User talk:Sarah Manley

re: inappropriate content
"blog) 21:56, May 21, 2012 (UTC)''"

(I hope this is the correct way to reply... last time I spoke to wikia staff, I replied on the same talk page they left their question, and the Wikia staff later claimed ignorance because they received no notification of my reply.) --Mozai

I've read the Wikia Terms of Use. I'm guessing you find that some of the material is "obscene." If so, I will have a problem editing the content to comply, since "obscene" is a relative term that depends on the culture of the viewer (ie. a portrait of any human living or fictional would be "obscene" in Pakistan, whereas a photograph of a woman's who is naked to the waist would not be "obscene" in France). I have no objective means of measuring obscenity, and I do not know what culture to use for context when measuring obscenity, so I will require the assistance of an adjudicator or ombudsman to determine what edits are required. If the violations of the terms of use are not related to obscenity, then I'm afraid I do not know what you mean by "violates our terms of use" since we are not soliciting business, posting personal information about a minor, nor attempting to impersonate another person nor issuing threats to any other person. I await your response to illuminate this matter. --Mozai 23:22, May 21, 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi, Thanks for your quick response. Wikia does allow adult content, including some material that may contain nudity or be sexually suggestive, but we draw the line at anything that is pornographic, obscene, or offensive. The line between adult content and pornography is sometimes thin, but Wikia reserves the right to determine whether a particular image, video, or other content is within the safe zone and to limit the display of nudity. In general, sexually explicit material and full frontal nudity are not permitted. At the same time, we recognize the value of artistic expression. We take into account things like educational, documentary, and artistic considerations when we evaluate content. If you wouldn’t feel comfortable looking at the material with your parents in the room, we probably don’t want it on Wikia. A picture of Michelangelo’s David is probably O.K. A still from Debbie Does Dallas probably isn’t. We also have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to posting child pornography. I hope this explanation helps, and please let me know if you any further advising. Sarah (help forum | blog) 00:09, May 22, 2012 (UTC)


 * I have the same understanding of how the adult content rules apply to images, but I'd like to know a bit more explicitly what the rules would be for text descriptions. I assume something fairly general like 'have sex' would be alright, as would outlining in general terms if the game had any other themes (such as bondage or non-consensual), but I'm not sure what the upper limit is.  I understand there's probably some measure of subjectivity when it comes to deciding whether something is pornographic or not, which is why it would be helpful to have a clearer picture of what's not allowed.  Would it be possible to give us some idea of what's not allowed when it comes to text?  Or possibly even pointing out for us an example or two of the entries that need to be changed.  I went through the adult games pages once already and cleaned up some of the worst stuff, but I don't know how much it needs to be toned down.  Kotep 04:40, May 22, 2012 (UTC)

"...anything that is pornographic, obscene, or offensive"' this is where I'm having trouble, adn I'm going to have trouble with contributors from different countries. As I mentioned before, these terms really depend on the person making these statements; what may be offensive to me may be acceptable or benevolent to someone else. For example, there's a neighbourhood in my city where the people who live there would find it obscene to see a man holding a woman's hand in public -- in a similar neighbourhood in New York City, there are signs erected specifically asking men and women not to exhibit this obscene behaviour. These people would say "public physical contact between a man and a woman is obscene," and I'd know to remove such images and text describing such. I need an explicit list of criteria for obscene or offensive material from Wikia so I will objectively know what Wikia feels would be contrary to the User policy. Is it men and women touching? Women whose heads are uncovered? Female nipples? Male nipples? I know that pictures of bones are horribly offensive in China, even though this is an English wiki, but Blizzard and Electronic Arts changed their own games so the material wouldn't be obscene in Hong Kong.

Furthermore, we'd really rather not rely on subjective evaluation for what is "offensive," since that could change from person to person. It would suck if one Wikia staff member didn't personally believe material to be offensive, but later we get slapped by a different Wikia staff member because (s)he found material offensive that the first staff member didn't. We need objective criteria so we can avoid "but so-and-so didn't mind it!" sort of arguments. --Mozai 04:49, May 22, 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree that it is tricky with different cultures and that in the end Wikia has to make a subjective decision based on what we feel as a company is acceptable for our site. In this case, we strive for internal consistency and apply a basically American cultutral standard to our content. So this means, that images of a man and a woman holding hands is ok, but one of them engaging in intercourse is not. In reference to written descriptions, we again agree this is not a simple line, but that blatant descriptions such as "Awesome graphic and voices for a simple "choose the scene" game where this little girl get fucked by her big brother... " (from the Hentei games R=18 page) are not appropriate. Explicit descriptions of sexual acts, especially using expletives are generally not allowed. That page contains a couple more similar texts, such as "Create your own girl in motherfucking 3D and bang it.", so please edit those. I appreciate you working with us and let me know if you have other questions. --Sarah (help forum | blog) 18:50, May 22, 2012 (UTC)


 * Made some adjustments (can't link because Wikia is blocking the URL to the diff between pages). Removed the terms 'rape', 'incest' or incest-implying descriptions.  Swapped out 'orgasm' with 'climax.'  Blacked out the word 'fuck' if it appeared in a game's title.  I u used humour to soften the blow -- there's going to be some pushback from contributors.  The intended audience is a culture of people whom you may perceive as 'crude' or 'vulgar,' but this comes as a reaction to people who use politeness as a form of insincerity and deception so eschewing polite terms is perceived as being honest.  Being too polite in presentation will discredit the source; this is true not just for the R=18 article we discuss, but the other material on the wiki as well.  If you've seen the other articles, you'll notice the tone is a balance between respectful and disparaging; this is intentional. --Mozai 21:48, May 22, 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for doing that. --Sarah (help forum | blog) 22:31, May 22, 2012 (UTC) Hello, I just wanted you let you know that we added a content warning notice here - so new users are aware that some content here may not be suitable for all audiences. Let me know if you have any further questions. --Sarah (help forum | blog) 18:39, June 14, 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for helping us for certain pages.
I appreciate that Wikia has been quite forgiving and tolerant given the "questionable" nature of some of these pages. That said, I am glad that they were willing to compromise instead of outright banning or deleting. A majority of us are adults, but it is true that decent number of users and visitors are not. As such, it is in the right to be prepared for such occurrences, especially to prevent legal action from Wikia or other sources. Thank you for your patience and have a nice day. --Dejiko 23:59, June 14, 2012 (UTC)