First of all, on behalf of the moderation team, thank you for your continued comments about how to proceed with situations. We value the feedback and we will continue to take the constructive comments into consideration in everything that we do.
INAPPROPRIATE CONDUCT WITH MINORS
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This weekend, a user was permanently banned due to the comments that were made to a minor. This sparked conversations on the blogs page on whether this ban was just and how to proceed going forward. First, I would like to re-iterate that us as a mod team have agreed that it is unlikely that this ban will be permanent. We agree that the nature of these comments are not comparable to cases where grooming has occurred over time, but that does not change the fact that they are inappropriate and are not welcomed in the Tengaged community, especially when it comes to engaging with minors. Take this as a warning that you need to begin to be careful about who you are engaging with online, even beyond the users you encounter through Tengaged.
OFFICIAL STANCE + TENGAGED ADVISORY COUNCIL
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Our stance on how to proceed is not something that we will be able to craft overnight. It will take some consultation with the Tengaged community on how best to proceed. With that being said, we have mentioned previously gathering a group of users to use to consult on difficult decisions where we may need organized input from trusted, mature users who have no history of being problematic. This type of “Tengaged Advisory Council” will be a way for us to discuss difficult issues that require in-depth discussion with diverse input before the moderation team is able to make a final decision. We will be beginning the process of contacting users for this role soon, and a more formal process on how this will work will be released as soon as possible. If you are interested in the role, please reach out to the moderation team and we will consider you when we develop the selection process.
For now, please share your thoughts on how you believe we can proceed and we will continue to take these into strong consideration. I will edit the blog as time goes on with some of the strongest ideas + thoughts.
Some ideas that have come up thus far:
- Limit sexually explicit content.
- Hard user age requirement (seeing several circulate).
This is a big brother website, there is no need for people to blog certain explicit content.
Hard user age requirement? Unfair to current users under 18.
yes!! love this blog!! im hoping (i assumed) u saw what i posted and granted, others have been saying it as well, but its time we really have this conversation about stopping people from posting sexual content.
Has randomize ever considered creating a viable chat option hosted directly on tengaged? I know there have been lots of issues in the past with skype/discord screenshots and credibility, faking, etc. Similar to how he introduced askme to prevent the use of a third party (ask.fm), could he add a chat functionality here so that mods can, if necessary, access the relevant chat logs and make informed decisions about bans instead of relying on shaky evidence?
this may or may not be related but there should be a tag like the spoilers tag for 18+
It's a site with older individuals, the explicit comments shouldn't have to be limited, but if randomize can fix the issue with 2000 being the earliest birth date listed on the sign up, an 18+ tag that would prevent people from opening the blog until they're at least 18 could reduce some issues with mature material on tg.
I think the only problem with the council is you have to like choose the perfect users in case one of them has an allegation against them? Honestly I think you 3 have done great so far so honestly I’d just keep it to you 3 deciding
The sexual content thing I agree with too, the only thing I think might be an issue is private mails? Like how do you know a user is okay with that at the time but then later on falls out with the user and reports them for it?
I think the best thing (what I don’t think would work anyway) would be to have our ages permanently on our profile so that anyone 18+ could do whatever together (but again idt it’d work and at least 1 person would lie about it)
paige54 i just want to know why you think it is necessary that we dont limit explicit comments. what is the reasoning for keeping that content on tengaged?
and im asking sincerely, not trying to be accusatory or grill you in any way, i just want to know your stance bc i completely disagree. hopefully i can change your mind.
I don't know if randomize has these capabilities, but we signed up and put our birthdates on the profile. Is there a way so that is public information? It wouldn't stop anything but the excuse of not knowing someone's age would be taken off the table.
I think having an advisory council would be good, because sometimes issues are not so black and white. Having a group of unbiased people on a situation would be healthy and help sort out some stuff like the issues that came up last night.
Slice Maybe the way I'm interpreting explicit is different than the way other people are. I guess I just figured most of the people were adults on this site and a lot of people don't exactly keep is PG. I figured if there was an 18+ tag or something it wouldn't really be a big deal if people talked like that LOL. I'm not saying there should be porn or anything extreme posted on the site but this site is full of horny gays and I just didn't think something like that would be easily moderated i suppose. Idk if I'm making sense LOL
paige54 yeah, i get what you're saying. i think that it might seem hard to moderate and like weird to get rid of just because it has been such like. a common occurrence on the blogs page for years and years. a lot of this conversation can be kept in private and group messages off the site as a lot of this content is kept between friends on the blogs page anyways, as most users don't interact with it unless they're friends or just generally weird? and the issue with an 18+ spoiler is that people will lie about their age on the internet no matter what, so it is no guarantee that it will keep kids out.
moderating it would be pretty simple i'd think: a warning and blog/comment deletion at first, blacklisting, and banning as incremental steps in an effort to encourage people to not post it to the point that it becomes commonplace. i think it would really be a big step in changing the very sexual culture of tengaged that has been a problem for over a decade.
cause even the small joking comments between adults leaves an impression on the younger users of this site despite any possible harmless intentions of just having a laugh about sexual content. changing such a strong pervasive culture is hard but it has to start someway somehow
Tea at what _Aria said, I think a hard age limit would cause more problems than it solves... definitely need stricter rules with explicit content though if the sites gonna be open to kids.
slice i completely agree. I wouldn't be opposed to moderating explicit stuff, I just think it would be somewhat hard to moderate because as some people have noted with other issues, there could be a lot of gray area as to what's considered bannable or not. I feel like this would just be a little hard to set in rules exactly what part is bannable. I think if there's warnings and very good transparency about what is seen as inappropriate it would be possible. It's def going to be a big change for tg seeing as some people are on this site :P
I think it’s unfair to enforce a minimum age limit that’s under 16 years old because it’s almost giving off the vibe of “to fix the solution we will just get rid of minors so the predators aren’t tempted” instead of addressing the predatory behavior itself.
I know that this is a social gaming website but sometimes the explicit sexually stuff that people say just isn’t needed. Majority of sexual blogs are made with a humorous intent but on a Big Brother site that stuff should be left off the community blogs (unless it’s about falling victim to predatory behaviors). I don’t think sexually explicit stuff should be bannable but maybe given a black list /Orange nose after issuing a few warnings
paige54 i think it should honestly be pretty strict. more than we might think it needs to be. it would have to happen to really cut the problem down and discourage people from attempting to toe the line. i think reasonable people would understand where the line is and know not to reach it and keep any 18+ discussion between them and their friends. this is why i also think it would have to start with a warning into a blacklist/immediate ban, because it wouldn't necessarily be such a drastically bad offense as some of the more immediate ban-worthy ones, and also anyone who really did it by accident would receive a fair warning.
Big agree with smoothstalker12 about enforcing an age minimum that says "if we get rid of kids, then they cant be preyed upon"
I think the biggest concern is that victims feel they are being heard and action can be taken. I think the current mod team is doing the best they can to field reports, but I think a major component to this is transparency with victims. First step would be to clearly outline rules, and as much as possible, draw a line at what isnt okay. From there, make these rules clear and transparent and limit as much subjectivity as possible. I think defining (and reducing) explicit content outside of posting porn is a big first step.
With set rules in place, establish a standard operating procedure for pedophilia or explicit content with minors reports and include the victim in this process. Make sure those who feel they have been targeted by predatory behavior understand they are being heard and that they are being taken seriously.
Honestly, stricter enforcement on sexual content as a whole on here is long overdue
Also, I’d recommend the mods making a blog or linking to resources that help explain the signs / red flags that could lead to predator behavior. I think helping educate the minors on the site and the adults who might not realize their actions are crossing the line about what types of behaviors are dangerous could be very helpful.
As a minor, you don’t really expect to be a victim of predatory behaviors. In my experience, I didn’t really know what it meant to be groomed / preyed on. But after doing research and looking at the signs, I quickly realized many of the red flags were being portrayed, I just wasn’t able to recognize them as red flags (social isolation, jealousy / controlling behaviors, maintaining a good image to avoid suspicion). If I had known these red flags while I was in the situation, I would like to think I would have gotten out of it earlier.
