Forum:Concerning Censorship

So, as the name suggests, this is about the precent censorship. I would like to start this by quoting a member of the CBW Discord.

"the fact that this wiki was formed by kids around a children's line means we orient our identity around that, and with that comes a respect or the parents' wishes" 

(I have chosen not to name the member due to not having there consent to name them, however I can name them if need be)

Bionicle was a very beloved childrens toyline, as we OBVIOUSLY know. A toyline so well made that, many of us have decided to carry it on with us into our adulthood. The Bionicle is still very much alive and active. Granted it is FAR from it's golden days, it's still here and not dying any time soon. But if you are to look at ANYTHING, weather it be BZP, any active biotuber (I know there are actually still some there!) even CBW itself, there is one common thing.

We're all adults

The Bionicle community has stopped growing and I think it's safe to say we can all admit this to some extent. Gen 2 failed to bring about a new generation of young Bionicle fans, and I think only helped to make it clear that the community isn't growing, and that the only people still in it are now adults. Children are no longer interested in Bionicle. It's just us, the fans who have been here since 2001 and grew up with the toyline, followed the story, etc etc

With this whole intro out of the way, the topic of this. As stated in that quote, this was a website made by kids for a kids toyline. The wiki was made back in 2007 if my small search is correct. It is now 2018, 11 years since the wiki was made. Those "kids" who made this server have grown up, and no more "kids" have joined. Maybe you have some teenagers join every now and then, but that seems to be pretty rare. The server seems to be done by a small group of active community members, who are all adults. THe server is no longer the "home" of several young children who wanna show off whatever over glorified Inika build mocs they have. We are all grown, what we built has become more complex, and more importantly, what we have written, our ideas, everything about us and how we approach Bionicle, has matured with us. Yet, out censorship policies have not changed to accomodate this. Which is why I suggest a change in censorship policies.

When we grow up, we either grow out of things or take a more adult look at them. This is how we chose to approach Bionicle. Our stories are darker and/or take on more mature themes (though not too drastic it's still a kids toy), yet our censorship polices force the things we write, the way we interact, etc, to still fit what we expect of children. They haven't addapted or changed to accomodate the fact that the Bionicle community has grown up. Because of this, I think some changes need to be made, to accomodate the fact that we aren't 8-12 anymore

First I'd like to cover how I think fanfiction should be handled.:

I think the system that BZP uses for fanfictions would work best. Instead of completely limiting what you can do with your stories, they instead have a rating system that is based off of U.S. movie ratings. The different ratings allow for different levels of violence, language, etc to be allowed

G: No language and minimum violence, no brutal violence or death, etc.  You get the idea I think

PG: A bit harsher combat is allowed, though again nothing too much. Maybe you can drop the word "damn" every now and then

PG-13: Combat can be much more violent and brutal (no not like DOOM levels of violence.  More like a horrible transformers movie),  also a bit stronger language is allowed, though if you start dropping s bombs, f bombs, etc etc is a BIG no no, maybe saying "hell" or "damn" things like that. Basically just those two

R: R is just completely banned. This is something that FOR SURE shouldn't be here and we can all argee on this

Next is community behavior (AKA: Discord Chat, talk page comments, etc)

Again, the bionicle community is adults now, and the number of children in this community that you will interact with is SO SMALL that it almost never happens. Therefore, I think we should be allowed to be able to act like adults when we're around each other. What I'd suggest for this is allow people to keep there comments on the discord, and in talk pages, about the same as what you'd expect from a fanfic rated PG-13. In other words, we can talk and act like adults, we can use that same kind of language and talk about more adult topics, (I hope I'm wording this clearly). We're all adults who are talking with other adults now, so let us talk and act like it.

Am I saying completely get rid of censorship? No. This is still a kids toy and there's some things that just plain shouldn't be here. But at the same time, those kids are either gone or grew up, we're adults now, so we should change the policies to accomodate for that.

Bionicle may be a kids toy, made for kids, and this site may have been made by kids, for a kids toy. But let me remind you Bionilce was a kids toy made by adults. And the Bionicle community, is now adults.

The Duke Is AWSOME!!! (talk) 07:10, April 7, 2018 (UTC)