Hello! Apologies for wearing my moderator hat, but things have happened that made me feel the need to amend the rules a bit. Starting from now, there is a new rule for Horny Furry Chat:
No content that glorifies or normalizes sexual acts with minors or non-furry animals, even in a fictional context. “Non-furry animal” is defined as any animal that that lacks human-like intelligence and thus cannot consent.
Update: While the statement about consent is indeed true, it did not add anything except ambiguity to the rule itself.
Update 2: Just some more clarifications:
- No content that glorifies or normalizes sexual acts with minors or non-furry animals, even in a fictional context. “Non-furry” animals are those that are visually and behaviourally similar to real life animals and lack human level reasoning.
While I understand an argument could be made that fictional depictions of acts “cannot hurt people”, that’s a sentiment I’m weary of allowing in a space like this.
I’ve also tried to word things in a way that does not exclude discussions about ferals, or roleplaying as ferals. However, that’s not a group I’m too involved in, so I’d appreciate feedback if I’ve missed the mark there.
Of course, yiffit.net instance rules supersede rules for this community. If instance rules change or are clarified in a way that makes this rule redundant, I’ll just remove it and probably just delete/close this thread.
Anyway, I’d appreciate people’s thoughts on the matter; I can always revert or change the rules later. I also locked the community last night before going to bed “just in case”, but it is now unlocked again.
Update as well: By the way, it’s not my intention to enforce these rules with an iron fist, I’m just trying to figure out a way to keep unsavory comments out whilst still allowing a wide range of conversation topics.
Hey, I just wanted to say that as owner of the community you are fully allowed to do this. I mention this, because it might not be obvious since Yiffit is relatively new and also because there’s other lemmy instances where admins keep (in my opinion unnecessary) tight control over the communities that are created on the instance. This is not the case for Yiffit where the idea is that you can run a community with your own moderation style and preferences.
The overarching instance-wide rules mention that users and communities not be used for vigilantism, harassment, call-outs, etc… (like Kiwifarms or similar behavior) because that is a huge can of worms and it detracts from the constructive and positive content that this instance is focused on. But this is not the case of the rule change you’ve made.
Likewise, to give you an example, you could even restrict things like ferals. It wouldn’t make me happy on a personal level, but it would be fair and within your rights. All this is to say that I try to keep things fair, while giving people the option to moderate their communities with their own vision.
Regarding yesterday’s discussion thread I still have to make a post. I hurt my eye yesterday and have trouble seeing and need to take frequent breaks. But it should come later today when I find some time.
Thanks, and I appreciate you going for that “hands off” approach.
My comments about the instance rules were more for if you made a post which basically put a ban on this stuff instance wide, in which case repeating it in my community would be redundant.
Also, having to deal with the federation issue and now this whilst also taking care of yourself sounds rough. I know you get this a lot, but we really appreciate the work you put into this place, and I hope things calm down soon.
While I’m still of the opinion that most fictional content is pretty much harmless and I’d prefer to include more content rather than exclude, after some of the wild takes and tangents I was seeing the other day, maybe it is wise to pump the brakes a little bit. Seems sensible for this community for now at least.
Yeah… I did not have a good time with that discussion, and thinking back I seriously regret involving myself in it (or at least listening to the part of my brain that insists on fact checking myself, which lead to reading some very… unpleasant scholarly papers…)
I don’t really care what consenting adults do in fictional spaces, but keep that shit in fantasy, please.
Yeah, I vehemently disagree with some of the opinions expressed in that thread once it started going in a different direction. But I still think there is some value in sparking a good faith debate on such difficult subjects. I hope that this place can still respectfully discuss unpopular opinions like that in the future without being too heavy handed moderation-wise.
… Wait, does this exclude hentai tentacles, slime monsters and other sexual automata? Wow, turns out it’s hard to exactly specify rules matching an abstract concept of morality.
I guess I’ll see how I can word it to allow those, maybe by saying “realistic non-furry animal”? Idk.
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It’s brought up questions for me as well, like where the line is between “okay” and “not okay”. Especially since some friends I’ve asked seem to draw the line much stricter than I’m doing here. And bring up the uncomfortable comparison to loli stuff.
I think crossing the line, wherever it may be, means it’s no longer furry. While this community isn’t necessarily restricted to just furry topics, I don’t aim for it to be a place for everything. This is not the place to talk about weed, politics, the band you just went to etc. There might be a place for bestiality talk, but it’s not here.
Thanks for your suggestion on the wording, it makes sense to me. I’ll probably still keep it explicitly mentioning minors and animals though, I can see arguments happening as to what entities require “special protection” or not.
Might be overthinking this. The instance rules already don’t allow most IRL content and anything that looks underage, so that more controversial stuff is not even an issue here and it might be a little redundant to make another rule about it. Probably the most edgy thing that’s left to worry about are drawings of zoo/beast stuff, which you could probably exclude just on the basis that it’s off-topic or no longer considered “furry”.
Edit: If things ever get too confusing, I always bring it back to the fantasy vs. reality standard. It’s one of the few principles I’ve found that holds up to scrutiny and helps moderators maintain their sanity. Otherwise it’s way too easy to justify or rationalize any number of reasons why a particular kink is right or wrong, and it usually devolves into how the individual feels in the moment.
Wander has made an update to the site wide instance rules here: https://yiffit.net/post/900704 , and as far as I’m concerned they cover what I was attempting to cover in this rule change. Therefore I’m going to remove this rule from the rules list here, and have it be covered by general instance rules. To be clear: Bestiality talk is still forbidden here, it’s just covered by Yiffit rules rather than community rules.
As for why I acted before an official statement was made, on that fateful night I saw the comments starting to appear and was concerned that people would find their way here, so I marked the community as only allowing moderator posts temporarily. However, I didn’t want the community to remain locked too long, so I added to the rules. I also don’t like the idea of rules “appearing out of nowhere”, or being unfairly restrictive, so I made an announcement post.
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What you’ve written currently seems strongly exclusionary towards CNC (consensual non-consent) if that CNC happens to take the form of someone roleplaying or fantasizing about themselves being an animal to a degree that the non-consent part follows from the sapient notion of consent not really being applicable. It similarly seems like you might have meant to exclude hypno kinks and similar.
Is a broad exclusion of CNC your intent? If it isn’t, I strongly urge you to clarify, because right now it comes off as stronger and/or hinting at something broader than I think you may have intended.
Exclusion of CNC or hypno is not my intent here, although I do wonder if that’s a bit hypocritical if I want to block other things based on consent.
I may just remove the “consent” part just so it says
“Non-furry animal” is defined as any animal that that lacks human-like intelligence.The rules don’t need to carry their own justification, and it should hopefully be self-evident.As a moderator, I’d rule that anyone roleplaying as an animal or fantasizing that they are an animal would not fall afoul of this rule as they would still have human level intelligence.
While I think you meant well, the “still have human-level intelligence” part of the interpretation is easy to read as unwelcoming to therians where (as silly as it might sound) a desire to change themselves to where they would fit the criteria of “lacking human-like intelligence” can be part of the point of that identity.
