Postby Ornette » Fri Feb 08, 2008 11:52 am
What exactly is SFW? Someone like me, who mostly works from home, won't understand where the boundary is. I don't think this board is either SFW or NSFW, we should be looking at "what is ok for the forum" and "what is not ok for the forum", and just like what is SFW and NSFW, the boundary that separates the two is fuzzy and ever changing.
But I think that's the issue here, this imaginary boundary. We all know what clearly doesn't belong on this forum, and what is clearly fine. Example: I post a screenshot of the hospital scene from EoE to make a point in a discussion, we see her nipples, and we even see the result of what Shinji has done. We all know this is ok. Nipples and some splooge. But that's not the point. We all know it isn't ok to post some fan-art, doujin, whatever of Asuka naked from the waste up. Why? Both pictures have nipples and has something to do with Evangelion.
Not sure I can answer that, but I can take a guess: The first image was not posted gratuitously. It served a purpose of helping to illustrate something that had to do with a discussion. The second doesn't, it's porn. If say, the first image was posted a hundred times, or used in a sig, or in an avatar, it's gratuitous. It doesn't serve any point at all except to push the boundary of "what is ok for the forum" and "what is not ok for the forum". Even if a scan of a doujin were to be posted in a discussion about hentai, it probably would still be over the line, crossing into "what is not ok for the forum" territory.
First, let me say that I don't know where this line is exactly, since none of the mods have the rulebook for "this nipple is ok", "this, eventhough it lacks nipples, is not ok", "these words are ok", "this is how many times you can use FUCK in your post", etc. If it was that cut and dry, we'd post all the detailed rules about what you can and can't do, it would be insanely long, it would be bland, and nobody would read it anyways.
Since not even the mods know where this line is, everyone has to use their best guess. Unfortunately, if their guess isn't close enough to the mod's guess, the mod has to take action. It may seem unfair, and things that lie in the fuzzy area that separates the "what is ok on the forum" and "what is not ok on the forum" often differs from person to person. That's why it's usually best to simply stay out of the fuzzy area completely. It's not a rule or anything, I'm saying this because it's easier for the mods, but people usually don't.
Of precedence: One of the things I've notice when it comes to the fuzzy area is the power of a precedence. Sometimes when people post or do stuff that's in the fuzzy area, it's funny, we laugh, and that's that. Other times, like with the case of MaggotMaster, he gets into this fuzzy area, it's funny, we laugh, but then he pushes a little further, and continues to do so until suddenly, we're at the "what is not ok on the forum" territory. The rationale being, "Hey, this was ok, why wasn't that?". This gets back to my point above, concerning the lack of a rulebook. But the problem is that, during MaggotMaster's stay, his behavior affected not just the new people who showed up on the forums, but sometimes even a few of the regulars. Without being seasoned to what has been "ok" and "not ok" on the forums, their concept of this fuzzy area are now completely skewed from that of the other regulars, and more importantly, the moderators.
Ultimately, it comes down to the judgement of the moderators, of what crosses this line and what doesn't, and of how to handle the stuff that happens to be in the fuzzy area. We don't have a rulebook for how this works, so it happens on a case by case basis, which is probably a little different from moderator to moderator. We don't have a better system for doing this, but it's worked OK most of the time. Sorry that I don't have a better answer for what you can post and what you can't, I probably wouldn't know unless I saw it, and even then, I probably wouldn't always know. I'm not trying to be an ass or anything, just objectively trying to address the issue. So if it makes any sense, we all know what we can clearly get away with posting on the forum. But if you have an idea of where this fuzzy line is, and you want to go there, a moderator may do some moderating because it may cross their line eventhough it doesn't yours.
