Einsam_Delphin said: gergroy said: Ok, well it is a matter of keeping the site free of nsfw content as well as more welcoming to younger users.  It was always vaguely a rule through the nsfw rules, but since avatars were so out of control it was always ignored.  This site had become incredibly unwelcoming to all sorts of users, people at work, women, children, etc.  So smeags starting enforcing the rule.  It is a good rule, it makes sense, and only makes the site more credible.  Definitely a good decision.   Avatars I can semi-understand, but name restricting beyond blatantly offensive ones is unnecessary. There's nothing harmful about Jizz Beard or even that lovesgirls example. Some evidence of names alone keeping people away from the site is definitely needed since we know enforcing this rule will have negative effects.

Woah, the quote tree automatically cut down!

 

anyways, you can look at the time when a large swath of girls that left the forum because of all the sexism as one example.  It wasnt directly aimed at names, but i am sure that was probably part of it.  

I mean, just try thinking about it from somebodies elses perspective.  If you were a parent and saw your 12 year old talking to somebody on an internet forum named ilovegirls69, how would you react?  Or talking to somebody name jizz beard?  How about if you were at work and a coworker or boss came up to you and saw you talking to the same people, would you feel comfortable with them seeing that?  

Why are you fighting for users to have inappropriate names?  How does allowing a user to be named jizz beard or ilovegirls69 help the forum?

RolStoppable said: gergroy said: Me, for one, and you can look back at the posts in this thread around mid december for the relevant posts. I see, that was your "somebody think of the children" moment.

And mostly myself since I do most of my site viewing at work...

When it's come to inappropriate names, the rule has been there since 2009, when Machina last updated the Moderator Guidelines. You all don't have access to this, so I'll post a snippet that has bearing of where we're coming from:

Permabans - In a handful of cases you can skip straight to a permaban without permission. These are when one of the following applies:
- It is a spambot/account.
- It is an alt account.
- If it is purely here to troll, flame or has a gratuitously offensive name.

For the past six years, moderators were given the keys to permaban a user with an offensive name (at the moderator's discretion of course, since he did not go into depth about what constitutes as "gratuitously offensive"). Like avatars and signatures, in which the rules for work-safe content were always there, we got lax with those with signatures, avatars, and yes, even names. I'll be the first to say that the fault was ours, and we should never be at this point.

The rules have always been in place to maintain a professional setting for newcomers and browsers. It's why we have rules for the following:

• Titles cannot have inappropriate language
• Avatars and Signatures must be PG-Rated
• NSFW content seperated from the main forums
• And in the guidelines, offensive names are asked to be removed

This has all been part of our rules and guidelines for the past six years, and I believe that it plays an important part in how we approach VGChartz. We allow anyone and everyone to access the website, whether they're kids or adults, whether they're at home or in public. If you would like to delve deeper and choose to view more mature content, then you can participate with that as you choose to.

I firstly want to apologize to Jizz_Beard_thePirate for putting you at the center of this issue. It's not your fault for our relapse, and it's not fair for you that we've dragged your name at the front and center. All this discussion and debate has never been about your character of what you've brought to this site. I firmly believe that name or no name, you can thrive in this community and contribute to it in numerous ways (as you already have). So when we talk about a name, we're not talking about you as a person.

So technically, the name has *always* been at odds with the guidelines we've been set to keep. It has never been a "it's only a problem now", as we've debated and debated and debated it internally ("Is it too late to do anything about it?" "We should have acted sooner, what now?" "What does it say to others that we permaban if we show favoritism?" etc.) We've debated about it and decided that until we could do anything to keep the account, we couldn't just erase everything that JB has contributed to this site. It wouldn't be fair to him and it wouldn't be fair to those around him.

But just this week, we've gained the ability to issue a name change within the account. So we have the ability to deal with the name while allowing JB to keep all of his history. It's a win win situation, as we are able to now fix the issue we've allowed in, and the person and history of that user are still here, and is still able to thrive in the community.

So despite the fact that, yes, it was our fault that Jizz_Beard_thePirate was initially allowed on (because let's not kid ourselves. The word Jizz is highly inappropriate. Semen, Spunk, Cum, Ejaculation. No. It's just can't work), but we cannot keep allowing that to affect how we view these forums and how we are supposed to moderate it.

gergroy said: Einsam_Delphin said: Avatars I can semi-understand, but name restricting beyond blatantly offensive ones is unnecessary. There's nothing harmful about Jizz Beard or even that lovesgirls example. Some evidence of names alone keeping people away from the site is definitely needed since we know enforcing this rule will have negative effects. Woah, the quote tree automatically cut down!   anyways, you can look at the time when a large swath of girls that left the forum because of all the sexism as one example.  It wasnt directly aimed at names, but i am sure that was probably part of it.   I mean, just try thinking about it from somebodies elses perspective.  If you were a parent and saw your 12 year old talking to somebody on an internet forum named ilovegirls69, how would you react?  Or talking to somebody name jizz beard?  How about if you were at work and a coworker or boss came up to you and saw you talking to the same people, would you feel comfortable with them seeing that?   Why are you fighting for users to have inappropriate names?  How does allowing a user to be named jizz beard or ilovegirls69 help the forum?

Was that time recent? Otherwise it shouldn't have anything to do with this. Also the implications of this issue means you have to be more than sure.


I wouldn't care because they're gonna be exposed to that kind of stuff eventually anyway, infact I'd probably tell my kids before they even got on the internet. Better they find out through their parents, and at an early age so they mature faster. And dude I already play Kirby and Animal Crossing n the like at work, so yeah I wouldn't care in the slightest!



I'm fighting against rules that are nothing but a detriment to the community.

Einsam_Delphin said: Was that time recent? Otherwise it shouldn't have anything to do with this. Also the implications of this issue means you have to be more than sure. I wouldn't care because they're gonna be exposed to that kind of stuff eventually anyway, infact I'd probably tell my kids before they even got on the internet. Better they find out through their parents, and at an early age so they mature faster. And dude I already play Kirby and Animal Crossing n the like at work, so yeah I wouldn't care in the slightest! I'm fighting against rules that are nothing but a detriment to the community.

well, it is nice that you wouldnt care, but that isnt what I asked you to do.  I asked you to look at look at it from somebody elses perspective.  You just looked at it from your own.  Some people (probably most people) dont want to expose their young children to those things at early ages.  Most people dont play animal crossings and kirby at work.  A lot of people will have issues with visiting a site with blatant sexism, innapropritate usernames, etc.  

while on the other hand, it hurts nobody to have their username changed.  Honestly, how is that a detriment?  Personally, i see nothing but positives from this rule!

so what is jizzbeards new name?

and smeags when you permaban someone how does it work? do you just press a button and then enter a password for it to go through? And how does unpermabanning someone work?

Smeags said: tl;dr, we've had this rule so that automatically makes it okay.

All that text, no explanation of how overly restricting usernames benefits anyone. Also, Jizz to semen is like Heck to Hell, crap to S***, butt to a**, etc.

Einsam_Delphin said: All that text, no explanation of how overly restricting usernames benefits anyone. Also, Jizz to semen is like Heck to Hell, crap to S***, butt to a**, etc.

Here, I'll repost it so you don't miss it again:

• Titles cannot have inappropriate language
• Avatars and Signatures must be PG-Rated
• NSFW content seperated from the main forums
• And in the guidelines, offensive names are asked to be removed

This has all been part of our rules and guidelines for the past six years, and I believe that it plays an important part in how we approach VGChartz. We allow anyone and everyone to access the website, whether they're kids or adults, whether they're at home or in public. If you would like to delve deeper and choose to view more mature content, then you can participate with that as you choose to.

And if you believe that the term Jizz isn't inappropriate, then there's no use in discussing this futher. We'd just be wasting each other's time.

gergroy said: Einsam_Delphin said: Was that time recent? Otherwise it shouldn't have anything to do with this. Also the implications of this issue means you have to be more than sure. I wouldn't care because they're gonna be exposed to that kind of stuff eventually anyway, infact I'd probably tell my kids before they even got on the internet. Better they find out through their parents, and at an early age so they mature faster. And dude I already play Kirby and Animal Crossing n the like at work, so yeah I wouldn't care in the slightest! I'm fighting against rules that are nothing but a detriment to the community. well, it is nice that you wouldnt care, but that isnt what I asked you to do.  I asked you to look at look at it from somebody elses perspective.  You just looked at it from your own.  Some people (probably most people) dont want to expose their young children to those things at early ages.  Most people dont play animal crossings and kirby at work.  A lot of people will have issues with visiting a site with blatant sexism, innapropritate usernames, etc.   while on the other hand, it hurts nobody to have their username changed.  Honestly, how is that a detriment?  Personally, i see nothing but positives from this rule!

What Rol said for your first paragraph lel. What positives? The fact that we're here discussing this is already a negative, and Jizz beard leaving the site and more distaste with the mods certainly aren't positives.

RolStoppable said: gergroy said: Woah, the quote tree automatically cut down!   anyways, you can look at the time when a large swath of girls that left the forum because of all the sexism as one example.  It wasnt directly aimed at names, but i am sure that was probably part of it.   I mean, just try thinking about it from somebodies elses perspective.  If you were a parent and saw your 12 year old talking to somebody on an internet forum named ilovegirls69, how would you react?  Or talking to somebody name jizz beard?  How about if you were at work and a coworker or boss came up to you and saw you talking to the same people, would you feel comfortable with them seeing that?   Why are you fighting for users to have inappropriate names?  How does allowing a user to be named jizz beard or ilovegirls69 help the forum? I don't like the new auto-cutting of quote trees. Usernames weren't part of the reason for the exodus. You will not use these fine ladies for your sinister motives. I won't allow it. If I were a parent, I would look at what kind of website my kid is browsing instead of throwing my hands up in the air and running in a circle; after verifying what it is, I would be okay with it because this is a video games forum and not a porn site. As for work, I think most people wouldn't be comfortable to get caught browsing a video game forum; that aside, if a username bothers you, how hard can it be to explain that you are browsing a video game website? How does it help the forum to employ a zero tolerance policy? It didn't work for avatars. The four-words-minimum-per-post rule didn't work either. The mods repeatedly back off their initial plans because they would cause more harm than good. And since you asked so specifically, our pirate is considering to leave the site because he doesn't like how this handled; how does that help the forum?

They left because of the blatant sexism of the site, usernames, such as the ones in question, are a symptom of that.  It is not the reason, true, but I think that most active usernames at that point werent over the line like the recent examples we have encountered.  

I think you are naive in how most parents (especially in america) would react.  

why should people have to be bothered to explain to other people what site they are on?  If the site is clean, no nsfw content visible, it should be obvious they are on some benign website.  Thats the point.

It helps the forum in all the ways i have already outlined.  Honestly, jizz beard did find himself in the middle of this and that sucks for him.  It is the mod teams fault he even got entrenched in that username.  

If he leaves over this that sucks, but the site is still better off with the rule.