Should Child Mods be allowed on LL?

[Kashiwaba Tomoe]

Well that offtopic side conversation actually wandered back onto the topic!

 

 

Exactly man, a child mod could at the same time just be a rather petite woman and the policy could hit a mod that adds petite size as an option.

 

 

Also that gives me an idea for a mod.

[Luna_Natsume]

And I ask again: How would you justify rape? Please, explain. I am listening.

 

I don't really feel you are listening, as one thing really has nothing to do with the other. This is just a diversionary tactic to avoid the issue at hand. If I say 'I hate apples because I don't like the taste', you retort with 'Well how can you like oranges then, cuz it's fruit?!'. I don't recall ever endorsing 'rape' or 'rape mods'. I believe the topic is 'should child mods be allowed on LL', not 'how do you justify rape mods'.

 

In fact, I don't personally use rape mods, as I also find those to be in poor taste. Sex crimes in general tend to reflect some of the worst traits humanity has to offer. Child mods hit a bit closer to home for me, as I have 4 children of my own, one of whom had to go to counseling for a year to dismantle the damage done to him by an adult that he trusted. His own teacher who had never shown any inclination of pedophillia in 12 years of teaching, just got it into his head one day to touch my son in an inappropriate manner.

 

Do you suppose his teacher spent years looking at children in his classroom, just fantasising harmlessly? How long do you think it took him to decide that fantasies just weren't good enough any more?

 

On the note of knowing what 'prepubescant' means, I do believe it litterally means 'before puberty'. In the case of a female body, before the full development of breasts, curvy hips, and an adult female shape. You know, something like this:

 

[/color]WARNING: NUDITY

 

 

This was taken directly off the thread 'children of the sky', post #1419. Do you suppose you could confuse this for anything but 'prepubescant'?

[Kashiwaba Tomoe]

You don't get what he's saying.

 

If we ban ONE thing for a moral reason, then that opens the door to banning other things, such as the many rape mods here on the board.

[GrimReaper]

 

 

I don't really feel you are listening' date=' as one thing really has nothing to do with the other. This is just a diversionary tactic to avoid the issue at hand. If I say 'I hate apples because I don't like the taste', you retort with 'Well how can you like oranges then, cuz it's fruit?!'. I don't recall ever endorsing 'rape' or 'rape mods'. I believe the topic is 'should child mods be allowed on LL', not 'how do you justify rape mods'.

 

In fact, I don't personally use rape mods, as I also find those to be in poor taste. Sex crimes in general tend to reflect some of the worst traits humanity has to offer. Child mods hit a bit closer to home for me, as I have 4 children of my own, one of whom had to go to counseling for a year to dismantle the damage done to him by an adult that he trusted. His own teacher who had never shown any inclination of pedophillia in 12 years of teaching, just got it into his head one day to touch my son in an inappropriate manner.

 

Do you suppose his teacher spent years looking at children in his classroom, just fantasising harmlessly? How long do you think it took him to decide that fantasies just weren't good enough any more?

 

 

[/quote']

 

Your point basically boils down to: The only reason why someone would download a child mod that features suggestive or sexual themes is because he has an unhealthy desire for children in general.

 

Now, my point is: With this logic you'd automatically have to condemn rape mods. Or just violence in videogames. Because, why would you want to murder and kill if you don't have any desire for killing and mudering in general? Please, tell me. How can you enjoy murdering people in videogames if you think that murder is actually a bad thing?

 

The most common response to these arguments is that videogames aren't real, people can distinguish between reality and virtuality and no one gets hurt, because, well, characters in a videogame aren't real. They have no emotions, they don't feel pain. They're just pixels on a screen. Another point you often hear is that you can enjoy something in your fantasy while condemn it IRL, like rape.

 

If you think that you CAN actually go on a killing spree in a game without being a closet psycho and potential mass murderer IRL, then this is true for everything you can do in a virtual environment. Otherwise your whole standpoint becomes arbitrary and therefore null.

[Kashiwaba Tomoe]

And what if the mod had ZERO sexual content for the child models, just that it was decided that for the purpose of immersion EVERYTHING would be naked when not clothed with clothing items, and was other than that a great mod ?

 

Suddenly that mod gets blocked from here, and we loose content.

[thesapien]

On the note of knowing what 'prepubescant' means' date=' I do believe it litterally means 'before puberty'. In the case of a female body, before the full development of breasts, curvy hips, and an adult female shape. You know, something like this:

 

[/color']WARNING: NUDITY

 

 

This was taken directly off the thread 'children of the sky', post #1419. Do you suppose you could confuse this for anything but 'prepubescant'?

 

Dude, I'm playing with the mod, so I know what they look like. With the blonde hair, she kinda reminds of an ex-gf who was many years beyond puberty. You do know that many women shave, right?

 

You can't tell or presume to know, especially in a cartoon game involving a magical race. Post a pic with her ID proving her age! Then, I'll be like, wow, I thought she was hot, thanks for the headsup.

[Luna_Natsume]

I don't believe your getting the point at all, as you keep refering to rape and violence. This is about illegal material pertaining to Child Pornography. It has no bearing on rape or violence whatsoever.

 

If a police officer walked into a house and saw a shelf full of movies like 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre'(Murder and Violence) or 'Clockwork Orange' (Rape), or posters with gory scenes, it would be disregarded.

 

If the same officer walked into a house and saw a naked girl of obvious pre-teen age on a poster, or a shelf full of child porn movies... then it's likely your getting taken to prison.

 

Your entire argument is "If one mod should be censored, then all of them should be"... it's sort of like the argument "If I can't have weapons grade plutonium, then all weapons should be outlawed". The point still stands, and it's one you have dodged around since it was brought up on page #1 of this discussion: Would child mods suffer if the nudity were removed or condemned?

 

Reminder: We aren't talking about rape or violence... just to clarify.

[TheLordofMist]

This point of argument holds a special place in my heart... it reveals all sorts of deep-down realities of human psychology which one doesn't otherwise get to examine close up.

 

However, before I allow myself to begin delving into the deeper mysteries of the matter at hand, let me explain my own point of view.

 

 

No. I personally wouldn't allow mods featuring children (regardless of any implied sexuality) on a site which is primarily oriented around sexual mods. Is it because I find it utterly reprehensible and think anyone who might sexualize the appearance of a child is some kind of a monster?

 

Not at all. It's just good common sense, from the viewpoint of whether or not you want to INVITE this sort of a debate in the first place. Either you're prepared to handle the flack for this sort of thing and let it happen, or you avoid it entirely by doing what you can to disallow it from becoming a part of your community.

 

Then again, I would never operate a community such as this. The stigma and arguments attached to it are far beyond my ability to simply rationalize and brush off. I would hardly be ideal for explaining to people why such a place as this ought to exist, because my own nature is such that confrontations of morality are foreign to me.

 

And here's why.

 

I don't give a damn if you want to sexually fantasize about children, goats, or someone's divine icon in a swimsuit... none of it matters to me. Why? Because I reject the entire argument of morality outright. It's a fabrication. A construct of society which we arbitrarily choose to acknowledge and ignore as it suits our general purposes.

 

It's a structure put in place to keep order in a chaotic universe and put frightened minds at ease. In the modern day and age, we're 'all about the children'... protecting them and coddling them because somehow we've gotten it into our heads that they're "special"... that somehow the death of a child is more tragic. "A life cut short before it really began" and all that sanctimonious drivel.

 

Nevermind that this is the same society which spent a hundred years working said children to death and marrying them off to families with wealth and property in order to increase their social standing, and that this entire line of reasoning has less to do with the protection of children and more to do with a political movement which sought to remove said children from the workforce in order to increase the bargaining power of the slowly-strengthening ADULT workforce. It's rather hard to fight for better pay and working conditions when the neighbor's son is willing to do your job for half as much as you demand.

 

Times change, morals change, and everybody gets up on their soap-box to preach about what's right and wrong and who's a monster and who's a saint in order to make themselves look better in the eyes of their peers. At the end of the day, it's all just another triviality. Someone lets their morals dictate what someone else can or can't do, and the rest of us are just supposed to fold and buckle because it's 'right'.

 

And while I appreciate where it's coming from... a genuine attempt to serve the 'greater good' by keeping order in a universe determined to swallow us all whole... the fact remains that if society collapsed tomorrow, all our "moral" preoccupations with keeping order would be replaced with another set of needs. And suddenly it would become IMMORAL not to have children young, to help keep the population thriving.

 

Suddenly murder, slavery, thievery, banditry, piracy, rape... it all becomes 'survival of the fittest'. Because right and wrong only matter when there's a society to uphold them.

 

 

As it stands now, we have a great many societies which have taken it upon themselves to focus almost obsessively on children. So much so, in fact, that when children themselves behave in a way which fails to conform with the ridiculous notion that they are somehow pure and innocent and that the adult world is 'corrupting them'... said children are immediately the subject of brutal 'investigations' by their societies and subsequently deemed 'monstrous' and 'dangerous' creatures.

 

It's a sort of self-imposed insanity to which I kindly say "No thank-you."

 

Unfortunately, I still have to deal with the lunatics... and it's a hard thing to deal with people who have decided to brand you an enemy of their moral policy. Argue with them all you like, but it won't go anywhere because they have the benefit of being 'RIGHT', while you're just a miserable non-conformist... or a pedophile/rapist/murderer lurking in the shadows, right?

 

 

A "moral" person doesn't give a damn that I don't believe in a world where I can't get naked if I so choose. I spent quite a lot of time naked as a kid. Hell, I was actually very sexual at a very young age. By about six or so I was fascinated with sexuality... even though I couldn't bring myself to say the WORD. Shy and all.

 

The fact of the matter is, left to their own devices, a child doesn't NEED to be corrupted. We've seen time and again that even without adult influence, kids will learn how to love, hate, laugh, cry, create works of beauty, commit terrifying acts of cruelty, and screw like rabbits. It's not unique to adults. You don't even have to hit that magical time in our life-cycle we call 'puberty'. You can be five... or you can be seventeen... just depends on when you decide to let curiosity override fear of the unknown. It's not an unnatural fluke, or the product of a poor upbringing. It's plain old human nature. We eat, we sleep, we discriminate, and we fuck until there's more of us than there are resources to go around.

 

Then we go off to find somewhere where there's more food and water, and we TAKE IT FROM WHOEVER HAS IT. It's not monstrous. It's how our species has managed to survive and thrive for something like fifty-thousand years.

 

 

But you can't argue that point to someone who stands on Moral High-Ground. They've got "Right" behind them. Justice. Goodness. It can't be realism, it has to be 'hidden sexual lust for children.' You can't have rape in your game unless you secretly want to go out and start having your way with people, you monster.

 

 

And to all of that I say... sure. Maybe you're right. Hell if I know. But I don't rightly care. Because your moral high-ground is just a fabrication. It can be pulled out from under your feet any time that it suits the needs of society.

 

My world... my GAME world... my FANTASY world doesn't need your moral guidance. I might avoid causing trouble because I don't feel like dealing with your particular brand of ignorance and delusion, but it doesn't make it any less delusional. In my game world, humanity is raw and unbound by the fabricated concepts of modern society. Children hunt and kill alongside their parents. Murderers and rapists plague dark alleys. Sometimes, farmers are sexually attracted to their goats. Orphans of war fall prey to slavers, vampires, and the cruelty of strangers. Men and women fight and die and give their lives for what they believe in, and demonize their foes in order to make killing their fellows less traumatic. It's the nature of world in which petty concepts like morality and justice only exist within the alabaster walls of the cities, while the raw... majestic... horrifyingly beautiful chaos of the universe lies in wait beyond.

 

What I want in my fantasy world and what I expect of and participate within the real world are two fundamentally different things. And while I would never try to be the man who runs a site like this, and therefore I would never have directly operated a community whose focus was almost exclusively on sex, the fact remains that this site DOES exist. It has very clear guidelines on what it will allow and what it won't. It has people who can judge when a line has been crossed which endangers the safety of this community's existence and remove the threat.

 

Morality has nothing to do with it. It's a matter of what the administration feels it wishes to set as the tone of this community.

 

 

My comment may be long. It may seem cold, unfeeling, or even outright sociopathic. To someone who believes that the rules of society are pivotal and iron-clad, perhaps it sounds utterly insane.

 

But the fact is, my comment serves as the perfect example for why this particular thread serves only to create great deals of controversy. For every person out there who declares that "Allowing nudity in these kinds of mods, is advocating sexual arousal of child-like attributes", there's another who will happily step in and remind you that underneath their clothing, real live children are naked... and often times keeping them IN their clothes is quite the challenge. Therefore, it advocates nothing more than ANY mod which involves nudity... the belief that people can be naked if they so choose to be.

 

It will go nowhere. It will never go anywhere.

 

In fact, I don't know why I've bothered to share my particular opinions on the matter in the first place. If one person out there reads this and feels like I've hit the nail on the head for them, though... I guess it was worth the time it took me to write it up.

 

For the rest of you, just a long-winded thought for you to consider.

[thesapien]

the reaper man has an exellent point.

 

sapien' date=' as for the "itty-bitty-titty-committees" you refer to, an off topic point of hilarity.

I read in the news earlier this year that apparently in Australia now, it's illegal to make a-cup porno because it's 'too close to child porn'

[/quote']

 

Yes, GrimReaper has also been making some good points, so I haven't felt the need to confuse anyone by switching gears and adding to it. It's along lines I've followed in the past, but he's prolly doing a better job anyway.

 

Plus, yes, I'm actually just hitting it directly by following my own sexual attraction to women who are, well, so attractive.

 

Interesting proposal you make in this thread about what if Skyrim were just more immersive, meaning natural and that clothes could come off of anyone. Would that then be illegal. If yes, then life should be illegal. Well, at least outlaw having kids who might be born without clothing. God must had been a pedophile.

 

And that it sadly hilarious about porn in Australia being illegal if the women of age look like they are underage!!!

[Luna_Natsume]

You have an eloquent and well thought out position Lord. Did you know that in some ancient civilizations it was considered a normal practice to sacrifice humans for better crops? It was once a tradition on the 1st of May for the village to elect a young girl and all the elders and the citizens of high-standing to have sex with her to insure the well-being of the community. It was once commonplace to commit ritual suicide if you did anything to dishonor yourself or your family.

 

Those things might have been true once, but (fortunately) we were born in a time when these practices are no longer valid nor have any place in modern society. We may have what you might consider shaky morals when the chips are down, but they exist here and now and are in good standing througout the civillized world. In todays world, with todays widely accepted moral compass and laws (the institutions moral compass), attraction and desire for children isn't just frowned upon, it is considered -wrong-. So some people may try to sugar-coat and dance around it all they like, but no matter how you spin it... in todays world it is WRONG, snd I challenge you to find a nation (that these games are played in), that says otherwise.

[thesapien]

Jeeja Yanin, one of my favorite martial artists and woman of over 20 years in age in this photo also takes offense to being called prepubescent, just see the rage, dare call her flat chested or not curvy enough:

 

 

 

 

Not sure of her height, but if you watch Chocolate (one of my favorite films, btw) you'll see that she is tiny short compared to the men she kicks ass against. And if you watch the out-takes, you'll see she can even really hurt those guys with one kick.

[Kashiwaba Tomoe]

I don't believe your getting the point at all' date=' as you keep refering to rape and violence. This is about illegal material pertaining to Child Pornography.

[/quote']

 

 

 

video game characthers are not legal beings, thus negating that claim.

 

the reaper man has an exellent point.

 

sapien' date=' as for the "itty-bitty-titty-committees" you refer to, an off topic point of hilarity.

I read in the news earlier this year that apparently in Australia now, it's illegal to make a-cup porno because it's 'too close to child porn'

[/quote']

 

Yes, GrimReaper has also been making some good points, so I haven't felt the need to confuse anyone by switching gears and adding to it. It's along lines I've followed in the past, but he's prolly doing a better job anyway.

 

Plus, yes, I'm actually just hitting it directly by following my own sexual attraction to women who are, well, so attractive.

 

Interesting proposal you make in this thread about what if Skyrim were just more immersive, meaning natural and that clothes could come off of anyone. Would that then be illegal. If yes, then life should be illegal. Well, at least outlaw having kids who might be born without clothing. God must had been a pedophile.

 

And that it sadly hilarious about porn in Australia being illegal if the women of age look like they are underage!!!

 

 

Well as for immersion, in any medevil type culture it would also fit for people, especially nobles who often have arranged marriages, to be wed to a child.

 

It's not being a pedophile, it's just fitting the setting properly.

 

 

Or if you want a religious context, Mohammad had one wife that was only six years old.

 

Ok bad example, he WAS a pedophile most likely, but still my point stands.

 

 

But yeah, it's not the content it's the context.

 

A 'rape the kids of skyrim' mod complete with a nude patch for children I could see blocking, but a patch that simply has naked actors ingame actually be naked is just making an artistic design decision.

 

What if someone is playing a child, and decides that, since it's a role playing game (well, once it's modded, bethesda really does suck at actual RPGs) their characther should occasionly stop at a lake/river to skinny dip for example (that afterall used to be a normal way to go swimming)

[GrimReaper]

I don't believe your getting the point at all' date=' as you keep refering to rape and violence. This is about illegal material pertaining to Child Pornography. It has no bearing on rape or violence whatsoever.

 

If a police officer walked into a house and saw a shelf full of movies like 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre'(Murder and Violence) or 'Clockwork Orange' (Rape), or posters with gory scenes, it would be disregarded.

 

If the same officer walked into a house and saw a naked girl of obvious pre-teen age on a poster, or a shelf full of child porn movies... then it's likely your getting taken to prison.

 

Your entire argument is "If one mod should be censored, then all of them should be"... it's sort of like the argument "If I can't have weapons grade plutonium, then all weapons should be outlawed". The point still stands, and it's one you have dodged around since it was brought up on page #1 of this discussion: Would child mods suffer if the nudity were removed or condemned?

 

Reminder: We aren't talking about rape or violence... just to clarify.

[/quote']

Obviously you don't want to understand. I am not talking about censoring. I am not talking about legal stuff, I am talking about moral decisions. The rape and violence in virtual environments was just an analogy.

 

To make it short: Either you claim that things you do and enjoy in videogames mirror what you would like and enjoy to do in reality or not. There is no inbetween. If you CAN enjoy virtual violence without wanting to be violent IRL than that is true for all the things you can do in a video game. Meaning, that even if you like to have nude children for whatever reason in your game DOES NOT NECESSARILY mean that you want to have sex with children in real life. Just like you can go around in GTA killing people for fun without wanting to do it in reality.

 

If what you do in video games however IS reflecting what you wish you could do in reality however, then that is true for all things you can do in a videogame. From violence to rape and having sex with children.

 

That's my last post in that matter because I think the response to my post will be something that'll show me that you just want to hear that people agree with the stuff you said and you still won't see how terribly flawed your argumentation is. AGAIN.

[DoctaSax]

Some interesting points in this thread, but I feel it's much too theoretical. Rather than discussing virtual realities versus 'real' reality and whether what you do in games makes you do things IRL (if so you're psychotic to begin with), & whether child nudity & underage sex and marriages serve the purpose of immersion and realism, I'd like to focus on the practical side, ie: how likely is it that stuff like this will get the site in trouble?

 

This is the most important consideration of all when deciding on what should & what shouldn't be allowed here. We're not living in the kind of world where you can expect people to trust you with child nudity because you claim it's only there for the realism. This is not your private playground, safe from outside interference. So yes, let's please not forget about the 'legal stuff', or forget that even what's legal can lead to litigation, and at the very least, your ISP caving in to outside pressure and shutting you down.

 

Claiming that the naked kids in a mod are some hundreds-of-years-old fantasy race will not convince the authorities. Claiming underage nudity and/or sexuality adds to the realism will not hold them off either. Or stop outraged pundits from creating a stink and putting pressure on LL's ISP. Anything that even hints at underage nudity or sexuality is extremely dangerous. That's just the way things are. Let's be happy with what we have here, and not put it at risk.

[srayesmanll]

Some interesting points in this thread' date=' but I feel it's much too theoretical. Rather than discussing virtual realities versus 'real' reality and whether what you do in games makes you do things IRL (if they do you're psychotic to begin with), & whether child nudity & underage sex and marriages serve the purpose of immersion and realism, I'd like to focus on the practical side, ie: how likely is it that stuff like this will get the site in trouble?

 

This is the most important consideration of all when deciding on what should & what shouldn't be allowed here. We're not living in the kind of world where you can expect people to trust you with child nudity because you claim it's only there for the realism. This is not your private playground, safe from outside interference. So yes, let's please not forget about the 'legal stuff', or forget that even what's legal can lead to litigation, and at the very least, your ISP caving in to outside pressure and shutting you down.

 

Claiming that the naked kids in a mod are some hundreds-of-years-old fantasy race will not convince the authorities. Claiming underage nudity and/or sexuality adds to the realism will not hold them off either. Or stop outraged pundits from creating a stink and putting pressure on LL's ISP. Anything that even hints at underage nudity or sexuality is extremely dangerous. That's just the way things are. Let's be happy with what we have here, and not put it at risk.

[/quote']

 

Thank you for stating what should be the obvious issue...

[Luna_Natsume]

Some interesting points in this thread, but I feel it's much too theoretical. Rather than discussing virtual realities versus 'real' reality and whether what you do in games makes you do things IRL (if they do you're psychotic to begin with), & whether child nudity & underage sex and marriages serve the purpose of immersion and realism, I'd like to focus on the practical side, ie: how likely is it that stuff like this will get the site in trouble?

 

This is the most important consideration of all when deciding on what should & what shouldn't be allowed here. We're not living in the kind of world where you can expect people to trust you with child nudity because you claim it's only there for the realism. This is not your private playground, safe from outside interference. So yes, let's please not forget about the 'legal stuff', or forget that even what's legal can lead to litigation, and at the very least, your ISP caving in to outside pressure and shutting you down.

 

Claiming that the naked kids in a mod are some hundreds-of-years-old fantasy race will not convince the authorities. Claiming underage nudity and/or sexuality adds to the realism will not hold them off either. Or stop outraged pundits from creating a stink and putting pressure on LL's ISP. Anything that even hints at underage nudity or sexuality is extremely dangerous. That's just the way things are. Let's be happy with what we have here, and not put it at risk.

 

Couldn't have said it better myself. Personal viewpoints aside, this is exactly the reality of the situation. To avoid trouble for everyone, it's for the sake of the LL community as a whole to condemn nutity in Child Mods. It may be like charging Al Capone with Tax evasion, by taking the 'technical' side of the argument, but the reason is sound and should be taken into consideration.

[Grumpf]

If one person out there reads this and feels like I've hit the nail on the head for them' date=' though... I guess it was worth the time it took me to write it up.

[/quote']

Yup, I enjoyed reading it.

 

The Doc has the point though, disregarding all of our debate (and I'm glad this is actually constructive and not a drama hole, makes me really proud of this community) we need to take dumb laws into account...

[GrimReaper]

Some interesting points in this thread' date=' but I feel it's much too theoretical. Rather than discussing virtual realities versus 'real' reality and whether what you do in games makes you do things IRL (if so you're psychotic to begin with), & whether child nudity & underage sex and marriages serve the purpose of immersion and realism, I'd like to focus on the practical side, ie: how likely is it that stuff like this will get the site in trouble?

 

This is the most important consideration of all when deciding on what should & what shouldn't be allowed here. We're not living in the kind of world where you can expect people to trust you with child nudity because you claim it's only there for the realism. This is not your private playground, safe from outside interference. So yes, let's please not forget about the 'legal stuff', or forget that even what's legal can lead to litigation, and at the very least, your ISP caving in to outside pressure and shutting you down.

 

Claiming that the naked kids in a mod are some hundreds-of-years-old fantasy race will not convince the authorities. Claiming underage nudity and/or sexuality adds to the realism will not hold them off either. Or stop outraged pundits from creating a stink and putting pressure on LL's ISP. Anything that even hints at underage nudity or sexuality is extremely dangerous. That's just the way things are. Let's be happy with what we have here, and not put it at risk.

[/quote']

 

If it is just a question about what is legally allowed and what is not then there is no need for a discussion at all, amirite.

 

However, I was under the impression that this whole thread was more pointed towards the discussion whether it is morally acceptable to host certain mods or not. Because, y'know, as stated above, the laws regarding this stuff are pretty clear about what's allowed and what's not.

[Kashiwaba Tomoe]

Anyone else starting to be reminded of the nexus in this thread.

[gregathit]

Anyone else starting to be reminded of the nexus in this thread.

 

I certainly am not at all reminded of the nexus. This thread would be locked and pretty much everyone banned if this was over there....

[DoctaSax]

If it is just a question about what is legally allowed and what is not then there is no need for a discussion at all' date=' amirite.

 

However, I was under the impression that this whole thread was more pointed towards the discussion whether it is morally acceptable to host certain mods or not. Because, y'know, as stated above, the laws regarding this stuff are pretty clear about what's allowed and what's not.

[/quote']

 

The thread's OP or title don't limit it to just that. The question I read was: what would you allow? Not: "what would you allow in an alternate universe where there isn't a witchhunt going on regarding anything even remotely hinting at child nudity/sexuality, where the practice of law is all about what's legal or not instead of the financial status of the different parties, where there isn't already so much moral panic about games, sex and the internet, and where ISPs don't sell their customers down the river the second there's a potential problem?" I would've remembered, because it's kinda long

 

The reason I focus on the practical stuff rather than my own moral compass is because of the absolute outrage some people react with when it's pointed out to them some child mods are... questionable. As if they're not living in the same world I just briefly sketched.

 

So let's focus on the reality of it: if it were up to me to allow stuff, it would also be me who could be held accountable for allowing stuff, by people who are not necessarily reasonable but definitely more powerful. So in terms of child mods I wouldn't allow much, that's for sure.

[srayesmanll]

Anyone else starting to be reminded of the nexus in this thread.

 

I have an idea. Why don't you start this same thread over there, click a stopwatch, and see how long it takes for it to turn into a shitstorm flamewar, and for them to ban you and lock the thread. Any other takers ???

 

This is one of those hot button topics that no one can change anybody's mind about, and can devolve quickly into a true war. The fact that it really hasn't is a testament to the people on this site. DoctaSax is right that it's the practical side that should be addressed, and the fact is child mods can cause the zealots in the general public enough outrage to cause problems for Nexus, LL, and others. I don't want to see LL go away because some zealot saw a child's nipple. Do you?

[thesapien]

Giving in to the fear of zealots isn't my usual way, but it wouldn't be the first time for LL!

[srayesmanll]

Giving in to the fear of zealots isn't my usual way' date=' but it wouldn't be the first time for LL!

[/quote']

 

It's not so much "giving in to the fear of zealots" so much as trying not to attract the attention of them by setting off fireworks, launching a flare gun, and screaming at top of our lungs "Look at this child's nipple I just posted."

[labrat]

Big question.

 

Art is art. Pixels are just electrical pigments. If art isn't just art then as GrimReaper pointed out, vanilla murder is worse than any clothing or lack of it.

 

Have I got the right to impose my authority over the contents of someone else's mind? If I don't have that right, who does?

 

Legal issue

Nothing illegal here, so, as GrimReaper points out it is a moral issue OP&Treager are raising

 

Opinion

The OP&Treager have issues. LL is perhaps not the best place to try and resolve them.

 

Practical points. Have you learned nothing, my children, from those arcane masters at Beth?

 

1) If your enemies are big but dumb and you are not, then outsmart them, outflank them, outrange them. Be sneaky.

 

2) In the thick of it, try not to hit your allies.

 

In other words.

CotS and other mods tread softly and within the law. Zealots/puritans think that their moral code carries more weight than yours and is above anyone else's law. And they fight nasty.

 

LL might be so big these days that unfriendly attention was already directed here, but it surely doesn't help to yell "Hey! Over Here! Come and LoOk at THiS!" with language that trips a dozen spider threads.

 

Conclusion

I'd vote to keep the mods. It's a little blow for what is right against the bullies. But don't make a song and dance about them, and if push comes to shove then they'll have to go underground again.

 

@LordOfMist, respect