Hi all,
We recently had an incident where a newcomer posted fan art that pushed the lines in regards to NSFW content - it featured a "drunkard" lemming who among other things was not wearing pants (but the genitals were censored with a black box), who also had a nose that closely resembled genitalia (this was not censored in any way).
Simon initially removed this image. After some discussion between myself and him, the decision was reached to restore it, but to put the image inside a ZIP file so that no preview is shown, and put a clear "not safe for work" warning in the filename. This was primarily due to my input; my reasoning being that we have shared content of a similar level between existing members before (for example, drawings that resemble - or occasionally, just outright are - dicks, in the Jackbox topics). Simon also noted when restoring it, that the image "is edgy, but is honest fan art".
As part of this discussion, the idea also came up that we should seek feedback from the wider userbase as to how to handle such material going forward.
I do want to clear up some things right here first: There's definitely going to be limits as to what we allow. Don't expect the site to ever have a "share your favorite porn videos" topic or anything like that - Lemmings Forums absolutely is not a porn site. However, when it comes to content where the primary intent is artistic and/or comedic in nature, rather than sexual, I'm much more open to - and personally, would prefer to lean on the side of - leniency, subject to such content being hidden behind NSFW warnings (ie: no image previews for attachments, so put them in a ZIP or similar; or if they're embedded, then put them inside spoiler tags).
How do other users feel on this subject? While higher priority will be given to the thoughts of long-time members, input from newer users will be considered as well.
I would also tend to the leniency side here. Within reason of course!
In my opinion the intention should also be taken into consideration. A would rather let a "edgy, but is honest fan art" slide than something that aims directly at the spicy NSFW part.
Spoiler tags or including it in a zip are also a great addition here.
In other words: I would let a custom level that looks like genitalia or badly drawn jackbox stuff slide, as they primarily aim to be a bad joke. Explicit pictures that aim directly at the nudity or them being sexy/spicy not.
What about level packs? I created the naked lemmings sprites (of course, they have all their private parts pixelated by definition :D). Plus, there are some suggestive terrain shapes. I remember you mentioning in one of your let's-play videos how one of your acquaintances were looking for p*nis shapes in level terrain. So I kind of went ahead and did that on purpose in a few select levels. :evil: Do my packs need an NSFW warning now?
For now at least, let's assume no - I think there's a certain level of vagueness at which it's not worth worrying too much about. We'll see where discussion goes from here. (You can be assured that if the decision is made that yes, one is needed, you aren't going to be penalized in any way for not retroactively having one. We'll either just ask you to add one, or add it ourselves, and that's all.)
Thanks for the explanation! :)
This does however raise the question of how (or perhaps, if) to define the cutoff.
The first thing to come to mind is "if it's specifically intended to look like it, rather than accidentally coming off that way". However, I'd also think that many things - such as Strato's examples - that would be described as "a deliberate attempt to make it look like something accidentally resembles it", are likely to be similar in vagueness and should be handled the same way; and I'm wary of making rules based on the intent behind the content rather than the content itself. (There can be cases where doing so is necessary; I don't feel this is such a case.)
Another thought to come to mind is "would it be reasonable to use this depiction, to try and show someone what the NSFW subject matter in question looks like?" However, this is very subjective - one person might think two lumps of dirt either side of the tall narrow piece is suitable for this purpose, many others wouldn't, and it seems a bit unfair to expect people to be able to judge their content to our standards (which might even end up not consistent with each other) on this.
Of course there's the option of "duck testing" / "we know it when we see it", rather than claiming (accurately or otherwise) to have any objective rule. Of course, enforcement would have to be very, very light-handed (outside of really blatant cases) in such a case - and we have to consider whether it might lead to people unnecesserially slapping the warnings on things, thus diluting the significance of them.