Guidelines For Posting On Sensitive Issues
(Note: this post is about handling sensitive subjects on an OOC level. Please check out our post on the school's in-character rules and security for how to keep your student characters out of trouble -- or get them into it -- for drugs/alcohol/weapons/violence issues.)
We're all concerned about making the game an enjoyable experience for each other. It's difficult to know what sort of issue might arise in a character's scenes or dialogue that may be unpleasant for other players to read; a full list of sensitive topics is never going to be possible, or agreed on by any three players in the game. Still, we've done our best come to a concensus as a community on the ones we'd most like people to be aware of.
Issues that we would strongly suggest be approached carefully and would like you to warn for:
Posts containing these things don't have to be locked, just cut-tagged and marked so that people reading them will know what they're getting into. Please put the warning outside the cut in regular text, not as part of the cut-tag. Go for 'cut for sensitive subjects' or something similar in the cut-tag, so that "Cut for sexual assault issues" isn't leaping boldly off the page at those same people who'd like to scroll past them.
Threads: If your character is about to do any of the things listed in a thread, or introduce detailed discussion of them, please check with any other players in that thread first.
If it's in a personal journal, please ask the original poster to add an OOC warning to the main post.
If it's in a community post, please add a "Sensitive subjects ahead" warning in the subject line of your comment. Just add it to the end of whatever subject is already there to maintain any existing OCD. This way, anyone reading the page who wants to avoid it will know to scroll past, and anyone tracking the thread and reading it in their inbox can also avoid it. (This shouldn't be an issue for sex, whether consensual or not, graphic descriptions of sex, or NSFW images, because those should only be happening in personal journals.)
What to do when you see a post or thread that is making you uncomfortable, or you feel needs a cut/warning
What will happen when the admins contact someone to request a cut/warning:
We'll contact them to request a cut/warning. Really. That's it. It's not a strike against them, they won't be punished, we're not angry with them. We're just contacting them to ask for a cut.
If it seems to happen over and over with the same player, or someone refuses to do so, that's a bigger problem, and we'd work to get that solved. If that's happening to you as a player who asks for warnings, please let us know, and we'll proceed the same way.
The admins aren't here to punish players for mistakes, differences of opinion, and errors in judgment when it comes to things like this. We're here to help our community avoid problems where we can, fix them when they happen, and work to make sure they don't happen again.
The Bottom Line:
The bottom line with this subject, as with many, is thinking before you post, and OOC communication both before and after there's a problem.
We're all concerned about making the game an enjoyable experience for each other. It's difficult to know what sort of issue might arise in a character's scenes or dialogue that may be unpleasant for other players to read; a full list of sensitive topics is never going to be possible, or agreed on by any three players in the game. Still, we've done our best come to a concensus as a community on the ones we'd most like people to be aware of.
Issues that we would strongly suggest be approached carefully and would like you to warn for:
- abuse of drugs/alcohol -- for the difference between recreational use and abuse, we quote one of our players, because it's an excellent definition: it becomes substance abuse when it happens on a level that causes damage, either to the person using the substance or to the people around them. It can be something that adversely affects the physical or mental health of the user, or something that damages relationships with the people around them. If somebody is willing to do anything to get their hands on more, there's an addiction at play.
- character death
- drugging someone else without their consent
- eating disorders (as in, deliberately played out disordered eating behavior)
- extreme violence/torture
- graphic description of injuries
- hate speech
- not-worksafe sex scenes or images
- partner/child abuse
- self-harm
- sexual assault or sexual consent issues
Posts containing these things don't have to be locked, just cut-tagged and marked so that people reading them will know what they're getting into. Please put the warning outside the cut in regular text, not as part of the cut-tag. Go for 'cut for sensitive subjects' or something similar in the cut-tag, so that "Cut for sexual assault issues" isn't leaping boldly off the page at those same people who'd like to scroll past them.
Threads: If your character is about to do any of the things listed in a thread, or introduce detailed discussion of them, please check with any other players in that thread first.
If it's in a personal journal, please ask the original poster to add an OOC warning to the main post.
If it's in a community post, please add a "Sensitive subjects ahead" warning in the subject line of your comment. Just add it to the end of whatever subject is already there to maintain any existing OCD. This way, anyone reading the page who wants to avoid it will know to scroll past, and anyone tracking the thread and reading it in their inbox can also avoid it. (This shouldn't be an issue for sex, whether consensual or not, graphic descriptions of sex, or NSFW images, because those should only be happening in personal journals.)
What to do when you see a post or thread that is making you uncomfortable, or you feel needs a cut/warning
- First, you're welcome to politely ask the person who made the post or introduced the topic for a cut or warning to be added.
- If you'd like the admins to ask for it instead, that's fine. Drop us a line at the admin address (fandomhighadmins at iambicnut dot com) if that works better for you, and we'll take care of it.
- If you, the player, are becoming uncomfortable in a personal encounter between your character and another, please tell the other player that. You can let them know you'd like to end the thread, take it in a different direction, or have them take back their character's ping because you're uncomfortable interacting with them in that situation.
Don't keep going in an unpleasant situation until you just can't take it anymore; that's no fun for anyone, and makes fixing things harder. The admins will be happy to help if the other player isn't willing to work with you, but please at least try to discuss it with them first.
What will happen when the admins contact someone to request a cut/warning:
We'll contact them to request a cut/warning. Really. That's it. It's not a strike against them, they won't be punished, we're not angry with them. We're just contacting them to ask for a cut.
If it seems to happen over and over with the same player, or someone refuses to do so, that's a bigger problem, and we'd work to get that solved. If that's happening to you as a player who asks for warnings, please let us know, and we'll proceed the same way.
The admins aren't here to punish players for mistakes, differences of opinion, and errors in judgment when it comes to things like this. We're here to help our community avoid problems where we can, fix them when they happen, and work to make sure they don't happen again.
The Bottom Line:
The bottom line with this subject, as with many, is thinking before you post, and OOC communication both before and after there's a problem.