I fully support the idea behind Safe Sane and Consensual.
As long as someone’s actions aren’t hurting themselves or others,
And they aren’t somehow impaired to a point where they cannot reasonably give informed consent
And those involved all give informed consent…
Then I do not care what it is they are doing. Let them do it.
I also do not believe that text is causing harm, but if it is then this doesn’t apply strictly to ageplay anyway.
However, with that said, I think this topic has two ways to be looked at:
What is a reasonable approach to allow something to exist while also protecting those who do not want to see it? I think the suggestion of adding spoiler tags/warning is the simplest solution and I believe should resolve this.
The other side is any possible legal ramification of allowing it at all, and further possible ramifications of having had this conversation and still allowing it anyway. I would like to say that it is unreasonable for a site of this size and scope to be required to have a legal team to track and keep up to date with any possible laws that put their site in violation of all nations in the world is wholly unreasonable. But I do unfortunately think it is something to be considered. What do those ramifications look like. Is saying oops, sorry I’ll change policy if called out enough, or will this conversation be seen and the judges say, yeah, but you knew this would be an issue and allowed it anyway?
I also have to agree with Makyo as someone who is also queer and trans. Being told to suck it up and shut up isn’t a great feeling.
I understand that you’re advocating for your interests in a way that you feel is practical, or maybe necessary. But people who are doing no harm should never have to accept inequity to settle for limited tolerance over none. I can see the logic behind your approach, and I appreciate what you’re getting at. But I cannot morally agree with it. Everyone here should be respected and treated well. None of the kinks we’re practically and legally able to support should be handled unfairly.
No one is being told to suck up and shut up. Except for the person I suspended.
What is being demanded is mutual tolerance. Ageplayers are being asked to tolerate the existence of people who believe they are engaging in immoral acts. Anti-ageplayers are being asked to tolerate the people engaging in acts they see as immoral.
Both sides want moderation to make a firm statement asserting that their perspective is correct. We won’t. We don’t even agree on it.
I have tried to emphasize many times that the moralizing arguments are not material. We are trying to create a frame work in which no one has to shut up and accept abuse, because you do not see each other.
The first and key step is, for everyone involved, to be willing to acknowledge that both sides have legitimate and valid reasons for their outlook and perspective. Even if you believe that their outlook is inherently wrong, consider that they believe it, they believe it strongly, and that deserves credence.
The usual approach is that if a court identifies content it must be taken down, and with that in mind the platform is not liable except to the extent it directed it to exist. For example, the “exceptions” listed here are common to EU/UK countries as they were part of an EU-wide directive. Wolfery meets all three to some aspect - it is a communications network, a cache for such communications, and an image host - it has policy addressing the hosted images.
The UK Online Safety/Harms act mentioned earlier does increase regulation but also excludes text as being considered pornographic. It requires sites to identify risks to children and of illegal conduct - like offering knives for sale, spreading terrorism or promoting RL suicide - and document them internally, and in some cases to implement age-verification (but again, text is not an issue they wish to address) - I think the prior policy change addresses this.
The biggest risk to a site outside UK jurisdiction is being blocked and having UK-based/operated funding withdrawn. I don’t believe they have the power to compel an external site to divulge information about moderators who may be in the UK etc. And Wolfery would be far, far down any priority list - their focus is sites offering RL video porn trivially accessibile to children or pro-suicide/body-harm forums, not furry roleplayers.
Some of the language going around has rather heavily hinted otherwise.
That would be my thought as well, Wolfery is frankly too small to go after. But it might not hurt to be sure. I did a quick google search and the google AI said othweise. That said, I didn’t really research it either. And AI is known to hallucinate.
It is in the interests of some to make such hints, where it advances their position.
Having run IB for a decade, the only country we ever got a legal takedown notice from (via a cache host, who agreed to ignore it after we explained the context) was Russia. Which would have blocked us anyway just for the gay stuff.
Most countries spend more time and effort promoting their regulations than enforcing them because even going after clear violators is more than enough to deal with, let alone anything close to a borderline. Unfortunately that often leaves a grey area where it is not clear how things actually apply (which is why I asked about some specific examples) and it is easy for the regulated subjects to overcorrect in avoidance of risk.
Having said all that, I’m not a lawyer, there’s lots out there so it’s best to ask one if concerned - but they will probably have trouble giving a straight answer if the jurisdiction is ‘worldwide’.
You are welcome to advocate. I feel you have done an admirable job on the whole. Some of your posts have prevented the need for some of mine, including providing corrections that text-based role play between consenting adults is categorically NOT pedophilia, at the least from a legal perspective. It is not only unhelpful to correlate the two, but it makes it more difficult to discuss the whole topic.
It’s a precarious line to walk, trying to mediate and contribute to these discussions, while being cautious that as a moderator, my voice carries more weight than some. I do my best, and I try to cultivate skills to aid in that, but I am still just another person.
I think we’ve had most of the moderation crew in here at this point. And I get that you will have very diverse viewpoints and the important thing to do if only for the sake of internal harmony is to find a workable policy.
My main suggestion there is that a pure policy approach isn’t likely to work well - combining it with a few technical changes could make things a lot smoother.
This has been my stance too. Pure policy is only as good as some function of the strength of its enforcement mechanisms and the ease with which people are able to follow the rules. A technical solution that makes the process for compliance obvious and seamless to act upon is the holy grail here.
Just wanted to chime in a bit, I’ve spoken with Fox briefly and gotten the green light to open a new thread to specifically discuss tools and systems proposals to help with the suggested policy changes that have been mentioned throughout the thread. User Content Curation Tools - A Discussion
The idea behind starting the new thread was to hopefully help keep the tool and system based ideas focused and provide a space for us to brainstorm over ways to help provide agency to everyone affected by the policy changes.
I am unfortunately running short on time and only had the chance to go through the first hundred posts, so if you had a tool idea from these discussions, I would encourage you to share it over there.
This thread should still be used for the discussion of the policy changes though.
I would like to point back to my suggestion about making the about field room visible only, and introduce a new info box that is more clearly labeled as must be Sinder safe and is visible everywhere. Maybe even have it filled in by default stating the rules for how to use it.
This not only makes it abundantly clear what the rules are, but makes it so existing users don’t go, “I didn’t know” or it was already there and I didn’t see the update while I was a way for a few months. It also means we don’t have to tuck a single bit of information across up to, what is it, 30 profiles for supporters?
Thank you for voicing the honest truth here. There’s a drastic difference between the two, and a lot of people have (unfortunately) been using this thread to vent about how ‘Ageplay is valid! It’s no different from watersports as a kink!’ which I believe everyone here can sit down and honestly say is a lie.
This is… more than a little worrying. I see where you’re coming from, but I hope that your final line quoted here was simply miswritten.
The interpretation I have of your words reads like the ageplayers on this site are exploring their feelings about something that no one should ‘get to have’. A childhood full of sexual encounters between adults and minors, or with rape, or many of the other things I’ve seen writers on Wolfery (and other platforms)? That’s not a childhood anyone should ‘get’ to have. That’s traumatic, and abhorrent.
The mere idea that the presence of ageplay on Wolfery exists for that reason paints it in a genuinely, morally negative way, compared to the mere issues of legality I’ve expressed higher up in this forum thread.
I disagree. Ageplay is consenting adults pretending to be something else. It does not involve actual children. If it did, there’s a different word for that.
Also, regardless of what kink you’re engaging in, you still can’t tell the age of the other player. Also, if an actual child breaks policy to sneak in, they’re far more likely to avoid exposing that by engaging in ageplay than to avoid it to blend in. But if this happens they should be reported, assuming you ever find out.
Adding on as an anecdote, I started text RPing, and ERPing, as a 14-15 year old teen. I was FAR more interested in being seen as any other adult than playing as a kid, and I was proud of the fact that nobody knew I was that young unless I told them. I can’t say my experience is a universal one, but I believe it’s generally true that minors want to be seen as older than they are, especially in an 18+ area. An innocent kid wanting to play an innocent kid really, really isn’t likely to find their way onto Wolfery.
The overlap between consenting adults engaging in taboo content and underage users sneaking into a place they’re not supposed to be is far smaller than some folks realize.
I’ll echo Reno’s above post. My introduction to both RP and ERP was at 13 through various platforms, and I never involved myself with ageplay. Presenting as an adult was important to being able to stick around and continue doing something I enjoyed.
That’s not to say that what I did was right. It objectively was not.
I’m not trying to state with any of my prior posts that individuals involved in ageplay are more likely to be a minor. That would be an outright lie.
It most certainly wasn’t, and I didn’t realize until much later what kind of problems I may have caused for adults who I informed I was a minor after they had engaged in explicit RP with me in the belief I was an adult. That was Not Okay.
The “fortunate part” for us moderators is that not many teens who ‘sneak in’ know to not tell anyone about it - or if they do, they still can’t keep from saying. It makes what would otherwise be an utterly impossible job somewhat manageable.
