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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