less than say, early teens, I wouldn't let them on this forum. However, I should be able to.

This is a FINAL FANTASY forum, which I think we sometimes forget. Final Fantasy is a series which, even though not strictly only for the younger generation, is certainly developed with them in mind, and they DO play it.
This site is primarily for fans of the Final Fantasy series. Since fans largely include younger people, this site and therefore these forums should reflect that audience. However, with such threads we have these days, they do not.

Yeah, we need to clean up.

I agree with what Neo said, this IS a Final Fantasy forum so things would probarly be based more on the series in question, however its because of such sections like General Chat, Intell Discussion, Clubs, and Journals that really attract a lot of members and new members, not just for Final Fantasy. I've seen a lot of these "How many times do you mastarbate?" threads the past few years I've been here, but I think that should still be allowed, I mean if young teens 14 below are viewing threads like those then I think it should fall under the parents responsability don't you think? As long as threads don't get largely sexual then I don't see a problem. TFF is much more then a average FF forum where you talk about FF ALL the time, its like a online hub where you can discuss all sorts of topics and share your opinons on issues. If its 18+ for some topics then kids should know to stay out, if they feel some kind of way its there fault for not reading the fine print and also parents should montior their kids activities of the computer (14 below lol). Yeah, all we need to do is keep some sexual topics to a low level of sexual content, and I think that will be okay.

[OceanEyes28]

Then the mod gets mad that they have to take action on their friend, after they previously ignored it. They do not thank the poster; instead, they neg rep the reporter on a year and a half old post about something completely random. They would have gotten away with it if rep givers were not revealed later.

Who's doing that? Because that's definitely not what we're here for, and I thought everyone knew that by now.

I hardly ever get any post reports. I'd say about one a month, honestly. If there's explicit material that I have somehow missed, please tell me about it. Post reporting doesn't guarantee you'll get your way, but it lets me know how people feel about what's going on in this forum. We can't help you if you don't tell us what's wrong.

Just remember that it's Fuzz's site, he hosts it, and in the end he gets to decide what our image is. If he comes in and says we're keeping the family friendly image, I hope you're willing to accept that gracefully.

[Victoria]

I don't get any post reports either. Just rarely, from other moderators, or people who know me. But I think that's because people don't know who the mod of the anime/lit/tv forums are.

I recently took care of something risque in the lit forum, but only because chez brought it to my attention, who in turn, got told about it on msn from someone else.

Just for reference, if anything ever happens in those three forums listed, please contact me. No one else. >_>; Because if someone else is contacted, they'll just contact me anyway. =P So cut out the middleperson. XD

And as I said earlier, I PM'd fuzz about this matter, so whatever he decides, is what we're going with, and that's final.

[Walter Sobchak]

Who's doing that? Because that's definitely not what we're here for, and I thought everyone knew that by now.

It wasn't you. That person knows who they are.

Everyone keeps mentioning that this is a Final Fantasy forum. Yes it is, but there needs to be a balancing act. I would bet that everyone over 1000 posts rarely goes into the FF rooms. How often can you talk about them?

Thats why there needs to be guidelines as to what goes in General Chat and abroad.

[Jin]

So IMO, TFF should bloody neaten up it's act, keep a closer eye on everything and actually start BEING family friendly or just drop the "zomg post warn it's not family friendly" facade

Why do we have to polarize to either extreme? That's stupid. Let's be honest, fanatically keeping this forum to a PG-13 rating will lose members. Inversely, removing all limitations will cause certain people to take advantage of that and run rampant (such as if the BOD returned, god forbid), also causing us to lose members. We have a fairly happy medium right now. The majority of explicit threads that I've seen have clearly been marked as adult topics. This isn't Treehouse TV, there's no reason we can't have explicit threads, within reason, so long as they're marked. It's not like these thread are uploading porn; the BOD is gone.

[Musashiden]

As for the Final Fantasy bit, take a long hard look at Lulu, Tifa, and Leblanc. If you can tell me with a straight face that those 3 sets of knockers were made with a younger audience in mind, I will cut my own penis off.

I'm all for having a family friendly appearance, but with limits. Look at the general age group of the most active members. Most of us could make it into an R-rated movie, and those that couldn't, they certainly seem like they could trick the guy at the ticket booth. Instead of PG-13, how about "This Film Has Not Yet Been Rated"? That way there's some leeway without completely abandoning the younger members.

[Andromeda]

If you have a problem with a post or think that it goes beyond the rules of the forum that we set send us a report. That is what it is there for. I check what I can in a day, but I'm a busy person. Seeing the reports I investigate them. If you say there is an issue with family friend content I'll be the first to jump over there. If you think there is a problem with the thread don't just say it to yourself do something about it. We may not have seen it yet. I can't go read everyone's journal, though hearing that there may be warnable content in there I just might have to start.

As for the supposed double standard. Things like images we got on people pretty much immediately. If I see something, I'm on it quickly. When it comes to threads and text there is a certain level of a line that I draw. It sounds like a double standard, but it is not. It is allow people some freedom without giving them everything. When someone starts going into lengthy details though then it becomes a problem. If it is just a quick I do this so many times, you aren't being explicit. Which is about where the PG-13 ends. Once you start becoming explicit then its time to be looked at.

If you have problems with a post or thread report it and I'll take a look at it. Make sure you clearly say what your complaint is and I'll look at it. I can't be everywhere on the forums, we need our members to be responsible and report things, not just say that is bad and move along. Ignoring it won't get it fixed.

[Neo Necron]

Yeah, all we need to do is keep some sexual topics to a low level of sexual content, and I think that will be okay.

Actually, I think they should be gone completely. On a forum which is meant to be family friendly, they shouldn't be there at all.

A question for the mods. I notice some points that some threads are left alone because they aren't reported. If I did report, say, the masturbation thread... would you have removed it?

[Yuki-onna]

As for the Final Fantasy bit, take a long hard look at Lulu, Tifa, and Leblanc. If you can tell me with a straight face that those 3 sets of knockers were made with a younger audience in mind, I will cut my own penis off.

That's what I was looking for. I don't really find TFF to be sexual, 18+, out of control. Sure, there are some of those topics. And why shouldn't there be? I mean, if it were "Where u laik best 2 downld ur p0rn?" I'd be concerned.

I find, in general, TFF is kept pretty neat. However, I still see things getting ignored, or the other way around: complete blow-up of a minor thing. I mean, in the end - this is a forum. It's discussion. It's not a regime where saying something one moderator might find offensive should be met with WARNING!! or banishment. Yes, I think the guidelines need reinforcement - but they need to be done so uniformly.

Also, I think the number of moderators is stretched - the numbers may seem enough, but people have real lives too. Not everyone is online all the time, all day. Timezones and habits should be taken into consideration when moderators are appointed as well, I'd say.

That's just my view - ultimately it's up to the Fuzz. I'm not trying to pee anyone off, it's just what I've noticed in my stay here. Really, TFF is one of the cleaner ones out here...minor spam, advertisements, explicit content...I've seen some bad ones...

[OceanEyes28]

Actually, I think they should be gone completely. On a forum which is meant to be family friendly, they shouldn't be there at all.

A question for the mods. I notice some points that some threads are left alone because they aren't reported. If I did report, say, the masturbation thread... would you have removed it?

Immediately after your post report, I probably would not have removed it since it seems like I've seen that kind of thread around for years. So, in my mind, I saw it as okay. And with everyone responding to it positively (at the time, anyway... that I was aware of), I decided it was no problem.

But now that people have brought their dislike of it to my attention, I suppose I'll have to think twice. I feel like... if people had reported it (or PMed us or instant messaged us), we would know there was a problem. I try to use my best judgement on stuff like this, but I can't always know who will get offended. So if you let me know, I'll bring it up with the staff or Shinra and we can have had a similar conversation without having to piss people off.

I'm not trying to place blame on anyone. I see it as just a misunderstanding. You all don't know what to expect, we don't know what to fix. So I'm hoping that Fuzz will come in and give us some sort of guideline so we can avoid this kind of thing in the future. So that if we do end up having to warn someone, we can point to a rule and everyone will understand what's going on and we don't have to get all personal about it.

[Jin]

If someone is honestly offended by things like that, isn't the 18+ rating that is clearly visible in the title of the thread enough to signify that you shouldn't read it? No one's forcing anyone to.

That thread isn't even provokative. All the euphomisms used in that thread make it more than suitable for prime time. Are you master of your domain? To censor something below a Seinfeld level is just uneccesary. Don't read the thread if it's a problem.

[Pete]

I feel like all members should be made aware of the complaint. Not necessarily who is complaining, because we don't want anyone to be the victim of backlash, but something along the lines of having a mod put the complaint into the thread. That way everyone can get the same feedback. For chrissakes, it's the internet; nobody should be afraid of speaking their mind, lest they get hit with a little negative rep.

All in all, I think that the 18+ idea is a fair disclaimer because it's saying that "This is a slightly more mature topic." Granted kids are having sex at young ages and most begin beating off at age 12, and that this is supposed to be a "family friendly" website, but c'mon the themes of the FF games themselves are more often than not much more complex than the mind of a 13 year old can handle.

All in all, I think that everything's fine the way it is. Porn doesn't have a place here. I think we tried a porn forum once, verrrrrrry briefly and it was way too much of a hassle for the admins to give access to everyone who was legal. Plus there are too many legal issues in and of itself, with you needed to be at least 13 to register and 18 for porn. As for the censorship of words, I dunno. I feel that if you're going to curse when you talk, you'll curse when you type, so on and so forth. Just like if you hear someone curse, you can't un-hear the word, just like you shouldn't be able to un-see it in typeface. For this reason, I suppose keeping the censors on is ok, but at the same time, it's not exactly a game of mad libs. There are only so many words that can fit the little asterixes.

All in all, I don't think we should change anything, but everything should be evaluated fairly. If someone complains, it shouldn't be about who is complaining, but rather the legitimacy of the gripe. Does the complainer just not like the poster, or do they have a legitimate gripe. Lastly, I feel that creative outlets, like Lit and the RP/B forums should be largely uncensored. Put up a disclaimer beforehand if what you're writing is going to be a little racy, and it should be left at that. People's creativity should largely be left unhampered. With words, a disclaimer is all you need. "There is a sex scene in this story. If you don't like it, don't read it."

There's a difference with the digital community posts though, because those are images. I think those should be kept pg-13, yknow, no frontal nudity/sex/drug use and keep it somewhat classy.

End of story

[LocoColt04]

I suppose I do have one point to make: in the user agreement, you sign off on a little box that states you are 13 years or older. Should I ban every user who isn't old enough to be here?


How "family friendly" should we really be here? I figure PG-13 isn't so bad. We don't NEED to be any more explicit, do we? Is it really necessary? And should we be so ridiculously locked down on things that cleavage (which Lulu, a character in a game sold to children, had sparingly) is shunned?

We all have an idea of what's appropriate when it comes to imagery. It's the whole text side of things that we really need to consider here. What's appropriate? Is an "18+" thread regarding masturbation an appropriate topic for our supposed 13+ userbase? No. Honestly, it's not.

We need to draw a line somewhere, and we need to figure out exactly where that's going to be.

Don't tell me that all 13 year olds already know about masturbation. They probably started when they were nine. It's not really the point here. I've gotten complaints in the past (long, long ago) from users and PARENTS AND TEACHERS of users in regards to the types of content we allow on the site. We cleaned up back then, and then let it all slide again.

At the same time, I see what Pete and many others have said here, and I sure as hell don't disagree with you. I could certainly do away with the word censors, but wouldn't that just go against the idea of keeping things PG-13? At the same time, what's the point in having word censors if we're just going to dodge them (myself included)?

This is something that we, as a community, should discuss.
Obviously, that's what this thread is for... sort of...

[ultima_trev]

As for the Final Fantasy bit, take a long hard look at Lulu, Tifa, and Leblanc. If you can tell me with a straight face that those 3 sets of knockers were made with a younger audience in mind, I will cut my own penis off.

ZOMGBBQ, THAT IS... 73|-| b357 po57 3\/4R!!

As for the topic itself, I don't give a shit. As someone already mentioned, you'll be hard pressed to find a dude in his early adolescence who hasn't fapped to pr0n, but on the other hand, all females, regardless of age, are complete prudes, so I guess a healthy balance is in order (not that I know what that balance would be).

[Pete]

I agree with you Cesar. It's just a ridiculously stupid line that has to be drawn. People are going to complain about something regardless of whatever is going on. Either it'll be too racy or too plain and people won't like it. The idea of an 18+ forum is just a waste of space and everyones time here because of all the issues it brings. However, at the pace this site is going, with the extreme lack of posting in places like GC, I'd say get all the posts you can in, especially when it's those more mature posts that bring people in.

But that's my two cents. I really don't care if we filter or not. I'm just glad that we're kind of back to a status quo, minus the inactivity.

I still think word games is a bullshit forum that adds nothing but spam, but thats just me.

[Sinister]

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with this topic.

This forum is not one gigantic BoD forum. It's about Final Fantasy. People don't come here to be confronted by threads inspired by Drawn Together.

I agree with Tacitus on this. It's all about balance. I think it is ideal, the way it is. With thread warnings such as +18, we're sure that no one is in the wrong place by mistake. And if you are asking TFF to turn away underage members...that's more than enough hypocrisy for a lifetime.

No one is censoring journals(or that I've seen)...there are plenty of explicit threads in a supposedly non-explicit forum...What more do you people want? A pr0n forum? There are other sites for that, expand your favorites list to include some. Not to mention the perfect freedom that chats such as MSN allow.


-Sin

[Neo Necron]

Language sensoring I'm not bothered about. Porn? Clearly, that doesn't need to be here. Fair point about final fantasy boobs, too.

I just don't think threads about masturbation and 'when was the first time you had sex' are appropriate. Okay, we see large cleavage in Final Fantasy, but I do not recall Squall and Zell discussing how often they masturbate.

Note that I'm not saying that if it's in Final Fantasy, it's okay to have it here. I'm just using Final Fantasy to reflect the audience it attracts. Breast size passes censoring for the younger audience who play the series, as they probably would in any other game, book or tv show that attracts that generation. However, discussions such as those mentioned above certainly would not pass those censors.

[Cain Highwind]

Well kinda late to the party here, but I disagree with Vamp and agree with some of the others in this thread that we have a pretty good balance. We do have some young kids post here, we even had a mom coming in and asking questions once, not too long ago, so it's nice to know that we have an image that's welcoming to all sorts of people.

As for the mature threads, I think those are good as long as they're marked (and we have no complaints of it being offensive). I mean Sex and masturbation isn't something you casually talk about, but here on the boards, people are more comfortable and open about it here (I know I am). So someone might need advice on a risque subject like that and that's where the forums are quite helpful about that.

[Taco-Calamitous]

Here's my view; I don't care what's allowed and what isn't. I will probably still post here. I post on another board that is far more strict than this one, and I've been told to be a bit more careful once or twice, but I've behaved myself for the most part. If it is required that I don't drop the f-bombs via dodging the censors, I can do that. They aren't commonly in my day-to-day speech, anyway; I just use them for humorous purposes for the most part. I also rarely take part in those 18+ threads, and I'm not even sure why I took part in the masturbation thread; that must've been a very weird mood I was in...

I have no preference, really. The staff can do whatever they feel needs to be done. I really don't feel like TFF gives a "Family Friendly" image, however, and if that image is desired, some changes definitely need to be made. Anyhoo...

Wuv, Yer Mom

[Govinda]

This place doesn't have porn ads thrown up by its automatic Google ad-makers.

So we're really doing okay.

Fin.

[Neo Necron]

This place doesn't have porn ads thrown up by its automatic Google ad-makers.

FREE PORN

.... Sorry... I just couldn't resist.


To be honest, it doesn't really bother me myself what we have and what we don't have. The points I raise are really to emphasise how I think this forum should run if you really want family friendly. I personally don't need this forum to be family friendly, I'm happy with having the discussions that occur. I'm just saying, if family friendly really is an important thing on these boards, we really should try to talk less about sex and masturbation.