Advertising sexual content in party finder

[Goji1639]

Eh, I mean honestly who cares. There isn't any place online where adults decide to "socialize" that kids couldn't involve themselves by lying about their age. That's not a good reason to limit the kinds of socializing adults can do.

Now if SE simply decides they don't want their game to facilitate weird sexual gatherings then I think it's perfectly fair of them to start banning that stuff; but they don't NEED to start doing it "for the children." I'm honestly sick of children being used as an excuse to remove everything adults might enjoy from the world.

[Zsolen]

You can't eliminate it, but you can curb it.

I am not nor is anyone else asking SE to go door to door or look in all chat logs to ban ERP. Some of the responses indicate that is what people are advocating. Is it a weird thing to do in a game like this? Absolutely. Do I can care if two adults do whatever in private? Absouletly not. Problem is people are inviting people to things directly or indirectly and that includes minors.

It would not surprise me if SE clamped down on 3rd party apps, if and once raiders have less of a need for ACT. At that point, it would be a manner of detecting it. Right now, it may be the only app that actually improves the game, since it influences a player to improve themselves.

[Mhiro]

While I understand it's impossible to remove it completely because of the nature of the platform, I do agree that it's risky to have it advertised in the PF. Particularly if you consider a situation if say someone underage gets into an 18+ space (regardless of whether or not it's NSFW or just adults having mature conversations), suddenly feels uncomfortable because they're too young to understand what they signed up for and reports everyone who is there. I can't speak for other countries, but those of us in NA know what that means if the report gets to the right authorities: up to and including jail time. Yes not all teenagers are immature, but they are still minors and how easily they can access the PF without restriction calls for a little regulation. For the benefit of both the adults who want to engage in these activities and the kids/teens who are not ready to be exposed to it.

Conversely though, signing up to play this game equates to signing up for everything you're going to be exposed to and I believe interactions online are explicitly not even regulated by ESRB, something all players are warned about every time they log on. So essentially, you signed up to play, you signed up to seeing some screwed up stuff now and then because people be naste. So the blacklist option is likely the best and most readily available remedy for the issue unfortunately.

[Zsolen]

So what is the target outcome?

Increased support from SE to help police it isn't going to happen. Increased power to players to deal with the situations on their own isn't going to happen either.

So, honestly trying to be constructive and trying to work toward a solution - How do we realistically make it better?

It was covered to a small degree.

(1) Do not advertise ERP in game. This reduces the chance of a minor trying to fake their way into an ERP group. It also makes it easier to know who is going to these places beforehand. If I did want to ERP, I would not want to take chances. Even if I was fine legally from the standpoint of ignorance, I would not be okay with the actual act of ERPing with a minor.
(2) If you know a minor in game, look out for them if anything seems off. If a minor knows what a healthy friendship within the game is like, they are more likely to be aware of what is not right. They would even have someone to talk to, if they are not sure.
(3) Keep an eye out for suspicious behavior of others. Creeps tend to have tells both IRL and online. Some try to hid it, but no one can cover it up completely all the time.

People may argue teens should know better, but adults can fall for things, too. So rules 2 and 3 would be helpful to them as well. Yes, many teens will know better but not all.

[Quintessa]

People may argue teens should know better, but adults can fall for things, too.

You're damn right about that.......

[Niervel]

Howdy-O, cool cats. I'm one green hubba 'round these pastures, so I can't jaw much 'bout the sitch specific to here, dig? But I can provide some groovy granola to chew on, n'get those good brain-juices flowin'.

The 'net on the whole provides a litany of social circumstances that didn't much exist 'fore its existence. How often did adults socialize directly with kids in roles that weren't bein' a chaperone? Any time you got adults and minors interactin' at all, you got the components for a skunked-up stew.

So we're talking about mitigation, not eradication. Problem is, when we're flippin' through history to see how the big cheeses have tried to mitigate the chance for some curdled milk (if I might step out of the purple haze of metaphor for a moment, this references grooming / indecent exposure) -- ain't nobody really done much.

One day the suits might snap and go nuclear - take either the Nintendo route, of totally controllin' how folks can interact online, or you take the "you gotta be legal to play this" route, start bannin' folks for show who're minors. Neither of those really get rid of all of the problems. The idea of bannin' all minors from online games is the kinda bubble-world logic that we can all ho-hum as decidedly uncool, yeah?

So I hope that shines a lava-lamp onto why mitigation's a necessary evil, dig? Now, here's the skinny - mitigation's no easy boogie to woogie. So let's think. Swingers aught to be able to swing sound as a pound, but maybe not on a billboard. And I'll tell you cats straight up: I dunno what tools this groovy game's got on offer.

Izzere a global word filter that just wipes out everything - say, tell, yell, pf listing, whatever - that includes any given string or substring? Check it out: you could throw in the phrase "18+" or "Lala" and, far out, that bugged out bullhockey's down the drain. Jive turkeys will try to get around that, but just throw in another string and it's good to go. Just integrate it into the main and call attention to it, yeah? And, check it: if there's parental controls for this game, let them parents update those global filters for the linked accounts. If there ain't no parental controls, that's a bummer - make some?

Then you could go after the bugged-out downers tryin' to sneak around 'em with far-out symbols, report 'em for it. The big cheese has its posterior well and covered, the swingers get to get down, and nobody else's gotta see it. Maybe even start with some generic ones in the filter by default? Now, yeah, you ain't gonna wipe out those jive predators tryin' to make some sucktastic sufferin', but you're cuttin' down on the more overt an' obvious advertisements, man. Feels like that's the cosmic balance.

But unrelated to all that, I gotta jaw - if you gotta advertise, you're gettin' the chaff. Who'd wanna schmaltz and get down with some random schmuck you grabbed from a stinkin' public ad, man? That's lame-town right there -- bad vibrations.

[Esmoire]

Blacklist and move along. Though I would concede, it's never been as bad as it is right now on Aether.

Is that so? Interesting. I know people have been a little thirsty more now than usual, with the pandemic, and how that's interrupted some relationships. I don't have much a horse in the ERP race but in some ways I like ERP advertisements being there to help them cope, though I can also understand how that's distressing for people who just want clear content and they are not as comfortable with sexuality.

[MintnHoney]

Who'd wanna schmaltz and get down with some random schmuck you grabbed from a stinkin' public ad, man?

Tindr, Grindr, and, although perhaps not in this day and age, even public Personals ads in the newspaper seemed to return a lot of good results for people seeking these very same things. Speed dating groups and other similar groups have been publicly formed for many years, for various purposes, and brought about many meetings that lead to one-night stands and/or other kinds of relationships.
In light of such precedence, I'd say quite a few non-specific people would be very interested in such a thing.

Back to eRP ads, I just think of it like Las Vegas: parents bring their kids there all the time, from all over the world, usually leaving the kids somewhere so they can lose some money for a while. In the meantime, if a kid picks up a slapper's card from off the ground, then what's to be done? Really, nothing: you can't stop the slappers from slapping (it's a living), you can't stop (most) kids from picking them up (cards are cool, and plus, "teehee, boobies!!"), and the parents can't really be blamed or be expected to shield them from everything that comes their way. I think the same thing applies here, in that there's nothing to be done until something truly heinous is actually going on, in which case a report should be filed and an investigation will begin from there.

There's nothing to stop a player from reporting what they think is wrong, except the player themselves. I really hope this thread isn't a case of people not reporting, and choosing, instead, to come here and moan about the situation in hopes of guilting others into reporting these issues for them, so that they, themselves, don't have to get involved or feel anything about stopping other players from having their different, but probably still safe fun.

[Niervel]

Tindr, Grindr, and, although perhaps not in this day and age, even public Personals ads in the newspaper seemed to return a lot of good results for people seeking these very same things. Speed dating groups and other similar groups have been publicly formed for many years, for various purposes, and brought about many meetings that lead to one-night stands and/or other kinds of relationships.
In light of such precedence, I'd say quite a few non-specific people would be very interested in such a thing.

Well, sure, though even there, you're always advertisin' to folks you can expect to be down on them aps, yeah? They booted up those aps or turned to those pages with willing desire to be there and see that. Ain't the same sitch with a fantasy game thing, where you're essentially broadcastin' out on the street corner to some ol' dames just tryin' to buy some potatoes about how they aught to try the -other- potato.

Beyond that I still generally think folks aughta go do interestin' things to meet interestin' folks first and foremost, rather'n hang-ten for the LCD, but that's more a personal taste particular.

I think the same thing applies here, in that there's nothing to be done until something truly heinous is actually going on, in which case a report should be filed and an investigation will begin from there.

This ain't exactly true, though - lotsa different options apply, and some don't involve no manpower at all. Vegas would have a real gas of a time tryin' to go after its black market activities, whereas there's any number of simple (if dubiously effective) things you could roll out usin' prefilters for a game where everythin' is communicated through central servers. They've got the power to immediately stop the kids' ability to ever see those cards in the digital world - and they've got the power to make a gate through which everyone who wants to hawk them horkers has to first pass through before they start jigglin'.

In essence, they've got the ability to let folks set up partitions (if not make one themselves) which ain't no big deal -- if you like to spread eagle in your backyard, say, for them good vibrations on the daily - your neighbor might wanna build a fence. Or the city might've already mandated you had a fence built, but doesn't much care if you tear it down. That kinda metaphorical meanderin', see.

[Penthea]

I personally dont like it but I dont see the problem. FFxiv is Teen rated game, its not for child. In teen rating you have: Suggestive Themes - Mild provocative references or materials. So yea its basically as far as you can on pf advertisament

The problem is that most teens are legally still children, so there are actual legal repercussions if minors are exposed to or get involved with certain types of behaviour.

You of course cannot completely stop this behaviour, there are creeps everywhere, but it's certainly in SE's interest to take action against that sort of thing.

And they do take action but part of the issue is making tickets can be quite tedious. This does discourage a lot of people from making them. It would be really nice if we could right-click on a player's name and send a report based on a list from a drop-down menu like "spam, explicit content, RMT, etc". WoW has a system similar to this and its quite nice to be able to quickly and easily report poor behaviour. And well this game already has something similar but it's only for reporting RMT. It definitely needs to be expanded.