How do you approach borderline pornography?

I've recently encountered a situation that I generally have never had an issue with. Our forum members decided to have a contest of "Blondes versus Brunettes" and posted a wide variety of pictures of both hair types. Some pictures are more lewd than others and it brings up the issue of how much skin do you tolerate? With my new shared host, pornography does not violate the terms of service and this has led some to push the issue as far as it will go. For example, a nude lady surfaced, but she was painted to look like a dollar bill. My Super Mod deleted it, the member appealed to me and I upheld the removal.

With that, I am curious how each of you approach lewd or questionable content? How far is too far for your forum and when does an image cross the line from being acceptable to unacceptable?

 

Nudity has (in the past) been one of the more major encounters that I have run into. When I first began experiencing these problems, I set a series of guidelines that outlined what was acceptable and what was unnaceptable. I would post them here, but I don't have a copy of them handy. Even with this set of guidelines, things still spiraled out of control and in the end, I simply stated that pornography of any kind would not be tolerated - and that's the rule that I stick with currently.

It's hard to set limitations without being too graphic.

 

This is indeed hard, because there is a fine line between how much skin is too much. Of course, if you are completely fine with anything that is not nudity, regardless of what it is or how much skin you can see, it's a bit easier for you.

But not every forum will be like that, especially ones with an audience that may be primarily underage, such as a video game forum. In these cases I think you should specify, in detail, what is and what is not allowed in your forum rules. If you do decide to allow threads such as "hot babe thread" on your forum, you should make it clear that it must be safe for work. People usually know what to post and what not to post when it has the SFW brand on it.

 

I like to draw the line at nipple and genitals pretty much. We like to uphold some decency, but we all know that this is the internet and you can't parent everyone.

If something desperately needs to be posted (good ol' Rihanna pics ) then we throw one up in the VIP quickly

 

If a kid can't view it, it doesn't go on my forums.

 

That's an excellent way to look at it - similar to my view.

 

I don't necessarily keep all of my forums G rated. Like I said, I think it depends on the niche and the owner of the forum.

 

Good point. For example, I think it would be a bit awkward to have mass amounts of porn present on a forum dedicated to cooking.

 

Never had a forum where even posting pictures of people in swimsuits was appropriate so just haven't gotten into this issue.

 

My working rule is "Prime Time TV", if it would be shown on American prime time TV is' okay to post. That's basically everything except nipples, crotch, and a bare rear end.

 

As along as the gentile areas and chest areas are covered I'm cool. Now I'm talking solid clothing and nothing see through are body painted bikinis etc. But feel free to PM me these pictures

 

All of my sites are PG 13 so I don't allow the posting of any pornography/nudity. It is up to the parent to monitor what their young do on the internet, however anything I can do to ease their job I will do.

 

Same here, Wayne.

I always try to be prepared to handle situations that may come up, so I suspect I'd use Peggy's philosophy that if it isn't suitable for a child, then it won't be tolerated on a general forum such as this one.

But this certainly depends on the site's niche and purpose. I mean, a photography forum may have a section for nude shots; a "guy" forum may have an eye-candy section or something similar, where you will certainly encounter this situation. It's dependent on the community's specific purpose.

 

With an nsfw tag

 

I understand and agree with using these tags....but what does it actually stand for again?

 

"Not safe for work"

"Not work safe" if you ever see NWS.

 

Thanks,

It's something I use a lot but some odd reason forgot the meaning :o

 

Don't feel bad - I forgot what it meant, as well.

 

woops, perhaps tag was the wrong word anyways.

It's an nsfw bbcode.

[noparse][nsfw]some nsfw image etc.[/nsfw][/noparse]

like that.

It's kind of like a spoiler bbcode where it hides the message until the user presses a button which is displayed.