About VNs and 18+ subforums

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Dim Sum
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Re: About VNs and 18+ subforums

#31 Post by Dim Sum »

Samu-kun wrote:I think people are misunderstanding something. The current hentai forum has little to do with protecting people of weaker sensibilities from questionable content and more to do with complying with US adult entertainment industry regulations. Gore and violence is permitted in the general section since it would be permissible under US law to advertise such content to general audiences. Game of Thrones would not belong in the adult section since it's not required under US law to be restricted to adults. Kana Imouto would have to be restricted because it has a penis in it. Take this issue up with the US Congress, not Pytom, since he can't do anything about that.
Don't think anyone is taking it up with PyTom or US Congress. (Think there were other threads for this but did not participate/read yet.)

Does not mean no one can do anything about this. Different subject. Many other forums/chans have different ways of dealing with sub-forum issue. Not always better but since admin can make difference, admin can do "some"thing.

Also to be noted: "If intention removed and just judge on empirical history", 18+ access always mean to infer protecting people of weaker sensibilities. US law happen to sync with traditional method of access-restricted feature. Gore and violence would be subject to this too if flame war happens in general forum and if US law deems gore and violence as "inappropriate". RenPy games has not yet encountered Gantz-class work of notability but if betting man, would put money on PyTom caving to this:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/20 ... ic-library

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Re: About VNs and 18+ subforums

#32 Post by Taosym »

Dim Sum wrote:
Samu-kun wrote:RenPy games has not yet encountered Gantz-class work of notability but if betting man, would put money on PyTom caving to this:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/20 ... ic-library
I doubt PyTom is so weak-willed that he will cave to frivolous lawsuits and insanity from soccer moms, then put baby-bumpers on every corner of the site. If anything, this thread is about allowing for all works to get the same voice. At the moment not all works have the same voice. And I think everyone recognizes that, but the only question now is. How do we fix it to have the fairest possible solution for everyone?

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Re: About VNs and 18+ subforums

#33 Post by Dim Sum »

1)

It not weak willed. It's issue of stigma.

Example: why admin might have hentai section before it gets attention or why admin considers how to expose non-H games with post on main renpy download site? Once stigma is set, very problematic.

Draws trolls, draws flame wars, draws people logging into forums just to mention link.

Believe even now RenPy has stigma. Mugen Man once posts chat convo about how RenPy was associated with stigma of crappy VNs. Forgot where that link. Didn't bother to search for. No source link anyway. No idea where poster got it.

2) Fairest possible solution for everyone does not exist. Always will be some person being thrown under bus.

Even in same thread, who rises up? Those who have continuous replies. All it takes is one reply to bury a thread from unanswered posts and that's when people click.

Voice not problem at all. You want voice, you be bastard/pariah and spam sites/make websites/build hype/make friends. Whichever trick you know best to get top google search/top website search/top everything. There have been crap games that got kickstarted. Think how fair that is for everyone else and don't think VN was even posted here.

Audience is problem and potential is more on renpy games website than on forum. There are limits to forum and not all admins willing to rehaul everything about forums and rehauling leads to failure with no beta audience.

Even if successfully done, some will complain that their games get too much attention from wrong audience.

Even if non-game topic, this is facts of life.

Me personally? Simplest non-headache solution for everyone is to allow rule for x days to be present in whatever forum your thread was getting most replies for.

If it gets daily replies and no one is offended, screw elitist "topic must fit in this box" rule. Of course 18+ game must still have 18+ tag on thread if in non-18+ section.

Only thing important is that posts must have replies within week to continue existing in sub-forum and replies must not have anyone being offended by game.

...but that will never fly. Just saying that would fix everyone's headaches and nothing needs to be tweaked at all. Just unwritten rule present in mods and if mods are not bastards, there no repercussions. If mods become bastards, there are worse problem anyway.

If people are posting and they don't have problem, who cares if it's there. Let offender report it and let it be unwritten rule as to not have armchair lawyer flame war over it. There's your voice.

...but reproducing and making sure all game has voice as if they suddenly +1000 social media topic? Forget about it. If social media users hive up to downvote, only real difference between here and forum is forum can be invisi-group-pmed to downvote brigade some game that was made by user that offended head cheerleader of forum.

Life will never be fair. Forums will never be fair. As artists that will always be big stuff on our backpack until we become famous/get fan groupies who willing to defend our authority to be noticed. All works to get same voice would always be panacea. If you don't believe me now, believe me later when I make game no one will reply to. But this my 2 cents and I can guaramdamntee no one will consider it, that's why I said it won't fly. To give fairness within inside forum, you must modify topics/you must modify posts/you must beta test new software/you must make transforming forum that can become Chan/forum/social media and then finally you must have newsletter and then you must raise game every week moving recently popular games into their own sub-forum/removing them when they grow old and making them too different from new games list. Even then, odds extremely low.

Fairness of voice will always be for you posters who have been shined by light once and then have it taken away from you but believe me, us who will never rise above the darkness, we will only become pebbles if fairness was applied to us like new topic rising only to slowly drip down and bury other topics as barely any replies bump it up. If you want people to notice your thread, yep discuss it but don't search for Holy Grail known as "solution". It will only dampen your enthusiasm. Never try to fix social issues. Suggest some idea. Get people to sign up for it. Convince admin to consider it. But don't try to assume your fairness will be fair to everyone. Just don't. It will never come out the way you think it will be not even if you mean fairest possible as "fair solution" rather than "most possible fair solution". Even if you are truly Saint Caring for Everyone, once your unnoticed game issue gets fixed/alleviated, trust me you will forget all about defending this issue for everyone. Right now just focus on your one issue for your one old game. Maybe wait for what admin decides on and then test run problem with new similar H game and then see if issues persist. If not, re-suggest something/remind everyone it not work. Just don't try to carry load or even suggest carrying load of all minorities. Their issues will arise on their own. They'll make threads on their own or leave or modify game.

But right now: Just/just focus on how to get your game re-noticed or focus on facets of your OP post. Don't make one question be question about everyone for everyone. It will never help everyone. It will never help most of everyone. Believe me.

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Re: About VNs and 18+ subforums

#34 Post by Taosym »

Dim Sum wrote:snip
Wat

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Re: About VNs and 18+ subforums

#35 Post by nyaatrap »

PyTom wrote:
LateWhiteRabbit wrote: I believe the best solution for all parties involved, is to have a system like DeviantArt's. Simply put, both hentai and non-hentai works exist in the same boards, but individual threads are marked as Age Restricted. EVERYONE can see that these threads exist, and where they fall in the line-up of recent posts on the board, but only people over 18 with the "View Adult Content" checked in their profile can actually ACCESS the threads.
As far as I know, this method isn't supported by PhpBB3. Access control is on a per-forum basis, not on a per-thread basis.
I think I found the problem here. Eroges are promoted/advertised in general media publicly with censorship. You need to confirm your age to buy those games though, that doesn't mean to forbid adverting. If it's not allowed... those games would never be sold and vanish sooner.

Then, how about to make a sub-forum for games which potentially accessible to the matured content but censored in this forum, without age restriction (maybe recommended for 18+). The current 18+ forum still exists, (with a different name I really wish) with the same restriction, to link from that new sub-forum.

(The best solution may be to find a programmer who can arrange the PhpBB3 though)

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Re: About VNs and 18+ subforums

#36 Post by Victoria Jennings »

nyaatrap wrote:Then, how about to make a sub-forum for games which potentially accessible to the matured content but censored in this forum, without age restriction (maybe recommended for 18+). The current 18+ forum still exists, (with a different name I really wish) with the same restriction, to link from that new sub-forum.
Oh, I like this idea. Why not just allow duplicate WIP threads in the main forum, they're just not allowed to post up anything explicit? The game itself will still be 18+, but that way, the creators are still getting visibility by those who choose not to frequent the hentai boards?

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Re: About VNs and 18+ subforums

#37 Post by MaiMai »

Taosym wrote:
Dim Sum wrote:snip
Wat
My thoughts exactly.
nyaatrap wrote:Then, how about to make a sub-forum for games which potentially accessible to the matured content but censored in this forum, without age restriction (maybe recommended for 18+). The current 18+ forum still exists, (with a different name I really wish) with the same restriction, to link from that new sub-forum.
I think this sounds pretty fair. It'd just be another rule to add to the forums, but I think it's doable and being able to advertise ones mature game without showing too much the mature parts of the content (it should just be labeled clearly as to what makes the game mature of course) seems good in my book. It sort of reminds me how on the main Katawa Shoujo website, they showed several screenshots of their game, but none of the 18+ stuff (although a lot of Japanese VNs with such content aren't afraid to show those CGs on their official websites, but hey, you'd only be there in the first place if you said yes, you were 18+ years of age)
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Re: About VNs and 18+ subforums

#38 Post by papillon »

And it would simplify matters for some people who were considering/intending to make the 18+ content in their games optional anyway.

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Re: About VNs and 18+ subforums

#39 Post by LateWhiteRabbit »

MaiMai wrote:
nyaatrap wrote:Then, how about to make a sub-forum for games which potentially accessible to the matured content but censored in this forum, without age restriction (maybe recommended for 18+). The current 18+ forum still exists, (with a different name I really wish) with the same restriction, to link from that new sub-forum.
I think this sounds pretty fair. It'd just be another rule to add to the forums, but I think it's doable and being able to advertise ones mature game without showing too much the mature parts of the content (it should just be labeled clearly as to what makes the game mature of course) seems good in my book. It sort of reminds me how on the main Katawa Shoujo website, they showed several screenshots of their game, but none of the 18+ stuff (although a lot of Japanese VNs with such content aren't afraid to show those CGs on their official websites, but hey, you'd only be there in the first place if you said yes, you were 18+ years of age)
papillon wrote:And it would simplify matters for some people who were considering/intending to make the 18+ content in their games optional anyway.
That solution works in my book. Let Mature games have threads on the main board so long as they don't contain any explicit imagery or words. If they want to post the explicit images of their game, they can link to them through properly tagged links or post in the, yes, hopefully renamed "Hentai Hentai" board. Just as R-Rated movie trailers are created for general audiences, there is no reason a creator can't advertise a mature game in the main boards in a way that makes the thread safe for general audiences.

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Re: About VNs and 18+ subforums

#40 Post by Samu-kun »

...I think people still are not really understanding. There are no advertisers or independent agencies on Lemmasoft forcing anyone to do anything. The only reason we have an age check on the hentai board is because of US adult industry laws. Anything which doesn't need to be labeled 18+ is postable on the general section, at least as I've understood the board's rules.

Err, tell the truth, I've never actually seen Game of Thrones. But GTA4 definitely did not have a penis. o_O; You may be referring to the GTA3 "hot coffee" scandal, but in reality, the characters were fully clothed during the sex scenes, so there was no penis involved in Hot Coffee either. I don't think GTA4 would be posted in the 18+ section since there's actually not much sex in it and violence is not grounds for restricting minors from viewing something under US law.

Lolicon may not be legal in the US, depending on what exactly it depicts. US federal law takes a totality of the circumstances approach to legality of drawn minors engaging in sexual activity, so if a drawing is offensive enough and devoid of artistic merit, it may be illegal. Also, different states have differing definitions of what constitutes child pornography, although none can be more restrictive than federal law. (So the federal law should be what really matters)

Pornography isn't illegal in the US, but there are still US laws regulating how it's sold. Among them is no sales to minors. So we're pretty much stuck with that.

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Re: About VNs and 18+ subforums

#41 Post by Taosym »

Samu-kun wrote:...I think people still are not really understanding. There are no advertisers or independent agencies on Lemmasoft forcing anyone to do anything. The only reason we have an age check on the hentai board is because of US adult industry laws. Anything which doesn't need to be labeled 18+ is postable on the general section, at least as I've understood the board's rules.
PyTom has his web hosting, which he has paid for to host the forums, Renpy, etc. He has to pay the host to have this forum up, and in exchange he has to follow their rules in terms of what they allow.

The only law regarding pornography in that respect is you must warn that it is mature content. The US government has nothing to do with actual censorship committees, those are the ones who decide whether Game of Thrones is actually allowed on TV.

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Re: About VNs and 18+ subforums

#42 Post by PyTom »

Samu-kun wrote:The only reason we have an age check on the hentai board is because of US adult industry laws.
We're not selling anything here, though, and I've never felt any pressure from laws to enforce an agewall. It's mostly just self-imposed, based on the social norms of early 21st century America that tend to enforce the separation of adult and non-adult content.

(At least I think it is. If there are laws I should know about covering this area, please tell me!)

That being said, I think that LWR makes a good point - I'll phrase it as enforcing the adult rule on a per-thread, rather than a per-game basis. We're talking it over on the super-secret admin forum. I'm kind of imposing test pilot rules on this sort of thing - if we're not sure an action will make things better, we'll do nothing.

A big problem I'm having in evaluating this is that I'm single and weird, and might have something of a distorted view of what is and isn't considered acceptable when it comes to adult works. I'd be especially curious as to what parents of young or teenage children think about LWR's plan.
Taosym wrote:PyTom has his web hosting, which he has paid for to host the forums, Renpy, etc. He has to pay the host to have this forum up, and in exchange he has to follow their rules in terms of what they allow.
Actually, what I do is a bit more sophisticated, and hence there are a lot less rules - basically, I must use the service in a manner consistent with US and local laws. (Pornography is explicitly allowed - IRC servers are banned by the datacenter, though.)

So this is mostly us trying to decide what we - myself, the forum administration, and the forum community - want to allow with and without an agewall, based on what we want people to think of ourselves and our community.
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Re: About VNs and 18+ subforums

#43 Post by Samu-kun »

Actually... the discussion has made me curious, so I will further investigate US porn laws to determine what's safe and what's not...

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Re: About VNs and 18+ subforums

#44 Post by Tetiel »

I know a forum of a non-pornographic nature which allowed users 16 and up to view the "adult" forums which had a er... picture thread, where people were allowed to show adult-content photos of themselves. They got reported to the missing and exploited children section of the FBI and got shut down for over a month. Of course, there was the issue of the 16 year olds posting pictures of themselves, but I believe a large portion of the reason was the fact that they were distributing pornography to what were officially minors, which is a big nono.

As much as it sucks, there needs to be at least something which asks you if you are 18 or above or able to view adult content according to local laws, i.e. the basic disclaimer they give on any website containing adult content. If I recall correctly, it is not the administrator's responsibility if people lie about their ages. Besides having people lie on their profiles, there's no good risk-free way. The FBI doesn't joke around.

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Re: About VNs and 18+ subforums

#45 Post by Auro-Cyanide »

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that where the server is is what law it falls under. So distributing porn to minors and the dicey areas around under aged represenation could potentially get you in trouble when there is no age check/filter/what have you. Some people have gotten around this by having their servers in countries without those laws, or with less strict ones. I'm not entirely sure though, but I doubt most sites are super strict just because they personally feel prudish.

I think being safe is better than sorry, and like I've mentioned, I would like this site to remain safe to browse, even at work or if there are young ones around. People's right to show content doesn't necessarily override everyone else being able to safely enjoy a site. That said, we all barely swear so I would hope everyone can use best judgement and think about what they posting in terms of both sex and violence.

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