Terms of Agreement and Roleplay Forums

[Eloell]

I have been roleplaying on Proboards forums for the last 14 years! I love proboards and don't intend to write anywhere else.

I am the admin of a roleplay forum and our writing community consists of adults. Thus, some of our content captures the cynical, gritty aspects of life. We are careful with how we write mature content to ensure we don't violate Terms of Service...but I've recently been thinking...what exactly are the terms of service for content within the story of a roleplay forum? I understand the why for what is written under Term #18, but do those same standards of abuse, violence, harassment, encouragement of physical harm, etc being prohibited in that term apply to in-character exchanges on forums that are storytelling? Do all occurrences that take place within the collaborative writing experience on Proboards need to avoid all Objectional Content as detailed below? Is it expected that anyone who uses Proboards as a roleplay platform restricts the in-character exchanges to pleasantry and "clean" storylines? I sincerely want to abide by our terms, which is why I'm asking.

Thanks in advance for your answers!

SEE TERM #18

SPOILER: Click to show

18. OBJECTIONABLE CONTENT



You represent and warrant that you shall not use the Website or Services to upload, post, transmit, display, perform or distribute any content, information or materials that: (a) are libelous, defamatory, abusive, or threatening, excessively violent, harassing, obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or pornographic; (b) constitute child pornography; (c) solicit personal information from or exploit in a sexual or violent manner anyone under the age of 18; (d) incite, encourage or threaten physical harm against another; (e) promote or glorify racial intolerance, use hate and/or racist terms, or signify hate towards any person or group of people; (f) glamorize the use of hard core illegal substances and drugs; (g) violate any provision of this Agreement or any other ProBoards agreement or policy, including without limitation ProBoards' Community Guidelines; or (h) is generally offensive or in bad taste, as determined by ProBoards (collectively, "Objectionable Content"). PROBOARDS DISCLAIMS ANY PERCEIVED, IMPLIED OR ACTUAL DUTY TO MONITOR THE CONTENTS OF THE WEBSITE AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY RESPONSIBILITY OR LIABILITY FOR INFORMATION PROVIDED HEREON. Without limiting any of its other remedies, ProBoards reserves the right to terminate Your use of the Website and Services or Your uploading, posting, transmission, display, performance or distribution of Objectionable Content. ProBoards, in its sole discretion, may delete any Objectionable Content from its servers. ProBoards intends to cooperate fully with any law enforcement officials or agencies in the investigation of any violation of this Agreement or of any applicable laws.

 

[Kami]

Jan 22, 2021 19:25:45 GMT -8 Eloell said:

I have been roleplaying on Proboards forums for the last 14 years! I love proboards and don't intend to write anywhere else.

I am the admin of a roleplay forum and our writing community consists of adults. Thus, some of our content captures the cynical, gritty aspects of life. We are careful with how we write mature content to ensure we don't violate Terms of Service...but I've recently been thinking...what exactly are the terms of service for content within the story of a roleplay forum? I understand the why for what is written under Term #18, but do those same standards of abuse, violence, harassment, encouragement of physical harm, etc being prohibited in that term apply to in-character exchanges on forums that are storytelling? Do all occurrences that take place within the collaborative writing experience on Proboards need to avoid all Objectional Content as detailed below? Is it expected that anyone who uses Proboards as a roleplay platform restricts the in-character exchanges to pleasantry and "clean" storylines? I sincerely want to abide by our terms, which is why I'm asking.

Thanks in advance for your answers!

SEE TERM #18

SPOILER: Click to show

18. OBJECTIONABLE CONTENT



You represent and warrant that you shall not use the Website or Services to upload, post, transmit, display, perform or distribute any content, information or materials that: (a) are libelous, defamatory, abusive, or threatening, excessively violent, harassing, obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or pornographic; (b) constitute child pornography; (c) solicit personal information from or exploit in a sexual or violent manner anyone under the age of 18; (d) incite, encourage or threaten physical harm against another; (e) promote or glorify racial intolerance, use hate and/or racist terms, or signify hate towards any person or group of people; (f) glamorize the use of hard core illegal substances and drugs; (g) violate any provision of this Agreement or any other ProBoards agreement or policy, including without limitation ProBoards' Community Guidelines; or (h) is generally offensive or in bad taste, as determined by ProBoards (collectively, "Objectionable Content"). PROBOARDS DISCLAIMS ANY PERCEIVED, IMPLIED OR ACTUAL DUTY TO MONITOR THE CONTENTS OF THE WEBSITE AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY RESPONSIBILITY OR LIABILITY FOR INFORMATION PROVIDED HEREON. Without limiting any of its other remedies, ProBoards reserves the right to terminate Your use of the Website and Services or Your uploading, posting, transmission, display, performance or distribution of Objectionable Content. ProBoards, in its sole discretion, may delete any Objectionable Content from its servers. ProBoards intends to cooperate fully with any law enforcement officials or agencies in the investigation of any violation of this Agreement or of any applicable laws.

 

There isn't a really good way to answer this that is broad scope enough to be clear, while preventing people from exploiting loopholes. The general guideline is "PG13" but that can be kind of broad from an RP standpoint.

If you use RPG Rating or are familiar with it, 2-1-2 is pretty safe, while 2-2-2 is really skirting the line and could potentially lead to trouble; any rating with a 3 is out of the question.

What I would suggest, as a RP admin myself, is to ensure that a) you are not glorifying or promoting content that goes against the TOS, which in narrative terms is writing about those things in a positive light and encouraging people out of character to do them; and b) you are not writing explicit content -- violence, swearing, and sexy content should be written in a fade to black manner with no vivid detail. PB is available for younger users, a minimum of 13 years old, no matter what restrictions you personally impose, and thus all content should be appropriate for your youngest potential age group.

My personal rule of thumb is: would I be comfortable explaining what I was doing to my RP partner's parents if I found out they were a minor? If you feel awkward about it, or embarassed, probably leave it out.

[Eloell]

Thank you for your response, Kami ! It was helpful, and has inspired additional questions.

I'd love clarification on some things written in the terms:

"excessively violent"--can we assume that this is by the PG-13 standard? Thus, if we will see it in a PG-13 movie then it's fine, but things found in R are not?

"filthy, or pornographic"--I'm assuming these two go hand-in-hand and are basically saying "NO ERP"? Does this also disqualify tastefully written romantic encounters? Kissing? Touching? Again, things found in PG-13 movies, but the word "filthy" is rather subjective.

"promote or glorify racial intolerance"--within stories across roleplay forums there is often captured the dynamics of racial intolerance, whether it's mutants vs humans, or if it's a period piece, it could potentially be about skin color. Do these terms prohibit stories that reflect intolerances of the the times?

"signify hate towards any person or group of people"--on my site there is a dynamic of those who use magic being feared and hated by those who do not. Under these terms, is this not allowed?

"incite, encourage or threaten physical harm against another"--there is war unfolding in the plot on our site, and people hate one another. Can characters only be kind and friendly and loving to one another under this term?

I promise I'm not trying to find loopholes! I'm really just wanting to wrap my mind around how to comply with the terms while also capturing a multifaceted, riveting story...when it seems these terms would squash this kind of IC behavior. I guess I'm wondering--is there no allowance given/shown to the differentiation between what transpires between members on a site (OOC), and what transpires between characters on a site (IC)?

I googled the guidelines for PG-13 and got this:

Parents Strongly Cautioned, Some Material May Be Inappropriate for Children Under 13. This rating is a stronger caution for parents that content included may not be appropriate for children under 13 (pre-teen ages). This may include stronger language, extended violence or sexual situations and drug-use.

By this standard, would it be agreed that there CAN be strong language, violence situations, sexual situations, and drug-use?

I love your standard of "Would you talk to someone's parent about this?", but it is also complicated, especially in these times, where so much is subjective to the individual and what each parent is willing to expose their children to. I was watching R movies by the time I was 8.

Again, I SO appreciate you taking the time to read this and engage with me! None of my responses are intended to be argumentative. I sincerely want to hash through these things because I love the roleplay world I've created with my Proboards site and I hate the thought of potentially being deleted because of this grey area. We do NOT ERP, and while our members are adults we are all still very respectful of triggers and being appropriate...but we DO still step close to the line with some threads as we attempt to emulate real life and its rawness/ugliness.

Another question, if you'd be so generous: am I as the admin allowed to request that members on my site be 18+? This actually came up mostly because of discord, where our community communicates. We had a young girl get on and was talking extensively about high school things, such as her papers that were due, etc...when the rest of our member base is 20+, with most of us being married with kids. It just felt odd. Again, none of our content is explicitly 18+, but the thought of even plotting adult themes with a minor (adult themes such as infidelity, promiscuity, etc. things you would find in a PG-13 movie) made members on my forum extremely uncomfortable.

[Kami]

1. Excessively violent: Yes. I would say the difference between Wonder Woman and Deadpool is probably a good thing to follow in this regard.

2. Filthy / Pornographic: Sexual content is always, just by nature of society, a harsher line of 'appropriate' than violence or language. My personal thoughts on that aside, I would advise to use a strict fade-to-black, morning after approach just to err on the side of caution.

3 & 4 & 5. This is what I was referring to regarding to promoting out of character. PB does recognise fiction versus reality, so as long as you're not writing this in a manner that would incite real-world action or consequence, you should be fine. My RP forum is for Avatar The Last Airbender, which while a kids' show, is in fact about war, discrimination, murder, courtly intrigue, sexual scandal, bigotry, and the like. We've never had a TOS violation because we're very clear about keeping all descriptors appropriate for a PG13 (well, tbh, a PG for our tastes) audience.

The problem you're encountering is really about what is legally permissible on sites where children as young as 13 are able to browse freely. Yes, you can have strong language / violence / sexual situations / etc, but you have to be sure that you don't cross into that Rated-R line of being very graphic / explicit, and that you don't cross the line into encouraging people to replicate those behaviours in real life.

While my metric is imperfect, it's definitely not quite as subjective as you're stating. You may allow it for your children, as an example, but are you comfortable allowing that for a child that is not yours, without knowing their parents' preferences?

You are allowed to request members on your site be 18+, yes, but that does not change your allowed rating, since you can't actually 100% for sure enforce this with the tools at your disposal.

[Eloell]

Thank you again for your response!

This sentence, "PB does recognise fiction versus reality, so as long as you're not writing this in a manner that would incite real-world action or consequence, you should be fine." was particularly confirming to me! Not knowing whether PB would differentiate or not had me concerned. Our content in the other objectionable areas (violence and sexuality) is definitely appropriate by these standards, I believe. I do see how these areas may be subjective, even when considering what standards people have for exposing their own or other's kids', but erring on the side of caution is certainly the name of the game I play as well. Besides, truly tasteful writing doesn't need smut!

Thank you for the clarification about requesting members to be 18+! Yes, it was in no way intended to allow content rating to change, but simply to preserve our adult community.

I believe, unless another Helpful Member or a Mod or anyone else has more to contribute, that this topic is resolved.

[Kami]

You're welcome! I think the best rule of thumb I can give you is "if in doubt, avoid it." If there's something in particular that you're not sure would cross a line, erring on the side of caution won't ever be detrimental.

I went back over some threads and it looks like the recommended RPG rating is 2-1-1 from PB admins, but I think from experience that the line between 1 and 2 on violence is really thin based on how the admins handle fade to black situations.

I don't think PB admins will have much to add, as they tend to be much broader than I was for liability reasons. I do stress that this is really just my perspective as a fellow RP admin + my experience, and that I'm not PB staff, etc.

[Eloell]

Well it's a valued perspective. I was really overthinking it all and working myself into a pickle. It's been helpful to hear from a fellow admin and roleplayer who is clearly a Helpful Member.

[Kami]

Jan 23, 2021 17:54:14 GMT -8 Eloell said:

Well it's a valued perspective. I was really overthinking it all and working myself into a pickle. It's been helpful to hear from a fellow admin and roleplayer who is clearly a Helpful Member.

It's understandable, we all put a lot of work into our writing so it would be difficult if anything unfortunate happened.

On that note, I would worry even less, really. Unless the purpose of your forum inherently violates the TOS, the PB admins generally send a warning to the main admin (user/1) account with links to the offending content and a request for action in a particular time frame (I want to say it's ~48 hours unless you ask for an extension). If you misjudge the line at some point, your forum won't immediately be removed. (:

I am glad that I can help!