Hi all! As promised, here is the proposed text of the newest version of the rules. The staff has gone through like eight drafts and literally thousands and thousands of matrix posts to get here, so please be kind. You can see @limeey’s comment on the transparency post if you want more insight into how this sausage was made.
We are opening these rules to commentary from the community before they go into effect. To be clear, this isn’t a vote, but we will take all community feedback into account and answer whatever questions we can before finalizing anything.
Please keep in mind that we are not Reddit, we do not have Reddit’s resources, and safety and consent are our priorities.
I’ll post the draft in two parts in two comments: The new sidebar, and the FAQ/clarifications page.
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Revised Rules for Sidebar
Rules
Before you start participating, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with our rules:
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🔞 Age Requirement: All users and lurkers MUST be age 18 or over.
- Posting content involving any person who is under 18 is strictly forbidden. This includes real, drawn, and fictional content.
- All loli/shota/cub or similar content is strictly forbidden.
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Respect and Consent: Treat all members with respect and obtain consent when sharing explicit content involving others. No doxxing. No soliciting or sharing personal info. No homophobia, transphobia, body shaming, or kinkshaming. Don’t be an asshole.
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No NSFL/Gore/Snuff Content: We strictly forbid the sharing or promotion of NSFL (Not Safe For Life) or gore content. This includes fictional snuff scenarios.
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No Bestiality/Zoophilia: We strictly forbid any NSFW content involving animals.
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No Non-Consensual Content: We strictly forbid content made or released without consent of everyone in the content, including revenge porn / deepfakes / leaked content / NC / true voyeur / rape content.
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No Illegal Content: - We strictly forbid promotion and detailed discussion of things that are broadly illegal in most of the world, like murder, animal cruelty, money laundering, and so on. Our policy on mind-altering substances is more complicated – see the FAQ (link to FAQ pending).
- Solicitation of sexual services (either way, asking or offering) is strictly forbidden.
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NSFW Flag: All NSFW communities and posts must be flagged as NSFW.
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No Rules Lawyering: Admin/Moderator decisions are final and arguing with them can result in suspension or banning of your account and purging of your content.
If any material is ambiguous or borderline forbidden content, we’re usually going to err on the side of caution. Please use your common sense.
All users and communities must follow and respect these general instance-wide rules. Any violations could result in suspension or banning of your account or community and purging of your content.
Community Guidelines
- Stay Relevant: Share relevant content in the relevant communities and ensure your content complies with the rules of those communities.
- Self-Promotion: Self-Promotion is only okay as long as the community you are posting in allows it, and you don’t spam it.
- Content Sourcing - We would strongly prefer all content be credited and sourced if possible, to make it easier to keep CSAM and noncon off of the instance. See the FAQ for more info. (link to FAQ pending).
- Furry Content - Furry content is allowed (unless it conflicts with any other rules) but furries may be better served at https://pawb.social/ or https://yiffit.net/.
Temporary Rules
Because of technical limitations of the Lemmy platform, we are forced to implement some restrictions on content. These are restrictions that don’t necessarily fit with our larger philosophy. We hope to revise this section once Lemmy evolves as a platform and moderation tools improve.
- NSFW User Avatar: NSFW user avatars are prohibited as it is currently not possible to mark users as NSFW.
- Temporary Content Restrictions: The following content is temporarily restricted: Hot lunch (🤮), blood, scat, CNC.
If you are the admin of another instance and you have any issues with Lemmy NSFW please raise it with one of our admins so we can communicate on how we can improve this instance. We would prefer to work with you before either of us consider defederation.
… and then the rest of the stuff currently on the sidebar: Contact info and the Donations info
Posting content involving any person who is under 18 is strictly forbidden. This includes real, drawn, and fictional content.
How does this work for aged up characters? Most of the popular anime characters are under 18 even if they don’t look like children. I’m thinking of popular characters like Zero Two and Marin Kitagawa. for example and just how much of the anime scene gets alienated for the rule.
according to these rules, its on a case by case bases that would be up to the mods/admins of what they feel about the piece and its context. if any of them dont feel comfortable with it for looking too young, will be removed. atleast that is how i read it.
e.g. the rebecca/midna shortstack argument that is brought up in these comments
Thanks for the answer and the link. This helped clear it up.
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FAQ and clarifications
Q. Does rule 1 mean that we can’t talk about our personal experiences from when we were minors?
A. No, members of the instance can discuss their personal experiences with sex before the age of 18 as long as it is relevant, factual, and not graphic. “I lost my virginity in the back of a Volkswagen beetle when I was 15” is fine. A post that is a blow-by-blow detailed account of underage sex or a post specifically soliciting stories about underage sex would not be fine.
Q. What does “sourcing” mean? Why should we have to do that?
A. Sourcing is identifying the source of the content that you’re posting. Our primary concern is being able to tell if material is underage, or not made with the consent of the model. Sourcing helps alleviate that concern.
It can be as simple as naming the mainstream artist or studio that produced the image, or the well-known performer in the image (“Evil Angel” or “Sasha Grey” or “Boris Vallejo”). If the content is not a mainstream studio or well-known pornstar, a link to the creator’s OF or modeling agency page or pornhub profile or verified reddit profile can work as well. The source must indicate, at very least, that the creators/models of what you’re sharing are ok with being in porn on the internet.
You don’t have to source your posts, but sourcing will help your posts survive a report if someone erroneously reports your material. We don’t have the resources to do a full investigation on every report of inappropriate content, so without a source, mods will tend to err on the side of caution.
For OC posts in c/gonewild and similar communities, mods of that forum must comply with our verification requirements. For OC, verification counts as sourcing which means it is not strictly necessary but strongly encouraged. We plan to implement a sitewide verification procedure soon, but until we do it’s down to each community’s mods.
Q. How does verification work?
A. There are a couple of different ways to get verified, but the most important thing to remember is that no moderator or admin will ever ask you to show them your government ID. If someone does ask you to provide them your government ID, please contact an admin immediately.
We are actively investigating hiring a secure third-party age verification site like agechecker.net to provide verification for us. Until that comes into effect, we accept the existence of an Onlyfans, Fansly, Chaturbate, Streamate, or Pornhub account, or appearance in a 2257-compliant adult film as verification. If you and an admin can come up with another way of verification that does not involve sending your government ID to them, we will also accept that pending approval by a second admin.
Q. What’s your policy on drug-related content?
A. Because of the wide variability in the laws worldwide regarding mind-altering substances, linking to any site which distributes (for sale or otherwise) mind-altering substances or paraphernalia, regardless of legality where you are or where the site is located, is prohibited. This includes but is not limited to any cannabis or cannabis-analogues, any prescription meds, any alcohol, and any tobacco. Discussion of these substances is allowed; links to commerce or distribution are not.
Q. How do I know what counts as NSFW and what doesn’t?
A. When in doubt, flag it as NSFW. If it’s not something that could be pinned on a bulletin board in a professional office without drawing an HR complaint, it’s NSFW. Something doesn’t have to be nude to be NSFW. Feet pics are always NSFW.
Q. I am an NSFW content creator. Can I promote my OnlyFans, Fansly, Pornhub etc?
A. lemmynsfw.com supports sex workers and creators and we want you to feel like you belong here. We do not have an instance-wide rule against self-promotion, but be aware that individual communities may prohibit self-promotion and you must respect those rules. Please do not spam our instance and please do not spam messages to users, but feel free to create a comm for yourself if you like and participate in other comms that are friendly to your content. Solicitation of sexual services is strictly forbidden. (Fuck SESTA/FOSTA.)
Q. For drawings or animation, including manga and hentai, how can I tell if something counts as forbidden content or not? I can’t tell!
A. Trying to make hard and fast rules about this stuff is always tricky because people will keep trying to find ways around the rules and the human imagination is infinite, so we are going with a subjective standard: If a mod or admin looks at an image and thinks “that is forbidden content”, it’s forbidden content. We’ll know it when we see it. (And you know it when you see it too, quit lying. If you’re into forbidden content there are other instances where that material is welcome. Bring it there. We don’t want it here.)
Q. Does the prohibition on bestiality/zoophilia apply to fantasy animals, like Pokemon or magical winged ponies?
A. Yes. We may relax this rule in the future like the some of the content we are temporarily restricting, but that is not a sure thing yet.
Q. Why are you so strict? Reddit wasn’t this strict!
A. We’re not reddit and we’re not trying to be reddit. We have decided to prioritize safety and consent, which means prohibiting some content that Reddit may have allowed.
Q. Oh yeah? Well I’m gonna start my own instance! With blackjack! And hookers!
A. Godspeed, you beautiful maniac.
Admin/Moderator decisions are final and arguing with them can result in suspension or banning of your account and purging of your content.
Admin/Moderator decisions are final and arguing with them can result in suspension or banning of your account and purging of your content.
There are many moderators that I’ve seen given a position after simply offering themselves in a post. And we can’t ask for a review of an action of a random person that has the title of moderator? Excuse me but if that is the case, this is feeling like quite a red flag to me.
If there is an issue with a moderators decision, please contact an admin for further review. There is work being done to try figure out how make it so that posts can have a reporting distinction of some kind, kind of like how Reddit did. Sort of (report to site staff) and (report to community)
Thanks for the reply and clarification. I still see as troublesome the wording in the part I mentioned. I can understand that you want to cut fast the issues with annoying users but from outside there can also be concerns about moderator abuse.
Thank you bringing it up! We will clarify in the final version, but yeah. Our desire is hopefully to have reporting procedures in the same way reddit does, kind of like “report to community” and “report to site staff”
“Admin/Moderator decisions are final and arguing with them can result in suspension or banning of your account and purging of your content.”
At reddit, we ran into an issue where a moderator took issue with a post of of ours (a verification, actually, so it was extra obvious we were new there). We sent a very respectful and apologetic response to their message asking only for clarification about the rule so we could avoid violating it in the future. The response was an immediate and permanent ban across 12 separate subreddits that this person moderated.
We believe most mods wish to help and are genuinely doing their best, but in cases of abuse, what recourse would we have?
I think the “admin team” is pretty active, and since the instance is more specialized, you can simply bring it up to us in the matrix, message one of us directly, etc.
We have been discussing “rogue mods” as an issue too - and also community creation/moderation expectations.
It’s definitely something we want to get right
THANK YOU for bringing this up @BabuKitten. The number of mod’s with god complexes on Reddit made me grow to dislike using the site.
I want community where everyone is on even ground. I’m not much into begging to participate, or having my ability to ripped away because of honest mistakes (& no chance for discussion.)
We’re glad to hear that, though we are new enough to not understand what the matrix is (other than a movie haha).
I’d like to add that we are specifically looking into improved community identification methods. One on the table is a “nsfw+” concept for topics that may not be “mainstream” but aren’t “illegal” - scat, pee, hentai beast, etc. These we would rather not show “on the main feed” or maybe even not federate, but we’re not opposed to hosting. It’s just that we want to make the instance appealing to the regular person. For those who want their “extreme” content - as long as it’s legal, I think we all agree we don’t necessarily mind it.
I’m open to hearing the community on this. With that said, “loli/shota” content where the object of eroticism is specifically that “they are a prepubescent child” will never be allowed. Don’t start with that.
shouldnt it just read “they are a child” is not allowed?
their pre or post pubescent status doesnt seem to be relevant
The problem here is hentai content based of anime characters. Most of these characters are under 18 canonically and thus any erotic content wouldn’t be allowed under current ruling even though they look like and act like adults.
Then there’s the gray zone for characters that have progressed or regressed in age in some way, a good example is Ciel from the visual novel Tsukihime who technically is past her 20s, but her body stopped aging at 26 due to lore reasons. Under current ruling it would be hard to be certain whether it’s allowed or not even though she both looks and act like an adult (although a weird one as Nasu can’t write a proper R18 scene to save his damn life). Another issue is aged up variants of characters where their canonical age is way below 18 but the art depicts them as above it.
That said I do stand by enforcing an age limit for real people, but when it comes to fictional characters (and anime characters in particular) it makes more sense to go by appearance, this rule would include all these characters while still disallowing Loli/Shota which is the main concern for other instances (see burggit for example). This draws a clear line with less ambiguity than “they are a child” as not everyone may have the same opinion and this could lead to more things getting hit in the crossfire than is necessary, yes I know this leaves characters like Megumin in the gray, but it’s not as big of a gray zone as “not a child”
