Board Thread:Administrator Notice/@comment-1669199-20140104230141/@comment-1669199-20140109225101

MoonMoonTheWolf wrote: Genesjs wrote:

MoonMoonTheWolf wrote:

Genesjs wrote: Censoring words that're being offered up in this discussion as examples to be censored on the Main Chat (and elsewhere) kinda defeats the purpose of trying to list examples of the kinds of the language we should avoid when talking around this Wiki in general. Very counter-productive towards getting clear establishment on key information. Just thought that I'd take a minute to say that.

MoonMoonTheWolf



Has society at large made its thoughts on what they consider certain taboo (in this case, language and general content) in this day in age known in a way that clearly states what the majority, both vocal and silent, is okay with? Just because a few shows show certain kinds of content doesn't necessarily mean that general opinions shared by moral guardians are changing, too. Also, you know those little white rating boxes they usually show when a TV show starts airing, in order to show the kind of content that show contains? They still use those. And there's various programs that people can get from their cable/Internet providers that allow them to filter out shows containing certain levels of content -- that way they won't have to risk seeing them and complain about seeing them. What you're asking us to take into consideration is not something easily determined. Same reason why I don't think we should take school environments into consideration, because we can't help how those environments individually operate, nor can we take the time to even try to learn how they all operate in order to determine how to handle this problem while taking the schools into consideration. Not quite. I should have made this more clear, but what I meant was that now common cuss words on television that used to be censored 5 or so years ago are now '''no longer censored. '''I've noticed this on channels including ABC Family, Annimal Planet, and many others that are obviously for people of all ages to view. What's your point?

My point is that these daytime family-intended TV shows and movies are changing what used to be considered swearing to now just mild words that would be appropriate for anyone 13 or above in mainstream western culture. (Considering that the movies that now use these words and used to censor them are commonly rated PG-13... the same minimum age as this wiki.)

So if everyone here does meet the age requirement, they should not be surprised to occasionally see these now officially mild words being used in non-insulting ways here, and they should also be mature enough to know when or when not to use them. (I would expect the same if I were to give my kid an internet account; I would only do so if I knew that he or she were mature enough not to abuse it.)

Unfortunately though, there are some users here that obviously do not seem mature enough for this and do not act like they meet the age requirement in the first place. One example might be  "Amy Rose 4eva". (Please don't take this the wrong way- I'm not trying to insult or offend you.)  But these kinds of users and visitors, which appear to be the main worry here, should not be here is the first place. Bottom line is if that is a child is permitted to use the internet without supervision, his/her parent or guardian should be aware of the risks and what they might come across.

A parent and guardian page would only be useful for those parents/guaridans who do supervise their young children on the internet. Still potentially useful though.

One thing that might be just as useful- if not more useful- would be to make it very clear on the homepage that the users of this wiki must be 13 or above (even though there is no minimum or intended age of the wiki topic), and that some mild language may be used in the chat and forums by these users. I think that would be more useful as a warning to parents since it's clear, straight forward, honest, and because the home page is the first place the parent would check. A parent page would also be handy but this would be better if it's really something you all are concerned about.

I'll say it again: So what if a handful of shows are doing things differently than a handful of other competing shows/programming? That doesn't prove that the mainstream audience, young or old, is okay with how the former is more daring with their writing/content compared to the competition.

Don't single anyone out for perceived immature behavior on this forum, especially if, A) They aren't in any way involved with this discussion, and, B) You don't bother to even elaborate on their "behavior" despite taking the time to mention it anyway. It just makes you look like your setting someone up for unnecessary public criticism/humiliation when they've done nothing as of late to deserve it.

With that outta the way, I'd like to point out once again that modern technology allows parents/guardians to better restrict what kind of content on the Internet their children can access, so usually they don't have to constantly monitor the children in order to make sure they aren't going anywhere/coming across anything they don't want them to see. And even if the kids did find a way to bypass this, the parents/guardians can't be around to watch their children 24/7, so of course the possibility exists that the kids could come across stuff on the Internet while said parents/guardians "knew the risks". Its common sense. Again, what you're asking us to take into consideration is pointless, as it involves a wide range of parties and risk factors we would have no real means of managing properly on a mass scale. And going by what a handful of television programs are doing wouldn't be helpful either, as there's no real way to gather a sure consensus on anything from that.

What use would creating such pages have for this place? Its not our place to set a rule of guidelines/suggestions for parents/guardians to use while monitoring their children as they browse this site. Anything we could hope to tell them should be knowledge they themselves should already know if they're already responsible/caring enough to know/remember how to properly watch what their kids are doing. Creating pages like that would be a waste of everyone's time, because the burden of having such knowledge rests on the parents/guardians themselves -- we're not caretakers or teachers for new parents/guardians.

Wikia encourages new users to read about the Children's Internet Protection Act when they begin the sign-up process for making an account on Wikia. We don't need to put up a banner telling people they should be at least 13 years of age before joining SNN, as Wikia has been attempting to do that with everyone who joins them long before anyone here signed up themselves. Also, we already have links to the rules/policies pages on the main page, so all anyone looking for information about our rules & guidelines needs to do is read the basic summary about SNN and follow the links to these pages while they're on the front page. We don't need to repeat ourselves or make it easier for newcomers to find this information in a separate banner that takes up space on the main page when, arguably, this information is already in easy-to-spot locations on the front page already. Again, they just need to take the time to read what's on the main page already, then they'd find the links to the rules/policies pages. And even if we do consider making such a banner, what makes you so certain it wouldn't be ignored just like the information Wikia themselves encourage new Users to read when they're signing up for an account?