Last Call for Survey Responses about the silwritersguild LiveJournal

[dawn_felagund]

On Tuesday, I will be closing the survey about how to handle the silwritersguild LiveJournal community and using the results to discuss with my comods how we want to proceed. If you have not taken it yet and want to, please take the survey here.

In light of LJ's new and draconian Terms of Serve, we are seeking member input on whether we should comply with the ToS, and whether (and how) we should back up the community on Dreamwidth. (Please note that we are not considering shutting down the LJ community but whether we're willing to risk LJ suspending our account by not complying with a ToS that defies important values of the SWG.)

If you'd like to read more on the decision and why we're making it, see this post.

If you'd like to know why the mods are willing to let this community close rather than comply with the ToS, my thoughts on that are here. (Hint: It has less to do with access by minors and more to do with marking content containing LGBTQ+ characters as "adult.")

Thank you to everyone who has shared responses with us so far.

Comments

[silver-trails.livejournal.com]

I voted for marking it as adult content because I mark adult content like that, not LGBTI stories. Just to make that clear. So if the reason is because we have to mark any stories with LGBTI (what is Q?) characters as adult content, I agree with you.

[dawn_felagund]

The Heretic Loremaster post explains it more fully but, yes, if we mark the comm as "Adult" it will be because we have slash content on the community. The new ToS requires us to mark content according to Russian law. Which none of us understand that well since LJ refuses to release an English ToS or much explanation of what these laws are that we are expected to follow. But the recent Disney Beauty and the Beast film received the equivalent of an NC-17 rating in Russia because of a few seconds of two men dancing together, so I agree with those who are interpreting the new ToS as meaning that any content involving LGBTQ+ people must be marked Adult.

Which, as the owner of this community, leaves me two choices as far as compliance: 1) I can mark all slash stories or discussions involving slash/homosexuality and stories with gay characters as Adult and change the rules so that these stories have to be marked in this way going forward. Or 2) I can say that we all take on that same burden that slash writers are being asked to take and mark the whole comm as Adult.

I would close the community before doing Option 1. Which leaves Option 2 under discussion. But, as I said in the HL post, let there be no mistaking the fact that, if we change the community to Adult, it will be because of slash. Not because we have enough adult content on the comm to warrant it (we don't) but because the Russian government is homophobic and is telling us that we have to.

Which is why I'd rather say to the Russian government and to LJ "fuck you" and refuse to comply and accept the consequences, whatever they'd be, rather than pretend that this is a normal request in the year 2017, to hide gay characters behind Adult labels.

But this is me speaking as a person and a member of the site. As a mod, I have to take into account that this community is a space for more people than just me, so hearing what others think is important to me, even if the decision is ultimately mine to make.

(Q = queer)

[silver-trails.livejournal.com]

That's why I clarified the reasons for my vote.

I=intersexual

I'll be okay with whatever the mods do.