(no subject)

[subluxate]

I've been lax about keeping up with memories and tagging, and I'll be the first to admit it. That's not the cause for my current post, though.

I don't know how many of you have been keeping up with LJ's latest issue, so I'll summarize briefly. There's an organization, purportedly for protecting children, called Warriors for Innocence. This organization has handed a list of apparently offensive communities and users to LJ, based on their interests. Many, many communities and users have been summarily banned. One popular example is pornish_pixies. liz_marcs discussed it all in much more detail. She has several more relevant links there.

So, my question to you, as a community. I want to safeguard mash_slash, but I don't want to be a despot about it. What, if anything, do you want me to do? Any and all suggestions and thoughts are welcome. My comods are also in on keeping this community protected, so they'll check here, as well.

Comments

[pie-is-good.livejournal.com]

I almost didn't recognize your username, still. Gosh, how long has it been?

Anyway, I'd say mash_slash is pretty damn safe. It's not incest or underage, which seems to be what they're after.

Just makes sure the interests aren't anything terrible.

[subluxate]

My main concern is that we have had fic that's incest- and/or rape-related. So I guess my question is more, what do we do about those particular fics? Find and lock them, or keep them as is?

Hah, it's my fault for never posting anymore. I've had it for...I don't know, three months?

[lydia-petze.livejournal.com]

Luckily, M*A*S*H is not a fandom in which incest or underage fic would be all that prevalent. The ones that suffered big in this purge are HP, some of the yaoi fandoms and a little bit of SPN.

That said, a few comms I'm on have a blanket policy in which all fic rated R and above is Friendslocked, also that members must be over the legal age AND have their birth year on their LJ profile page - sort of like the old "age statement" on the mailing lists.

[murf1013.livejournal.com]

>>also that members must be over the legal age AND have their birth year on their LJ profile page<<

Well ... shit. Then people will actually *know* that I'm as old as dirt. ;)

[gal-montag.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I don't think that the MASH fandom will have much to worry about unless people start crusding against slash. And even if that happens, I doubt LJ will start cracking down on it, there are no shady gray areas involved the they way there are with incest and shota/underage fics.

[sirry-addict.livejournal.com]

God, I do not want to be anywhere near LJ if they ever start cracking down on slash/yaoi/yuri fans. That's a completely different can of worms, there; crusading against slash would be opening the proverbial Pandora's box. Can you imagine the implosion if they tried?

[sirry-addict.livejournal.com]

I think the comm is safe for now; whoever made the complaints simply didn an interest search and went from there. If rape/incest/underage aren't listed in the interests, we should be fine.

That being said, I do think an age statement might help, and fics with a rating above 'R' being f'locked to the comm members only should help a great deal in making you feel comfortable.

:-)

[mijmeraar.livejournal.com]

the tags, interests and memories all seem well above board. you're not condoning or advocating anything morally questionable - unless these people have problems with same sex relationships and that's more a matter of bigotry than morality. i'm not sure that these people are going to troll through our archives looking for one or two fics that have harsh content. generally they're about consenting adults [and infidels].

hmm, I wonder what their stance is on sexually active priests?

[murf1013.livejournal.com]

>>hmm, I wonder what their stance is on sexually active priests?<<

I think you owe me a new keyboard. And quite possibly a new monitor. Mine are now covered in diet Coke. ;)

[pomkeygeekange.livejournal.com]

Well I think as a community we will be pretty safe anyways as its not a fandom that easily lends itself to kiddy abuse fic.

However I agree that just for the meantime how about friendlocking fics above R and any that may deal with that type of content.

And what is the world comming to when people are getting witched hunted for fic?

[nyssa23.livejournal.com]

I also support the idea of a friendslock on all R-and-above stories and restriction of membership to those with birth year listed. I just joined this comm and I don't want anything to happen to it! ;_;

[murf1013.livejournal.com]

Wow. When I read about this yesterday, I had no idea it was as bad as it is.

I am so on board with FLocking R and over fics to comm members only. And also agree completely with everyone that said that the M*A*S*H fandom has little to worry about when it comes to issues of kiddie porn and/or incest. I don't think I've ever even read something in this fandom that comes close to k.p. or incest.

And as a writer of a fic that could *possibly* be considered a 'rape' fic (or at least non-consentual sex), I'm not terribly worried about the witch hunt because neither Hawkeye nor Frank are under 18 ... or brothers.

Anyway, if you decide to go the FLocking route, I'd be more than happy to help you guys out (like I did with the tagging when you became mod ... yay!). I'll do whatever I can.

[ignazwisdom.livejournal.com]

I think it's great that you made this post -- thank you!

That said, I don't think anything in the community needs to change. As others have mentioned, this fandom doesn't really attract incest or chan stories, let alone non-consensual incest/chan stories, which have been the only interests targeted by this organization/LiveJournal. As long as the community's interests list is clean, we're going to be fine.

I also want to say that I'm deeply opposed to the idea of forcing all stories above a certain rating to be friends-locked. As you know, it wasn't stories that were sought out for suspension, it was journals with certain terms in their interests. Furthermore, the reason that communities with "incest" and "child abuse/rape" in their interests were targeted is because WfI could argue that those communities encouraged those criminal activities. That argument doesn't apply to R-rated Hawkeye/BJ slash (because nobody thinks we're encouraging people to be gay. Although ... *g*). IMHO, the only thing accomplished by hiding our adult stories is making them that much harder for genuine fans to find and read. (There's also the fact that, AFAIK, you can't go back and change the security settings on other people's posts, so you'd either be left with an entire community of open R and NC-17 stories posted prior to this incident, or you'd be forced to delete people's stories to make them "disappear.")

Finally, if you decide to moderate community membership and admit only those members who put a birth year in their profiles, you will lose people -- a lot of people, I suspect. I'm nobody important, but I would be out of the community, because I am not going to put my birth year in my profile (even though I'm well over eighteen). I can't be only one who feels that way. Of course, it would take a thirteen-year-old all of two seconds to claim that she was born in 1975, so it wouldn't make a lot of difference anyway.

To sum up this rather lengthy comment: you're doing a great job, the community is fine as it is, and I strongly feel that any attempts to lock up stories or lock out members would be unnecessary, burdensome, and ultimately more harmful than not.

Thanks again for your conscientious moderation.