Free Porn!

[viscousmemories]

The careful observer will notice that we don't have any rule here against the posting of "pornography". This is because of our emphasis on free expression, and our refusal to try to draw those same lines between art and obscenity that so many before us have failed miserably to delineate. Of course the fact that some people won't want to see some content is exactly why we have built in custom controls to empower each member to control what they see.

However, even though all the people who don't want to see porn can disable images and/or ignore threads that contain such, we are faced with technical limitations that worry me a little. Simply put, if a lot of porn gets posted that means a lot of bandwidth and storage space is used, and in a very short time we could be facing the massive expense of maintaining a full-fledged porn site. Needless to say this would not only be difficult for us to maintain, but it would undoubtedly drown out thoughtful discussion and debate we hope to have going on.

So we need ideas. Do we proactively ban porn? Should we go the "wait and see" route? If we did ban it, how would we define it without falling back on "I know it when I see it"? If we allow it, should we restrict it to a particular forum? We'd prefer the "Sexuality" forum to be for discussions about sex, not porn. If we did create a "porn forum", wouldn't we just be encouraging it and find our resources tapped even sooner?

Help me out, please. Any and all suggestions, ideas, criticisms, etc. are welcome.

[Adam]

Personally, I'd say that there's no need to set a policy regarding pr0n unless and until it becomes an issue. One thread full of everyone's favorite naked women/men does not a problem contstitute, IMO. Two threads, eh. Multiple threads taking over the forum, time to lay the smack down.

[Scotty]

From a bandwidth perspective, I would say to just limit the file size on attachments.
Unless it is important to you to provide that capability, because over time even small attachments can use more and more bandwidth (so do avatars for that matter, until they are cached).

Is it possible to limit a specific forum to different file attachment sizes? Thus, set up a specific forum that is more suited to having pictures, not necessarily porn.

Or just a photo album area where you can just remove images that are too large, or gets overpopulated with porn that really isn't totally necessary to the function of the board.

You can just set a rule or guideline that states porn should be linked off-site, just for ease of use and bandwidth. People can put attachments up for that stuff if they want, but if it is too graphic (your post voting system I suppose) then have it linked off-site. This could self-heal itself via the voting system. This way, you don't stop any free expression, just possibly more work-safe or just being courteous.

Or, can you also have voting for a specific post instead of an individual+post combination (which is how I understand it works)?

Or, vote on at attachment?

I don't know the complexity of the system. Can the person who posts the picture put a content level on it? i.e. 1 is G rated 5 is XXX and you can as an individual set your rating level so you don't see pictures you don't want to? Then, an admin can set the content level of the photo so it doesn't get seen by those that don't want to see it if it goes outside a specific content level?

That would keep bandwidth down after a while, and if people could vote on content level, then the people who filter won't see what most people would think of as porn I suppose just from individuals voting, thus less admin intervention (as the board grows).

Leave it to me to come up with something complex.

-Scott

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by Adam

Personally, I'd say that there's no need to set a policy regarding pr0n unless and until it becomes an issue. One thread full of everyone's favorite naked women/men does not a problem contstitute, IMO. Two threads, eh. Multiple threads taking over the forum, time to lay the smack down.

Thanks for the input, Adam.

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by Scotty

From a bandwidth perspective, I would say to just limit the file size on attachments.
Unless it is important to you to provide that capability, because over time even small attachments can use more and more bandwidth (so do avatars for that matter, until they are cached).

Yep, we do that. There are limits not only to the size of attachments allowed, but there are user quotas and an overall maxium too. Our general philosophy is that we'll expand those limits as necessary, but we don't really consider "more room for porn" necessary. So when the time comes to assess whether to expand the limits, I think we'll have to make a choice based on the quality and quantity of attachments to date.

Is it possible to limit a specific forum to different file attachment sizes? Thus, set up a specific forum that is more suited to having pictures, not necessarily porn.

It's definitely possible.

Or just a photo album area where you can just remove images that are too large, or gets overpopulated with porn that really isn't totally necessary to the function of the board.

That's possible too, and we did consider adding a photo gallery. But since so many other sites have photo galleries we weren't sure it would be useful.

You can just set a rule or guideline that states porn should be linked off-site, just for ease of use and bandwidth. People can put attachments up for that stuff if they want, but if it is too graphic (your post voting system I suppose) then have it linked off-site. This could self-heal itself via the voting system. This way, you don't stop any free expression, just possibly more work-safe or just being courteous.

Well, we recommend that people link to any explict images and tag them with something that indicates such (such as NSFW - Not Safe For Work) but we're not prepared to make it a rule. For one thing doing so would put us back in the position of having to play Supreme Court on "what is porn?"

Or, can you also have voting for a specific post instead of an individual+post combination (which is how I understand it works)?

As the system works currently there is no way to separate the post votes from the impact on the reputation of the voter. We could probably break them apart if necessary, though.

Or, vote on at attachment?

Unfortunately no, not as the software is currently designed. That is a good feature to consider for future enhancements, though.

I don't know the complexity of the system. Can the person who posts the picture put a content level on it? i.e. 1 is G rated 5 is XXX and you can as an individual set your rating level so you don't see pictures you don't want to? Then, an admin can set the content level of the photo so it doesn't get seen by those that don't want to see it if it goes outside a specific content level?

I don't think that's possible currently, but it's something else to consider.

That would keep bandwidth down after a while, and if people could vote on content level, then the people who filter won't see what most people would think of as porn I suppose just from individuals voting, thus less admin intervention (as the board grows).

That could work, definitely, but again it would require more modification of the software so we'll have to consider it for the future if other options fail.

Leave it to me to come up with something complex.

Thanks a lot for your input, Scotty. It's great to finally have extra heads working on these issues, since liv and I pretty much exhausted our creative genius weeks ago.

[livius drusus]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

It's great to finally have extra heads working on these issues, since liv and I pretty much exhausted our creative genius weeks ago.

Oh hells yes.

[Beth]

Can you disable attachments specifically in Sexuality?

[Beth]

Oh crap
I did not realize this was so old. I saw the thread highlighted by a google search thingy and thought it was interesting.

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by Beth

Can you disable attachments specifically in Sexuality?

Unfortunately there is not currently anyway to disable inline images short of disabling the display of all images, which you can do through the user control panel. As for the topic of the OP so far it hasn't really been an issue, but if it becomes an issue we can probably deal with it using the existing flooding or spam rules.

[Pendaric]

Says a lot about Google searches. I clicked the link to see what everybody was doing, and there were a lot of guests looking at this one thread. According to the little box at the bottom:

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 49 (1 members and 48 guests)

[Javaman]

What? Huh? Nary a boob to be found!

Mmm.... thread necromancy is occasionally fun.