[Bf-committers] Re: [Bf-webcontent] Fwd: Blender.org website section email

D.J. Capelis djcapelis at gmail.com
Sun Feb 5 23:11:25 CET 2006


I'm CC'ing bf-committers on this.  If bf-webcontent is working on a code
of morals for the project I have some feeling a few people on that list
might just happen to at least want to know about it...

On Sun, 2006-02-05 at 00:39 +1300, Doug Ollivier wrote:
> > In the US schools won't be able to link to us for sexually mature
> > content (or at least it puts the teacher at risk of some trouble)
> > whereas violence is generally 'ok' as long as it isn't 'Grand Theft
> > Auto' :)
> 
> There is a difference Between "legal" and "Moral"

Agreed.  However you'll usually find this is a poor argument to say that
the former is a subset of the former.  Societies are pretty quick to
outlaw anything close to the borderline or anything they don't
understand.

> 
> personally I don't really care if Violence is accepted in the US.  I 
> think that is a very backward way of looking at things.
> I for one, live in a Nuclear Free country, because we don't want 
> anything to do with violence.  We get taught about sex far before we get 
> past the age of being allowed to own violent games or see violent 
> movies.  Each country has their own morals.  and blender.org needs to 
> decide what its morals are.
> 

Here's where we disagree.  It's wrong for blender as a project to get
together and force a unified code of morals on it's developers, artists
and users who are officially affiliated with the project.  Not only is
it wrong, it's unnecessary.  Blender is a project that spans the world
and it's highly undesirable to get everyone to zig the same way just so
one culture can feel groovy and enforce it's puritan values on another.
I think this suggestion is shameful.

> 
> No work that suggests sexual content
> No work that shows racist symbols, or racial satire
> No work should be posted that shows graphic violence, or depicts violent 
> acts.....

I think all of these conditions are unacceptable.  I agree that users
should be warned if we believe there's a risk of offending people.

> 
> Either that, or there should be a warning on 'mature content' and 
> separate it from the rest.
> I would suggest all shoot-em-ups that are not comic, are put into the 
> mature content section.

You'll notice that the demo already _has_ a warning on it and has always
had a warning on it telling people that one, if they weren't a mature
audience, they shouldn't look at it and two, it was fairly twisted, so
if they didn't have a sick sense of humor, scram and don't download it.
It's not hard, if you're offended by it, don't look at it.

> I think its Hypocritical to delete sexually mature content (its only 
> suggestive anyway) and not delete violent content.

I think it's insane to do either.  We are not an organization equipped
for censorship and frankly I didn't know that such actions were on our
list of goals.

> 
> Things like skating, walk-throughs, most art..... are all pretty sedate, 
> but I think we need some standards if we are gonna start working to any 
> standards at all.

It is very very bad for an international project that hosts some of the
artwork done by users and developers to impose misguided standards on
those parts of the world and those people who disagree with them.  I
have no problems with warnings for those with weak stomachs, but for the
most part I think that if someone saw enough merit to put it on the
website in the first place it needs to stay there.

> I am agreeing to remove the nurse, however I think we need to set 
> standards at the same time. (use it as an opportunity to look at things)

I am in total disagreement on removing the nurse.  I actually am of the
opinion that it would be immoral to do so.  I would have replied earlier
but I've been fairly busy.

> 
> what are blenders morals?

How about that we don't screen out content and hamper the creative
process just because a fraction of users who can easily not view that
material seem to get offended by it's mere existance?

> 
> 
> Doug Ollivier

I think you're going to get your discussion now...

D.J. Capelis



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