pokeaskdiscussioncenter:

seymoreusedpunt:

(( I’ve seen a lot of posts here and there, telling people what they should and shouldn’t do on their ask blogs…

YEAH, NO. GO AWAY.

I’LL POST WHAT I WANT.

I can understand it can be a little bit annoying if someone posts a lot of stuff…

Your points are fair.  I apologize, I certainly wasn’t trying to cause problems.  It’s just…this isn’t something I’ve been personally feeling, it’s something I’ve observed others feeling.  I’ve seen it as a sizable contributor to people leaving or almost leaving the community altogether.  That was what I was trying to avoid, people feeling like they didn’t have a place here because of all this.  I enjoy everyone here and I feel awful when they aren’t enjoying themselves and they leave.

What would you do?

seymoreusedpunt:

(( I’ve seen a lot of posts here and there, telling people what they should and shouldn’t do on their ask blogs…

YEAH, NO. GO AWAY.

I’LL POST WHAT I WANT.

I can understand it can be a little bit annoying if someone posts a lot of stuff that’s not related to the blog, but… C’mon, guys. If it’s really that irriating, just unfollow them??

Never tell someone what to do with their blog. It’s rude and makes you come off as a jerk. :c ))

Again, this isn’t an attempt to demand people do something in particular.  It’s an effort to try to ensure that the community is as accommodating as possible.  Some people feel that the amount of OOC and RP is too much and that it’s having a negative overall impact.  If you don’t feel this is the case, that is a perfectly valid opinion to hold.  All that my suggestions are trying to do is ensure that as many people as possible are satisfied with the experience and that there isn’t rampant unfollowing to the point where everything is so split up that we couldn’t realistically call it a “community” anymore.

If you don’t want to follow the suggestions, that’s your prerogative.  I believe it is courteous to do so, but I’m not an authority, I can’t demand anything and don’t intend to do so.  I can and will make an ask if I see these things in certain cases, not to control but just because not everyone has seen these and not everyone is aware of what people might be bothered by.  Anyone who I make an ask to is free to disregard me.

I do want Tumblr to be as fun for you as possible.  But I also want it to be as fun for everyone as possible, and everyone has different feelings.  And if people are feeling excluded because they lose followers over things like this, I can’t imagine that feels very good for them.  This is just my way of trying to find a middle ground, which is a challenge even in the best of situations, so I hope you can at least understand where I’m coming from.

ask-arbok:

raradoodles:

Why are people making separate roleplay accounts now? Why the hell are we making two accounts for the same damn characters?

I dont get this at all.

I mean, I can get people not wanting the HUGEEEEEEE LONG AS FUCK LINES OF DOOM because people forget to trim there RP posts but really… Why cant…

(It makes plenty of sense, and it’s why I’m not gonna make a separate RP blog.  If this blog came down to ONLY answers to asks, it’d be dead and would have a long time ago.  There’s nothing unreasonable about Nidoking’s suggestions, but they were definitely written with more active ask-blogs in mind.  If I moved non-ask activity to an RP blog, this blog would languish and everything would happen there because I just don’t get asked a lot of questions to keep activity UP under those circumstances.)

No one’s asking for an end to all RP or all plot.  But if you’re RPing privately with someone, it’s not really doing anything to interest the community and it doesn’t make sense to have it out on everyone’s dashboards.  Again, the side blog thing has a specific purpose, and that’s to make it so that it doesn’t have to get to the point of unfollowing in order to minimize it.

I understand that not everyone is equally active with Q&A, but I think there’s a growing feeling that there’s a lot less Q&A than there used to be, and there’s a lot of people who aren’t overly happy with that - it makes them feel somewhat ignored or excluded.  Meanwhile, they see a lot of OOC and RP which really doesn’t have much to do with the ask blogs, and I think it can give them the impression that that’s reducing the amount of questions that are asked.

Again, this isn’t saying that plot has no place here.  For example, the stuff like Servine’s comics, Weavile’s thing with Ginger, the Feraligatr/Hydreigon thing, all that is fine.  They’re advancing the characters involved in a clear way that relates to the blogs, and they’re largely driven by asks from lots of people.  What I think gets to some people is the “just between you and me” things that don’t do much for anyone except the people involved, and when those are happening, I don’t think it’s especially troublesome to request that it just gets a little more privatized.  If you disagree, I respect that, it’s how you feel.  I’m just trying to be the messenger for the general impression I’ve gotten, and that’s how I’ve seen other people expressing how they feel.

But I do think it’s possible to satisfy everyone, and if you have suggestions to make things a little easier for anyone who might be inconvenienced by this, I would absolutely appreciate hearing them.  This is about everyone here, after all, and everyone here deserves to have a say if they want.

ask-queen-serperior:

((things in here))

Read More

You are of course perfectly entitled to your opinion, and I respect your feelings on the matter.  And your additional tips for avoiding the issues are certainly useful, and I thank you for posting them (I was indeed not aware of the shortcuts before you mentioned them).  I would just like to make a couple of notes in response:

-While the shortcuts to skip past the posts are useful, the posts are still there, and they still add to the dashboard.  The more posts you try to scroll through, the more loading needs to be done, and the slower the browsing experience, especially for people who already have slower computers.  They certainly aren’t as taxing as images or gifs, I understand, but they do add to the load.

-As to unfollowing, well, that’s actually why I’m suggesting the side blogs first and foremost.  I’m hoping that we can minimize unfollowing, because I’m sure there are many people who like everything else that’s posted on a person’s blog apart fromRPs, and it would be a real shame for someone to feel like they had to unfollow a blog they otherwise liked for that reason alone.  My goal is to promote inclusion while minimizing restriction as best as possible.

I certainly hope I haven’t upset you, as that was not my intention.  I simply wanted to bring this to your attention because it has been considered a noteworthy issue as of late, and I sincerely thank you for listening and voicing your opinion on the matter.  I hope you are willing to be a part of future discussions.  Thank you very much for your time and accommodation!

Judging by the responses I received, it seems clear to me that people in general believe there is too much OOC, RP, and reblogs for their tastes.  For that reason, I’m going to create here a list of things that can be done to cut down on these.

This is a difficult line to walk, because again, I don’t want to seem like I’m dictating here.  But at the same time, we need to be courteous of everyone’s feelings here, and if there are things we can do to improve everyone’s feelings about the ask blog community, it will only be helpful in the long run.  For that reason, I would like you to provide feedback if you take issue with these recommendations, whether you think they go too far or not far enough.

OOC

First, I want to re-specify that we’re not trying to keep you from venting about personal problems.  If you need a post to rant about the crap that’s happening in your life, we would be glad to listen and try to help however we can.  However, there’s a lot of OOC posts that aren’t about that, but are just fairly random observations that have nothing to do with Pokémon or the ask blog community.  To that end, here’s a couple pointers:

-Create a personal blog.  If these are things you feel like you have to post, then having a personal blog will give you that outlet.  People who aren’t interested in OOC don’t have to follow the personal but can still follow your character.

-Ask yourself how many people need to know.  Do we have to know if you’re going to bed, or are going to be away for a couple hours?  Probably not unless someone’s explicitly waiting on something from you, and even then it doesn’t need to be a global post unless it’s many people waiting.  If someone in particular is doing something with you and would benefit from knowing if you were leaving, send them an individual message in their ask box rather than making a post about it.  (If you’re going on an extended break - several days or more - that’s something that is more reasonable to post.)

RP

The ask blogs are basically RP, but what people generally have a problem with is the private RP that lands on their dashboards and really bears little to no relevance to the community - they could not see it and miss nearly nothing.  These kinds of RPs tend to really busy up the dashboard and make it harder to see posts that they’re more interested in.  We don’t want to ask you to stop RPing entirely, but here’s a couple things you can do to make it a little easier on others:

-Have a side blog for RPing.  Like the personal blog suggestion above, this makes it so people who aren’t interested in RP can still follow your main Q&A blog just fine.  Personally, I think this is a good idea anyway, because it can make it a lot easier to coordinate your answers and your RPs, as having one blog for both can lead to it getting rather cluttered.

-RP over Skype.  Another alternative to a public posting.  Skype offers some useful advantages, including faster and more automatic updating and a more streamlined view.  And it avoids the problem of people having RP on their dashboards that they aren’t interested in.  If a side blog doesn’t seem like a good option for you, Skype is a great alternative.  That, and it’s free, and you can strike up chats with other people to your heart’s content.

-Trim your RP posts.  If you are posting on Tumblr, whether you have an RP that is private or public, long posts are very bothersome to everyone and just make reading more difficult.  If you need to scroll down your page to see the whole post, it’s time to trim.  Cut down to only the most recent message and go from there.  ESPECIALLY if other people might be seeing them.

Reblogs

Reblogged posts that aren’t related to Pokémon have been pointed out as something that many people aren’t fond of.  It may not be as highly cited as OOC and RP, but addressing it now is a good idea.

-Try to limit reblogging to relevant posts.  Pokémon-related posts are fair game, as are reblogs of other posts made by community members.  You can also reblog ask requests, but try not to overdo this.

-If it’s not relevant to the ask community but still interests you, reblog on a personal only.  That’s another use of a personal blog, and another reason to get one.  And try to refrain from reblogging posts from your personal using your Pokémon blog, unless it is actually relevant to the community.  While it’s great that you support gay marriage and hate animal abuse, that’s something for personal blogs, not Pokémon blogs.

-Do not reblog it if it’s clearly a hoax.  I know it’s fun to laugh at those, but reblogging them just adds to the clutter they produce and confuses people who are new and might not be aware of the hoax.  So just don’t reblog it at all.

Addressing the community

These are guidelines, not rules.  They are recommended to be followed in order to provide the best possible experience for as many people as possible.  However, they aren’t set in stone anywhere, and not everyone is going to see them.  Therefore, we have to be constructive in addressing these issues when they come up.  That means letting people know when they aren’t in line with these guidelines so they can be made aware and make the needed changes.  To that end, here are some guidelines for approaching other users and being approached:

-Be respectful.  If someone’s posting a lot of OOC, send them a message letting them know that there’s a lot of OOC, and tell them in a nice way that that’s not what a lot of people want to see.  Direct them to this blog so they can see these posts and understand what’s going on.  If you’re the recipient of one of these messages, be courteous and civil, and don’t bitch out the person who posts it.

-Don’t go on anonymous.  Anons like to harass people for no reason, and any complaint from an anon is instantly delegitimized.  If you feel someone needs to adjust their posting habits in line with these guidelines, either let them know directly or contact the Discussion Center and they will relay the message (anon asks are never on for the discussion center so any message will be from an ask blog).

I hope that these guidelines are all suitable to everyone.  Please let me know if you feel there are any issues that haven’t been adequately addressed.

I’m curious to know what people think about this.  I’ve heard some sentiment about how there seems to be too many OOC posts and RP posts compared to the Q&A that ask blogs normally get.  I won’t say much more beyond that it’s not just one person whom I’ve heard this from.

Now, I want to be fair here, so I’m going to say a couple things at the outset.  First, these are character blogs, but they’re run by real people.  And I can hardly find myself begrudging a few personal posts when someone’s having a lot to deal with - this can be a place for them to find support and help them get through it, and denying them that outlet would be a far worse sin.  Conversely, though, not all OOC is of that serious nature, and I can understand why some people might want to avoid those kinds of posts, which I’m going to call “trivial” OOC posts.

On the subject of RP, again, these blogs basically are RP.  However, I think what the people who are concerned about it are thinking of are the “exclusive” RPs - the ones between two blogs that don’t really have anything to do with anyone else or the community at large, and would be just as easily done privately.  While I don’t particularly mind that they’re done, they do tend to pack the dashboard in large doses, especially when the posts get large and they stretch the screen.  I certainly wouldn’t want to stop people from RPing completely, but if the general impression is that this isn’t desirable, it may be worth looking at finding ways to reduce the dashboard impact.

Before we talk about action, though, I want to see if these are general sentiments that a lot of people share, or if people don’t see these issues as real issues.  To that end, I’m going to ask for your input.  You can respond using the answer option or by submitting an ask.  I’d just like a response to the questions of whether there’s too much trivial OOC and too much exclusive RP.  While I’m at it, I’ll add in one about random, non-Pokémon-related reblogs; I haven’t seen people making note of that as something they consider a problem, but it’s just something I’d like to get a general impression of and it could be considered related to this.

One more note: I don’t want ANYONE feeling like I’m personally targeting them with this discussion.  This is something any or all of us might be guilty of, and the last thing I want to do with this discussion is create tension or make people feel unwelcome.  To that end, I do not want anyone to direct accusations towards any individual blog or blogger.  It’s not that I don’t trust people to be civil, but it’s easy for something like that to just come out, and if you’re aware of it you’re less likely to accidentally do it.

Again, please use the answer function to the post or submit an ask if you feel you need more space:

1. Do you think there are too many trivial OOC posts?

2. Do you think there are too many exclusive RP posts?

3. Do you think there are too many non-Pokémon reblogs?

Based on the responses received from the first part of this discussion thus far, it seems generally that people can accept the posting of adult materials but want them to be well-marked as such with clear tages and/or hidden beneath read-more links.  This will allow them to blacklist or unfollow as they feel fit, or avoid them entirely in the case of hiding.  This sounds reasonable and judging from the responses received will satisfy a number of people (if it isn’t, please refer to the earlier part of the discussion and place your input).

One thing that needs to be settled is what needs to be marked or hidden.  Specifically, where the line needs to be drawn to be marked NSFW.  Everyone’s got a line of decency and it may be hard to come up with a solid consensus, but I think it’s worth seeing where people generally think the line should be drawn.  For this I ask for everyone’s feedback.  I’ve got two lines here, one for text and one for pictures:

TEXT

Suggestive, euphemistic but generally clean —-1—- Discussions of general sexuality without specific references —-2—- Indirect or euphemistic discussion of sex —-3—- Frank discussion of sexual acts or characteristics —-4—- Explicitly sexual text (i.e. lemon)

PICTURES

Sexualized but clean —-1—- Sexualized but borderline (not nude but close) —-2—- Highly suggestive but not explicit (including clearly censored images) —-3—- Nude but not overtly sexual —-4—- Pornographic

What I request is a simple rating.  Select one number from each line as what you believe should be the cutoff for being determined as NSFW.  If you think a category might sometimes but not always be NSFW go below that one as the cutoff line.  And please rate as to what you believe qualifies as NSFW, not just what you feel is personally acceptable to you - you can be okay with explicit material appearing while still considering it NSFW.

Additionally, any suggestions for the best ways to mark or otherwise mask adult material are welcome.  I intend to write up a post with some general guidelines and tips for this kind of material, including what people generally consider acceptable and what they would rather not be exposed to as well as ways to keep in accordance with that.  We aren’t trying to establish hard rules here, or infringe on free speech, but ensure that people feel as comfortable as possible.  If you aren’t bothered by these things, then that’s fine, but everyone’s line is different, and a few small steps can make them feel a little more at home without stopping you from posting what you wish.

PLEASE PUT IN AN ASK AS IT IS NOT ALLOWING ME TO HAVE THE ANSWER OPTION IN THIS POST.

askarcanine:

pokeaskdiscussioncenter:

It’s happened a few times now, and it’s clear that there is a very significant disparity in what people consider acceptable content to post here.  This is important because several people expressed a lot of anger over this, and it’s not good for anyone when there’s a lot of tension.

We need to get an idea of what is and is not acceptable to the majority of posters here.  Without an idea of that, it’s impossible to know where to draw the line, and it sounds very much like a line needs to be drawn.

I know that there are ways of avoiding adult content, such as blacklisting posts, but that requires people to be good about their tags, which is something that’s hard to control.  So figuring out where people stand on this is crucial.

In a reply, please answer this question: What should be acceptable content, and what should be unacceptable?

Okay, so. I’m not on this account long enough to see any adult pictures of Pokemon pop up. But I’ll add my two cents anyway.

Personally, I don’t really care as much as I used to. The hardcore stuff of a children’s show still bothers me, but the softer stuff I’m just all. Eh. about. If that makes sense.

But, I also don’t like the idea of telling people in the community what they can and cannot post. Freedom of expression or whatever, right? That’s like an anon telling you not to complain about your bad day, or posting so many OOC posts, or something, when it’s your blog and you do what you wanna do. 

I do think, however, that MAYBE a warning would be nice if people don’t want to take the time out of their schedule to blacklist this or that tag. Though, as far as I know, any blogs that are NSFW do have a little warning in the side bar that says so. There are definitely more than one ask blog of any given pokemon. If one is NSFW, I’m sure there’s another that is SFW! Even if a blog only throws out a slightly naughty idea once every blue moon, maybe something that says that there might be a post about it so followers won’t be completely caught off guard when that post sort of post would pop up. 

Then again, if people aren’t willing to black list tags and would rather throw a hissi about it, why would the other group be willing to throw a warning on their blogs? Maybe a little on both sides would be nice. People who don’t want NSFW posts on their dash could blacklist the NSFW tag and NSFW blogs can still throw a warning on their blogs? That way, if someone who is blacklisting the tag IS following someone who is a NSFW blog some of the time, they can’t say they weren’t warned if the NSFW blog’s mod slips up on a post and doesn’t tag it. 

That probably didn’t make any sense.

No, that made plenty of sense.  Thank you for taking the time to post your opinion.  The more we get, the better idea we’ll have of people’s feelings on the matter.  And that’s the most important thing.

It’s happened a few times now, and it’s clear that there is a very significant disparity in what people consider acceptable content to post here.  This is important because several people expressed a lot of anger over this, and it’s not good for anyone when there’s a lot of tension.

We need to get an idea of what is and is not acceptable to the majority of posters here.  Without an idea of that, it’s impossible to know where to draw the line, and it sounds very much like a line needs to be drawn.

I know that there are ways of avoiding adult content, such as blacklisting posts, but that requires people to be good about their tags, which is something that’s hard to control.  So figuring out where people stand on this is crucial.

In a reply, please answer this question: What should be acceptable content, and what should be unacceptable?

I clearly waited too long to get moving on this, but now it’s here.  This is a place for people to voice their complaints or problems with the way things might be going in the community.  It was created mainly for the purpose of addressing issues people have so that they can be dealt with before getting out of hand.

Since there is no oversight authority for Pokémon asks, we as a community need to make decisions on how things go and what is and is not acceptable behavior.  While we can’t exactly enforce rules, we can set guidelines that can help make the community better for people who are here and more welcoming to people who aren’t.

Please follow this blog so that we can more easily discuss these issues.  I want to make every effort to get as many people involved as possible.