Comment On the current state of Rules And Administration on YT

[Kasane Teto]

I'd like to comment on the YukiTheater rules as a whole without stirring up trouble for the community, and I think this thread would be a good place to say it. I think YukiTheater is becoming too much of a "Bastion for Political Correctness and Rules", so to speak. The thing about YukiTheater that drives most people away to other communities, for example, THAB, Cereal Box Cinema, AlphaTheater, TeamVoc, and LoliTheater, to name a few, is not our community, not our lack of content, but rather an overabundance of rules that restrict the freedoms of the player. Some rules, such as "Common Sense", are way to ambiguous and should never exist in the first place.
Yuki Theater is also way too politically correct. We will hand out punishments for the slightest of breaks in the rules. We also have too strict of a policy on restriction of certain words, such as certain words, no matter the context that they are in, as is the case with one of his videos listed in the prior ban appeal of another member. I believe that anyone can hold any opinion they want about a person or group of people, weather it be on ethnic backgrounds or political, and be able to express their views, as long as it doesn't hurt the person. Banning a slur because "MUH FEELINGS" is something that we should never try to do. It's Garry's Mod. Not a Disney Movie.

That pretty much sums it up.

 

[WinterPhoenix]

Okay so, the main issue I've seen with the rules in YukiTheater is that they're simply way way too specific for what's allowed and what's not. We literally have guidelines and examples for everything. This is the result of the community, for years, asking us to be more specific as to what we ban for. The end result is the several paragraph mess that are the rules that stand today.

In Inspiration, our upcoming project, we intend to basically throw out all of those rules and start over with 1 sentence statements for each rule. Everything that's gone wrong with the rules here won't be nearly as much of an issue there since its main experience will not be Cinema, however we still have to provide some rules as there will, at some point, be Cinema-like functionality. For example when it comes to Sexual Content, we are going to say "No Sexual Content" as the rule and then we're going to let each individual Mod decide whether or not a given video that's played is sexual or not. We're never ever going to say what specifically we consider sexual because we're going to end up in the same situation as we have here where people go "well if X is allowed, then why not Y" if we do that again. We intend to deploy a similar system to YukiTheater at some point as well.

What this will hopefully end up meaning is that we'll have players less upset at us because we're going to intentionally be looser with the definition of what's allowed and what's not, where we may lean toward the benefit of the doubt when it comes to some things. This'll also mean people will come after us less for being "too PC," "Nazis," or "SJWs." However, being Politically Correct is one thing, the staff of this community not enjoying shitposting or similar content, is another. There is a stark difference between overcensoring players and removing, bluntly, garbage content.

 

[Kasane Teto]

Okay so, the main issue I've seen with the rules in YukiTheater is that they're simply way way too specific for what's allowed and what's not. We literally have guidelines and examples for everything. This is the result of the community, for years, asking us to be more specific as to what we ban for. The end result is the several paragraph mess that are the rules that stand today.

In Inspiration, our upcoming project, we intend to basically throw out all of those rules and start over with 1 sentence statements for each rule. Everything that's gone wrong with the rules here won't be nearly as much of an issue there since its main experience will not be Cinema, however we still have to provide some rules as there will, at some point, be Cinema-like functionality. For example when it comes to Sexual Content, we are going to say "No Sexual Content" as the rule and then we're going to let each individual Mod decide whether or not a given video that's played is sexual or not. We're never ever going to say what specifically we consider sexual because we're going to end up in the same situation as we have here where people go "well if X is allowed, then why not Y" if we do that again. We intend to deploy a similar system to YukiTheater at some point as well.

What this will hopefully end up meaning is that we'll have players less upset at us because we're going to intentionally be looser with the definition of what's allowed and what's not, where we may lean toward the benefit of the doubt when it comes to some things. This'll also mean people will come after us less for being "too PC," "Nazis," or "SJWs." However, being Politically Correct is one thing, the staff of this community not enjoying shitposting or similar content, is another. There is a stark difference between overcensoring players and removing, bluntly, garbage content.

Winter, I respect your opinion, and I HIGHLY RESPECT that you admit the rules need a rework. However, on your last paragraph, I believe that everyone has their own unique sense of humor. Some of us ( bOrf, Faria, and Myself ), all like "Garbage Content" ( Shitposting ). I think that we should be able to shitpost, as long as it falls within the boundaries of the rules.

 

[salty bird]

Just gonna throw my 2 cents in as someone who's been a guest way longer than a mod. I have only received 1 warning in the whole time I've been here. The rules are very clear and very easy to follow and understand. If someone wants to keep pushing those boundaries and gets called out for them then that's on them.

 

[WinterPhoenix]

Winter, I respect your opinion, and I HIGHLY RESPECT that you admit the rules need a rework. However, on your last paragraph, I believe that everyone has their own unique sense of humor. Some of us ( bOrf, Faria, and Myself ), all like "Garbage Content" ( Shitposting ). I think that we should be able to shitpost, as long as it falls within the boundaries of the rules.

Of course, but the majority of community members don't like that type of content, including several members of staff. If you want to look at the utilitarian prospective on the situation, you're left with the many desiring that the few don't post that type of content. And as a result, in order to cater to and make this community enjoyable for the maximum amount of people, we enforce against such content.

 

[Akiko]

New rule: No memes allowed when I am around.

But seriously, everyone wants and expects something different. We can't make everyone happy.

I, personally, as many people know, am staunchly anti-censorship, but being against censorship does not mean I support anarchy either. Rules keep things from becoming chaotic and unmanageable, and I don't think many things need to be changed. Players should not be able to attack other players ever.

 

[Kuro Usagi]

No one is forcing anyone to watch certain videos. I think we all just want the rules to make sense. We don't want to disallow videos that don't break rules. We don't want to censor players, but we do want to make sure things don't go overboard if it's bothering people.
ie. Not banning memes or shitposting, but making sure it doesn't cause spamming or issues with harassment or players being hurt by other players. When these videos or words are said, most of the time it's not to hurt or bother others, it's purely in good fun and that's what makes this topic so confusing. None of this can be as simple as black and white, everything has context.

 

[Kawaii Believe It]

I am going to throw some of my couch change into this. This server has been through a lot. I have been there at times to Witness it. I think the rules as they stand are straight-forward. I mean, the rules were even bent a little for Exclusive which is actually pretty cool. The rules used to be bland back in 2014. The server has undergone a lot of changes and has expanded a lot and has been pretty friendly and PG - PG13.

I at times, tend to get kind of explicit in chat but I back off when I realize it is too much. There are a lot of kids that get on the server and some of us older folk like to keep stuff clean without the garbage and nasty content. If I wanted porn, I will watch it on my own browser. I do not want people finding out my fetishes and doing circle jerks in a theater. Plus the Lobby does say, "Server Rules (You've Been Warned). And staff welcomes everyone and enforces rules.

YukiTheater has been notorious for Anime, and some semi-ecchi content can be but considerately played in Exclusive. Over the years, I have seen thousands and thousands of videos blacklisted, thousands of players banned for harassment and much more.

A thing that sets Yuki apart from the rest is that the community always comes back because staff are not asshats. And in the time of writing this, I found 67 cents in my couch

 

[Kuro Usagi]

I kind of think we're overcomplicating it, the videos that inspired kasane teto to make this post weren't porn, they weren't even anything suggestive or rated r, it was idubbbz. Videos that happened to have sex toys in them for jokes and weren't portrayed sexually. It's complicated saying we don't allow "other sexually suggestive content" and saying there's a no tolerance policy for a certain object (sex toys) because of that phrase. As I mentioned in my prior post, everything has context, it's not so black and white that we can say "that's suggestive because there was a dildo on the table" or "he got a coffee mug shaped like a boob in the mail as a joke, that's too sexual" that's not suggestive, at the most that's poor humor or bad taste to those that don't find it funny. But a lot of people find it funny, almost 600k subscribers on YouTube isn't something to scoff at. This isn't some amateur making videos about sex toys every time. They don't even appear that often. It truly is not suggestive and using the rules to disallow it despite it not breaking any rules creates a situation where anyone and anything can be disallowed given the right circumstances.

 

[salty bird]

But a lot of people find it funny, almost 600k subscribers on YouTube isn't something to scoff at. This isn't some amateur making videos about sex toys every time.

Just because someone has a ton of subscribers does not exempt their content above the rules in the theater.

 

[Kuro Usagi]

Just because someone has a ton of subscribers does not exempt their content above the rules in the theater.

I'm not saying it's above the rules, I'm saying things like "majority of community members don't like that type of content"(Winter) don't make sense if there's that many people that DO enjoy that sort of content. There's no reason to put words into people's mouths. There's nothing sexual or suggestive about his videos, I don't see why it would hurt to let them play even in exclusive.

 

[WinterPhoenix]

We, as staff, are trying to cater to the most amount of people and that means there's going to be some that don't like the way we do things. We're not going to cater to something that the majority of players in this community do not want, and at the end of the day, if you don't like the way we do things, there are other Cinema servers that cater to the type of content you're looking to enjoy. I would implore you check them out instead.

I see no further constructive feedback coming out of this thread, so I'm going to lock it now.