Goodreads 18+ and Role Playing rules

[Simon (Highwayman)]

I want to share an email that was sent out to all moderators yesterday. It doesn't really apply to us as we are neither an 18+ group or a role playing group. I am twitching over Vanessas thread while I type this but as it is clearly labelled as adult content I am going to leave it for now, although everyones comments and opinions are as always welcome
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Dear Group Moderator,

We wanted to give you a heads up on some updates to our policies for groups on Goodreads. Groups are an important part of our vibrant community and we appreciate and value all you do as a group moderator. For many of our members, groups are a highlight of the time they spend on Goodreads.

As you may have already seen, we have made a few changes to how adults only (18+) groups work. As we have members who are age 13 to 17 on Goodreads, it’s important that we clarify how adults only (18+) groups should be operated on our site. We have therefore updated our guidelines for people creating and moderating groups on our site and you can view these here.

The two key points are:

• Anyone who wants to be a member of an adults only (18+) group, must have provided their birth date, and must be age 18 or older.
• Sexual role play is now not permitted in any group or any other part of the site.

Please read the guidelines for more details.

Important information for moderators of adults only (18+) groups:

• If you moderate an adults only (18+) group, any of your existing members who have not yet entered their birth date will be asked to do so before entering back into the group.
• Please note that members can opt to keep their birth date private (not visible on their profile).
• If any of your members are age 17 and younger, they will automatically have been removed from the group.
• Moving forward, if it comes to your attention that a member is actually 17 or younger, you must remove this member from the group immediately. If you have any questions regarding this, please email the Goodreads team at support@goodreads.com.

Thank you for helping our members enjoy book discussion that is appropriate to their age level.

Best wishes,

The Goodreads Team

[Simon (Highwayman)]

Many role playing groups were deleted without any notice. It has caused quite a stir on the Moderators group. Here is an explanation from Goodreads :
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Here's some background to help with your questions. Whenever something gets brought to our attention as potentially being inappropriate on Goodreads, we immediately review it. Particularly if it involves minors (13 - 17 year olds). We now have additional safeguards regarding groups on Goodreads. As part of these changes, we are prohibiting sexual role-play groups and we have deleted any of those groups that we are aware of.

Goodreads is a place for members to dive into the world of literature, and many of our groups do that in all kinds of ways. Role-playing is a fun, imaginative way to explore characters and be creative, which we value. But there are lines we ask our members to stay inside of for the benefit of the community - and sexual role-play groups are not appropriate here.

We were not able to give advance notice but notified group moderators as soon as we could. I'm sorry if any of this caused confusion.

[Patti (baconater)]

I'm very surprised that this hasn't generated any debate.

I certainly have personal views on censorship.

I can understand the stance goodreads is taking but I'm not liking this retroactive action. End of the day, their choice.

Could have been undertaken better.

[Darren]

Their website, their rules. I wonder what caused it. Some hint of grooming on a group chat I suppose.

[Patti (baconater)]

Entirely possible Darren. I hate that I have to share the planet with I can't think of a word horrible enough to describe them.

[Elle]

I think a lot of people seem to understand why they did it but are just quite pissed off about the way they went about it. From what I can tell from other groups and mods, they are happy enough about the changes, in fact some of them say it's a long time coming.

[Darren]

Change doesn't seem to be something that big online entities cope very well with, which is odd considering they are supposed to be at the forefront.

[Jim]

I was going to comment but it was when goodreads was running slow and I lost patience :-(
I've been into roleplaying games since the early 1970s, (if you look at my author page I've even written professionally for the hobby) and it strikes me that there is a danger that Sexual role play is going to lead to other threads getting pulled.

[Tim]

Darren wrote: "Change doesn't seem to be something that big online entities cope very well with, which is odd considering they are supposed to be at the forefront."

Big entities have trouble coping or responding well to anything, online or not - we've seen that recently with the Amazon reviews debacle.

[Patti (baconater)]

Lots of debate occurring here in the Goodreads Feedback group, for those interested.

http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1...

I suspect the slowness of the site the other day was because of the extensive deletion of groups that was taking place.

[Jim]

Thanks for that Patti.