A suggestion regarding adult content

[Boy_Wonder]

One area that, for roleplayers, is strongly struggling to face is the fact that proboards hosted sites are not allowed to have adult content. Originally forums.net was marketted to fill this need however due to there being too higher rate of closure of such roleplays proboards deemed this to be not cost effective, and now roleplay sites are back in the catch 22 of either stay on proboards and remain PG-13, or else move to rival and competitive sites that is costing proboards ad revenue, with people not wishing to even join proboards because of the percieved harshness and inflexibility of their ToS.

Having read the google ad sense terms of service publicly available I believe there is a way that would allow proboards to cover it's bases, and it runs similar to one rival services way of doing it. So let me explain my concept in brief.

Upon purchase of a monthly subscription only of Ad Free units, there is an option to then allow adult content. This is with an added contract that would state words to the effect of

'If you terminate your contract with us to ad free units you understand that you have 48 hours to either remove all adult content, or else resubscribe before your forum will be terminated under section 25(a)"

Maybe needing better legal phrasing however, reading up on the google ad sense ToS this is something that would be acceptable and allowable, as long as there is no evidence of the ad sense code on the forums opted into this additional service. It is something I'd be willing to pay extra for, up to the point of paying $5 - $10 on top of an adfree payment monthly to cover any additional administration costs.

I believe this would give a way for proboards forums to regain some market netshare, and to prove that you are listening to roleplayers, who are one of the larger markets of forums that proboards has

[Craig]

Hi

This is something which only a member of the ProBoards team can reply to. They will be online from 16:00 GMT, if you would like to check back after that time for a reply

[Joachim]

I'll drop this here, just for more information until a red does get to this thread:

Apr 14, 2018 13:28:37 GMT -8 Kami said:

[...]

At one point there was talk of allowing this content on free forums as an upgrade (similar to adfree) but that wound up being too logistically difficult to allow + keep in compliance with the various terms of service that PB is also bound by with their business partners.

Feb 5, 2016 11:18:23 GMT -8 Tim Camara said:

Back in June, we made a small announcement that we were working on a paid upgrade to ProBoards forums that would allow for more relaxed content rules.  It is my sad duty today to report that after spending a long time looking into the possibility, it appears that we will be unable to deliver on this feature.  We take our commitments to you, our users, very seriously, but in the process of attempting to get this feature out, we've run into a series of roadblocks, primarily legal in nature, that prevent us offering this feature without jeopardizing the core of our business.  I know that some of you were eagerly looking forward to this option, and again, I apologize that we will be unable to provide it to you.

In short: No, there is no plan for this on the free forums and that is not likely to change any time in the future.

[Boy_Wonder]

One can still ask though no? Especially given this is potentially taking away a massive market share, and is likely a reason why the roleplay community is starting to leave proboards, especially as forums.net isn't viable and that was the original answer

[Kami]

Since it is my post being quoted, no, it doesnt hurt to ask, but bear in mind that PB does have legal consult which was also true when the announcement from Tim was created; if there had been a clause they could have used then that would have allowed for one of the most requested features on their service, its likely it would have already been implemented.

Obv wait for a red to have the final say, just my 0.02 on the matter.

[Michael]

I wouldn't say its an impossibility, but its not super likely.

I'm definitely on board with the concept but there are non-trivial legal and contractual obligations we would need to overcome. The most likely solution would be a specific domain thats on the PB service, but not a current PB domain.

The biggest thing working against something like this is our previous experience with Forums.net. Originally we offered a 9.99$ plan and allowed transfers from PB to FDN. At this point all but one or two of those forums that transferred are no longer on FDN. Every single forum (most who transferred to avoid the TOS requirements) either asked to switch back to PB or simply closed their forum because they no longer wanted to pay 9.99$ a month. Since the service you're suggesting would cost more than 9.99$ a month it seems highly likely that we'd have nonstop people bouncing back and forth between free and paid, meaning we'd need to spend a lot of time and effort scanning peoples forums and removing content as they switched back to an ad-supported service. This seems fairly reasonable in trade-off as we would be generating revenue but you have to keep in mind that I have a super small team and I have no evidence that the revenue we generate would ever match the expense of hiring more team members.

Bottom line, for me currently, the numbers simply don't work. Is it impossible? Definitely not. Would I like it to happen? Absolutely.

I guess, in the immortally annoying words of our current president: "We'll see."

[Boy_Wonder]

I'd be up for a specific domain as well, I just know that I've had people say that they won't join a proboards site that doesn't allow mature content, even if the community is 18+, and it's primarily in the roleplay community.

I was equally speaking from my point of view, as I'll be honest. The lack of 18+ support is the only thing stopping what I view as a solid package. I know that the one service that does offer this has found a way of automating, and I know there are proboards sites already that state they are 3-3-3 rated by RPG rating (which is against ToS). I won't report them because there's no content other than a rule, but I also believe that if it was made a part of a monthly subscription to ad-free (I added the $5 extra because I wasn't 100% certain how much admin work would be required on your end for a small team) and only offered on that package it'd be at least less needing a monthly check through then if it was offered for subscription and one off payments.

Equally the reason I stated that it be admin onus'd rather then pb onus'd (eg 48 hours to remove adult content for the site owner or else their site gets sec 25(a)'d I'd assume means that technically it could be put into the abuse team queue as an almost 'automatic' thing). Note I don't know however how the background of proboards works, just putting the idea there.

At least it's not a hard no, just a 'maybe verging towards no right now'.

[Michael]

Jul 6, 2018 10:04:46 GMT -8 Boy_Wonder said:

I'd be up for a specific domain as well, I just know that I've had people say that they won't join a proboards site that doesn't allow mature content, even if the community is 18+, and it's primarily in the roleplay community.

I was equally speaking from my point of view, as I'll be honest. The lack of 18+ support is the only thing stopping what I view as a solid package. I know that the one service that does offer this has found a way of automating, and I know there are proboards sites already that state they are 3-3-3 rated by RPG rating (which is against ToS). I won't report them because there's no content other than a rule, but I also believe that if it was made a part of a monthly subscription to ad-free (I added the $5 extra because I wasn't 100% certain how much admin work would be required on your end for a small team) and only offered on that package it'd be at least less needing a monthly check through then if it was offered for subscription and one off payments.

Equally the reason I stated that it be admin onus'd rather then pb onus'd (eg 48 hours to remove adult content for the site owner or else their site gets sec 25(a)'d I'd assume means that technically it could be put into the abuse team queue as an almost 'automatic' thing). Note I don't know however how the background of proboards works, just putting the idea there.

At least it's not a hard no, just a 'maybe verging towards no right now'.

Unfortunately its more of a "No, unless we had some data to tell us there was a significant amount of users that genuinely would be willing to pay for such a service." All I'm saying is that we basically already tried this and it failed. I see zero reason to jump back in anytime soon. 

[Boy_Wonder]

Michael - the one thing I can state is the stats for the other forum host that offers a free and premium option, all on the same domains as the free version is offered coupled with the premium that allows adult content (without requiring the user to pay a solicitor to write a legally compliant ToS etc as it falls under the hosts own ToS) is this case study:

This host charges it's members $9.99 a month to go premium. This includes the ability to have adult content, the ability to require guests to give their DoB to access content (protecting both the site owner from inadventantly serving content to minors, and with the wording (You must be 18+ to access this content standard disclaimer) making it obvious that any minors shouldn't be browsing such a site and that continuing absolves the admin of liability). There are at a conservative estimate around 250 different sites that are using this option, and that's a conservative estimate. That's an extra $2500 a month.

Part of the reason why FDN flopped was no one outside the existing proboards circle on the directory sites I'm in -knew-. Also roleplayers asked for things to make the FDN proposition work (Account switcher, I also asked if there was any way to incorporate age restriction) and nothing happened. It was like Forums.net was trying to appeal to two seperate markets, that had two totally seperate needs,

Now this person runs their host with a small staff team, and has moved more of the onus onto the admin with the understanding the board gets taken offline if reported for adult content once premium expires. The other way that could make it more of a cost effective option is for sites interested in taking this up having a choice between a minimum term monthly contract, or paying for a year up front.

So for example yes Joe's Awesome Rp Emporium could transfer to the service that offers adult content and pay monthly, but they would have to agree to say a minimum 12 month term. Or else they could buy for a year and say save $20. This may mean additional legalese on the year offering(stating that it's non-refundable even if they decide to transfer back) but would provide proboards more security regarding making it obvious that it's a long term investment. I'm happy to take this to PM if you want because I don't want to be openly discussing a competitor in this case, and I'm aware proboards doesn't typically take the lead from what competitors are doing, I'm just trying to show ideas on how to make it cost effective for proboards, and from what I've seen. (I also know I'd be more than willing if such thing came to promote the heck out of it on the communities I'm on)

[Michael]

To put it simply, this comes down to numbers. For us, the math doesn't work. ProBoards isn't a huge company and we have to pick our products and services very carefully in order to ensure the best return on our time (monetary) investment.

From an outside perspective it may look like we're simply leaving money on the table for no discernible reason, but I promise, I have argued and debated and discussed this one to the point of frustration. If I had a way to accomplish this to please our users, I would. As it stands, it doesn't make sense for us financially at this point.

[Willow]

Jul 6, 2018 9:46:05 GMT -8 Michael said:

I wouldn't say its an impossibility, but its not super likely.

I'm definitely on board with the concept but there are non-trivial legal and contractual obligations we would need to overcome. The most likely solution would be a specific domain thats on the PB service, but not a current PB domain.

The biggest thing working against something like this is our previous experience with Forums.net. Originally we offered a 9.99$ plan and allowed transfers from PB to FDN. At this point all but one or two of those forums that transferred are no longer on FDN. Every single forum (most who transferred to avoid the TOS requirements) either asked to switch back to PB or simply closed their forum because they no longer wanted to pay 9.99$ a month. Since the service you're suggesting would cost more than 9.99$ a month it seems highly likely that we'd have nonstop people bouncing back and forth between free and paid, meaning we'd need to spend a lot of time and effort scanning peoples forums and removing content as they switched back to an ad-supported service. This seems fairly reasonable in trade-off as we would be generating revenue but you have to keep in mind that I have a super small team and I have no evidence that the revenue we generate would ever match the expense of hiring more team members.

Bottom line, for me currently, the numbers simply don't work. Is it impossible? Definitely not. Would I like it to happen? Absolutely.

I guess, in the immortally annoying words of our current president: "We'll see."

As one of those people who still has two RPG FDN accounts I want to add my two cents. From the people I know who switched to FDN is wasn't the cost that made FDN a drag but the lack of certain products that came with PB that they couldn't use with FDN. The biggest being the lack of the ability to have a global account and easily switch characters. There were other things as well, but that was the biggie.