RE: Fiction: I remove the text, as I refuse to censor the comment.
You are viewing a single comment's thread:
Hi @osomar357. I never got to read the story before you took it down. You self-censored. 😄
I hope I can help clarify some things. The situation here is that we have to be true to the spirit of our community. It's not about censorship.
Here is some important perspective. Every community in The Ink Well gets to set their own guidelines for the content accepted in their community. We have done that to the best of our ability. We have carefully written our rules and guidelines, and we communicate them at the top of the community and in our writing prompts.
Consider these examples of how any Hive community can set their own rules and guidelines and require community members to adhere to them:
- A poetry community would not allow content about how to buy bump stocks.
- A vegetarian foodie community would not accept content about frog dissection or how to grill the best steaks.
- A photography community is under no obligation to accept poetry or self-help articles or even artwork that is not photography.
That said, any writer on Hive can still post any of those things to their own blog, or choose a different community that has different rules. Some of our writers publish content that contains sex or violence in other communities, and post only content that does not have those elements here.
The curator who read your story felt it "crossed the line" for acceptability in our community and went beyond a "PG" rating. PG means "Parental Guidance" and it's a term used in the cinema world to help parents determine whether a film is appropriate for a child. We use that as a metric for whether we approve the content to appear here in The Ink Well. (A parent of a 12-year-old might allow their child to see a PG-rated movie, but not an X-rated movie, for example.)
We also use the term "NSFW" which means "not safe for work." If a person couldn't safely read the content while their boss looks over their shoulder at their computer, then it's not safe for The Ink Well. "NSFW" is a standard metric used for content appropriateness, and you will see that in our rules. (Naked demons stimulating one another with tongues rubbing together is perhaps a step too far. I think most employers would not approve.)
Of course, it's a bit subjective. That can't be helped, because as our curator mentioned "we are just people." We are a community that decided long ago to maintain a standard that content published here must be safe for all ages, and for people who have experienced violence and sexual traumas. We do our best on a day-to-day basis is ensure that our community members understand and adhere to these guidelines.
I hope you now have a better understanding of what kinds of content will cross the line of our NSFW filter.
Wishing you the best this holiday season. Please keep writing. You have a wonderful creative mind, and I look forward to more of your stories!
Hi @jayna, best wishes.
The text does not violate the rules of the community, nor does it have elements of exaggerated sexuality, lack of respect, or anything like that.
It is simply, the curator's personal criterion, and of his supposed morality, and in fact when you ask for an explanation, since you should have the right to reply, at least in my country, it is like that, not even the one who censors you, is able to explain with serious, sustainable and irrefutable arguments, the measures he takes.
His opinion must simply be assumed, and it must be accepted, because he is the representative of a power relationship. The power to censor, to choose, or not to do it, and to the one who likes it well and to the one who does not like it to see what he does.
That's what it feels like when action is taken without arguments. And it bothers more, when they make such an ignorant comment to you like: "Would you read the story to a girl" The answer as I put it is that no, it's a horror story, and it's for an adult community. And the other stupid thing he asked: Would you read it to your grandmother "No, but not because I don't want to, but because she's dead, however I passed it on to my 80-year-old aunt and my great-aunt, and they liked the story, as well as they like it when I send them the children's stories.
This is the third time that the censorship thing has happened to me, and the third time without a concrete and rational atonement. And actually, it would be four times about the censorship, only the first time, if I broke the rules, since I hadn't read them and I didn't say anything, but on the other three occasions, if there was a possibility to make the discussion and to show that they were literary texts that didn't violate the rules.
Another thing that bothers me, is that I saw, two posts, to those who did the same thing on different occasions, and at least had the delicacy, to make an explanation of the reason why they were taking the measure, and they commented on the violated rule.
Finally, my dear @jayna, I did not self-censor. It's very simple, if my writings are not respected and are not well received, they simply have no reason to be in that community, and therefore neither do I, it's not worth writing in a place, where besides they censor a text, they disrespect you, asking you questions of the kind that the censor asked.
Personally, I plan to continue writing, I live from it, it's my career, I've already published two books and the third one didn't come out, thanks to the sanctions of the United States and the European Community on my country. That caused the publishing house to go bankrupt. But I'll probably get the third one in digital, so I'll keep writing, and thanks a lot for that comment.
What I do, is that I hope to never write more in The Ink Well, it seemed a lack of respect yesterday.. And finally and I repeat it, again and again, the text did not violate the community rules, it was just a personal choice, and the comment, it was disrespectful and that's censorship.
Best wishes and happy holidays.