Remove ALL Adult Content from SW? 🔞🚫

Poll - Total Votes: 370

Remove ALL Adult Content (allow up to "Non-Adult")

Remove Most Adult Content (allow up to "Mildly Adult")

Remove Some Adult Content (allow up to "Adult")

Remove Extreme Content (up to "Mild Nudity" - No "Fetish")

No Change - Leave everything as it is now

You can only vote on one answer.

At Similar Worlds, our role as Admins and Staff revolve mostly around providing the Features and Experience that you the users want.

We do understand that many niches of users exist on this platform (most coming here initially from EP).

From the beginning of SW, it has always been our primary aim to "Rebuild a Home" for our incoming members, while being as tolerant and unbiased as possible, to the preferences, interests and beliefs of our very diverse member base.

For one dimension of diversity:
The divide (or more so, spectrum) between Non-Adult and Adult type users,
does tend to contribute to numerous conflicts or disagreements between users, especially regarding the way this site should or should not be managed & promoted.

We the SW Staff have always been earnestly discussing many ways on how we can improve the environment here for mostly all of our users.

What we would like to know is:

Up to what level of "Adult Content" do you feel should be acceptable on Similar Worlds?

We have provided some options in the attached Poll to choose from,
however, please feel free to be detailed (but respectful) in the comments.

This consideration regarding removing/limiting the level of adult content on SW, is geared towards accomplishing:

• Improved overall SW environment - More enjoyable to most.
(ideally, less of the more dangerous/extreme types of users)

• Less objectionable content to risk unwantedly coming across.

• Safer for use at work, sharing with family & friends.

• Safer for younger users & women.

• A more focused effort towards a slightly smaller, more defined niche, rather than attempting to "please most/everyone" and lose direction.

Please note that we are very much aware that many EXCELLENT users of this site, do engage in very adult content, on Similar Worlds, and we have had no problem with this at all, as long it remains within the site's TOS.

If we will consider making such a large change, we are aware that we will need to re-define many terms and rules,
especially regarding what is "Mildly-Adult", "Sensitive"...
if we will keep the "Adult" tag at all (we may, but re-defined) ...etc.

We are not announcing that a change will be made (but it is in discussion),
nor do yet have a defined list of what those changes will all be.

This post is mainly to gain feedback and opinions on our member's preferences, to help us serve you better.

Since we consider this a "Major" / "Important" topic and potential change,
please consider informing other SW user friends of yours to Vote/Comment,
so that we can together, decide the best path forward for Similar Worlds.

Thanks for reading and for your support!
Kind regards,
SW Team

--- To Add ---

Regarding the "Nudity Tag/Option" which was introduced after initial development:
(We have seen this mentioned many times before - so addressing this now.)

The addition of the "Nudity" option/tag actually improved things for those who did not want to see any nudity at all,
as many explicit images were being pasted all across the site, in full view of everyone.

Ever since introduction of the Nudity tag, it greatly controlled (reduced) this issue.

(We could definitely tell that this was the case, as reports of inappropriate images landing in the wrong place greatly dropped,
and much fewer incidents of unwantedly coming across nudity on SW.)

The option was added to help contain content that rule-breaking users were posting anyway, while breaking our TOS.

(Not to make SW into a more "Adult" site. Many seem to have this misconception.)

If we do fully remove allowance of "Nudity", and other "Adult" types of content,
we will be definitely placing more more advanced, automated features, to be sure the same does not happen as did before.

NSFW Image Detection (with high accuracy rates), for example, is something we have been discussing and working on, to help make SW much safer for users.

(This, and other features is already in the works, either way.)

Faust76 · 46-50, M

NSFW image detection & continuing to allow nude pics aren't either/or proposition, NSFW image detection should be in use regardless. This should DEFINITELY apply to user-pics as well, which all too often seem to escape scrutiny.

The whole "safe for work" thing is bit iffy though, as SW has continuous posts that wouldn't really fall under any workplace safety ordinances even if they may not need to be flagged as such. If that is any sort of concern, perhaps the content ratings should be geared towards such.

I think there are too many levels of content now, which causes people to get confused and sometimes give up. For the most part there's no idea what is "Adult" and what is merely "Mildly adult", and so forth, and it's probably impossible to define all these levels. Or some of those keyword-based approaches should actually get implemented.

I know this is problematic, "I love making cheese" is family-safe, "I want people to make love to me" is probably NSFW, "I hate breast cancer" is family safe but "I love huge breasts" is probably NSFW not to mention more sensitive and hard to classify topics like fantasy violence or mental problems. Conversely, if people are really flying that "safe for work" thing, perhaps there should be easier way to switch between different rating levels for viewing depending on the situation we're in. Now most people don't seem to even know they have filters.

Quizzical · 46-50, M

@Faust76 I think three ratings would do. SFW, NSFW, and Nudity. I also have no idea what 'mildly adult' means 🤷‍♂️

Faust76 · 46-50, M

@Quizzical It seems pictures rated adult = nudity. But yeah, I purposefully didn't suggest new categories because that's bottomless swamp. It's also interesting there's currently question category for NSFW, implying everything else IS safe for work. I guess everybody has a concept of what "Adult" means, but it remains problematic term. I also think the original post seems to be making the inference that Adult = sexual mainly.

I think we could have something like "Family Safe", "NSFW", "Offensive". Yes, offensive also means different thing to different people, but it's possible people might have an idea of what counts as offensive to many other people. Is there better term for that? Nude would be picture flagged offensive. As far as I can see fetish & sensitive are mainly triggered by keywords and people mostly use them manually only as a joke, so they could be replaced by keywords. SW postings could also propose a specific rating when you use specific keywords like "breasts" and apply stiff penalties if people flag your post for wrong rating. A pull-down allowing filtering for "Family-safe" at school or work, "NSFW" if you don't want to see gross stuff, and "Offensive" if you're willing to be challenged, with a confirmation dialog to prevent accidental flashing. And a keyword list of keywords to filter stuff you just do not want to see, possibly tied in addition to a hierarchical group structure other internet services seem to have abandoned.

Of course, I doubt this kind of radical revamping will happen and I realize a big part of the rating is legal and moral age-restrictions. Just a thought on what a streamlined, hopefully more usable rating system could look like.