2024-AT-12: Staff and BirdBodhisattva

[Omicron]

Speaking of Regrettable Actions which make the universe fundamentally, permanently worse... Welcome to my personal hell! I wanted people to agree Rule 6 needed reforming, but not like this... not like this...

As the Councilor most closely associated with Rule 6, and someone who has advocated for changing it for some time, at the very least it's nice to have something to point to.

I remember when ol' BirdBod came before us last time I was a councilor, and to be here again makes me just... tired!

Let me try and lay out the staff's argument here, by making a mock-up clause for Rule 6;

Quest options that offer users the choice to participate in content which may violate Rule Six should be held to especially high scrutiny due to authors either making users complicit in unacceptable content or using said content as a cudgel to herd them into other options they may otherwise not have chosen.

Doing this does not treat the Rule 6 content respectfully and will be looked upon poorly. Authors may always choose not to offer an option which may violate Rule Six, choosing to offer that option anyway will therefore be scrutinized heavily.​

I actually find this argument convincing! Using flirting with the edges of SV's rules to drive quest engagement is bad! You could imagine a hypothetical quest which does the same with other rules, although it is harder to do.

Say that I make a quest where I let readers vote on the content of my Council post, for example! Writing a council post is not infractable, but I think I would run up against one rule or another trying to do this, Rule 3, Rule 4, possibly even the clause in Rule 1 that reads; "The ToS also prohibits you from using technical measures that circumvent any system on SV, use SV in a way it was not intended to be used, or access it in any way that might be abusive." Arguably, I'd be using the technical measures of quest mechanics to engage with the system of Tribunals in a way which it was intended to which might be abusive, I could see it even if there are better arguments elsewhere. You could imagine Moderator Quest, where a rogue Mod lets the public vote on things which should be infracted, and then actions them.

I don't imagine this would be allowed!

Rule 6 is different, though, because it is one that governs story content of posts most closely.

It is also different because it is both the vaguest and yet the most sharply delineated. It's a rule, fundamentally, about the limits of what Squishy, Ford, and Xon are willing to host on their website. You'll note above I stated that I was "making a mock-up clause for Rule 6" with the example summary of the argument I gave above.

I had to make that mock-up, because there's no rule dogs can't play basketball. This is a situation so dumb and edgelord-coded no one sitting down to make a rule would think to include it!

I can't prove this, but it's my sincere belief that forcing questgoers to make tough choices around rape and other sexually problematic situations is the whole reason BirdBod writes this quest. I think that's ass. I think luring readers in with a compelling premise, leading them along, getting them invested, and then presenting them an arguably abusive choice is shitlord behavior.

I think the reason this story is not being run on QQ is that BirdBod suspected he would not get the angsting around the subject I believe he desires somewhere with basically no rules whatsoever, I think this whole thing was the point, otherwise why would you walk right back up to the electric fence that zapped you last time?

I also think, plainly speaking, it's not against rule six as written. I can't set the Directorate's standards on acceptable content for them, either this is against the rules or it isn't, and they're the only ones who decide that. The council simply doesn't have the authority to write an entire clause into a rule that broadly effects all of quest-writing on the website.

I think there was a path to upholding an infraction of this post that looks something like this;

Rule 5: Don't Make it Harder For Us to Do Our Jobs

Our staff - from moderators to administrators - are all volunteers. Don't do anything that makes what they do more difficult or that causes trouble for Sufficient Velocity that we then need to invest time and effort into cleaning up.​

• Don't encourage other users to break the rules.

Rule 2: Don't Be Hateful

We want to build a welcoming community. You can't post anything that is hateful or advocates harassment or violence, even against fictional or historical people. Be mindful in everything that you post.​

• Don't talk about how great it would be if someone was raped, tortured, maimed, etc.

Rule 6: Acceptable Content on SV

Sufficient Velocity allows content which contain elements (such as sex scenes, drug use, and violence) which may be uncomfortable for some readers, as long as that content is handled maturely. We do not allow content which is pornographic, sexually or violently exploitative, or which exploits the participation of minors.​

• Content on Sufficient Velocity may be aimed at mature readers and they may contain mature elements, but they cannot be pornographic or exploitative.
• Posting high-impact content is a privilege, not a right. If you can't handle it maturely, don't handle it at all.
• Handling content maturely is not fetishizing or glorifying violence, hatred, or abuse.
• Handling content maturely means including high-impact elements harmoniously and appropriately within a greater context.

BirdBod presents readers with a choice and implicitly invites them to break the rules (Rule 5) by arguing for the rape of a character, or talking about how it is the better option to allow someone to be raped for the greater good of the universe. (Rule 2) This would then be infractable under Rule Six because it fails to treat the Mature Content, High Impact Content, etc with sufficient respect.

By putting these rules together, juxtaposing them, I was able to sort of "Megazord" or "Captain Planet" my way into the clause I mentioned above, the one which does not exist, but which almost certainly should. However, that's not what we were presented, and we just had a huge tribunal about how we shouldn't be applying new rules to infractions under appeal.

Moderators should be thoughtful about the infractions they are issuing, and create arguments which cover their bases. Lawyers present multiple arguments, sometimes even arguing on alternative tracks, and this whole Tribunal process has been called a Lawyer Larp derisively for a reason.

However, I think this would eventually lead to moderation just making a reason a given post could be infracted under every rule, in practice. That's no bueno either, in my opinion.

So @BirdBodhisattva, I think you skate by on this this time, at least as far as I'm concerned, though other Councilors may change their votes based on this argument, and I think you've tempted them all enough to do it. We'll see. But! I have just given the moderation a path to infraction which I think is fucking foolproof if you start trying to be an edgelord again, because I see you, I know you know what you're doing. Personally, I suspect you get off on it.

I think that you (possibly purposefully!) disrespect the risk that someone who is reading and enjoying your story is someone who was actually raped, and now if they want to continue in something you've specifically invested them in to specifically build up to this, they have to argue against reliving their traumatic event while presumably trying not to expose themselves for their experiences. To argue against rape, and risk losing, to come out about their own rape, likely sway enough people to win at the cost of airing all their own details publicly, keep quiet and read the result with no input, just dreading it and being powerless to stop the rape if it happens again, or accepting that the community they got invested in would allow their rape if it meant saving the universe or w/e, and leaving the quest completely crushed.

This is, in my view, ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE.

So.

Whether when my fellow councilors who you've pressed so far, and to such emotion, change their votes, (although I myself will hold to the principle against changing the rule you were infracted under), or whenever the next time you try this happens, moderation has a clear path to pin you to the table for it. Either way, my intention is it's the last time you get to do it.

Personally, my hope is the Directors come in during the comment period they get after every tribunal and clarify Rule 6 with regards to quests, which I think is honestly something that, in their position, I'd feel compelled to do. The principles for the Rule 6/ Quest interaction are already there, as I presented above. Making that explicit, if they agree with my reading, is within their remit and I think they should, but I don't control them I'm not their mom.

I just want to say, people like you are why we can't have nice things.

[x] OVERTURN - There's no rule (6) a dog can't play basketball.

But there's also no rule they have to be allowed to, even so.

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I've been thinking about this post a lot and ultimately I believe the reasoning it posits is valid if, perhaps, shaky in some respect.

Specifically, Rule 5 is a complicated rule to involve in a Tribunal. As Councilors, we are not typically called to assess Rule 5 cases; put simply it exists largely within the realm of Staff itself. If Staff doesn't think a post 'made it harder for them to do their job,' then who are we to tell them 'actually you're wrong and it did'?

But while it's part of the reasoning laid out in K's opinion, I don't think it is necessary to it. Even absent Rule 5 to make it cleaner, the logic still stands: offering an option to enable the rape of a character to a vote is effectively inciting members of the forum to argue the merits and demerits of enabling rape, which is not something we want.

This is a topic we've seen time and again in Civ Quests - QMs present, fairly innocently, a situation in which certain military, political and military risks have to be taken and trade-offs considered, and players get over-invested in the survival of their little fictional empire, name an NPC civilization (say, 'steppe nomads') as their sworn enemies for life, and soon people are calling for genocide and Moderation has to dive in, mass infract, and then Staff-Admin have to edit Rule 2 to explicitly include genocide against fictional people. And that's with a QM acting entirely in good faith; if a QM put up to a vote 'do you want to commit genocide Y/N,' this would effectively be entrapment. Any player foolish enough as to argue the 'Y' position would almost inevitably commit infractable behavior.

Which, as K illustrates, puts BirdBodhisattva in a similar position by offering rape up to a vote and leading players into arguing about its merits and demerits, where the discussion itself, rather than the update and vote alone, is the problematic content which breaches Rule 2/6. Except the discussion was entirely foreseeable and, in fact, intended.. This is not appropriate handling of the subject matter, and it's disruptive. Thank you for presenting your reasoning, @The_Letter_K, I found it very thought-provoking and ultimately illuminating.

As I have said before, I do not believe that Councilors should obey an implicit rule to never change the rule of an infraction or to edit the terms under which an infraction is upheld, and I believe it is within our remit to do so when warranted. As a result, I will change my vote.

[X] Uphold.

 

[Estro]

There is no hard line. There are no explicit standards. Rule 6 is a combination of loose guidelines ("Strive for 'maturity' and 'appropriateness,' whatever those are") and minimal requirements ("if you sexualize children we will nuke you"). Rule 6 does not offer a guarantee of safety. Anyone who posts sexual content could fall under the reaper's scythe. There is no list you can check to make sure you're safe. MJ12 refers to the inclusion of the possibility of rape as 'gratuitous shock value.' Is it? How do we decide that?

I know it when I see it.

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I'm going to come back to this.

I know it when I see it, as a pithy and perhaps overused phrase, comes from Jacobellis v. Ohio, specifically Steward's concurrence. It was examining - relevantly - the Roth test for obscenity, which is generally defined as when the "dominant theme taken as a whole appeals to the prurient interest". I don't think it's a great test, but I'm not a judge.

The quote itself comes from a longer passage, which I'll quote now:

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that

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For my part, I agree - and I think it's the general case that the staff agrees - that we cannot comprehensively and intelligibly define everything we think violates Rule Six under the present rule. We will, as changes to the rule emerge, hopefully attempt what Stewart disclaimed, and will further define and clarify our position on the rule.

"I know it when I see it."

My initial reaction, as was Omicron's, as has been a lot of the councillors I've talked to about this, was as a first judgment that this was against Rule Six. Upon closer examination, upon lots of thinking about rape, there are ways to define this as not breaking the rule, or as K does, creating a new test that the administration failed to which does neatly - and it is very neat, in my opinion - find this violating.

I'm not going to rule on that new test, though. What I am going to say is that we, as a forum, have never been one for hard and fast rules. They are not - with the noted exception of Rule 1, which is not in this council's purview to judge - hard and fast limits. While they are perhaps not as Hector Barbossa famously once said "more like guidelines", they are certainly a little less than laws. And if I'm examining the technicalities to construct something as against the rules, against my better instincts, I have to ask why I'm ignoring those instincts. Especially as, as my other councillors have stated, what behaviour this will state is acceptable, in general, if I rule to overturn.

I knew it when I saw it.

Uphold.

 

[Ralson]

To ramble, I like mature and or sexual content being able to exist on SV. Some of my favorite quests or stories have incorporated it to one extent to another I think it can add serious value and interest to a story. I do not think it did so here. And what I think is the clincher for my final vote decisions is what Poptart Prodigy points out regarding tagging. The boilerplate warning attached to every update is insufficient when it does not at all differentiate between the actual content of each update.

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I don't think Rule 6 actually requires more than a warning on the thread. Putting on on each post is kinda more than is asked for.

It never would have occurred to me that it might be argued that somebody might be posting too many warnings, thus desensitizing the audience to warnings...

I can think of some other NSFW content that only has a warning attached to the thread, not warnings specific to each relevant post. Should we be reporting those?

 

[Nyvis]

I don't think Rule 6 actually requires more than a warning on the thread. Putting on on each post is kinda more than is asked for.

It never would have occurred to me that it might be argued that somebody might be posting too many warnings, thus desensitizing the audience to warnings...

I can think of some other NSFW content that only has a warning attached to the thread, not each relevant post. Should we be reporting those?

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No, I think it's a good point, a cookie cutter warning pasted into each post rather than tailored to the content of that specific post completely defeats the point of content warnings. It's a lot more disingenuous than one for the whole thread, where it's fair to have all the things that might appear in any of the posts. If you're bothering to post a CW per post it's because you hope people will be able to read most of the quest and avoid the CW. Just pasting the same "all the above" CW into each post is really not putting any care into the concept of content warning.

 

[Ralson]

No, I think it's a good point, a cookie cutter warning pasted into each post rather than tailored to the content of that specific post completely defeats the point of content warnings. It's a lot more disingenuous than one for the whole thread, where it's fair to have all the things that might appear in any of the posts. If you're bothering to post a CW per post it's because you hope people will be able to read most of the quest and avoid the CW. Just pasting the same "all the above" CW into each post is really not putting any care into the concept of content warning.

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I didn't realize it was something you had to put care into the concept of?
I figured you just kinda... posted a warning so people knew it was that kind of thread, so they'd know not to scroll past it at work, or at all if they don't want to read or see it.

And I'm genuinely kind of bewildered by the idea that too many warnings is worse than not enough. I don't really know how to respond.

 

[Nyvis]

I didn't realize it was something you had to put care into the concept of?
I figured you just kinda... posted a warning so people knew it was that kind of thread, so they'd know not to scroll past it at work, or at all if they don't want to read or see it.

And I'm genuinely kind of bewildered by the idea that too many warnings is worse than not enough. I don't really know how to respond.

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Have you never seen a CW in a quest or story that is intended to let you skip the specific part of the story with the offending material? There's no reason to copy paste the same generic CW with the same list of items when you could take the 5 seconds to narrow it down to the one relevant to the post so that it matches the content it's trying to warn about.

 

[Ralson]

Rule 6 outlines sub-categories of content. The amount of maturity and warning it expects is tied to those levels.

The worst-but-still-allowed level is
"E.g. Explicit depictions of adult sexual activity, rape, dismemberment, or other severe physical injury."

In the council chat, it's been said that 'rape' being listed means even indirect references to the act are in this category, and the "Explicit depictions of..." part only applies to what comes before the comma. But that would mean every time we see somebody with a robot arm, it's also in this category, because that's an indirect reference to dismemberment. So it seems clear that "Explicit depictions" applies to the whole sentence.

So, I think what we see in the quest is actually a lighter category than that one. And I don't think that's too crazy. If you described this scene in broad terms and told me it was an episode of Buffy, I'd probably believe you.

If you want SV's standards tighter than network television, then okay, but I still don't see how Rule 6 in its current form accomplishes that goal.

I have seen quest updates with whole sections blacked-out with spoiler text, but these were explicit scenes, not dialogue discussing it. Furthermore, that was on another website, whereas SV allows explicit unspoilered content.

 

[Ford Prefect]

The worst-but-still-allowed level is
"E.g. Explicit depictions of adult sexual activity, rape, dismemberment, or other severe physical injury."

In the council chat, it's been said that 'rape' being listed means even indirect references to the act are in this category, and the "Explicit depictions of..." part only applies to what comes before the comma. But that would mean every time we see somebody with a robot arm, it's also in this category, because that's an indirect reference to dismemberment. So it seems clear that "Explicit depictions" applies to the whole sentence.

Click to shrink...

Apologies for the interjection but this is something we can clarify. As a matter of construction it is intended to cover explicit depictions of all the listed topics.

 

[The_Letter_K]

Rule 6 outlines sub-categories of content. The amount of maturity and warning it expects is tied to those levels.

The worst-but-still-allowed level is
"E.g. Explicit depictions of adult sexual activity, rape, dismemberment, or other severe physical injury."

In the council chat, it's been said that 'rape' being listed means even indirect references to the act are in this category, and the "Explicit depictions of..." part only applies to what comes before the comma. But that would mean every time we see somebody with a robot arm, it's also in this category, because that's an indirect reference to dismemberment. So it seems clear that "Explicit depictions" applies to the whole sentence.

So, I think what we see in the quest is actually a lighter category than that one. And I don't think that's too crazy. If you described this scene in broad terms and told me it was an episode of Buffy, I'd probably believe you.

If you want SV's standards tighter than network television, then okay, but I still don't see how Rule 6 in its current form accomplishes that goal.

I have seen quest updates with whole sections blacked-out with spoiler text, but these were explicit scenes, not dialogue discussing it. Furthermore, that was on another website, whereas SV allows explicit unspoilered content.

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You keep honing in on the sexual content, despite, in those council discussions, being told that's not the issue. You're going to confuse the entire board at this rate.

I write a story with sex in it. Really descriptive explicit sex. There are sex demons, sex slimes, sex robots, sex zombies, all of them doing the do explicitly onscreen. Sex and "buffy-like" content aren't the issue, the issue is in the execution, and in exploiting readers and enticing them to break the rules themselves, and in leveraging SV's rules to court controversy as a quest advertising tactic. It may be that there's just no way to offer rape content as a quest option while remaining in line with rule six. That doesn't man you can't write a rape occurring in your story, the rules are plain that you can.

It really is not the sex. There's a sex scene in the opening post of my story. It's really really not about the sex. Or, for that matter spooky buffy monsters.

 

[The_Letter_K]

Also, as an aside, we're not supposed to be editing our council posts. And yes, I'm salty about that because I made typos frantically trying to get that post in before this tribunal closes in an hour so your misunderstanding of the arguments wasn't the last post on the matter, unopposed. But you're still not supposed to edit your posts so... so!

I'm saaallltttyy. Datcord fix my typossss.

>:cX

 

[Ralson]

You keep honing in on the sexual content

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It's obvious that I'm responding to arguments people are making about explicit content, handling explicit content maturely, tagging it, etc. So the rule having different "gradations of content," mandating different standards of maturity, seems perfectly relevant.

I write a story with sex in it. Really descriptive explicit sex. There are sex demons, sex slimes, sex robots, sex zombies, all of them doing the do explicitly onscreen. Sex and "buffy-like" content aren't the issue, the issue is in the execution, and in exploiting readers and enticing them to break the rules themselves, and in leveraging SV's rules to court controversy as a quest advertising tactic. It may be that there's just no way to offer rape content a a quest option while remaining in line with rule six. That doesn't man you can't write a rape occurring in your story, the rules are plain that you can.

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Enticing readers to break the rules? To my knowledge, nobody actually broke the rules as a result.

Yeah, I know there was a reply that got reported, but it hasn't been acted on. Anybody can click 'report' on any post. It's not as if twenty posters were tricked into getting infracted.

It seems like a real stretch to go for Rule 5 here. "Don't encourage users to break the rules" applies to stuff like telling everybody to argue mod decisions inside the thread being moderated. I don't think it's at all fair to approach this from the assumption that users can't be trusted to discuss certain topics, unless there's a blanket ban on those topics to begin with, which there apparently isn't.

Furthermore, I don't see how the appellant is leveraging the SV rules themselves to court controversy. Perhaps they're posting controversial content to be controversial, but that's a different thing. It's a horror quest, so it's not actually all weird to be courting controversy, nor is that against the rules, unless done in a rulebreaking way.

Also, as an aside, we're not supposed to be editing our council posts. And yes, I'm salty about that because I made typos frantically trying to get that post in before this tribunal closes in an hour so your misunderstanding of the arguments wasn't the last post on the matter, unopposed. But you're still not supposed to edit your posts so... so!

I'm saaallltttyy. Datcord fix my typossss.

>:cX

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Oh, my bad. I edit pretty habitually.

FWIW, the edits were to add a line I hoped was funny and then another edit to remove it because it seemed distracting and not very good.

 

[Datcord]

clarification on post edits during tribunals
@Council - In RE: @The_Letter_K's comment in this post and after a quick consult with Directorate: Minor edits, such as to fix typos are acceptable in Tribunal posts. Any additional edits, such as to add/remove lines, massage language, or other significant changes should not occur. If you need to clarify, expand on a thought, change your vote, or other non-trivial items, do so in subsequent posts.

 

[Datcord]

final vote tally and subsequent action @Council,


I'd like to thank you for your contributions to this Tribunal. With the discussion and voting period over and fifteen (15) of the Council registering a vote, the majority decision was to Uphold the infraction.

The votes were as follows:
Uphold - (8)
Overturn - (7)

As such, the infraction will be Upheld as-is. Per standard Tribunal procedure, we will now have two (2) days for any relevant discussion (policy, Tribunal, or otherwise) to brought up by the Directors or Administrators for consideration. At the end of this period, this Tribunal will be published per usual.


Thank you.

Pursuant to that last sentence....

This Tribunal raised an important discussion among the Admin in RE: Rule 6, its enforcement, and the potential shape of its future on Sufficient Velocity. Prior to the beginning of this Tribunal, it would be fair to say that there was no real consensus among the Admin to these points. It would also be fair to say there is still not a shared consensus. However, as a result of both the Council's input and internal conversation among Admin staff, there have emerged some considerations that the Admin staff feel warrant deeper discussion while publication of this Tribunal commences.

As such, we are going to be forfeiting the remainder of the 48 hours allowed for Admin commentary/discussion in order to publish this Tribunal and engage in deeper conversation with Council in camera.