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[Proposal] Clarification on Song Content Rules

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Topic Starter
Shohei Ohtani
So last night I got banned for uploading a song with explicit content. As I've mapped songs with explicit lyrics before, I was really shocked by this.

So after talking with support team about this and getting things all squared away, I think it's important to sort of have a legitimate discussion about this kind of stuff so people aren't really stuck in a similar situation as I am.

CURRENT RULE:
There must not be any obscene imagery in the background/storyboard/video content. This includes nudity, near-nudity, sexual references, violence, drug abuse, etc. Keep things PG, suitable for ages 12+. Images should be on a level that can be displayed on all-audience TV, on public signage, and of nature that does not require censoring in any country.
PROPOSED RULE:
Maps cannot contain lyrics or imagery containing obscene content. This includes, but is not limited to:
[*]Sexual Content
[*]Drug Usage / Paraphanilia
[*]Intent to Harm Oneself or Others
[*]Excessive Explicit Language
I'd be really interested to having a discussion about this, because it IS very ambigious at the moment, and I really don't want anyone to get stuck in my situation because there's not something out there defining what is explicit, ESPECIALLY when there are a fair number of maps already ranked that have these sorts of subjects.
Pachiru
I also agree that the rule about NSFW stuffs should be clarified, cause actually the word "NSFW" is quite unclear.
Topic Starter
Shohei Ohtani
okay so is this going to happen or
Kibbleru
gotta go contact oko about this
Topic Starter
Shohei Ohtani
Then do it
Okoratu
The community rules already take care of that

We are an all-ages community. This means that 18+/NSFW (not safe for work) content such as drug use or topics of a sexual nature are not welcome here. Exceptions are made where appropriate for this, but generally speaking, keep it clean.


We can either adopt this as a rule there as well or clarify this further, allowing to add a label for suggestive topics should be kept though because there's a vast majority of cases where songs have underlying innuendos that go over your head unless you aren't in the know
Topic Starter
Shohei Ohtani
Late reply, sorry, didn't wanna type a big things while I was out on vacation.

Anyways, I feel that it SHOULD be a rule, mostly BECAUSE of the explanation of NSFW background images. Having this specific rule kind of provides and implication that that's the only thing that's not allowed. Especially since that's how things were before I was banned, I think it helps to have it explained.

Plus it'd be really nice to sort of have a consistent set of rules for this, especially regarding mapping. If my song has a curse word in it, do I have to change it? Does the IMPLICATION of sexual themes (such as https://osu.ppy.sh/s/692315 ) get blocked, or is it just the explicit mention.

I know the general rule of thumb is "ask the QAT" but in my experience of asking the QAT it's been HUGELY varied as to what flies and what doesn't fly when it comes to content appropriateness. I'd love to eliminate this Loctav-era idea of intentional ambiguity and realy push for specific guidelines so that all of the QAT can give a consistent yes/no when I'm asking questions (or at least make the grey area a LOT smaller than it currently is right now)
abraker
There must not be any obscene imagery in the background/storyboard/video content. This includes nudity, near-nudity, sexual references, violence, drug abuse, etc. Keep things PG, suitable for ages 12+. Images should be on a level that can be displayed on all-audience TV, on public signage, and of nature that does not require censoring in any country.
Just noticed this. 12+ implies 12 or older. Should be "suitable for ages 12 and younger" for it to be PG.
Topic Starter
Shohei Ohtani
nice
Topic Starter
Shohei Ohtani
so what's the scoop
Okoratu
My go at this if we implement the rule that applies to chatting in general into mapping:
Maps must not contain any 18+/NSFW content such as drug use or topics of overly sexual nature. This includes but is not limited to excessively explicit language, overly suggestive sounds in the song itself as well as suggestive imagery in the background. Keep things PG, suitable for children up to the age of 12 years.


hmm somehow this seems too strict for what our current guidelines are for handling this content ? I've only seen and nuked things that are WAYY out there in the fucked up realm
Myxo
"drug use" you probably mean "drug abuse"? i mean come on
otherwise seems good and not very restrictive, though i would cut out the "excessively explicit language" or clarify it further because most artists use this as a stylistic and artistic tool. for example most mainstream hip hop would fall under "excessively explicit language" to me but is far from being rated 12+
qwr

CDFA wrote:

PROPOSED RULE:
Maps cannot contain lyrics or imagery containing obscene content. This includes, but is not limited to:
[*]Sexual Content
[*]Drug Usage / Paraphanilia
[*]Intent to Harm Oneself or Others
[*]Excessive Explicit Language
I'd be really interested to having a discussion about this, because it IS very ambigious at the moment, and I really don't want anyone to get stuck in my situation because there's not something out there defining what is explicit, ESPECIALLY when there are a fair number of maps already ranked that have these sorts of subjects.
I hope this is bg-wise and not lyrics-wise. Because I know you said already there are maps with these kinds of lyrics (would Cocaine pass? This map has a syringe, is that drug paraphanillia?) but the rules you stated are vague too. I wonder if Go to Church would be allowed under your rules. Or perhaps Biggie's famous Notorious Thugs. The Go to Church map definitely has drug use and intent to harm oneself or others.


I think if Youtube allows all the things you listed, then osu should too, as nothing is stopping any 10 year old from going on youtube and finding these. My opinion is osu shouldn't be a kiddie filter just because Puritanical American views would like to believe that such things work.
qwr
Also this is a 2008 map but reminder it exists https://osu.ppy.sh/s/933 NSFW
Topic Starter
Shohei Ohtani
When previously talking about stuff, the general agreement in the QAT was "lmao we're going to impletement rules just from this point on instead of judging past maps off of current rules"

Also, I think that while the rules SEEM strict, it kind of makes sense. I think just HAVING that written up would be MONUMENTALLY more helpful. Especially with having EXCESSIVE language put on there.

In an IDEAL sense it would be nice to sort of have a guideline for what's considered excessive. I'm not saying "you're allowed 10 curse words", but maybe some examples for the BN / QAT to have about what's good or not good.

For instance, would THIS be considered innapropriate?: https://osu.ppy.sh/s/150639 . From what I've asked some other BNs, they've said it's fine, even though it has a few curses and implications of sexual activity.

But so far I like it. That's sort of my thing, I'm fine with regulation and such, I just hate hate HATE this Loctav-era of thinking of "oh it's 'common sense' so it'll just be an unwritten rule but we're going to enforce it like it's a major rule but only sometimes", so I wanna make sure that if it's something that can get my map deleted and my account silenced / restricted, that it's there in plain text.
Myxo

CDFA wrote:

For instance, would THIS be considered innapropriate?: https://osu.ppy.sh/s/150639 . From what I've asked some other BNs, they've said it's fine, even though it has a few curses and implications of sexual activity.
did you really misspell "Kanye West" i think songs like these should be fine. it's what i mentioned before, the curses are just a stylistic tool and nobody really takes this seriously. also shit like this is on the radio and on tv anyway so what do we expect
Nitrous

Myxomatosis wrote:

CDFA wrote:

For instance, would THIS be considered innapropriate?: https://osu.ppy.sh/s/150639 . From what I've asked some other BNs, they've said it's fine, even though it has a few curses and implications of sexual activity.
did you really misspell "Kanye West" i think songs like these should be fine. it's what i mentioned before, the curses are just a stylistic tool and nobody really takes this seriously. also shit like this is on the radio and on tv anyway so what do we expect
There are concerned people, specially those that are of parental age (and believe me there are those who still play this game). Its unethical to let an adolescent listen to obscene language, they might blame this game because of such things. My suggestion would be to add by just further emphasizing warnings (map descriptions are often ignored) such as adding +18 or nsfw tags and filter them out in beatmap searching would be better.
Topic Starter
Shohei Ohtani

Myxomatosis wrote:

CDFA wrote:

For instance, would THIS be considered innapropriate?: https://osu.ppy.sh/s/150639 . From what I've asked some other BNs, they've said it's fine, even though it has a few curses and implications of sexual activity.
did you really misspell "Kanye West" i think songs like these should be fine. it's what i mentioned before, the curses are just a stylistic tool and nobody really takes this seriously. also shit like this is on the radio and on tv anyway so what do we expect
well if you want to get super technical, American radio edits will blur out any curse words or slurs that are used. So it's important to also make that distinction, are we allowing SOME curse words, or are we just censoring EVERYTHING (which, seeing as we can still curse on the forum and in-game, I think we're more inclined to go with the first)

Nitrous wrote:

There are concerned people, specially those that are of parental age (and believe me there are those who still play this game). Its unethical to let an adolescent listen to obscene language, they might blame this game because of such things. My suggestion would be to add by just further emphasizing warnings (map descriptions are often ignored) such as adding +18 or nsfw tags and filter them out in beatmap searching would be better.
I actually made a suggestion to have an in-game notation of NSFW stuff put in place before, or having the ability to filter maps that are marked as NSFW. peppy, in the way that he sometimes does when he doesn't wanna do stuff, was like "okay get me a list and I'll do it." So me and some other guys provided a list to him. And he's like "a"

However at this point I feel that making a guideline on the actual ranking criteria would be more effective than putting on a tag AFTER the fact.
Topic Starter
Shohei Ohtani
So we need to fucking talk about this.

https://osu.ppy.sh/s/716630

Apparently this shit is a fine pass even though we just spend all of this fucking time talking about "oh yeah content rules oh yeah we gotta be safe for the kids" like are you fucking serious.

This is a huge fuck you to me as well as others in the community who have been screwed over by these sorts of rules as well as these vague guidelines as to what is appropriate and inappropriate.

I'd very much like to see the QAT justify this being allowed to get a fair pass while maps that I've submitted put me on the verge of getting banned from the game.

THIS is why I decide to put so much god damned effort into this kind of shit. THIS kind of shit, so that I don't have to constantly hope "oh god is this QAT going to hate my map or will they love it", it'll be a simple "this is what makes your map unrankable." This subjective "oh we'll decide on it" shit didn't work when Loctav was around, and it's obvious that it's not working now.

So let's see this get justified.
qwr
There's already a loved version from more than a year ago https://osu.ppy.sh/s/288162
Canderos
Don't forget https://osu.ppy.sh/s/328597.

EDIT: Also, does it matter less if the songs aren't in English? Pensamento and Chuj Kurwa are fairly explicit but nobody seems to even bring them up in conversations like these, even though they are popular.
Ephemeral
I think we've regressed rather significantly on the rules surrounding this particular thing.

It is indeed, an established community rule that any content involved with the game should be appropriate for 'all-ages' - that particular term has been peddled around with pretty much universal usage in the past few years as some sort of catchall for all this stuff.

However, I think there is some artistic merit in allowing songs or tracks with explicit material and content (within reason, however) to be submitted and ranked as per other beatmaps, except with some sort of designation made abundantly obvious in their description or listing somehow.

Heavily explicit tracks or songs that deal intensely and intimately with themes that just simply are not appropriate for osu! (such as heavy drug use, suicide, murder, etc) will never fly, but I am not against amending the rules regarding beatmap submission to allow maps with explicit audio content to be considered for ranking.

An exclusion on a case-by-case basis to allow beatmap submission for tracks deemed to be explicit but not excessively so with a designator (18+ or a content warning in the description, as how it used to work) would be the most elegant solution to this issue, I think. The question of "who determines what is too explicit" or not is a big one, as people apparently have very different attitudes in this regard.

MTC is okay, though should arguably be tagged. Most XXXTentacion tracks are probably not okay even when tagged. Most, not all.

Do note, this is just my personal opinion on the matter. I've always been one of the more lax members of the team when it comes towards content policing.
qwr
Idk if you consider xxxtentacion to be artistically merited enough but I can really relate to some of his less vulgar songs so I think they should be kept
Tired of feelin' like I'm trapped in my damn mind
Tired of feelin' like I'm wrapped in a damn lie
Tired of feelin' like my life is a damn game
Nigga really wanna die in the nighttime
https://genius.com/Xxxtentacion-everybo ... res-lyrics
Anemic Witch
On the one hand maps with explicit lyrics and very questionable backgrounds are going ranked and on the other people are getting restricted for mapping what they like. Why don't you just implement big-red-button that warn people about song containing some 18+ content?
Rougoku
First and foremost, I want to note that I'm not by any mean "someone", barely knows any mapper and have the perspective of mostly being a player.

So yeah, I don't really understand how "we've regressed". 1 year ago, rules were supposed to be revamped in order to be clearer, due to the whole El Chivi's song being almost ranked and having extreme profanity in it. They never were. (and the map is still graveyarded, so downloadable)

I have countless examples of maps dealing "intensely" with non-appropriate themes that you quoted being ranked, at any point of time ranging from 2009 to 2017. So I don't see how we could have "regressed", when there never were any rules available for the public to begin with.

Such a subject cannot be enforced or anything, it is too vague, too abstract. There is no one that is fit to discuss which music has "artistic merit" or not. There is too much hurdles preventing that.

For instance, there is the fact that if you want to pinpoint which song is unsafe for 'all-ages', you would need a polyglot or a team of people speaking every single language, as the distinction between being on the grey area and explicitely being violent cannot be caught using a translator (problem of context for each word, for the general song, etc. there are parody songs ranked that are clearly parodical for people speaking the language, non-offensive for people that cannot speak it, but someone learning the language could be confused and think that it's clearly offensive). On the other hand, it is not impossible to write an offensive song without any curse for and with implied stuff, that could be caught only by fluent speakers.

Then, the number of "Pending" or "Graveyarded" maps is too high, nobody can listen to every single one to decide if the song is or isn't offensive. Even the most notorious artists when it comes to being extremely crude and/or violent have done some pretty chill songs, and someone gave you an example on reddit IIRC. And I say that as someone who hates this artist, from the bottom of my heart.

Such hurdles are impossible to overcome, and it's why, IMO, I think that this whole topic is bogus. When it comes to unranked maps, nobody should be silenced, restricted, or even have their maps removed for being in the grey area, as far as the "grey area" can stretch, because under no system it could be fair for all users.

The number of maps passing through the ranked section, however, is drastically lower, and the debate should be up when a bubble or some sort of intense exposure is made (and not before, and not after, as it happened in the past). But even then, a map is bound to slip by at any moment, and it's not really severe, because if the common sense decided that the song weren't offensive enough to trigger a backlash, then it's fine, because it is not likely to shock most users. The number of unranked map is so high, you won't find haphazardly an offensive song.

TL;DR : let people submit whatever they want if it's in the grey area, if the map don't use, and I quote SharpII "excessive profanity/terroristic propaganda/illegal content/screamers". When the map is heading for ranked, then it would be possible to decline the map from there as
CXu
If we add in rules and whatnot for this to keep things all-ages, what do we do with maps that don't follow these rules that are already ranked? Do we just unrank them and banish them to the abyss? Some of the "damage" if we want to call it that is already done so the game couldn't really turn completely all ages unless the rules apply retroactively and all uploaded rulebreaking maps are removed.

So yeah, I dunno, it sounds more realistic to use a filtering system where more mature language stuff is hidden until you explicitly allow it to be viewed in some way. And at least imo it kind of comes down to parents parenting whether a kid hear things they shouldn't if you have proper filtering/safeguards for it I guess.

Also it's old, but there's this song: https://osu.ppy.sh/s/7705 which translates to like "the fucking song" and is made up off a bunch of moaning lol.
Caput Mortuum
an nsfw toggle and a big red warning saying babies are not welcome would solve all of these problems
MaestroSplinter
It may sound so crazy but... what about just the use of "+18" and [MATURE CONTENT] right to the title of the map ?
MaestroSplinter

Master_chan wrote:

Why don't you just implement big-red-button that warn people about song containing some 18+ content?
This
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