As far as ero content is concerned, I think one should distinguish between:
- (1.) Discussion topic: the topic or game itself (like lolicon, or Experiment Pleasure) as basis of discussion, and
- (2.) Discussion content: the actual discussion and content on the forums (screenshots, content of discussions, like whether they are helpful, intelligent or silly and inflammatory)
In the case of (1.), the topic of the discussion can be almost anything, even though I would say there are certainly limits here as well. For example, as open as you might be, there can be topics which you don't want to associate with your forums or community regardless of whether it is in fact an intelligent discussion. For example, you may want to disallow talking about extreme sex fetishes like mutilation / guro - disallow talking about it as a topic, and disallow releasing a game on the forum with this topic, no matter how intelligent the discussion and how artistic the game. Guro would make most people extremely uncomfortable and may also violate many service providers' terms of service, this is why taking away the right to speak about it from a few other people is perfectly justified.
In the case of (2.), the content of the discussion (how people behave and what they say), there are also considerations to be made. By content I mean words and images directly on the forum. I'd see a few areas to think about:
- [A.] The words. This would mean the words that appear on the forums and how they are treated. There will be some limits as to how insulting people can be, how many swear words one can use, how "graphic" or explicit a description can be and how tasteless a comment can be.
- [B.] The images. The limits here can be not posting an image with exposed genitalia or excessive brutality, or something even more restrictive, like not posting anything which would be classified as NSFW (no nudity at all). It depends on how the moderators want to shape the public image. Because of the nature of pictures/videos, restrictions on visual material tend to be stronger, so while it's often okay to have an article about sex, the accompanying pictures will usually be "dialed down a level", just depicting a tasteful picture of a couple kissing in bed.
So, to give an example:
Someone wants to post a guro game. This is not allowed. (1.).
He then wants to talk about guro. This is not allowed either. (1.)
Someone else wants to post a pornographic game. This is allowed. (1.)
He then wants to post screenshots of the sex scenes. This is not allowed. (2.)[B.]
Because he can't post screenshots, he talks very explicitly about the sex. This is not allowed. (2.)[A.]
Then, he just wants to talk about the sex aspect of his game. This is allowed. (2.)[A.]
To respond, then:
I don't think titles should be excluded based on whether they're mindless or not(whether the content is pornography or otherwise).
If by mindless you mean "mindless, but not morally objectionable", then I agree. A silly game, a sexfest, they should be both fine. There shouldn't be any judgments as to how mindless or not a game is. However...
For all I know, someone may want to make a thread just for talking about mindless vn rapefests, and I certainly wouldn't discourage them to do so provided visual novels are in fact being discussed and the thread title is marked appropriately.
Just because the vn itself is a mindless rapefest doesn't mean the discussion couldn't be thoughtful, meaningful, or insightful, or even helpful to authors of said rapefests.
... this is much more complicated - a sexfest and a rapefest are different things. A "harem game" where the sex is consensual, or even a game where rape is a dramatic plot point with a clear moral stance by the writer is most probably acceptable. But a rapefest which caters to a fetish and/or trivializes a crime against human dignity is a different matter, as this is a significant moral and in many countries a legal issue.
If that's the case, then it's actually irrelevant that the threads are marked 18+ and it's equally irrelevant that the conversation is intelligent, or that the work is artistic. It may simply be the policy of Teacup not to discuss rape at all - to avoid controversy, to make a statement or any other reason - simply not wanting to go there in the first place. I'm, not saying you can't mention the word or a game, but the discussion should then just be tangential and not a separate topic or even a game release.
This example has rape, but it could be racism, murder or drug abuse, so imagining a racism-fest, murder-fest or drug-fest is much the same, there are very good reasons why you as a community would not want to feature or support the creation of games that deal with the protagonist murdering people (Manhunt's controversy comes to mind) or abusing drugs.
So just because people can talk intelligently about something doesn't mean that they should or can or have the right to talk about it anywhere. Also, just because rapefests are a well known part of Japanese VN scene, doesn't mean Teacup should support or even accept the creation of rape games. I'm thinking especially about the site owners and the public image - sexual content, not to mention rape, is a significant factor in the public image of a site, and the community in general. Also something to consider is that many communities start very diverse, and then a unified direction forms and I don't think it's the case with Teacup as this is made of people who I believe share a lot of values together, which means they will be more strict as to who to allow to join (in regards to their values).
The obvious task of course is to try to strike a balance between the freedom of the artists to create erotic scenes and a certain moral image and standards. Ultimately this is up to the moderators/owners, but I can't stress enough that rape is not a trivial subject, and neither is explicit nudity, as both can earn a "porn site" (or worse) stamp very quickly.
I think the "worries" of HG and SHG are nevertheless justified in that saying that "Mindless pornography is not allowed" kind of suggests that the moderators decide on the quality of a story, suggesting that sexfests without deeper thoughts are not welcome. Which shouldn't be the case - though I doubt this was the intention anyway. It's from my understanding more geared towards stopping Flash-style "shovelporn" (click-here-to-put-it-in- kind of games) wrapped in Ren'Py with a few text lines in between for good measure. Perhaps changing the statement a bit would clarify it. Or leave the statement as it is and give some examples of actual works it tries to avoid.
Anyway, the above was about the content - so now, there is the matter of gameplay.
This is an entirely different discussion, and actually I don't want to elaborate on it that much, but suffice to say that the form (VN gameplay, dating sim structure) shouldn't be used to work around content considerations.
So for example, just because something is a VN (has text, overlayed over a sprite and background), it doesn't mean it should automatically be allowed, no matter what the content. If it's explicit guro, it shouldn't be able to get around restrictions by having text and sprites overlayed on backgrounds. It's still guro and still unwanted.
My own take on this is to narrow things down with a "Teacup" definition of the term Visual Novel.
I may have misunderstood, but I don't think (given the context of that statement) that a definition of a VN will actually solve content issues (like eliminate rape games). A form definition (VN) will not be able to determine content people put in that form.
As a general rule though, a definition of a VN or other accepted works may work in getting rid of unwanted formats like Flash-click games (which typically, though not always, have such mindless pornographic content), or "test games". Not that there would be a need for that now, as Teacup is a quiet community that doesn't have these issues. But for the sake of argument, sure - this would also exclude some of the action games which sometimes have a VN segment moving the game forwards. These are not really the scope of the community either, I would say.
But I'd say leave the definition very open, because no matter how you try, it's impossible to condense the essence of VNs and related works into a short and meaningful definition. I would almost say (legal analogy coming up) it's best not to codify VNs, but to build up a case law for them. So have a simple definition and enrich or restrict it with a few cases. Since the medium is evolving, this seems to me to be the best way - plus you can also project Teacup's values and directions into it as needed. Also, I would not be afraid to change the definition as time progresses. People seem to think one definition should stand forever, but especially in this field, that's not really the case as more creativity makes more variations on the typical VN formula.
