I’m the moderator on Discuss, the official Atom editor forum. Just this morning, I trimmed a screenshot containing a NSFW image out of a post. Since Discuss is a forum about a programmer’s editor, I really don’t feel that anything NSFW belongs on the board (whether in posts, avatars, bios, etc). I’m thinking about recommending something to that effect be added to the FAQ/TOS of the site and was wondering if anyone else here has experience/language/boilerplate or other suggestions around this?
This is the biggest collection of moderators/admins I could think of Sorry for not categorizing, but I couldn’t find a category that fit.
I think disallowing NSFW content is very reasonable for many forums. I am actually not sure of the best place to put “site rules” – I have seen some sites do it via a pinned topic, but the FAQ seems reasonable too.
I think anywhere would work as long as you have a place to link people to when they break the rules.
We place it in our FAQ (search for illegal content to find the wording). We used to phrase it as “we are a family oriented site, so please only post what you would want your child to see”, but decided to make it more blunt than that.
It should not be there by default. Not every forum disallows it and the opinion of what is NSFW varies. You can edit or replace the content on those pages so I recommend adding it yourself.
Also context matters, most people wouldn’t post NSFW content on a forum like this but there are always going to be people that post against the rules no matter what.
Anything considered obscene by the community works best. If that happens to be NSFW material of any kind, then there you go. If for one community ‘obscene’ means “bestiality and child porn” but allows erotic nudes, then that too is legit.
EDIT: Just realized that this was about suggestions for one forum, not for Discourse. @lee-dohm, you might be interested in joining and perusing the archives of this stackexchange community, Community Building. I think it will better help you for your current situation.
I think https://discuss.atom.io/ could definately do with a proper “banner” topic that guides users at the rules of the site and teaches them a tiny bit about it, linking to main atom site and so on. Just don’t make it too big, only a few lines to give a “taste”.
I would place this extra rule in both TOS and FAQ. FAQ is the most natural spot as you get the badge “Read Guidelines” after reading it, we place extra importance to FAQ.
At the end of the day though you are going to have to be somewhat reactive here, update your FAQ and then next time it happens, flag the post and tell the user to read the FAQ, they should be correcting the images, not you, its too much work.
@purldator not sure why drive @lee-dohm off site to another unrelated area to discuss community building, this is a specific Discourse issue one of our paying customers is facing.
I am unaware that @lee-dohm is a client. I have seen in other topics where unrelated issues are asked to go elsewhere. If you feel I’ve trespassed and that this specific instance relates to Discourse rather than any forum (regardless of what runs it) then I apologize and will politely leave the conversation.
Sorry for not categorizing, but I couldn’t find a category that fit.