Deacon Frost 196 Share Posted February 8, 2019 (edited) I'm running a board with my friends, and we have rules about certain behaviors. We try to keep political and racially charged conversations out of Gen Chat, and limit religious discussions to avoid offending anyone. We want it to be a safe space to talk about hobbies and enjoyments and stuff. We have no problem providing emotional support for players going through things, but do request that if the subject matter could be overly triggering it go into our NSFW channel or to DMs just to keep the atmosphere from growing too heavy. I think we're doing a pretty good job of maintaining an active friendly Discord server. Our players talk, we try to help them get to know each other, encourage plotting. But I'm on another board, that is much larger than mine. I'm not an admin, just a player. Sometimes it's fun to not have that responsibility. I only have a few characters so I mostly just hang and chat and pop up tags when they come to me. This board has some very friendly people. I don't want to imply there is anything wrong with their player base. But one thing I've noticed, is of the 45 members or so, only (I think) 5 of us are male. Now, while this is slightly intimidating for me because I have autism and social anxiety I do my best to avoid foot in mouth disease. But I've noticed a growing trend where the conversations seem to be developing a sort of double standard. Male members are discouraged by a small percentage of the population from posting pictures of female play bys they like, even in channels meant for play bys. Images are critiqued for their amount of clothing even in the NSFW channels. Now, on the one hand I understand everyone has their personal preferences and don't mind this. Some people don't like near naked bodies. But I've noticed that if a female member is posting a similar image of their own female play by the comments are not made. Then I noticed that the female players who were most opposed to seeing female play bys posted by male players; were all playing a large number of homosexual men, and constantly posting images of their play bys in nothing but wet underwear, sometimes nothing but the shadow of a hand to cover their anatomy. This double standard bothers me. Now I fully acknowledge because of my mental health issues that I can be overly sensitive, have trouble taking criticism and shy away from perceived judgement. So I have been doing my best to not cause any trouble. I've stopped posting pictures of my female character in ANY state of dress or undress, no matter the channel rating. I've talked quietly to some of the Admin to see if they can explain things to me that I might not be getting because of my social cue reading difficulties. The Admins I have talked too seem just as confused as I am. Unable to determine if this subset of the population is actively anti-male View, or merely sensitive to issues of their own and speaking poorly. But tonight one of those female critiques took a picture of a random man in a restaurant because she felt he was attractive. She posted that image in the Gen Chat. When you opened the link to the image the zoom function allowed you to read the menu, the name of the restaurant, see details of the man's profile. I couldn't help feeling that was very unethical. I know that if I were to post pictures of strange women taken in secret and share them in general chat I would quickly be labeled as deviant. If I was on my board I would ask them to remove the picture and respect the privacy of people simply trying to have a meal; and if they felt compelled to share such pictures with their friends they should do it over DMs. I wouldn't even welcome it in our NSFW channel. But this is not my board. So I merely addressed my concerns to an Admin who didn't seem to be awake and came here; to ask my questions to the void and see how the larger community feels about the issue. I am perfectly willing to accept I might be sensitive and confused and over-reacting. I've been having a very stressful winter. Edited February 8, 2019 by Spirit Caller typo 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Shades 676 Popular Post Share Posted February 8, 2019 I won't even approach the double standard issue, because at this point, the admins are aware of it, and if they're not gonna act on it... well, there's really nothing that can be done. As for the taking a picture of a stranger and posting it on the channel, as an admin, I'd also shut it down and delete the picture myself, giving the member at least a verbal warning. But... you've done all you could, which is bringing the matter up to staff. While playing on someone else's board means that you can relax and just be a player, it also means that you have to just be a player - aka, you won't change the site culture. You can bring up issues to staff, but if staff chooses not to act on them (I'm not saying they have, as the person you talked to seemed to not be awake and they may need time to discuss the matter with other staff members and decide on a course of action), all you can do is decide whether or not you can live with it and still stay on the board. And if you can't, you'll need to find another place with a better culture. I hope it doesn't sound harsh, as it's not the intention, but I know I can be blunt sometimes. 1 4 3 1 Shady McShaderson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Josie 198 Popular Post Share Posted February 8, 2019 Also not going to approach the double standard thing. But posting pictures of a stranger to draw the whole group's attention to how attractive the picture-taker thinks they are is creepy as all fuck. There is absolutely no other way to describe that. It's invasive as hell, it's predatory as hell, it's creepy as hell. It was good to express your concerns to the admin about it, and hopefully they will also see that that's a disgusting thing to do. If not, @Shades hit the nail on the head. You've done all you can do. If it's not dealt with in a way you find satisfactory- or at all, and you feel uncomfortable- then perhaps it would be best to take yourself to greener pastures. 2 4 WANTED: flamboyantly rich & famous family members, workers for a creepy foundation, & an AI handler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Operations Mod Popular Post Dragon 673 Operations Mod Popular Post Share Posted February 8, 2019 I'm going to start by addressing what I think is pretty important here - and that is your fear of being overly sensitive. You are not. Your feeling uncomfortable about all this is wholly justified. Everyone in that community should feel uncomfortable - especially when there are members taking unsolicited photographs of people in a public place, then sharing them on a private server for others to lust-hound over. If anything you're being moderately sensitive about a subject that should demand a much stronger negative reaction than it is receiving. The admin team should have that image promptly removed, and the member that submitted it should be reprimanded - because there's some heavily questionable legality there. Ever wonder why the paparazzi will take pictures of celebrities dining on outside patios, but you'll never see unsolicited pictures taken of them inside the restaurant? That's because of right to privacy laws. Now, I can't speak for other countries, but in the United States it is protected under the 4th amendment. Legally speaking there is some wiggle room there, but not enough for publications to risk the law-suit backlash that very well could be raised. A restaurant is a 'public space' to a certain extent, but still protected because any asshole passing on the street doesn't have easy visibility of what's going on inside - and restaurants are privately owned venues. And I am going to address the double standard here, because it's bullshit. It shouldn't be tolerated. A female player posting a scantily-clad image of a favored playby is not any less objectifying than a male player doing the same. That female player might not have any actual sexual interest in the PB in question, but they're still posting because its a sexually attractive image. And hetero-female players posting sexually charged images of male PBs is equally objectifying, in the same way it'd be objectifying for a homo-male to post sexually charged images of another male. Just because society snarls at one and shrugs off the other does not mean that it is right, or even minimally okay. 14 hours ago, Spirit Caller said: The Admins I have talked too seem just as confused as I am You do, at least, have that on your side. I understand that you have a great deal of anxiety in regards to rubbing the community the wrong way, and that is fair, but you should at least know that there's no justified reason to allow yourself to be pressured with discrimination. Personally, I would suggest that you simply block the hypocrites and continue to share what you want - you have every right to participate in the community, and share representations of your character. However, if you're uncomfortable with that then as stated above, it might be better for you to move on somewhere with a more reasonable balance. There's no reason for you to go belly up to blatant discrimination. 3 1 2 Icon & Profile set by The Inquisitor of Dragon Age: Absolution Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhindeer 217 Share Posted February 8, 2019 Yiiiiiiiikes. Yeah, not focusing on the double standard thing because the admins are aware (though agreeing that is uncomfortable--like, if that's what the channel is for, I have zero issues with people of any gender posting those sorts of pics as long as no one gets creepy at one another!) but as for posting an oblivious stranger's picture to, basically, objectify them without their knowledge or consent... FUCK THAT. As an admin, I would shut that down fast. That crosses the line. By a good mile. That is creepy as hell. And if the admin failed to act on any of this, I'd be peacing on out. But that's me. And so you'll just need to decide how much you're willing to put up with. 😕 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Icewolf 258 Share Posted February 9, 2019 It is an invasion of privacy to take photos of people without their consent. It shouldn't matter who the person is in the pic, or who took it, and then to post it on a forum/discord, etc, crosses the line even more. (When I've been in museums, zoos, parks etc, and want to take photos of animals, exhibits, and landscapes, I try my hardest to make sure that no one is in the pic.) As for the double standard situation, yeah, I don't think that you are over reacting if you feel uncomfortable. When I rped on twitter, there was a lot of what I'd call voyeurism of all kinds. If I could stop the retweets showing up on my timeline, I would by either blocking the account that was retweeted (there were quite a lot of accounts that had porn, and scantily clad people on them), or by turning off retweets from that account, or unfollowing/muting/blocking the account if it was an actual rp account posting the pictures. Context of it was taken into account, too - if it was a still from a film or show, I wouldn't mind it as much. You do have a right to be apart of the community, but you also have a right to feel comfortable there, too, and if you feel anxious on there then it'll affect how you interact on there. 1 2 Legends of Arda Character Archives Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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