I’m also confused as to why some are so desperate to not be put on an ignore-list by people who don’t want to RP with them in the first place. What is the benefit of not letting people filter character profiles they feel averse to? Do you think they’ll magically start to like sexualized cub characters through continued exposure? These are people who already don’t want to RP with you, especially if we go with the option of them having to specifically choose to blacklist people with a combination of a new “cub” tag + any sexual tag.
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I missed the one about the holocaust. That does sound a bit extreme. But you want to make people disappear. How is that not exactly what Jim crow / separate but equal was trying to do?
What you want is to not see sexualized minors in public. That’s already against the rules. Just let them put in their spoilers and live and let live. How is that not enough? Do we really have to go so far as to erase people from being seen at a categorical level? How is that not exactly the same thing as Jim crow? We’re mad you took our slaves from us, but we’ll be damned if we have to treat them as people too. Just pretend they don’t exist. Make them go somewhere else so we don’t see them.
Am I maybe exaggerating some to make a point? Sure. But that doesn’t change how this looks from their viewpoint.
Look, I’m not interested in ageplay myself, but as someone who’s trans and queer, I’ve had enough people try to erase me. I don’t want anyone to have to endure that. And I do not believe it is needed here. It also sounds like significantly more work than implementing spoiler tags. Heck, you already can.
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Forcible separation and Jim Crow in the real world had identifiable effects, including unequal access to resources required for economic success, restriction of access to all but inferior public and private facilities, functional stripping away of voting rights, loss of opportunities, lack of legal protections from violence…
It’s really not in the slightest bit the same as an online block function for a particular type of kink that some can find traumatizing due to past experiences with childhood sexual assault, and I feel like minimizing Jim Crow’s legacy to something comparable crosses the threshold of (unintentional) racism, or the minimization of the harm done by the same when that entire racial demographic is STILL reeling from its legacy and its hangers-on in the form of current de-facto racism that has survived after the stripping away of the de-jure components.
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I have no intentions of diminishing the horrors of racism or Jim crow laws in any way. Emmett Till’s story will haunt me until the day I die. As will the stories of trans people who have met similar ends.
Yes, my comparison is exaggerated. But I think your analysis of the comparison is clouding my point. Which is that this will cause harm. Not as much, clearly, but harm all the same.
I feel the need to clarify that a character block does not mean a person is blocked if said block is for the content of the character profile. An adult character run by the same player would be perfectly visible. This is another way in which they are distinct. The issue is not with the person, it is with the content, and being able to block content is absolutely fine.
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our fursonas, for many of us, are a deep and personal part of our identities. I fail to see how this can be anything other than forcing someone to be silenced or closeted. But I think we will have to agree to disagree on this one. I will clearly never convince you of anything, and I do not see you convincing me of anything either.
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There is an argument to be made by one side that currently harm is being caused, there is another argument to be made that by doing nothing harm is allowed to persist, and there is the argument that these tools will cause harm. Unfortunately when dealing with such polarizing topics as these, harm is inevitable and present both in action and inaction.
The intent of a content blacklist and block, from what I’ve gathered through these discussions, would be defaulted to opt-out of only extreme content that has the potential to cause a trauma response - eg. explicit ageplay, non-con, violent content, etc. This is to prevent situations where someone unaware of content on the platform must either be first exposed to it or search through terms and concepts that may trigger said response. I know from one person I’ve talked to that non-con existing on Wolfery, not being disallowed by the rules, and not having a way to block it entirely has made them completely disinterested and disengaged with the platform.
Default blocking would be for characters that fall into that extreme category - for example a criminal character with tags that indicated they wanted to engage in non-con violent scenes or a cub character with tags indicating they want to engage in sexual content. In both those situations, it’s still potentially traumatizing to someone to see that character and see an obfuscated section of tags which leads to the implication of “This character engages in something that potentially hurts me” which would most likely lead to a manual block anyway.
While I cannot make decisions about the shape or form these tools would be ultimately implemented in, I can say I am 100% opposed to them being implemented in such a fashion where they can be used to solely block cub characters - even those without explicit tags, or be used to wholesale block on the basis of gender. The only stretch into that I could see for non-tag related blocking would be for something like people with Arachnophobia blocking spider and spider-adjacent species, though I would argue that should go into an entirely different subset of accessibility tools.
Finally, I will say this - this situation is not ideal, it is unfortunate and it has resulted in several people feeling hurt and invalidated on both sides of the fence. Some feel as though they have faced discrimination and that the suggested tools here are solely intended for the erasure of their personage. I am truly sorry you feel that way and for what it’s worth, that’s not my intent here. I want to keep the player base together, I want to give those that take umbrage in whatever form or fashion the ability to curate their experience to what they want, and those that wish to engage in forms of roleplay that would cause umbrage to some the freedom to do so without facing moralizing rhetoric or hateful commentary from them.
I understand the feeling of a loss in expression of self, that one must closet one’s self if they do not wish to end up hidden on someone’s radar because they like non-con or snuff or violence or ageplay or any other extreme fetish. I believe there are ways to minimize this with proper onboarding for the opt-ins. However I also think asking someone to actively select filters for content they may have a trauma response to - sometimes a very visceral response - is not fair to them. Perhaps the better approach is a myriad of scope tools, filter everything by default, let the user unfilter everything with one click, or let them unfilter categories of tags with a click, and then give them the granularity of singular tag filters. I’m not sure what the best approach with that is, that’s what this thread was intended for as a discussion.
To reiterate what I also said in the other thread and here, these tools are the means by which to empower users and to provide a better compromise between two polar opposites. This is our chance to find a middle ground that works for everyone. While it is a solution, I really don’t want to see the culmination of these efforts be “Well, all these extreme kinks now get their own Realm” because that goes against the spirit of what Wolfery was to begin with - a vast community of different people coming together to weave all sorts of different stories together, and feels like a failure state, that we couldn’t find a solution and thus just had to separate everyone.
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That is just one thing that hurts right now.
On your one point, Xid.
Genuinely, opt-in, or opt-out, a person will have to choose the content they see. And the earlier in the process they get to that is probably better, so they can be made to think about the issue with a respectfully worded question in the train, say, rather than be put into a bad place by a butch rapist hyena and scrambling for options in a help menu somewhere if they even bother to try and look for options.
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While we seek to be inclusive, we recognize that Wolfery features themes which might be upsetting. There are tools available in the character menu (bla bla bla drections on how to find it) which can help you filter content if needed. Please have a look at this before leaving the station.
For more information see (help file)…
etc etc.
Heck, you could even force them to click a ‘I have read this thing’ button before exiting the character set up area.
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I got into the fandom when I was in college. Was a big fan of animation and created a ‘puppy’ character to express my general love of life, my excitable side, little slobbery fun dude. I generally like the cute characters in animation, and rather strongly identified with it and found it fun to express through roleplay. I had been playing that character for upwards of ten years before joining Wolfery.
Now, in college. People knew that I played a ‘puppy’. Maybe people didn’t approve of that, but. I never foisted things on them, they were friends RL and treated me no less a friend to talk to, to hang out with, to share in the shared experience of being a furry, in LGBT, in just the joys of life.
When I joined Wolfery I had quite grown tired of how people generally treated my puppy character. People forget the player behind the screen in pursuit of ‘roleplay’, and I had generally found myself lashing out at the lack of respect I’d often see. I had positioned my character as an adult when arriving.. and eventually just moved on to Waku.
There are things that happen in Wolfery that would be generally unacceptable in real life. I try and treat it as a social space and.. that can be hard as the norms are people are just generally looking for NSFW (often kinky) fun. I’ve had to grow quite a thick skin and realize that oh.. that guy that is just really into you and wants to do awful things is actually.. Kinda a really sweet and awesome person? If you get to know them just a little. They have troubles and joys and hardships.
It saddens me that, I do want that sense of community for everyone here. I try and engage the cubs as they come. I make my events ‘family friendly’. The reasons I am here at Wolfery is that sense of community and.. I’d hate to see that shut out for people cause they enjoy writing a young character, even in explicit contexts. Explicit context is definitely not the only context. Maybe they just want to go out in the park, be seen. Maybe make a friend sometimes.
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Waku, I adore you mate. And you’re right, playful goofball kids are fun characters to play.
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Of course! And with the solution I’ve put forth, those willing to engage are still free to! Those that have an active distaste for such - which are already an extant group - just have an extra tool at their disposal. I’m aiming for minimal impact here, and I don’t want things to change for you in any substantial way.
I feel like a poll should be held to decide what option is the most favorable 
Or at least a proper IC musical face-off.
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Let’s examine two of the possible proposals. The first being just putting the information behind spoilers, the second being giving people the option to mute everyone who has a given tag.
The first one sounds simpler to implement, and is less restrictive on who the affected individuals are allowed to talk to. Though it does possibly mean more work on their end.
But, okay, there are people out there who might still be triggered by this.
So, of the people who do not wish to see this content, we can divide them into two categories. Those who are able to see a spoiler for something they do not wish to see and go, okay, I don’t want to see this. Moving on. And those who would be tigered anyway, just knowing it’s there.
So then there’s the second option. Letting players mute people with said tag. But what about if someone who is muted in this way is talking to someone who is not muted? The person who is triggered by this content will see that someone is talking to someone who does not appear to exist! What does that mean? well, it clearly means someone is muted because they like something you don’t want to see. But a spoiler tag isn’t enough to prevent them from being triggered. How many people aren’t going to be triggered in this situation who wouldn’t also find spoilers to be sufficient?
Maybe I’m mistaken. I don’t get triggered in that way.* But I can’t imagine it’s very many.
Again, I admit maybe I am mistaken here, but if a button that says “you don’t want to read me” is triggering, wouldn’t the “someone’s talking to someone I don’t want to know about” also be every bit as triggering? And I really don’t see anyway around avoiding that situation other than outright banning the given subject. Or muting them and banning them from being anywhere that doesn’t allow the subject. But for that matter, wouldn’t even just hearing such a zone exists also be triggering? These aren’t intended as condecenting questions, I am legitimately asking if it wouldn’t still be a problem anyway?
Wouldn’t it at least be worth considering trying spoilers first and seeing if that isn’t enough? Starting with the simpler and (at least in my mind) less extreme option?
*((Unless, apparently, if we’re talking about silencing an entire group of people by default just because you don’t like something about them. I drew a parallel there to the current reality of my government under the current administration actively trying to strip my rights as a queer trans person. It might have triggered me into making an overzealous comparison with more implications then just the light I was thinking of it in. I do apologize for that.))
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The kind of person who would be disturbed by the second-order evidence of a character’s existence are a lot rarer than those disturbed by the obvious visual presence of a sexualized cub character. The line is to be drawn somewhere, and I feel like the line drawn with my idea for implementation is plenty lenient and doesn’t go so far as to directly impact the ability for cubs to RP. That’s the qualitative difference between my solution and more heavy-handed ones - the line isn’t arbitrary, there’s a demarcation between non-intrusive and intrusive.
How would we approach defining what constitutes a sexual tag? biting is intended as an adult tag, but I have it included on a cub character to invite biting in RP. None of the other tags on this character are sexual or kink-focused— I just find biting fun & animalistic.
Would I then have to remove this tag to avoid getting filtered out for SFW RP?
I can offer some sincere thoughts on how this would impact players of cub characters (such as myself).
My primary concern is lack of communication.
If we’re talking about hiding cub characters in the room list and hiding their messages as well, this type of filtering does have UX consequences for other players.
If players use a filter feature to make cubs disappear from their experience, I will not necessarily know that I am invisible to another player. Currently, a player who wants to express disinterest in RP with cubs (or set boundaries) has a few options:
- They can use tags, tag descriptions, about info, etc. to communicate this.
- Or they can communicate OOC on an ad-hoc basis (e.g. “Sorry, I don’t like to RP with cubs.”)
I appreciate these options because I can know that a player is not interested in interaction.
Imagine that a player blocks cubs on a filter and does not bother to indicate something like !cub, !ageplay, in their tags. If I pose at this player’s character or reach out in an OOC message, I will not receive a response from them, but I will not know if that’s because I’m filtered, because they’re uninterested, AFK, busy, etc.
I might wait patiently for some amount of time to see if they pose back. Sometimes folks step away for a few minutes, sometimes they’re on the brink of idle or AFK status.
Receiving no response from a pose or message is not a big deal, really, but this does lessen the amount of communication (and courtesy) offered to players of cub characters.
If I see a character that I might be interested in roleplaying with, and I suspect they may be interested in roleplaying with my character, and I put some energy into thinking through a hook for a scene (or at least a start), and offer a pose… That is wasted effort if I’m in blissfully unaware that said player doesn’t want to RP with cubs.
My hope would be that players using these filters would still offer the courtesy of indicating their RP preferences clearly so cub players know not to bother, but my gut feeling is that someone who is using a filter to pretend cubs don’t exist might not be particularly empathetic around this.
Navigating Wolfery as a Cub Player
To help motivate why clear communication of interests and boundaries is important, I’ll share some perspective from the cub side. I go through great lengths reading player’s about info, tags, and tag descriptions trying to discern whether they are open to (SFW) RP with a cub character.
Sometimes it’s obvious, but a lot of the time it’s quite ambiguous, and the !ageplay tag is nebulous. Some use it to express that they aren’t interested in RPing with cub characters at all. Some treat ageplay as referring to sexual RP specifically, where they may tag !ageplay and still be open to SFW interactions.
As a player, I’m most motivated by slice-of-life RP. I enjoy the occasional horny scene as much as the next person, but that mood is a rarity for me. Playing a cub character makes me happy, and writing from a young perspective is fun.
If I see a character that appears to exist primarily for ERP, and they have !ageplay, I make the assumption that they aren’t here for slice-of-life RP.
If I see a character that seems to have some depth, backstory, or interest in more than horny scenes, but they have an !ageplay tag, I may reach out and ask for clarification.
Some of the best RP I’ve found on Wolfery has been between a cub character of mine and adult characters in Sinder with !ageplay tags. If I did not reach out to clarify their meaning with this tag, we’d have missed out on those scenes.
I super appreciate the folks who clarify using custom text on the tag. Even when I stumble on an !ageplay tag that says I’m ruining Wolfery for them (by merely existing as a cub character)—specifically reading this while going through the effort of reading their tags, trying to respect their boundaries—this is still clearer communication than a plain !ageplay tag. (It does hurt, though.)
My character’s tags do not include sexual preferences around kinks, etc. This is highly inconvenient when I am actually pursuing horny scenes (communicating preferences the old fashioned way), but it’s much more important to me for the character to feel approachable for SFW slice-of-life RP with scene partners who don’t want to think about what the character might do behind closed doors. This also helps me avoid the hookup culture.
As much as I value other folks’ comfort, I feel hesitant about pursuing features where we can mass-block characters based on their tags, especially with the assumption that we are doing this to attract or retain players who will then need to use this feature in order to tolerate Wolfery (rendering other players invisible to them).
I would prefer to cultivate a culture of communication where we are able to set boundaries and empower each other with the knowledge we need to co-exist, who we want to RP with, who we don’t. I recognize that this may lead to some players choosing not to participate (which is a bummer), but there is a limit to how far I can go to help other people tolerate my presence.
Naturally, I lean towards preferring players who are able and willing to communicate with me on a basic level. Even if it’s a tag saying they don’t want to interact with me, that’s still better than being blocked.
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This is easily solvable by just having said characters see a red tick next to the blocking individual’s profile - a “do not approach” thing that resolves the ambiguity. If they’re fine with nonsexual roleplay with a cub character, then they probably won’t have checked the block option in the first place. You seem to misunderstand what the block option is for in the first place - the people fine with non-sexual interactions with sexualized cub profiles aren’t who it is for.
A lot of the discourse arguing against this solution seems to share the traits of misunderstanding the use case or bringing forth easily solvable problems as a reason why it can’t be implemented. You don’t wanna be blocked. I get it. But some other people do, in fact, want to block you.
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Except that you have argued for it to be opt out. on by default for everyone. I run into people all the time who don’t even know what character profiles are. having block on by default means the vast majority of players will be ignoring these people, even if they don’t mind.
I can understand why someone might not even want to have to see the options to block said content, or have to learn after encountering how to block it. but on by default feels like it has some serious repercussions.
Perhaps it could be part of account creation to opt in. with it also being under settings for existing characters.
Edit: or an account wide setting. It’s unlikely to be per character.