Acceptable content policy

WyrmrestAccord.net is a community website dedicated to role-playing, art, and creativity. As such, we allow a wide range of artistic and creative expressions, including expressions which include violence, sexuality, nudity, and strong language. We provide a number of guidelines and tools for posting such expressions in a manner safe for all community members.

The system and standards were created with the following four goals in mind:

1. Be liberal in access to creative and artistic expressions of all kinds.
2. Be equal in application of standards across different subjects and mediums.
3. Avoid any potential legal issues.
4. Provide as much ability to self-select when viewing as possible.

If you have any questions, concerns, or ideas on how to better meet these goals, you are welcome to provide feedback.

In most cases, excepting egregious or consistent abuses of the system, any mistaken or missing "contains" warnings or "mature" filtering will simply be corrected, with a note that a correction has been made so it is not accidentally reverted. This is done because these guidelines and tools are not intended to punish anyone, only to provide a safe environment to express and create as freely as possible.

In light of this, it is a serious violation of the terms of use and code of conduct to harass, insult, attack, stalk, 'blacklist', etc. anyone based upon anything they have posted, even if it may offend you personally. There are more than enough opportunities to avoid content you do not wish to view. In cases of inadequate warnings, you should simply report the post in question and move on. To reiterate, these guidelines are intended to provide a safe, friendly environment to express oneself freely, and any instances of individuals damaging that environment will be taken very seriously.

Requires "contains" warning:

The sort of expressions outlined in this section are required to be marked by a short warning of the content in the "contains" field, found on forum topics and blog posts. You are recommended to err on the side of caution when using this field, as it allows people to self-select in a detailed manner without completely restricting access. Detail in what to expect is encouraged, so long as it doesn't become the very thing it is trying to warn of. A good example would be: "sexuality: m/f; violence: sword fight with blood, death" or "sexuality; violence: blood, mild self-harm". Try to avoid terms like "NSFW", as these are not very descriptive.

Artistic expressions, in any medium, containing the following should have an appropriate warning:

• Sexuality. This includes discussions of sexuality, sexual situations, and similar.
• Nudity. This includes top frontal nudity, bottom frontal nudity, and bottom rear nudity, regardless of gender.
• Violence. This includes assaulting, fighting, shooting, hitting, punching, cutting, blood, etc.
• Extreme coarse language. This includes constant strings of strong cursing, not single instances of words.

Requires "mature" filtering:

The sorts of expressions outlined in this section are required to be marked as "mature", by selecting the check box on the forum topic or blog post form. This check box is only visible to be checked if you have consented to viewing works marked as "mature" in your own user profile, and works marked as such will only be visible to others who also have consented to viewing these works.

You are recommended to err on the side of not marked if in serious doubt, as the "mature" filtering does not allow particularly detailed self-selection and severely restricts access. Any works marked as "mature" must also provide a warning in the "contains" field, as detailed above.

Artistic expressions, in any medium, containing the following should be marked as "mature" and have an appropriate warning:

• Sexual nudity. This includes depictions of sexuality with nudity, explicit descriptions of sexual behaviour, depictions of genitals in an aroused state, etc.
• Sexual violence. This includes descriptions of rape, of sexual torture, etc.
• Extreme violence. This includes gore, guts, excessive blood, etc. Largely, this means most things which involve depictions of internal organs in a non-medical context.
• Sexually and/or violently extreme coarse language. This refers to extremely coarse language used in a sexual context, violent context, or, especially, both sexual and violent contexts at once.

This requirement does not include expressions or examinations of the emotions or reactions resulting from these sort of events, only depictions of the events themselves. Your character may have been exposed to, or suffered, an event that would fall under the above categories, but you are not required to filter the exploration of the results of that event, so long as the emphasis remains on the character's emotions and reactions, not on the event itself. For example, a character suffering post-traumatic stress disorder after witnessing a violent, gruesome death is welcome to explore their emotions regarding the event without filtering.

Making use of the "mature" filter imposes the following restrictions on your work's display:

• It will not be visible to anyone who does not have an account or is not logged in.
• It will only be visible to those who opt-in to viewing mature content (who must be above 18 years of age and permitted to view such content in their jurisdiction).
• It will not be visible to search engines, including the site-linked Google Custom Search.
• It will not be featured or promoted by the site in any cases of 'X of the Y', featured writers/artists/etc. (as these need to be publicly visible).

Art gallery exceptions:

For art gallery posts, there is a bit more leeway in intended usage, as art gallery threads often contain massive amounts of artistic and creative content, which may vary significantly from item to item. As a result, please keep the following in mind:

• You may mark a thread as mature if you have a significant number of works containing questionable content, even if no single piece on its own would be required to be marked as mature (i.e., pages full of nudity, but no explicit sex). You are, however, encouraged to leave it unmarked, and make appropriate, strongly worded, use of the "contains" field and, optionally, hide the works behind links or spoiler tags.
• You may make a second art thread solely for explicit works, and provide a link between the two in the first post. This is encouraged if you have some very explicit works and some very tame works.

Not allowed:

The sorts of expressions detailed in this section are not allowed for reasons of legal liability. This is not negotiable under any circumstances.

• Sexual depictions of minors. Anything intended to arouse or titillate involving characters who are minors or who are below the age of 18 is not permitted at all.
  • This must be this way as there are laws and precedents set in some jurisdictions that may consider any artwork or fictional written work including sexually explicit depictions of minors as child pornography, regardless of artistic or creative merit.
  • Please note that you are permitted to examine child abuse, teenage explorations of sexuality, and similar in a non-explicit manner only (with a "contains" warning, if appropriate).
• We reserve the right to expand this list at any time (applying any changes, without penalties, retroactively), as any new concerns or problems arise.