A rule that's only listed in the Roleplaying forum absolutely should not have been warned for for actions that happened entirely outside that forum. If I'm going to make a forum group, I don't read every single sub-forum's rules before I do so, and I shouldn't be expected to do so unless it's made obvious that it's expected (ex, language on the forum group page). A private or semi-private forum group is different than the public forums, and wouldn't obviously have the same 'subrules' (which are odd in and of themselves, they should really be at least mentioned in the 'forum' section of the main rules).

As it stands, the only mention of 'mature' or 'sexual content' in the official rules (there is no mention of 'roleplaying'/'rp'/etc) make it sound like soliciting offsite RP would be perfectly ok, so long as you were clear and marked it 'mature'.

Update the rules and/or announce, then warn. Doing it the other way around - even for non slash groups - is wrong.

Edit: Just to be clear, I'm not personally affected at all. But I was a little shocked at how this was handled, and the explanation/further details in this thread only made it worse not better.

You know, I didn't even think about this until you mentioned it. That's probably one reason why I was so outraged initially: there wasn't any warning at all. No announcement. Nothing. I didn't even remember that these forum groups existed until I was warned for them, because the RP forums are just that dead! It's been ages since I've gotten a ping for yuri1x1 or FxF, so they fell off my radar. Making announcements is incredibly important, because that way, people can realize "oh, this is a rule now; I should act accordingly so I don't get in trouble" and therefore avoid.. all this.

Also, I just realized that this book exists, and implies mature stuff with a "shounen-ai" label. And it's funny, because I was previously, explicitly told that "if you want to look for sfw roleplays, use shoujo / shounen -ai terms".

I think the morals of the story are "preemptive announcements, consistency, and not using foreign words".

If I had to guess, this is related to the fact that some people were given warnings for posting looking for RP posts that mentioned they were okay with ERP - not specifically looking for ERP, just stating that they were adults who had no issues with ERP, should their partner also be an adult. I was one of those people who got a warning for this; based on the wording of the "don't make threads to solicit mature roleplay" rule, I assumed it meant don't make a post only and specifically looking for ERP. I know at least one other person assumed the same thing; it seemed to fall under the general "warn for sexual or graphic content" rule.

I actually filed a ticket over my warning, because tbfh, there are items on site like a stripper pole and nipple pasties, and considering the usual conduct in places like the Shoutbox, I thought it was unfair to be warned for saying that I was comfortable with ERP and tagging a few RP groups, including the no-limits group (which I'm not sure still exists but did at the time). I did actually ask to have the stickied post re-written, but nothing ever happened.

I'm not so self-centered as to think I was the catalyst, but I have noticed that there's been more efforts to hold the site to the PG-13 standard since then; this is an incredibly clunky and heavy-handed way to do that, though, and I'm really disappointed in staff. But I mean. Hey. What does it matter? The RP forums are already dead, so this can't hurt them.

I'm still waiting for the explanation on why every member was warned in a sweeping group, instead of a staff member looking through forum posts.

I'd post this on the news section so everyone can see it. That way it's not hidden in the Feedback section where it may be entirely missed.

I know some people are still feeling strongly about this, but my main reason for creating this board was to voice my disagreement over the whole 'guilty by association' mentality in regards to the warnings. I don't really want to see it turn into a debate, so since staff has taken steps to resolve that issue, can this be locked ?

Thanks!