Rule 8 Announcement

[Generic_Generica]

There seems to be a few folks who're confused about what this all means.

Lemme clarify for you. There's not going to be any real changes to how you're posting on this site, we're just not going to be handling sexuality/sexual identity topics with the rule 8 banhammer anymore.

So I'm going to take some time out of my day while I still can to break all of this down for y'all to explain why this rule change was posted, how it'll probably affect you in the future, and some other shit that I'll probably touch on tangentially.

Let's start from the top.

Part 1: Why this change?

We've been talking about this in staffcomms for, god, a little over a year actually. This change should've been implemented a long time ago, and we've actually been operating off of this change for a bit even before this announcement went into effect.

The logic is as follows.

QQ is a place where you can generally post almost whatever you want as long as it doesn't break our site rules. It's a place for folks to post stories. There's a lot of site features that facilitate posting stories and there're a lot of site features that facilitate talking about stories. The purpose of the rules are to make QQ a good place to post stories and maybe talk about stories, everything else is ancillary.

This means that the instant the rules make it difficult to talk about someone's fics, we're going to have a problem.

And rule 8 made talking about any sexuality/sexual identity related kink a massive fucking problem for pretty obvious reasons.

Hence, the rule change.

Part 2: But why this specific change to rule 8?

Rule 8's the anti shitstorm rule. It's supposed to be an extension of rule 1. It says no current politics but in practice that's what it is.

The point of this site is to post stories. The point of the rules are to help facilitate posting stories and talking about stories. The point of rule 8 is to try to avoid a lot of shitstorms on this site.

The obvious problem with rule 8 is that it does make talking about an assload of topics hella difficult.

And for this particular topic, the detriments of rule 8 have long since outweighed its benefits. I'm going to be blunt, sexual identity/sexuality isn't a topic that inherently generates shitstorms on its own. It's not political inherently, it's political because a lot of folks insist on making this topic in particular political.

We were getting reports for this topic that were being made in bad faith to stifle discussion. We were getting reports that were being made to shut down specific users. We weren't getting reports on people who were baiting other people into toeing the rule 8 line. For this particular topic rule 8 has been a gigantic clusterfuck and it had gotten to the point where folks were actively avoiding posting on this site because rule 8 was that oppressive when it really, really shouldn't have been.

So there, that's why rule 8's being relaxed for sexuality/sexual identity in particular, so some of the rest of us who're willing to write and talk about this crap in our stories have a bit more room to work with.

Part 3: How drastic is this change?

It's not drastic at all.

I'm going to be blunt again, anyone who's complaining about this change is making a mountain out of a molehill. You'll note that we really aren't asking anything extra from any of you. The change's literally just a statement that yeah, we're not going to be treating sexuality/sexual identity related topics with the oppressive rule 8 banhammer anymore.

We're not asking you to go build rainbow-colored shrines. We're not asking you to kowtow to some newfangled ideology. We're not asking you to go donate more to the site.

What you see is what you get.

And this change has already been in effect for the past few months internally. For a few reasons, most of them exasperating, an announcement's only just been posted publicly. That is that announcement.

So if you're worried about this change and what it means to how you post regularly, don't be.

Part 4: TL;DR

> The point of QQ is to post fics and quests.
> It's also nice to talk about fics and quests.
> Our rules are here to make it nicer to do these things.
> Rule 8's supposed to be here to help do these things.
> For sexuality/sexual identity topics, Rule 8 was making it exponentially harder to do these things.
> Therefore, Rule 8 got changed in a very minor way.
> This change has actually been in effect internally for a while now.
> We're just posting this now to let you all know. It's long overdue. We're sorry.

Also, just a general notice, anyone who posts complaints after this post will be summarily removed from this thread.

I'm posting this bit in modtext for a reason. This should've happened in other rule change announcements. Here I am, rectifying that mistake. Topic's not actually up for debate. It's here, it's done, it's overdue, and honestly, it is like, the most minor of minor changes in the grand scheme of things.

You have been duly warned.

We're also going to be going back over this thread. Just for safety's sake, to make sure we aren't missing anyone.

 

[ultima333]

How does this affect, for instance, authors misgendering their own characters in the text of an update? I'm thinking specifically of what got Mr. Zoat banned from SV. Does it only apply to behavior towards members?

Click to shrink...

Characters in stories are unaffected. So long as it stays in story.
For example, Worm fics- some characters in Worm are literal neo-Nazis. They are allowed to be characters in stories.

If peeps start espousing that rhetoric outside of stories, however, THEN we have real problems.

What if they're doing it because they use pronouns according to how they perceive someone / that someone's biological sex? That's how language has long been used. That's not "being a deliberate asshole".

Click to shrink...

This is the Internet, you don't really have knowledge of someone else's biological sex. So rather a moot point.

Are other people required by the rules to use my pronouns when referring to me in conversation with others when not doing so directly by name/nick?
If I come in and say
>Hey, look, I'm an attack helicopter now. I put up a thread [here], it's in my bio, and it's even in my sig. Could you please use my pronouns?
And someone refuses to do so, are they going to get Rule 1'd for it?

Click to shrink...

Look, not everyone has Titles or Signatures visible at all times (such as on mobile). We get that.

Just... make at least a minimal effort, and don't be an asshole.
If you're interacting with someone, and they mention "hey, please use masculine instead of feminine" and you do the reverse, then that's a Rule 1 issue.

If you know what they are, use 'em.

The neutral 'they' can be used in singular as well, that's always another option.


To reiterate, this has already been in practice for a while, it's just being officially codified as policy now.

"I am actually a transexual man, so you need to X" is pretty much the same as "Begone Tranny!" in that it's just goading.

Click to shrink...

Nnnnnot quite true?
"I am a human being and fellow forum user, I ask that you treat me with basic decency" is basically just reaffirming Rule 1.

See above- there's no reason for either side to be assholes about it.

Any person that thinks they're actually a woman would probably just call themselves a woman, unless they're discussing something pertinent to RL politics, or an RL situation. In which case, it's not probably not relevant to any given story or quest thread?

Saying 'Women are purely XX, and men are purely XY, and anything else is delusion', or saying 'I'm actually a pansexual enbie!' are kind of both blatantly not relevant to anything other than politics. I don't think that's changed, at all. What seems to have changed is a writer can now write 'Taylor Hebert is actually a boy on HRT' in a story about Taylor getting chokeslammed by a giant black dude with a ten inch penis whilst wearing a dress, and when someone goes 'that's retarded, Taylor is a girl', the author can go 'No, in my story they're a tranny.' without being dinged.

Click to shrink...

Both examples are now allowed, but don't be an asshole to other users remains in effect (don't say other users don't deserve to exist, or say they're all mentally ill, or imply they're sub-human, fucking hell).

Freely discussing sexual identity and bringing that up as points when discussing say, character identity, are kinda important to be able to do when talking about sexual-focused stories. This change is to allow those, rather than going "only talk about orgasms, not about character narratives"

 

[ultima333]

As pretty much the entirety of policies, this "change" is meant to get people to treat other users with respect, and to not stifle discussion, in that order. As such, basically anything of such can be open for discussion, so long as you're not being an asshole (implying subhuman nature, saying they're deluded, or insulting them).

I quoted "change" because this has been slowly going into practice for a couple months now.




"In-story"

The narrator or author or whomever, using whatever pronouns when discussing a character is not an issue.

It only becomes an issue when it's, for example, a post talking to other users, or a non-story post espousing things such as "all trans are subhuman" or something of the like. Basically, when the author is directly engaging other forum members (whether directly, or by broad categorizations).
That sort of thing is, and always has been, a Rule 1 violation, cuz you're being an asshole to other users.


Discussion of Topics

Same as before, the intent is to treat other people with respect.

The topics are not forbidden. Surgery, genetics, identity, pronouns, I don't care. All fair game for discussion.

As before, Rule 1 is still in effect. If you're denigrating other users, saying that those users are delusional, or "wrong" about who they feel they are as a person, that's pretty assholeish behavior.


Pronouns
Be polite when informing others of your own preferences. Understand that not everyone has Titles/Signatures visible.

If someone asks you to use their pronouns, use 'em or something neutral or use names instead of pronouns. Intentionally misgendering is an asshole move. Don't be an asshole.

Again, this has already been in effect for a while.