Updated Community Guidelines

As you may have noticed by now, a bit ago we updated our Community Guidelines. The new Guidelines don't really change much, but they do clarify the stance of Gamers' Plane on certain issues. It also puts some unwritten rules in writing that we'd more or less assumed in the past were common sense, but that might not have been obvious to everyone. These new guidelines apply to the site and to Discord so you don't have to guess what's appropriate where.

Since these rules are in place, we'll begin using them if issues arise, but hopefully those instances will be far and few between. I know we can count on our community to keep up the good work and keep our jobs as easy as possible.

If you have any comments or concerns, please tell us here in this thread. If you have questions about certain pieces, please ask those here too.

Reserved.

Well, I guess I'll start. Don't know what all that drama on discord was about that prompted these revisions or if they were particularly needed (for the site portion at least).

The few bits that got me scratching my head were these:
which seem to imply that private games are more or less their own thing (within reason). But then we have this bit at the end:
which seem to imply that the "Explicit Material & Profanity" section applies to private games as well?

So which one is it? Where's the line drawn? Will overzealous mod ban me for ERPing in private? What if a scene in my private game gets all hot and steamy? What if NPC or PC curse all the time, as it's a part of their character personality? What if we explore darker themes - and the language associated with that (such as slurs for example) pops up? What about my vampire games where "depictions of gratuitous violence" (vampires assaulting humans, draining their blood, ripping each others heads off, etc) is often a normal occurrence, with the theme of struggle for your humanity baked into the setting ? What if I post a pic of supernatural gore? What if one of those players who uses AI posts something more realistic that their robot created?

In similar lieu:
will I get told off if I mention something like rpol or MythWeavers by a by-the-rules mod? I get not talking trash about the site on which you play, or yapping about how some other place is better than here, but I don't think there is anything particularly wrong with mentioning other pbp haunts. It's a small niche hobby after all.

I guess my main worry is the human element. The more rules you have, the more trouble, with interpretations, strictness and other messes. Having just a few general rules like "be nice", "don't break things", "don't make a mess" and "don't be an asshole" - and then just using common sense from there seems like a better option. But then again, I'm not a site owner or a mod, so what do I know.

Just to clarify - I never had any trouble with users or mods here, just general anxiety, I guess, from seeing other places slide into chaos while trying to maintain order. I haven't been here very long - about a year, but what I really like about GP is the chill vibe. Would hate for it change.

@reversia.ch -- Those are some good questions! The revision wasn't prompted by drama, but it was one of the things the mod team talked about needing as the newer ones of us were brought on-board. We made the changes because the language in the old rules was sort of vague and didn't cover some stuff (like sharing pirated pdfs on the site) that really needed a second look. Additionally, there were things that sometimes were stated as rules that had actually been rulings in the past, and we were holding people to those who might not have been aware of them. The bulk of the Guidelines hasn't changed, though, it's just been more explicitly stated. There's a lot more that could be said here, and if you'd like to have a longer discussion on it, please tag me in Discord (Falconloft there too), but it boils down to this. The more predictability there is in our mod decisions, the less negative impact on the community there is. These Guidelines are here, not to try to police anyone, but so that when a complaint comes up, everyone knows what we'll be looking at. But specifically...

Profanity: I think the wording is pretty clear here, but if you have a better way to say it after reading this, please let me know. We do plan to review all the suggestions we get. The Content Standards say all rules apply to public forums. The carve-out at the end is specifically for profanity in private games. all other rules (advertising/spam/etc.) are still in effect. Now, will we be policing these things? No. However, if we'd said something like 'these rules don't apply in private games' and someone (for a really wild case) started sharing pirated PDFs in a private game that they invited 50 people to, then they'd be able to argue that they weren't breaking a rule because it was a private game and therefore exempt. Even worse, they could get us hit with a DCMA strike and then where are all our games? With this wording, we don't have to have that argument, and we have a defense against things getting out of hand. The GM for the game sets the limit on language; the mods handle everything else per the rules. That being said, you are right, there needs to be carve-out for artwork as well.

Off-Site Promotion: This is something that's either disallowed or cordoned off in almost every site. Now, we're not saying you can talk about games you're in on other sites. What we're saying is that if you're going to use GP or the GP discord to advertise for a game, it should be for a game on GP. If you want to tell us how much better a feature is on another site, go for it. We'd all like GP to improve and that's how it happens.

All in all, I agree. Having a few general rules is better than a whole list of nitpicks. Just go look at rpol's version of these guidelines and you'll see that ours are pretty minimal. Our goal is to provide us with rules and protection so that we can provide you with protection.

As far as "Off-Site Promotion" players often mention tools they use, and this is totally fine. However this is not a platform for advertising. You can point out tools and services that apply to gaming, as that is the focus of this site, but do so naturally in conversation or as appropriate in any situation. Also, don't get into arguments or competition with others about which product or site might be better. Express your opinions and let other express theirs.

Mods are not looking to put players down, just keep things chill and fun. There have been a few times Mods had to step into situations and a couple that escalated to site admins but few and far between. And we want to keep it that way, or even better to never have to get involved if possible.

This is something I'd also appreciate being clarified, both in terms of what kind of games mandate privatisation, and what games are unwelcome on the site. For a very specific example, the site lists World of Darkness and Powered by the Apocalypse among the default games, and I'm pretty sure I've seen a Kult recruitment at least once here, and maybe some other White Wolf games.

But given the uncertainties above, there's some anxiety about whether even material that is no more extreme than the official publications and default content of those games risks infractions.

I agree with reversia.ch about the ruling on private games. If all rules stand for private games too, then I can name a multitude of games which break these rules. Violence, sexy stuff, foul language are the main ones, but even others can be a problem.

What about playing a game based on some new media property? Spoiler rule applies, so you need to put all your posts under spoilers even if everyone in the game knows the stuff.
Adult rating in theatres varies depending on the country, so it's not a particularly good measure of explicit content. Do we only count US theatres? What about local laws? If I'm breaking a local law with "explicit" material which isn't explicit somewhere else, is it against the rules? What about the reverse?
Images on the internet might be easy to get, but they're still copyrighted material most of the time. Unless all characters avatars are properly licensed, rule 3 is being broken by two thirds of the site already.

Sure, it is all a bit of an exaggeration. But my point is, these guidelines are still unclear and open the way to abuse by both mods and users. If it's supposed to work in situations when people are not being reasonable and amicable, it probably won't because it can be interpreted ten different ways and argued about from either side.
Even if mods don't go looking for this stuff, what's stopping some overzealous user from complaining about something innocuous, like a sailor character swearing like a sailor, and then the mods will be obligated to deal with it? If they don't, they're not enforcing the rules; if they do, then fair enough, but it is a bit silly, isn't it? Sure rules are rules, but now I need to make sure I only use one swear per post?

Speaking of which, there is no mention of bad faith reporting or moderating other people while not being a mod. Going strictly by the rules, what if I report everyone in this thread for using copyrighted material on their avatars and then myself for explicit content by local law? I won't break any of the rules, but what will the mods be able to do about said report (and who has the burden of proof here)?

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If the purpose is to make clearly defined guidelines, I think they should be clearer. Also, I don't think private games should be subject of rules 2 and 9.

Why not add a clarification for each rule about whether it applies to private games and to what degree? And if the standard is different for public games, add that too.

As it is, the guidelines are just making me paranoid about posting anything.

Edit: typos.

What I got from Falconloft's post (and correct me if I'm wrong) is essentially this - unless you're doing something really stupid in private games (like most of the stuff mentioned in the rules, common sense things), you're left to your own devices there. If someone complains to a mod about "Explicit Material & Profanity" guideline in private games, than you simply show the mod that the themes of violence, sex, swearing, etc were specifically mentioned and established in the game ad/description and the complaining person knew what they were signing up for.

The spoilers rule seems redundant, honestly. If someone spoils something by accident - alert them of the screw up and inform them how hide those. If someone spoils things on purpose - then they're just be being an a-hole, and the ways of dealing with that are kicking them from your game (users), warning them to stop (mods) or in case of terminally braindead - mute/ban (mods). To me that's a natural extension of the "Etiquette" part and doesn't need to be mention specifically.

The tl;dr (as understood by me) is "we put some things in writing to cover our bases, but otherwise nothing's changing".

Also, I'll be first to admit that I don't remember what the previous policy looked like. I probably read it when I joined, but that's been a while ago. I imagine most of these things were there as well, we just never payed attention because that stuff doesn't come up often. A few clarifications might be nice to assuage people's worries about more mature content and gamelines, but other than that... If the mods say that there's not going to be any policing/witchhunts and such, than I'm satisfied. If a problem does come up, then hopefully these guidelines, common sense and just being nice human beings would be enough to solve it. Cross that bridge when we get to it, so to speak, instead of getting stuck in making super clear rules for any and every specific situation.

This is sensible, but it is not supported by the guidelines as written. If the guidelines had something like this:
"For games, the rules x, y and z can be ignored as long as the game is private and clearly labelled as containing such materials."
I would certainly feel much better about it.

Also GP really should have a "This site is not responsible for content posted by its users" somewhere. Usually that would be in ToS, but I'm not sure GP even has ToS. Edit: actually, guidelines might be considered ToS with the "you agree to it by using the site" thing.

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And I fundamentally disagree on "cross this bridge when we get there" in regards to rules. If the standards are this vague, what protection do I have as a user if someday someone who doesn't like me reports me for any number of these "not-going-to-police" rules? Mods will be well within reason to ban me for it, and I will not have any grounds to argue and have to fully depend on mod decision - and mods are humans, too.

Rules should provide a basis for objective judgement, in my opinion, and these ones are too vague for that.
What is the point of these guidelines if mods can just choose which rules they enforce and which they don't?

"Be a decent human being" is a universal rule on paper, but not in practice.

PS: I had the same problems with the previous policy, but at least that one wasn't as definite about private games being included. To obey that one I just had to keep all my 18+ games private - now, I can't have them at all lest I'm breaking the rules. And personally, it doesn't matter to me if someone knows if I'm breaking the rules, I'd rather stick to them anyway.

👆👆 It's very much this! 👆👆

It is not the mod team's intention to start intruding in private games to seek out infringements or hunt for transgressors.
But if a GP user comes to us because they have been upset by someone's behavior (in public or private forums, or on the discord) we have to step in, and the guidelines can help us make an informed decision for a specific situation.

Multiple mods are chiming in here to hopefully ease your fears! Keep operating as you’ve always operated. We’ll talk more as a group to try get a more satisfying wording for people. But if you’ve not had issues up to now, you have no reason to expect issues going forward.

Keeping running those games!

It would still be very much more comfortable for the users, at least users who are not good at correctly intuiting what others are thinking, to have a clear understanding of where the boundaries are set, between 'this is definitely OK everywhere', 'this mandates privatisation of the game but is explicitly permitted in private game', and 'this is prohibited, warrants reporting, and will be an infraction'.

A guideline amounting to 'we will not look at what you do there, wink wink, nudge nudge', does not fix the uncertainty nor remove the worries of whether there's a Damocles' sword hanging over a game because the guideline is very ambiguous and can be interpreted either way. Especially for games like World of Darkness (with their Metis thrall of the wyrm frenzies, Fomori, Baali, Nephandi, Tzimisce, Sabbat &c.), Exalted (Infernals/Malfeas &c.), KULT, Monster Hearts, Flying Circus, &c.

That's why there are several voices favouring more unambiguous and explicit statements on what is and isn't permitted in what contexts in the official document. These need not be lengthy and convoluted paragraphs - to the contrary, conciseness is good, but the desire is for conciseness to be clear and explicit, and not very dependent on an elaboration in a thread somewhere or a general assumption based on the personalities of mods.

I apologise if this comes off as nitpicky or mistrustful; I assert that I'm making this request in good faith, and am assuming so are others making similar requests.

Edit: on a side note, I would love for there to be an option of not making a game private but merely adding a content warning for it, because there might be games I would prefer to be 'showable' to non-players with a link.

I agree with every word of the post above (including the apology about coming off as nitpicky). I think for hard rules, the ones that demand you agree to them when you're using the site, these are way too vague.

Also rules for private games, private character sheets, public games, public forums and public character sheets should all be separate, in my opinion. With overlap, sure, but with clarifications.

Edit: and avatars, user profiles and private messages, for that matter.

We hear you loud and clear, and gathering feedback like yours is exactly why we started this thread on the guidelines.

Let's wait for other users to chime in, then the mods will regroup to discuss all comments and requests, and draft better-worded and clearer guidelines where necessary. Thanks!

Permission to speak freely not as a mod, but as someone who relies on forums heavily to enjoy their hobbies:

While I can imagine everyone would wish for as much clarity as community guidelines can be written, I do think it would be very difficult if not impossible to legislate for many possible objections while still keeping the bandwidth for acceptable games both public and private.

Eg it is likely that some people will be offended by some of the controversial content in games such as Kult / World of Darkness, etc. To disallow these games would go against the intent of an RPG PbP platform, or to agree that any complaint against these are legitimate if they contravene wherever the censorship line is drawn. On the other hand, to say people have no recourse to complain because we have a clearly stated set of permissive or well-encompassing rules that protect all manner of gaming will be insensitive to those who have been offended.

Eg is a better guideline to say all non-original work cannot be used on this site because it infringes on intellectual property? The extreme opposite would be a guideline that says all intellectual property is permitted. These are the clearest possible statements on this topic if clarity is the most important critereon, anything else would necessarily be more vague and require interpretation.

Eg While common sense rules for decency in public threads and games could certainly be more specifically described, when it comes to private games to say that anything goes could conceivably (apologies in advance for the slippery slope) see this place as a site hosting endless threads of problematically-rated (politically, racial, sexual, etc) but private material. There still needs to be recourse to say some of this cannot be allowed, and yet a Kult game could describe sex and violence in what could be perceived as not very different from what might be commonly thought of as offensive and adult-rated.

As a mod I find it inevitable that we will be called to adjudicate where the line is. Sometimes the correct position, even if deeply unsatisfactory, is the position that 'it isn't a problem until it becomes a problem'. Perhaps a reminder that mods are not here to police, we ultimately can't affect behaviour and aren't qualified to make moral judgements on others. We can only try to protect the rights and safety of site users where we can. Do think of us as flawed adjudicators, present just so that when recourse to an arising problem is needed, there is someone to turn to, as opposed to having no one to look into the issue. And that these mods will have to make the best decision they can given the circumstances, even if it isn't the most correct one. At least that's the principle I intend to abide by, even if as an internet stranger you have no reason to trust that I can make the best decisions on your behalf.

"Perhaps a reminder that mods are not here to police, we ultimately can't affect behaviour and aren't qualified to make moral judgements on others."

An interesting stance, to say the least.

Are you (and other mods who've posted) saying that you're...not here to moderate? As Vicky put it, that seems a "wink wink nudge nudge" type of messaging.

Mods can absolutely affect behavior. "You did X, which isn't tolerated. This is a warning/suspension/whatever." That person will either change their behavior, or eventually get banned. If they get banned because they're a stubborn edgelord, you could say they haven't changed their behavior, sure...but others who could be considering pushing the envelope might think twice.

I appreciate you all trying to avoid a heavy-handed moderating style...but going too far in the other direction is IMO a mistake.

As for the rules themselves: they look mostly fine to me. If people want more clarification re: public vs. private games, OK. But the snippet that's already there is clear enough.

So far I think the mods have been doing a great job, and I don't have any issues trusting your judgement on what the site should allow. Rather than trying to cover all potential cases, I can see the benefit of having simple rulings and assessing things case-by-case and taking context into account.

I will admit that the both old and new guidelines leave me a bit confused as to whether things like explicit swearing, gore and other R-rated content is allowed in private games.

Perhaps an option would be to say that: Yes, depicting adult content is allowed in private as long as all the players are informed, and such material can be removed if it's deemed harmful at GP's discretion?

Personally I'm glad to see updated guidelines that are already more clear in my opinion. I definitely think it's important to have a base set of rules that can be applied even in private games. And fully support the Mods in any action they've taken that I had any amount of knowledge about.
I think the Informed thing is the thing that would make it clearer for people from my understanding, these things are not tolerated in a general sense on the forums however in the case of a private game these things can be allowed provided people are first made aware of that.

And yeah I said simply these things because honestly I have no idea what in the guidelines should/could be allowed in a private game Vrs things that can't be allowed for legal/preventing actual harassment reasons on the site.

It also makes rulings very clear in the case of games where these things are Included and someone is complaining about it, Let the people in the game know "Warning" Hey out policy about such and such in private games is to make sure everyone in the game is aware so they have the opportunity to leave if they wish, and then if multiple complaints happen which I see as highly unlikely unless someone is joining games and then swearing specifically at the other users themselves instead of in game.

My other problems with the guidelines aside, I have questions about these:
Why is this the only guideline which lists the punishment?
What constitutes an "inauthentic" behaviour? If secondary account has a disclosure in profile, is that enough to count as being authentic?

Edit: just to clarify, I don't mind the wording here, I'm just trying to figure out if I need to go tweak some stuff on the second account.
And this is a very clear guideline which gets broken by recruitment posts, art threads and guides quite often. Maybe you should add a caveat to it? Something like "unless images are crucial to the topic or serve as non-intrusive decoration".

I think it's to prevent people who were banned from creating a new account to circumvent the banning.
Yeah I don't get this one at all. I don't even know why it exists. Is there a technical issue that causes the site to glitch out because I haven't seen it. If, as GM, I'm running a conversation between multiple characters—PC & NPC—I'm totally going to have multiple avatar images in a single post.

With regards to behavioral rules, maybe there needs to be a hierarchy of rules for clarity. Something like this:

Site-wide: These are behaviors/actions which will not be tolerated whether in forums or games, public and private.

Public Games: These are behaviors/actions/content which are ok for public games. Off-hand, probably very close to Site-wide rules.

Private Games: These are behaviors/actions/content which are ok for private games provided that the GM has alerted all potential players to before the game has started. This would be done in the Games Tavern with the game recruitment post. I see plenty of GMs doing this now, but if it needs to be codified, so be it.