input
Thomas Bowser
Ben
before I take a chance on putting my foot in something.
Arcticflare
about the rest, but I'd like to know just exactly what is going on, to
be honest. The server split, Shifters.org and Therian.net are
seperate? What caused this in the first place? The details are kind of
vague, at least to me, so I'd appreciate any clarification as to What,
and Why, this is really happening in the first place, before I can
really contribute as to what to do about it.
Believing Wolf
peirrin
like all involved parties, to stay involved. Let's not further split
an already small community any further. As for rules, I think we
do need to make an effort to make the community friendly, and open to
members of all ages (This means not corrupting them.) So we probably
do need to pay more attention to keeping conversations a bit less
explicict in the main channel. I think the main reason for those
rules currently in place not being followed strictly, is less an act
of intentional defiance of said rules, and more along the lines people
lapsing. Let's face it. There are only so many admins, and they're
only on so many hours in a given day. They have lives outside of IRC,
as do, well, some of us others. ( I presume) They're not always
around to gently ( or not so gently) remind people to keep in line in
front of some of the possiblly more impressionable community members.
More members need to step up to the responsibility of reminding others
( not just short term, but long term) about these rules which we will
be developing here in the next few weeks. As for the form these rules
must take, honestly, we're allowing highschool age people in here.
And so we should probably aim at that level. We all know kids know
more and more these days, but we shouldn't be adding to that. I think
a good baseline to follow would be American Radio standards. Because,
well, the majority of us are American and I think we can all imagine
what would and would not be allowed to be broadcast on the radio.
(Howard Stern's XM station excluded) Though we could probably be a
bit more loose on general cursing. But, as I said, it's a baseline.
As for Queries, or PM's, well, we can't really exercise much control
over that can we? And should we even really try? Just stress, that in
most cases, you simply can NOT be sure of someones age, and you
shouldn't immediatly throw caution to the wind when in a PM window.
And let's start adding on to this foundation people. Let's stick
together and show a little bit thought, and thoughtfullness about how
we interact with each other, and the world around us.
Bearcat
going to administer. We don't have enough admins to have one on all
the time, and taking shifts is not gonna happen.
Suppose admin A says "Yes that picture does not violate the "no porn"
rules when shown a picture by a smart user that verifies in PM wether
the picture is ok to post. Admin A goes off channel. Admin B comes on
and a user posts a picture that was approved by Admin A, but Admin B
punishes the user for it.
I can easily see that happening. At the very least the user says "But
Admin A said it was alright", and then we have two admins in conflict.
As i've said on the admin list, the rules have to be clear, hard and
as unemotionally driven as possible. Not just on pornography, on all
of it.
It will take time and trial and errors to work it out. I just hope
some users don't fall victem to the trials and errors.
MoonWind
Chris Robinson
didn't know them, or know to look for them. I also think its silly that all
conversation needs to be dumbed down because an underager may get onto the
network and lie about their age. And already, we're allowed to cuss up a
storm, or discuss topics of adult nature.
But I don't see why there has to be this arbitrary line through allowable
adult material. One adult thing is okay, but another that may not be as bad
(yay for subjective opinions) can get someone instabanned with no warning.
Only reasons I've heard for this is basically 'to protect the children'
(which I doubt, given the rest of the things we can do), or simply because
Bowtie and Jakkal don't like it. If someone can give a clear reason, I'd
appreciate it.
But, especially when the line is subject to the whim of whichever admin(s)
happen to be there (one admin may say its okay, but if another may not agree,
you can get banned anyway), it doesn't seem quite right. I haven't seen
anyone able to give a clear definition between what's allowed and what isn't,
and other places (eg. DeviantArt) that try to ban the same thing are known
for being vague and unfairly selective, despite having had several admins
trying to get a clear definition for years. I can understand if you want to
keep it out of the main channel, so why not set up a seperate channel like
what was done on TN during the split?
Chris Robinson
> Well said Pier. One of my concerns is how the administrators are
> going to administer. We don't have enough admins to have one on all
> the time, and taking shifts is not gonna happen.
I've found that when the rules are clear and accepted by the majority of users
(even begrudgingly so, if it's reasonable), the users do a fairly good job of
keeping themselves in check. If something goes wrong, they'll try to take
care of it themselves, or bring it to the attention of the admins to take
care of it.
The problem, in my mind, comes when the rules are too subjective or unclear,
and different users have a different idea or they "just aren't sure", but
aren't bothered to ask an admin for clarrification. At that point, IMO, they
generally don't feel confident to handle it properly themselves, or to care
to bring it up with an admin.
Geck
> keep it out of the main channel, so why not set up a seperate channel like
> what was done on TN during the split?
A separate channel was far more effective at keeping adult topics out
of main chat than a total ban was.
Whenever there was any uncertainty about where the limits lay, an
alternative channel was always the safe option, and so users enforced
the rules for themselves. On the other hand, if the only option was to
talk off network, there was a barrier of complexity in setting it up,
so in borderline cases it was always easier to risk it in main chat.
Bowtie
> I've found that when the rules are clear and accepted by the majority of users
> (even begrudgingly so, if it's reasonable), the users do a fairly good job of
> keeping themselves in check. If something goes wrong, they'll try to take
> care of it themselves, or bring it to the attention of the admins to take
> care of it.
>
> The problem, in my mind, comes when the rules are too subjective or unclear,
> and different users have a different idea or they "just aren't sure", but
> aren't bothered to ask an admin for clarrification. At that point, IMO, they
> generally don't feel confident to handle it properly themselves, or to care
> to bring it up with an admin.
That's why we're asking for input. Like I told you on IRC, Chris,
come up with a solution to the "vague" problem. We don't want to be
so restrictive that you can't do anything other than recite bible
passages. We don't want to be so open as to allow *everything* on the
network, just like YOU want us to be, Chris.
First, there are minors that do occasionally come on the network. For
all I know, you're all 12. There's no way for me to confirm that
without looking at certificates of birth or credit reports. Minors
being solicited for sex or being shown sexual material is a big
problem these days, and I for one am *not* going to be held
responsible when somebody comes in and starts netsexing up some 14
year old kid. Secondly, Crossroads is paid for by the individual
admins, and we all seem to agree that we really don't like the idea of
our users posting material over our bandwidth on our servers that
causes the other users to grab their wangs and start yanking. If any
of you want to do that, then you're more than welcomed to leave
Crossroads and go to Furnet, where such activity is allowed and
promoted. Make your own channel there, I don't care. But you won't
do it on Crossroads.
Now, Chris and Bearcat keep nitpicking us for the way we're trying to
phrase these ever-so-important (WHY???) sex topic rules. They keep
telling us to make it less vague. WE HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO COME UP
WITH A WRITTEN WAY TO DO SO.
So how about stop nitpicking, and start .. you know .. inputting??
Stop telling us how vague something is, and start looking up a way of
making it more direct and easily understood. And when you do, sell it
to Deviant Art, too, because I'm sure they'd *love* to find a way to
keep their asses safe and keep people happy.
And finally, I'm really at a loss as to why the posting of sexual
material is SO IMPORTANT to you people. I just don't understand it at
all. Are y'all so hard up that IRC is the only thing you get a rise
out of? Don't you have access to these materials by yourself, at
home, via web browser? Everybody, by themselves, can go to the sites
that get posted to an IRC channel. Nobody needs said IRC channel to
do so. Plus, like I said before, there's a whole bloody network
virtually dedicated to the practices of cyber sex or the posting of
explicit images or information. Go there. Don't do it here.
Bowtie
On Feb 9, 11:59 am, "Geck" <geckip...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I can understand if you want to
> > keep it out of the main channel, so why not set up a seperate channel like
> > what was done on TN during the split?
>
> A separate channel was far more effective at keeping adult topics out
> of main chat than a total ban was.
What surprises me is that, according to Rish, the channel was ..
yes .. open for adult topics, but it was limited. Maybe I'm wrong
here, but I was lead to believe that sexually explicit material
*still* wasn't allowed to be posted to #afterdark. You still couldn't
post porn, you still couldn't perform sexual activities. It was just
set up so the adults could talk more freely, say swear more, or have
logical discussions about sex; like the sex drive, or how you balance
therianthropy and sex... stuff like that. None of which we're trying
to stop. I'm not sure how you all took it, though...
Bowtie
> As for Queries, or PM's, well, we can't really exercise much control
> over that can we? And should we even really try?
Oh, we can try, and some of the new ircd modules make it a lot easier
than it used to be? Will we monitor msg's? We don't intend to. We'd
rather not. But it's still not Crossroads-legal to perform such
activities in message, either. It's not such a big thing to ask, is
it? Again, there's a whole other IRC network out there that you can
go to in order to perform such activities, in message, in private, or
however. I don't understand how asking people to respect our rules
and to take such activities elsewhere is such a big bloody ordeal.
Maybe I should ask something else; why *should* we allow this?
Rish
> yes .. open for adult topics, but it was limited. Maybe I'm wrong
> here, but I was lead to believe that sexually explicit material
> *still* wasn't allowed to be posted to #afterdark. You still couldn't
> post porn, you still couldn't perform sexual activities. It was just
> set up so the adults could talk more freely, say swear more, or have
> logical discussions about sex; like the sex drive, or how you balance
> therianthropy and sex... stuff like that. None of which we're trying
> to stop. I'm not sure how you all took it, though...
When I made it, I did it mostly to get the sexual conversations out of
the main channel. Honestly, I don't care for those sorts of
conversations and I really didn't care what went on in #afterdark,
save for the no netsex rule, because I had no intent on joining to
watch the channel. I figured everyone was an adult and would act as
such.
However, now with whats gone down since then, Bow's interpretation
makes a lot of sense and I'd have to say that sexually explicit
material will not be allowed to be posted to #afterdark. Why? Porn
is intended to arouse the viewer. Why would one person want to arouse
another? Sex? Yeah, no, not on my bandwidth thanks.
Jakkal
plenty/ of places where people can go to discuss sex, have netsex,
post whatever lude and sexually arousing materials you want.
On the other hand, there are very few places where you can't post this
stuff, trust me, I look for them specifically. I'd like to keep
CrossRoads clean. We don't need to scare away folks with porn, which
is a much bigger issue than swearing or convo topics.
You guys have /plenty/ of avenues to take for this issue. Consider
Crossroads the houses of the admins. Don't bring porn into our houses,
we don't want it here.
Bearcat
we're trying to
phrase these ever-so-important (WHY???) sex topic rules. They keep
telling us to make it less vague. WE HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO COME UP
WITH A WRITTEN WAY TO DO SO.
So how about stop nitpicking, and start .. you know .. inputting?? "
Again, i have no problem with the first paragraph. I would rather that
the second paragraph said:
"If you are unsure as to whether a link is deemed
inappropriate by the preceding rule and an admin is not there to
instruct you, do not post the link if you would not be comfortable
publicly displaying it's
contents in your average place of business."