Terms of Service and Privacy Policy update

#1

In the next release (v1.61.0), there will be changes made to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.

Privacy Policy

Section: Where the information is stored

Before

Mucklet AB is located in Sweden, which is part of EU. All the information will be processed and stored in Sweden.

After

Mucklet AB is located in Sweden, which is part of EU. All the information will be processed and stored within EU.

Reason

There are plans to move Wolfery from the current VPS server hosted in Sweden, to a dedicated server hosted by Hetzner in Germany. This will gives us both a faster server and a faster and more stable connection to the Internet.

Terms of Service

Section: Prohibited content - You may not upload content that contains:

Before

realistic or semi-realistic sexually suggestive or explicit images of children;

After

sexually suggestive or explicit images of characters with childlike appearance;

Reason

The short answer is; I am not comfortable hosting those types of images. There are various aspects behind that statement. But in the end, I would feel better not to store them on the servers that I am responsible for.

That said; I firmly believe not to moralize fantasies, no matter. Be respectful and nice to one another. But roleplay whatever you want!

Interpretation

First off; this change only affects uploaded images. Even if some types of images will be prohibited to upload, It is still allowed to use the character description to link to content hosted elsewhere (as long as that content is legal, of course).

By removing “realistic or semi-realistic”, the new terms covers all types of images.

The change from “children” to “characters with childlike appearance” means it includes all types of races or species. And it is about appearance - not about “age”.

The term “sexually suggestive” does not translate to naked. And naked does not translate to “sexually suggestive”. An un-clothed character with fluffy fur may be okay, while a fully dressed character fondling a sex toy may not.

In the same way, “explicit” does not translate to naked either. A crude rule of thumb will be - no naughty bits. And mosaic censoring will not help, but will rather just make it worse, since it implicitly suggests it is “sexually suggestive”. Better to just lower the details.

Of course, all of this will be a matter of case-by-case judgement. It always is.

Existing profiles

I you have a character with an image that will be affected by these changes, you will simply be asked to remove it once the new terms are in effect.

For images that will not be allowed:

  • Remove the profile image (including from stored profiles)
  • Optionally, upload the image elsewhere and add it as a link to the character description (preferably with an NSFW warning).
  • Optionally, crop the image so that it does not violate the new terms (your previous thumbnail should work), and reupload it as a new image.

For images that you are uncertain if they are allowed:

  • Contact a moderator and ask them. If they are uncertain, I’ve told them to ask me.

TL;DR;

As summarized by @foxbird

How you roleplay is your choice. We are not restricting that. The requirement here is to host images that may be questionable in some legal contexts elsewhere and link to them. They will not be allowed as an image or thumbnail in your profile.

7 Likes
Discussion about hosting model and images
Release v1.61.0 - Improved reporting
#2

In regards to the images, is there a plan to go through the images uploaded by characters that have been offline for months or years to remove them so that they are no longer being hosted? If so, this should probably be noted somewhere. If not, it might become necessary or else they could hang around forever.

#3

As a possible solution, perhaps automatically delete or delist pictures of characters that have been asleep for… 2 years? Maybe even one. They are likely never coming back anyway. And if some do, it likely won’t be much of a hassle to restore it on their end.

#4

Yeah, this issue has existed before these term changes:
What do I do with uploaded content that is prohibited by the terms?

And perhaps a more urgent version of that question, with legal consequences, is:
What should I do if someone uploads illegal content?

I don’t plan to go through it all. It isn’t really plausible. So, it will more be about acting when it is brought to our knowledge. This can work for simply prohibited content where the solution is to kindly ask them to upload it elsewhere and link. But I need to look further into what we need to do with illegal or hateful imagery.

This would be one possible way to deal with it. But it feels more like a solution to save storage space. It may be part of a solution, but not the full one.

How does other hosters do?

#5

They mercilessly wipe anything questionable.

2 Likes
#6

Hi! Thought I’d note that Inkbunny would gladly help users host most furry art you plan to remove, including AI work if it meets our requirements (not generated with a proprietary model; tagged as ai_generated or ai_assisted as appropriate; all inputs used for generation included for reproducibility and to confirm you didn’t imitate a specific living/recently-deceased artist). Many other furry sites don’t host AI.

Regarding hosting, we use OVH, LeaseWeb, Oracle (free tier) and Vultr among other providers, which may all be worth considering depending on your requirements. In my experience OVH’s Gravelines and Roubaix sites are particularly well-located for latency to North America if remaining in the EU. They also have relatively cheap servers including those combining HDD and SSD in Beauharnois, Quebec if you are looking for e.g. image caches (which need not store any textual/account data or process/log user input).

Germany also takes issue with zoophilia-related content and symbols of prohibited organisations, so we chose not to host there (though because of this we’ve also not experienced issues there).

In most cases it is the publication of images that is an issue, so simply making images posted prior to the change inaccessible until a user affirmatively validates their compliance may be a solution. Usually “you have to expeditiously remove access once you become aware” in order to be protected by the EU’s e-Commerce Directive’s hosting exclusions.

6 Likes
#7

Well of all the bloody luck! I had to join the Mucklet less than two weeks after this rule was changed. It’s so new in fact that I didn’t see anything while signing up, nor was it listed in ‘help rules’ (which I made sure to read) that gave any sort of indication. Do people on the mucklet even know about the rule change? I’ve been on Wolfery for a couple days now, and I’m already interacting with folk there, and no one’s batted any eye or raised any objection to it. I’ve been hanging out in Lamplight City of course, until I make my own places.

sexually suggestive

childlike appearance

Yeah that’s… basically nearly every toony cute furry pic. Large eyes, smiling faces, large head-to-body proportions on humanoids. That’s the absolute most conservative take on judging whether art is “degenerate art”.

What if it’s a feral cub? What if it’s an alien? What if it’s a stick-figure? So many what-ifs involved with such a vague parameter. Even my Marci McAdams con badge I’ve had for 23 years is not allowed by this standard, because the button is missing from his shorts. You might not agree with me that it’s sexually suggestive, but Marci’s husband thought it was hot, so it’s all up to interpretation. What are your kinks? That’s the standard.

Yeah, this is going to damper a lot of people’s roleplay experience. I just finished gathering my characters together and uploaded erotic imagery for a profile ref, just as I would on F-List. When I heard about Wolfery, it was pitched to me “It’s like Tapestries and F-list put together.” That’s the perception people have about this place when coming here, so people are going to expect to have sexy reference pics on their profiles. I just spent the last day working on generating some AI images for the character for references and backstory. It was a lot of fun. Now I’m back to square one.

If there are going to be major changes to policy like this, you’re going to have to take a more active stance in notifying people. The forum is completely disconnected from the mucklet itself, even in its logins, and people will not check it. The forums will not be good enough to spread the word.

I’m new here. Do you even have muck-cops walking around to patrol and make sure people obey the law? This is a weird thing to say considering that text-based MUCKs don’t have this sort of problem. The only restrictive issue on Taps is no underaged humans except in certain places. That’s really about it. Everything else is on Taps laissez faire and up to the parcel owners what they want to have. It’s also antithetical to the type of culture this site seems to be fostering: Radical, Free, Liberal Expression.

I agree with GreenReaper. Germany is becoming more draconian about their thought-crime policies again. I guess they haven’t learned from history. SoFurry had to restrict lots of content after decades of liberal policies because of their laws. However, even the US’s obscenity laws are only selectively enforced. They raided MrDouble and arrested Frank McCoy for fictional incest stories before that in a separate case, yet F-list is still hosted in the US. There’s no consistency or logic in what they do. It’s only illegal if someone cares.

What about linking to sites like Inkbunny with the content you described? Is that going to be an issue either? Isn’t that seen as “enabling possessors virtual child porn” to be on your site? What level of tolerance is your hosting company and the police in Germany? Something to think about. There’s also the sudden high amount of complexity in having to use Inkbunny though, because not only are the rules specific to another server, but they also have a different interface. The experience would have to be as easy and invisible as it is now: pick a pic and click the button.

All of this is really bad news for freedom of speech. The more that countries clamp down and form thought-crimes, the worse it will get. The Comic Book Defense Fund needs to come back in a really big way.

One thing you might consider doing is going the Mastodon route and creating a fediverse of servers. People can host whatever they want on their own servers and give people that room to express themselves the way Pawoo and Baraag do. It’s what F-List should have done years ago yet inexplicably does not.

(as long as that content is legal, of course)

Every nation has different rules. Everything is illegal somewhere. This is the issue Telegram is facing. They have a worldwide network where content is stored in some places, and keys are stored in other places to access it. So now, their new TOS has the remarkably vague and catch-all rule of things prohibited:

Engage in activities that are recognized as illegal in the majority of countries.

They give some random examples, but they have an “etc” at the end of it… because they simply can’t define what is or isn’t illegal anymore—just, whatever they happen to feel violates their rules, depending on how hard some “legal authority” cares to bug them… which means everything is potentially illegal on Telegram now. That doesn’t seem like a fair system of justice to me. Would you agree?

The Server-Client model of handling jurisprudence applies less and less in today’s reality. Where the server is, physically, doesn’t even seem to matter anymore in most cases. They arrested Julian Assange on charges of Espionage in a country of which he is not a citizen nor was he in at the time those alleged crimes were committed. The press conference where he gave a long Q&A at goes into detail about how the hegemony of certain western intelligence powers managed to influence United States judges to simply re-interpret the rights previously afforded under the First Amendment, to all the world, now proclaiming it applicable only to US citizens. This means that now, not even immigrants seeking freedom in the US are given the right to speak freely. It has reduced us to something similar in times of the Roman Republic.

A simple flex of interpretation, and suddenly the US changes from a place which was a beacon of freedom for the whole world, to now one of injustice and tyranny for all reigns, except its own political interests. So much for “spreading democracy.”

Changing policy in such a profound way like this and other sites like FA, SoFurry, Furry Network, and others have done is strange to me. Proponents of such restrictions claim the philosophical underpinning for it has got something to do with “evolution of the species,” reaching for “higher ideals” and moral standards. Really now? I have experienced the contrary. Exposure to deep imaginative sexual premises is one of the key components that allowed my mind, and many others’ minds, to become more free, more open, more critically thinking of traditional doctrines. It’s the exploration of the human experience that is the social benefit of the freedom to see the perverse and untame. So in reality, their doctrine just sounds like more of the typical “forsaking of the flesh” idea that so many archaic church doctrines have forced on people. I think we’re just repeating history.

I really see Mucklet being the way of the future. It’s what this fandom has needed for a long time to bridge the gap of the MUCK experience, and pull furs’ mindsets back into the magical place that made the fandom what it is today. I have ideas for UI improvements that I’m hoping to contribute, and even hoping to host my own Mucklet if the server code is ever released. That’s what I was checking the forums for—not to read up about a downer such as this. It’s a bummer!

Anyways. Keep chugging. Thanks for all the hard work you’ve done.

#9

Yep. Pretty much. The moral police step in and censor anything they get a hardon over.

#10

Well, currently it’s only a planned change, so it wouldn’t be in those documents yet. It’s true though that most people who would be impacted by this seem unaware of the proposal - I’ve been the first to tell many about it in Lamplight. Some kind of targeted consultation might be appropriate (I don’t think area owner @Dalton_Raccoon is around regularly enough to do this himself).

As an ‘alien’ myself, akin to today’s Avali, I understand your concern; and I hope that moderators are considerate of what is truly ‘sexual’ in nature. Over at IB we tend to draw the line at arousal, sex toys and the like - with another between ‘kissing’ and ‘kissing with tounge/saliva’. But it is understandable to have a general rule as any limited to specifics will face rules-lawyering.

Regarding the USA, it’s essentially 50 separate jurisdictions, and another one on top. Many of which have relatively untested laws in this area pushed by pressure groups. It’s kinda like saying something general about the EU - it only works across all states if applied at the ‘federal’ level, like the e-Commerce Directive. In practice it depends on the case law; I don’t blame Accipiter for being worried about that, given past cases in his jurisdiction (albeit with different specifics).

The section on “existing profiles” says specifically that links will be allowed and hopefully that will continue to be the case. I agree that people should have notice of what they will be getting when they click the link so they can avoid it if they don’t want to see it or have a legal issue in their own jurisdictions (which is another reasonable concern, even if it might be legal ‘here’).

I don’t think staff here are looking to go on a moral crusade; they have reasonable concerns about what they can legally host, bearing in mind that the focus of the service is on textual roleplay - and the owner of a site has a right to be comfortable in their own house.

Enabling others to take the liability in their own realms might be a reasonable idea, however even if possible this would mean e.g. Lamplight being entirely separate rather than being just a hop away, which I think would be far less desirable than just saying ‘you have to link it’. Especially since you end up having to link anyway if you want to give immediate access to more than one picture.

1 Like
#11

Welcome here!

It is as @GreenReaper mentioned; the change in the ToS is not in effect until the upcoming release (v1.61.0). My guess would be in a week or two, depending on - there are a few elusive bugs in room scripts and in the service handling files that I wish to track down first.

My above post was my way of giving you all a heads up of my plans.

And even if not everyone affected will read this forum post, it is not a big issue. They will eventually be informed of the ToS changes, and in a friendly manner asked to follow the steps mentioned under Existing profiles above. No biggie.

I can’t say that my intention for this place, or the culture I wish to foster, is in any way ideological - I made this place because I love Roleplay, and wished to create a nice and friendly place where people can experience the sort of joy I felt when I first started to explore FurryMUCK back in the days. In-client images help, yes. But they have surely not been a requirement for a good roleplay experience.

I may strongly believe that we shouldn’t moralize fantasies that does not lead to anyone’s harm. But since our focus is roleplay, not image hosting nor ideological statements, I feel more comfortable in this choice, which will help avoid unnecessary controversies that would take focus away from what this site is made for.

… now. Off to sniff down that room script bug!

3 Likes
#12

A problem that is not new in any way with area owners.

Related to the above… What about areas that have images that would be forbidden under the rules? Eg. Lamplight has multiple areas with pretty much straight on cub porn in the room images. Many of these area owners won’t be around any time soon to fix the issues, but unlike characters who only are a problem for other players when they are actually online, rooms and their images are and remain there regardless of the owner’s activity.

#13

I mean, if we want to get super-technical the proposed rule says you may not upload it; it doesn’t say anything about what’s already there. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

But I imagine builders have the ability to directly remove an image if called to do so. Albeit that the sort to visit a seedy cub venue might not be so inclined to report it . . .

#14

And if you want to get even more super technical “sex” means male/female biology, which means that all characters need to be asexual neuters once the rule goes through. Any suggestion of what sex the character may be is sexually suggestive. Breasts, penises, vulva.

I don’t mean this just facetiously. I’m making a point. Nudism is not compatible with this new rule. Western civilization desexuales itself. We as humans are sexual by nature, from conception to death. It’s facing that fact which western civ has an issue dealing with, apparently. Again, back to the Church. Judeo-Christianity. The Virgin Mary. She gets raped by the Holy Spirit™ but at least she’s a virgin, yay!

They’re not alone. Plenty of other religious doctrines that do this.

It’s created pain and confusion and misery throughout all of the world.

Furry, for the most part, is based on a different philosophy. It’s a much more realistic one, in tune with nature. Call it Pagan, call it Humanism. Mark Merlino came out of that mold, and luckily that’s the direction he and Rodney took The Fandom, instead of the hypocritical repressive self-hating, fear-and-loathing route the labcoat guy took it. Like Rodney said, the fandom is sexual because as humans we’re living, and breathing, and feeling.

That’s why I fear so much the direction things are heading. We’re losing the pervasive philosophy which made Furry Furry the more we cater to these external political forces that make hosts “uncomfortable.” By saying cubs cannot be sexually suggestive, you’re turning cubs into little neuter dolls the way Americana would have us do.

So with this new change in policy, what what age can a typical human-adjacent anthro character on Wolfery be before they hit puberty? 18? Puberty is when secondary sexual characteristics develop, so anything thereafter would be sexually suggestive, and that will be prohibited. Must they remain neuter until then? Won’t make much sense to show something cute and innocent and adorable if they’ve already welped cubs a few times and have breasts.

I would just change my character’s traits to say their species doesn’t hit puberty until 18, but according to this rule it would not matter. Even if they were 100 and barely hit puberty, I still cannot depict it. They could be rulers of the universe with omnipotent powers over the 3rd dimension, but still they can’t have small titties. Gotta go from nothing to big knockers all at once.

It would seem that beings of alien nature would be more free than anthros. If I make myself an alien blob, and say that until their blobnarts are filled with zeezsnarf they are children. So if I draw a blobnart without zeezsnart, is that prohibited? It’s child-like, is it not?

Remember, from an existential standpoint, you’re not just banning it from public places on the grid. You’re banning it from the server entirely, which means it cannot exist in the minds of the beings living in Wolfery. Not having an accurate visual depiction is the equivalent of placing burqas on all the children until they come of age.

I don’t mean to be adversarial. I’m just pointing out the factors that you should really consider before going through with this “release.”

(I would highly advise to separate technical updates from behavior guideline changes, btw. This is not a code release or hardware upgrade. This is an orgware governance matter. The machines don’t care about such things unless we train them to… which… incidentally I should point out the more neurotic we feed them this contradictory sort of bullcrap the more fated I believe humanity is dooming itself to a fate worse than death once general AI awakens.)

#15

I just made a reply, but it says it was marked by “the community” as spam?

Who thought my commentary was spam? That’s not very nice.

#16

My first thought of your predicament goes back to the idea of creating a fediverse scheme. Tapestries split off from FurryMUCK early in the game for this very reason. Every community needs a red-light district. If the server code can be expanded to do this I think it would be game-changing. (No pun intended.)

Furs would be able to make their own spaces to the tune of whatever type content they feel comfortable with, and it would alleviate the headache it feels like this situation is headed. It would leave you free to keep coding, which is what you seem to enjoy above all else.

I can’t say if that’s even possible, because I know that it was impossible for MUCKs to connect up to each other, and Mucklets are based on Mucks. But, if there’s any time to begin thinking about it, my guess is it would be better to start sooner rather than later into the source code, before things get even more complex and harder to do?

#17

Wasn’t me. But to be honest - and you know I have a keen interest in freedom of speech - I don’t think you’re helping your cause bringing up religion or thought-crimes. (Also, if you really think text isn’t enough to imagine, a text-based roleplaying environment may not be right for you.)

As Accipiter said, this isn’t an ideological discussion. It’s also not about America - this service is hosted in Europe. It’s an issue with hosting images that he may be held personally liable for, the result of which is that a decision has been made to remove them from the platform.

The separation of concerns is valid as it goes, but as a practical matter I believe the documents in question are technically embedded in the app and therefore part of an application release.

Regarding alternative realms, there is this, but it is meant to be less focused on ERP, not more. Perhaps there will be the opportunity to host it yourself in your own space at some point, though? (Oracle’s free ARM64 VMs may be suitable.)

1 Like
#18

This isn’t a purely text-based environment, otherwise such a rule-change would not be required. It’s text-focused. I think it was wise for Accipiter to call it “textual” rather than “text-based.” It’s an apt description.

And c’mon, Green, you know me. I’ve been on MUCKs since 97. This isn’t my first rodeo. Even in text, people get squicked and say “eww, I don’t want that around me.” Look how Whitefire banned human children running around from public spaces. At least he didn’t ban them universally, and he lamented about how conservative the young furs were compared to him in his newspost.

Conversely, THIS policy change is a universal ban! It is above mere behavior and goes outside the realm of the simulation, and into the physical server hosting the creatures within that child-dimension. The reality of those inhabiting that dimension are adversely reacted by a change made from “God.” That’s a big deal!

I fully respect the rights of the property owner of a server to dictate what they do or do not want hosted on their machines; and I completely understand Accipiter’s situation; so this isn’t an attack on him.

What I AM driving at, is that I am creating a passionate appeal, pointing out the underlying philosophical principles, as any good critical mind would, to speak on the various facets such a change makes for the community. This platform is in its infancy, and if you don’t have people active enough to speak out about it, how can the one who governs and dictates what happens to so many others make informed decisions about how these policy changes affect them?

In regards to alternative realms, I’m new here. I have given less than 4 days time to the game, and I don’t know off-hand if I can commit to such a venture, but I definitely have interest. Pioneering this sort of thing is of extreme interest to me.

Glancing over the post, however, it still seems like we would be in the same boat as before. It’s all hosted on wolfery.com. So the same server restrictions would apply. Hence the node idea I was throwing out there.

Discussion about hosting model and images
#19

Tbh I thought, when I saw you replying, you were going to say it was you that censored the post. I’m glad it wasn’t. That calmed me down. I have a feeling it was an automatic reaction to my edits. I have that issue where I write something, then I realize there’s more to say, and I revise constantly.

1 Like
#20

I remember when rules were added. Lots of people were slapped, herded off to an empty room or otherwise got a mod warning. Lot of people don’t read forums and aren’t there when Accipiter toasts the server to go read the forums about an update.

When big changes like this are made on other mucks you get a login and immediately presented with modmail. Might I suggest mailing everyone when the new ToS comes? Something that the typical user sees when first logging in to wolfery.com. Even a couple weeks advanced notice to all users would be nice. So that when new ToS rolls out it isn’t immediately met with a bunch of shock and warnings.

4 Likes
#21

The posts were marked by the system automatically because you are a new user and they had multiple links (‘to the same domain’, which I didn’t know it checked but makes sense), which to be fair are usual spammer behavior. Your posts were of course not spam, and I’m unhiding them.

As far as the content goes, I agree with Acci and Maximus.