Hi darlin' I'm going to duplicate parts of a thread I started in the Community Soapbox before I decided to reopen Magnolia Thunderpussy's salon. The bits I've selected are relevant to how we need to select our words in this place. If you'd like to look at the whole thing, go here. "How are the house rules applied?" http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F55683?thread=128113 >I've noted some confusion in the community about apparent inconsistencies in the application of the House Rules, as well as occasional difficulty in figuring out exactly what it was that has gotten some posts moderated. Would it be possible to get a clearer set of guidelines so we can avoid breaking the rules inadvertently? Specifically, I'm talking about the following section. >Unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive, or otherwise objectionable material is not acceptable.< Some of these descriptions are pretty subjective, especially obsecene and otherwise objectionable material. My speculation is that h2g2 prefers not to set a more specific standard because the purpose of those rules is not to be restrictive of the researchers' creativity or ability to express themselves on site, and the more rules we have, the more the more likely we are to break one of them. I've also been assuming that a lot of borderline posts are being left alone unless someone complains about them through the yikes button or by email. Is that an accurate assessment or are there other reasons that I haven't taken into consideration? Personally, I've run into confusion with the moderation system twice since I joined h2g2 last fall. They've both been in the "sexually oriented" realm. Last week I pressed that yikes button for the first time ever, about a couple of posts I'd made on a friend's page. It was a hormonal place, and I made that old joke about "how do you make a whore moan?" Then I made a following post to someone about a he'd put in there. I was afraid, sometime later, that I'd offended my friend who's page it was on so I went and yikesed my posts. I told the moderaters that I'd made sexual innuendo and thought I'd offended someone. When the email got back to me my request for moderation had been denied. And no harm was done, because the person who's page it was on had been teasing me and I took it seriously. But If she'd been serious, I'd still feel bad about it. I DID make sexually oriented posts, and I complained about it, and it wasn't moderated. So I'm still a bit confused as to how the rules are applied. The other time I personally had a run in with moderation was last October, before h2g2 was absorbed by the BBC. I'd made a page, and a persona that was more....ummmm... erotic than MoG and was collecting stories and poems and such with more sexual overtones there. Those of us participating were having a lot of fun. Most of the conversations on that page were nuked all of a sudden, and for some time I wasn't able to figure out exactly why. I didn't want to break the rules, but I didn't really understand them well enough that we could play within them. Peta finally explained that h2g2 was applying the UK film standards to h2g2, and that some of the threads had too many erect "members" (my word, since I don't want THIS post to be moderated) present to be suitable for h2g2. That's fine...I understand that. I'd like to bring that persona out of her dormant state, but I'm not quite sure how to do it and be certain that I won't break the rules. I was having fun with her. She's a flirty wench, but not "obscene" in my opinion. I recognize that others might view her differently, though. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, MoG< >Hi MoG You're quite correct of course, some of these descriptions are pretty subjective. But, if someone asks you not to be obscene in front of your granny would you find it difficult? Probably not, you'd do your best to censor anything that you personally considered remotely dubious, and you