Most of this is understandable to me, although I think it makes a specific and significant error of inappropriately leveling the playing field.
Compatibilism is not welcome from either side, because each side views a compatibility solution as condoning, favoring, or supporting the other at the expense of one’s own group.
I do not need people who disapprove of ageplay — NSFW or otherwise — to not exist or to be silenced or to be themselves marginalized. I think most of the folks here speaking in support of such roleplay are in agreement, here; we are constantly being harassed and called out and abused and excluded here and elsewhere, and are asking only to be left alone.
This request is consistent with what you have expressed, that we are aiming for a live-and-let-live approach. This is ideal in our eyes.
Conversely, folks who are opposed to ageplay in whole or in part want us to be banned from the site for doing it. This is not a level playing field. This is not a situation where both sides are exclusionary. One side wishes to exclude the other. The other side just wants to stop being called pedophiles every time this topic comes up.
With regards to this post, I do want to make a few statements:
Whether CSA survivors need, want, or benefit from ongoing interactions of this sort is not your place to litigate. And ‘I don’t understand it’ does not constitute proof of a logical conclusion. I would ask you to be open to the possibility that even though it is an alien drive, it is not epistemologically impossible on basis of your experience.
Vis-a-vis therapy, I agree that a therapist is of incomparable value, but seeing a therapist is not a comprehensive way to come back to life after trauma, and therapists are, for many reasons, not able to engage in all behaviors that would benefit their client.
Risk reduction is tricky. Every risk eliminated costs potentials. We have to balance those carefully. Absolute risk reduction leads to absurd positions, and cannot be sustained.
‘Being left alone’ is itself a mandate on behavior. For the people who feel strongly about it, it is asking them to tacitly condone, by not speaking up, a behavior they find reprehensible. Asking someone to suppress their moral conscience is a substantial point of compromise.
Then I think the problem is that this topic does not exist within the Overton window, and that social expectations around healthy debate are consequently distorted. We do not, in a progressive context, welcome people debating the validity of the existence of trans people, because this is intrinsically queerphobic behavior.
Because ageplay is not currently recognized by the public as a reasonable and acceptable behavior, we treat it differently. And this is not intrinsically wrong — it is possible for the public to be correct about something — but it is also how literally every other queer- and kink-adjacent identity has been received: First by outrage, and then by a recognition that it is a protected identity, and then the long road to reconciliation.
Right now, Wolfery is asking us to remain in that first stage, and I think any person who has experienced marginalization can tell you that this is a form of social violence. I do not think Wolfery condones these behaviors where it regards more normative identities, but it seems that it permits those behaviors as long as they are the popular reaction.
This, also, seems in contradiction with the principles Wolfery espouses. It seems to me that our values are not too far apart, and that there is only a difference in perception, here.
I once reported a user for referring to my nonbinary identity as stupid in a whisper to me. You addressed that report by speaking with this person in private, and relayed to me your opinion that I would be best served by muting this person, as they seemed not to grasp the gravity of their error.
The word stupid warranted moderative action.
Here, people are citing censorship laws and calling us pedophiles and telling us we are creating child pornography and, in past threads, telling us that what we are doing constitutes Child Sexually-Abusive Material, a term which should essentially only ever be used when we are talking about real photos of actual human children being sexually exploited. Your response has been to treat this as healthy debate.
I’m not averse to responding in a humorous manner but I at least attempt to stay on topic and contribute to the conversation when doing so. I’m not saying this as a moderator (which I am not), just as an annoyed participant.
Make different areas Realms instead, but make it possible for someone to move to another Realm via an exit (and ideally, direct/registered teleport). That way everything is separate, profiles will auto-switch because they’ll be different in the standalone Realm - and characters who do stay in Lamplight almost entirely won’t be viewable on About in Sinder.
In fact, I’d argue that Sinder should be the “safe space” Realm rather than splitting off Lamplight, Umber, etc to start with, since this seems to be in large part about what people mostly hanging out in the park want to see. But whatever works.
I’ve got to say, even I don’t think the browser addon idea is realistic (remember that many are on e.g. Chrome Mobile or the equivalent embedded option which won’t allow such things AFAIK). I do think such a blocklist is a reasonable technical request, for the web app.
There will always be more heat because people find ways to trip over stuff they don’t like, or just argue against it from a moral/legalistic perspective.
Part of this is due to the way core technical features have been designed, i.e. the global Awake list, highlighted as an issue last time we had one of these threads and which will become more unsustainable as Wolfery grows.
If we’re going to tell people “this is maybe not the right place for you”, it has to be open to the possibility that those asking for others to be censored are those who leave. I’d say “do we want Wolfery to be more like Tapestries or FurryMUCK, from an acceptance standpoint, bearing in mind the relative popularity of both?”, but as I’ve said above, it could be both and more, separate-but-linked Realms could be a great solution.
This is a great point. As before, separate Realms that you start in, can easily travel to others but have to set up your profile there with a popup of the realm rules might be a solution. A one-time per-Realm onboarding.
As an aside, I get the impression that a lot of the motivation for this topic is coming from players arriving from, say, F-chat, where there’s a clearer delineation of topics/interests, and are not prepared for a world where a lot of people are into things you’re not. For some it’s great, for others it’s not.
Is Wolfery for this theoretical, allegedly large but apparently unmeasured prospective userbase, or the community which uses and enjoys it now?
This argument reminds me of the time Furry Network (remember that one?) banned cub because some popular artist came in off of FA and declared that it had to go, dragging all their Twitter followers into the resulting poll. The kicker: they never actually uploaded.
But again, it’s a false dichotomy - we just need to open up to the idea of separate Realms that are still furry, and try to deal with a looser form of linking, of the level you get from whereare elsewhere. For now, switching profile based on the area may suffice, but this is crying out for a technical feature to establish and auto-switch it, rather than rely on people having to do it themselves. Policy isn’t enough by itself because people coming from spaces that are more permissive (i.e. F-list profiles) will just copy those on without a clear prompt.
It won’t be all heat off of them, of course, but when things are opt-in enough that you’d have to be looking to even be aware of the content, such people will be the minority - and people who are constantly looking for things that make them mad are usually so unpleasant that they don’t last long in most spaces with decent moderation anyways.
Given the extensive number of ‘I have had so many friends leave here because there was ageplay’ type posts as well as numerous reports of folks leaving for that reason that are NOT documented in the forum, I include those individuals in said prospective userbase because they WERE or would WANT to use the service, but do not feel comfortable doing so.
I do understand why it doesn’t feel fair to you, but I also see why it doesn’t feel fair to them, either. With regards to the attacks, we are threading a very fine needle on the distinction between allowing people to express their belief in those connections, and the expression that moralizing arguments are not welcome or appropriate in this context.
I can entirely understand the tendency to interpret the legalizing arguments regarding definitions of material as a personal insult, especially in this context where legal, moral, social, and psychological motivations are extremely convoluted over one another.
The core trouble is that the issue is being framed as a right to exist in the space. We, the moderators, are not in the business of attempting to change people’s minds on the moral and philosophical underpinnings of people’s behaviors. Our aim is to establish standards of behavior which are supportive of a community which is as beneficial as possible.
There is an implicit request that Wolfery staff engage in efforts to convince people to change their outlook on ageplay. That the fact that people opposed are opposed may believe the things they say, and that holding beliefs that are perjorative is actionable.
I will say this with an uncommon level of authority: we are not here to police people’s perspectives. We are not therapists, pastors, advertisers, or activists. We do not, and will not, take efforts on any front to enforce or influence people’s social or political standing. Our job is to stop behaviors, possibly caused by those outlooks, which harm people.
On that front, the idea that a person holding a belief which, if vocalized, would cause harm to someone is actionable is operationally (not morally or philosophically, I stress) the same as holding a belief that someone’s interests mandates their exclusion. One side wants the other to not be there, and that side wants them to not be who they are.
I agree in the difference in perspective, but the key point of that is in the distinction between acceptance and tolerance. We would like if all users accepted one another, but this is goal is one that is vastly out of our power. Our jurisdiction is tolerance, and it is one that we enforce with the hope that creating a space of tolerance is conducive to growing acceptance.
I would like to believe that our users can learn to understand the value in acceptance of those around us regardless of our individual moral comprehension of behaviors, and understand that intervention is intended to create respectful boundaries where we do not step on one anothers’ outlooks while mitigating behaviors that cause harm.
I should be the last person to appear in this thread but geezies. You can’t even imagine how hard the team worked trying to come up with some solution that would work and the time it took them to make sure that it would be reasonably acceptable to the populace. They try to keep the door open, they try to make sure to include every opinion and to keep this discussion civil. It’s thoroughly disappointing to see such “feedback” in the thread and it makes everyones’ arguments sound less grounded, whichever side you tried to support.
Can you behave like an adult in the comments and respect the others, please?
My reply post above was sent a bit early due to an inadvertent ctrl-enter, apologies for not addressing other replies later on, but to be honest it got so long that the thread diverged a bit from the topic anyway.
As a result I never quite got around to saying that while I don’t hate the original post’s concept, it needs - aside from a means of auto-switching - far more clarity on exactly what is and is not allowed; in particular, what constitutes “details”. For example, are clearly-marked external links to F-list OK in About? How about link blocks like this? Does it matter if the linked resource also requires acceptance to view content and offers filtering, as IB does?
I do also have a question as to whether the staff would consider these particular custom tags acceptable for the tag block, the first of which ironically I have only ever had experience of on Wolfery from someone whispering me in Station Park:
spaying
Removal or disabling of ovaries and/or uterus. Wouldn’t do this to others but perhaps OK to her in a medical scene?
oviposotion
Laying and bearing eggs, be they natural, donated or artificial. Or not laying, as a more durable toy.
The other aspect is whether staff consider whispers between characters who happen to be in the Town of Sinder to potentially constitute an offence under 2. I’m guessing not, but the rule could be construed in such a manner.
I am deeply troubled by the fact that our right to exist is not a given, and that threatening that right to exist in discussions about site policy is acceptable behavior, and that the ultimate goal here is to create an environment where our existence is tolerated but humiliating and dehumanizing attacks on our character and identity are both permissible and prevalent.
I understand that the moderation team is in an extraordinarily difficult position, here, and that this is complicated by the fact that some of that team would also like us not to exist. I have demonstrated how this behavior is unjust when directed at virtually any other demographic, and the response has been uncompromising that we must continue to endure this abuse.
It is not being interpreted as a personal attack; it just is intentionally a personal attack. The language that is often used in these discussions is vile. If the moderation team cannot at least commit to addressing that rampant vitriol — and I see here that you are unable to provide that assurance — then I cannot in good conscience continue to look to the moderation team as a source of…you know, moderation.
I do not know what this means for folks telling these kinds of stories on Wolfery, but I know at least that our time here is limited, and that it will not be pleasant. So now we just wait for the other shoe to drop.
I just can’t take anything (most) of the moderators are saying here seriously. “Being left alone’ is itself a mandate on behavior” and “Less rules are inherently more extreme rules.” are the biggest examples.
Also every mod here sounds like a broken record. So no, I will approach this with the upmost whimsy.
Like, seriously. Some y’all be saying things equivalent to what the e6 mods be sayin
Your right to exist is assumed, your right to not have people believing otherwise is not.
Threatening people is not acceptable, and threats are against policy, and are disciplined. Determining whether a statement is a tangible threat or a perceived one is a delicate task.
Part of the issue is that this topic is so contentious, that in many cases voicing either outlook is considered an attack. I understand that you believe that these statements are intentional attacks, but I disagree.
Our outlook here is that tolerance is the best possible outcome. People in favor of ageplayers will have to tolerate that some of the userbase despises them, and people opposed will have to tolerate that people on the platform engage in a behavior they find immoral. Considering that the crux of the argument here is an anti-ageplay perspective is something you consider inherently immoral, and want formally abolished, I feel like tolerance is a reasonable expectation.
And by taking every opportunity to post a random gif and make fun of folks makes it difficult for ANYONE to take you or your opinion seriously. You do yourself and your point of view a disservice by resorting to such antics.
