Will there be an official response about Party Finder advertising?

[Themarvin]

Fair. They can't really come out saying "this is okay" or "you won't be moderated for engaging in this" but to instead saying putting emphasis on what it unacceptable, which in this case is breaking the law and violating the ToS. It then avoids making affirmative statements or stances. It then brings ambiguity on stuff that has a risk of breaking the law or breaking the ToS and people have to factor in the risk rather than assume "ah okay, it's all fine, they said so".

It is really really not a player thing to moderate this and it is really not SE's position to give these moderation tools to do something towards that SE does not officially support at all, it is in their position not acceptable at all, this is a private company not some country with a government, where you can demonstrate peacefully.

[van_arn]

Then I pose the question, but a hypothetical one because obviously we don't have the data but I expect the GM's would.

Would you rather:
They don't stop people advertising ERP venues but it means the GM's can moderate these communities better and catch out anybody who is doing stuff wrong, especially with minors? And therefore better prevent and catch more wrong doing.
or
They put a hard line action of keeping it out of PF & Shout but this is all pushed underground and out of the way, you no longer see it and it has no place out there, but GM's no longer have the visibility and it's a lot harder for them to catch wrong doing? Including stuff happening with minors and catch less wrong doing.

That’s a false choice.

Get the public ads out, drive the filth underground, enforce reports on vulgarity, and (like with the naughty mod debacle) issue bans when their activity is traced outside of the game. The instant Square finds out about this content is the instant that news has traveled too far and they need to take action.

Leaving things up and visible is the opposite way to fix the issue of players brazenly leaving their brothel doors open wide. Drive them underground, and the instant someone is told about them that doesn’t want them— ban the advertiser. Just like they do with parsers.

Blanket advertising a brothel under this system would be like navigating a minefield. If you even mention the place to the wrong person (or reveal the location to a menu of those services) you’d be risking your account.

Ultimately the entire goal is to have a chilling effect on discussing this content publicly, and only discussing this content with individuals you feel particularly trusting of. Individuals who could revoke their acceptance at any time with a report.

[Saefinn]

Snip

And yet despite this scorched earth approach to parsers and mods, lots of people are still using them, are finding out about them and making use of them. It's pushed underground and it's still very present. Heck, we're mentioning parsing right now, we're acknowledging that such tools exist, YoshiP has made reference to their existence too, even naming one. So it doesn't require much for then somebody learning these exist to then seek them out.

And hey, that's fine when your concern is keeping this out of sight.

And this comes to the purpose of my question, which isn't a false question, but a hypothetical and conditional one. It's hypothetical because we don't have the evidence and data on what is the most effective method of keeping underage people away from content that's unsuitable for them. So really it lends no extra validity to what I think is the right answer nor extra validity to what you think is the right answer. It's conditional because your solution thus far seems to most favour only one of your argument which is the one is that you don't want to see any of this stuff in public, you not only don't think it has a place but you don't want to see these advertisements you don't want to know about people doing this stuff and you've made abundantly clear that you find these acts to be disgusting. That's your prerogative and in fairness, I've found myself accepting other arguments as to why it shouldn't be there (I don't think we'd see eye-to-eye on your reasoning here, because I don't find ERP to be disgusting the advertisements are inoffensive to me). What you've avoided is the question of what if what they're currently doing is the most pragmatic solution they have to keep minors safe. Hence the conditions of both statements.

And if the conditions were reversed, then yes, I'd accept ERP advertisements being taken down and for the people making them to take it to their own channels to arrange.

[Themarvin]

And yet despite this scorched earth approach to parsers and mods, lots of people are still using them, are finding out about them and making use of them. It's pushed underground and it's still very present. Heck, we're mentioning parsing right now, we're acknowledging that such tools exist, YoshiP has made reference to their existence too, even naming one. So it doesn't require much for then somebody learning these exist to then seek them out.

And hey, that's fine when your concern is keeping this out of sight.

And this comes to the purpose of my question, which isn't a false question, but a hypothetical and conditional one. It's hypothetical because we don't have the evidence and data on what is the most effective method of keeping underage people away from content that's unsuitable for them. So really it lends no extra validity to what I think is the right answer nor extra validity to what you think is the right answer. It's conditional because your solution thus far seems to most favour only one of your argument which is the one is that you don't want to see any of this stuff in public, you not only don't think it has a place but you don't want to see these advertisements you don't want to know about people doing this stuff and you've made abundantly clear that you find these acts to be disgusting. That's your prerogative and in fairness, I've found myself accepting other arguments as to why it shouldn't be there (I don't think we'd see eye-to-eye on your reasoning here, because I don't find ERP to be disgusting the advertisements are inoffensive to me). What you've avoided is the question of what if what they're currently doing is the most pragmatic solution they have to keep minors safe. Hence the conditions of both statements.

And if the conditions were reversed, then yes, I'd accept ERP advertisements being taken down and for the people making them to take it to their own channels to arrange.

YoshiP, does not mind whatever you do in private, but do you enforce it on to the public or persons in ANYWAY as in showing it in PF/Shouts/tells/yells/linkshell/House adverts etc. in ANYWAY... then you will or may feel the hammer of doom if you get reported for it, so stop saying that it is ok with YoshiP, you been doing that throughout the entire thread, when it clearly is not.

[LianaThorne]

Th bouncer anecdote Im not familiar with. But I wonder what the full circumstances are. Did the bouncer get fired by the establishment, or was he arrested and jailed/imprisoned? Did he have other issues that prompted the termination.

I dont know prior history + this was also well over 10 years ago now but where I'm from, having minors in your establishment is grounds for having the venue shut down for an investigation and the owner will receive a massive fine/potentially jail time or some other punishment if they've been serving minors for an extended period of time. From how I view the situation now as an adult, he was fired to protect the club so that didnt happen again.

(Sorry for the late reply)

[Saefinn]

YoshiP, does not mind whatever you do in private, but do you enforce it on to the public or persons in ANYWAY as in showing it in PF/Shouts/tells/yells/linkshell/House adverts etc. in ANYWAY... then you will or may feel the hammer of doom if you get reported for it, so stop saying that it is ok with YoshiP, you been doing that throughout the entire thread, when it clearly is not.

I'm not saying it is okay with YoshiP. Heck, I've previously explicitly pointed out that he has said to report it if you see it so they can investigate it. To me that implies he's not okay with it. Earlier in the thread I've said for people to just report it and avoid harassing players or taking it into their own hands. Let the GM's judge if wrong doing has been made.

I am not even saying it's okay for PF to be used this way or its okay for shouts to be used this way. My arguments in this respect have only been that it's okay for regular RP advertisements to be made.

What I am positing is that maybe the current GM strategy is the more effective method, where they're NOT being scorched earth about it.

And I can see logic if this were the case, because visibility and people reporting them may, if anything, alert them to wrong doing. I see flaws in the scorched earth method and I don't see that resolving the problem either and can see ways it could potentially make it worse. And I also concede if it is not their most effective method that other reasonable methods including taken action against these advertisements is fine.

But there are two arguments really. There's the one about keeping it out of the public eye and one about keeping minors from being caught up in sexual activity or people breaking the law in general. The two don't necessarily go hand-in-hand. Me personally? I only care about the second argument and is why I refer to YoshiP because he made clear his stance on this one, but I am indifferent on the first, they don't bother me but they bother other people and I 100% get why they'd be an issue. And they don't affect me directly because I don't partake, so really, I just sit on the fence with that one.

If the GM's judge it's better to scorch earth those advertisements for the sake of preventing wrong doing and fall back on "it's a teen rated game, not an adult one". Then it's fair.
If the GM's judge it's better to not scorch earth it and investigate case-by-case basis to catch illegal wrong doing & ToS violations. Then that's also fair.

[LianaThorne]

But there are two arguments really. There's the one about keeping it out of the public eye and one about keeping minors from being caught up in sexual activity or people breaking the law in general. The two don't necessarily go hand-in-hand. Me personally? I only care about the second argument and is why I refer to YoshiP because he made clear his stance on this one, but I am indifferent on the first, they don't bother me but they bother other people and I 100% get why they'd be an issue. And they don't affect me directly because I don't partake, so really, I just sit on the fence with that one.

Just piggy backing off of this, I personally could give less of a crap what ya'll like to do sexually (unless kids are what get you off which is an entirely different story). My issue with bringing up the law like a broken record is that I'm honestly just trying to save people the trouble of dealing with kids/teens who can be incredibly spiteful or putting yourselves in a position of dealing with the police or jail time because their parents caught you talking dirty to their child. I know I've said this already somewhere in this thread, but I've had several friends who were lied to by minors, engaged in sharing photos and more. Ultimately when the truth came out that they were underage and my friends immediately stopped the relationships, ALL of the minors in every situation went batshit and tried to either ruin their entire lives online by spreading that they were a pedophile or tried to get them arrested in real life by involving their parents. Because they're kids and can't handle that they did something wrong/lost their boyfriend or girlfriend and think this is the appropriate response to it.

I can only speak on the US, but the majority of states here have the same viewpoint on adults engaging with minors: Adults have a legal responsibility to verify the age of every sexual partner, as impractical as it may be. This includes online as well. For example, Washington has CMIP (Communication with a Minor for Immoral Purposes) which outlines that online communications of a sexual nature with a minor, i.e. talking to them sexually (knowing their age or not) is a felony. Pennsylvania has a section of Megan's Law for the Sexual Abuse of Children which includes a bit for engaging with minors sexually online (engaging in prohibited or simulated sexual acts is referenced) which is also a felony. These are just two examples and I can keep going.

Also, for the people bringing up the ESRB rating and how it says "Sexual Themes", it means: "References to sex or sexuality." The description for "T" games in general is: "May contain violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood, simulated gambling, and/or infrequent use of strong language." "Suggestive themes" is defined as: "Mild provocative references or materials." So, for the US specifically, the "T" rating does not cover ERP, brothels, courts, descriptive sex, nudity, etc. It covers MILD, i.e. the braindead NPCs in Ul'Dah that dance and say the same thing over and over again. They're not going to come alive and offer to take you to a back room like the people who work at ERP venues will. There is a massive difference between the two and I really really hope that everyone is able to see that. Speaking again for the US, this game is meant for the age of 13+ (I know that PEGI and others exist and this is not the case around the world) but for the US specifically it is 13+. So those who are in the US are going to be held to that standard. Just because something is different in the UK (for example), does not make it okay to do in the US and you will not be protected by their laws as a US citizen.

I'm not gonna keep harping on this for much longer since there's not much else I can say, but it's up to the individual to care about protecting themselves from this. The way that I see it, if someone has nothing to hide and needs some ERP that badly, they shouldn't have an issue with presenting some form of age verification and I have provided a few examples in one of my earlier posts through how YOU can age verify someone WITHOUT using an ID. End of the day, it's on you. I hope that everyone stays safe.

[Themarvin]

I'm not saying it is okay with YoshiP. Heck, I've previously explicitly pointed out that he has said to report it if you see it so they can investigate it. To me that implies he's not okay with it. Earlier in the thread I've said for people to just report it and avoid harassing players or taking it into their own hands. Let the GM's judge if wrong doing has been made.

I am not even saying it's okay for PF to be used this way or its okay for shouts to be used this way. My arguments in this respect have only been that it's okay for regular RP advertisements to be made.

What I am positing is that maybe the current GM strategy is the more effective method, where they're NOT being scorched earth about it.

And I can see logic if this were the case, because visibility and people reporting them may, if anything, alert them to wrong doing. I see flaws in the scorched earth method and I don't see that resolving the problem either and can see ways it could potentially make it worse. And I also concede if it is not their most effective method that other reasonable methods including taken action against these advertisements is fine.

But there are two arguments really. There's the one about keeping it out of the public eye and one about keeping minors from being caught up in sexual activity or people breaking the law in general. The two don't necessarily go hand-in-hand. Me personally? I only care about the second argument and is why I refer to YoshiP because he made clear his stance on this one, but I am indifferent on the first, they don't bother me but they bother other people and I 100% get why they'd be an issue. And they don't affect me directly because I don't partake, so really, I just sit on the fence with that one.

If the GM's judge it's better to scorch earth those advertisements for the sake of preventing wrong doing and fall back on "it's a teen rated game, not an adult one". Then it's fair.
If the GM's judge it's better to not scorch earth it and investigate case-by-case basis to catch illegal wrong doing & ToS violations. Then that's also fair.

The GM did the right thing if this was involving any kind of sexual activity or the likes, there is nothing you can argue about it or against it, especially when you can not verify in anyway if it is a minor or not, therefor if it is reported in you have and will be viewed as having done something wrong and would most likely be told to not do such a thing again, and then, that it is what there is to say about that.

And even if no activity has happened, when it was reported in, then it still conflict with what the game is about and actions has to be taken.

[Saefinn]

The GM did the right thing if this was involving any kind of sexual activity or the likes, there is nothing you can argue about it or against it, especially when you can not verify in anyway if it is a minor or not, therefor if it is reported in you have and will be viewed as having done something wrong and would most likely be told to not do such a thing again, and then, that it is what there is to say about that.

And even if no activity has happened, when it was reported in, then it still conflict with what the game is about and actions has to be taken.

In the case of the one GM that kicked off all these discussions, the error from what I understand was in the case of people who had committed no wrong doing getting caught in the crossfire (as many weren't even ERP but just regular RP) and that GM was found to have done it in error, the actions reversed but it looks like the purpose was going after genuine violations. Given this has been reviewed independently too and the errors corrected then yes, I expect now that all those who didn't have the actions reversed on their account probably did something wrong and they were probably right to take those actions.

If anything I found their handling of the situation to be encouraging because I think one of the concerns one can have about moderation is the issue of human error. It showed that community teams can review actions by GM's and correct any errors instead of doubling down on any decision made by a GM regardless of whether it was in error or not.

Snip

I 100% agree with this and sounds similar to how it's handled here in the UK. I am of the same mind, I'd not want somebody with good intentions to get caught up in something that could potentially ruin their life because somebody lied about their age. I appreciated your perspective earlier in the thread, because for sure you are exposing yourself to a risk and really you should do everything you can to mitigate or avoid it, which really cuts through the "but it says 18+" arguments like that'll stop a teenager, who let's face it, aren't dumb.

[Awha]

In terms of the legal side my hot take is if a someone lies about their age to gain access to a bar, or get involved with online interactions that they should not be part of. They should receive the punishment the adult would have have faced if they were guilty. I feel far too many defend children and their actions with the same talking points they did not know the adult should have known better. People that try to ruin the lives of another person for their own personal enjoyment are scum and should be treated as such.

Though our legal system will never do that cause protect the children is deeply ingrained. Yes I am salty, my father had to resign from his teaching position and was forced into early retirement because some female students told their parents without any proof that he touched them and made advances at them. They had nothing on the cameras, no one else expect the girls in questions to corroborate said allegations. Everyone knew it was false but the risk of negative PR was too much for the school so they asked my father to kindly resign. So I have a bias in all of this, protecting the children mindset has great potential to harm innocent people, and I get cases like my old man and others have mentioned in the thread are rare, but personally just one in hundred thousand would be far to much.

Children are not dumb, let us be real often as children we feign ignorance because deep down to knew or age protected us to a degree, that needs to stop if parents cannot teach their children manipulation and lying about ones age for personal pleasure is wrong then maybe society should by treating them like the adults they so desire to want to be like. Ignorance is not an excuse for an adult should be the same for a child.