I am not just keeping this blog for my own entertainment. and I don’t really see the point in continuing if I am hidden from potential readers, just for the sake of protecting the eyes of a few puritanical bloggers – I mean, come on… how many minors are hanging out on WordPress? I haven’t seen one blog by any person under the age of 17, and where I come from, that makes you above the age of consent.

I understand being kept off the front page, but from relevant tags? It is an unfair system and I am considering leaving WordPress altogether if the situation is not ratified to some extent.

Nobody considers my feelings if I don’t want to be confronted by bigotry, rightwing propaganda, or the vast majority of Christian bloggers. Give a little, WordPress… please.

Thanks for raising the issue.

Regards,
-drmike

Having a button for reporting “mature” content is idiotic, you geeks in the wordpress office can just as easily tell the “next” button to skip blogs with tags x, y & z in them! I know you can so just do it!

Please do forgive me, with all the ruckus, I forgot to thank you for your kind comments about our writing.

Thank you, we both look forward to writing some more stories, and hope you find them equally as beautiful and erotic.

Kisses to you, from bo’fus.

It is impossible to control content to such an extent that no one will be offended. Some things are fairly blanket-offensive, other things are offensive to only a few, and still other things weirdly offensive to the very very few.

If it is WordPress’s goal to be offensive to no one, I believe that this is wear the problem lies. I personally have problems with trying to be in-offensive to just the right number of people to avoid censorship claims and lawsuits. In a very naive fashion, I think that it is principle that one needs to stand on (yes, knowing that principle doesn’t always seem the way to make money).

A clear set of consequences would help the individual bloggers. It need not be spelled out if you fear gaming the stem, just send an email that outlines the reasons for de-listing.

I also agree with posters from above that an easy way to avoid stumbling on unwanted content would be to remove the “next” button. This would seem to solve more problems than anything else discussed.

I am aware that my site is still indexed by the search engines and all that. My issue is that I have been hidden from WordPress community bloggers who are looking for the content I provide.

“Mature material” is a small part of my blog, yet my entire blog is now invisible to those other bloggers.

I also agree with Elizabeth that the explanation poses many questions and answers few.

Additionally, I’m still upset about the arbitrary nature of the enforcement of the unknown rules, and the complete lack of notice I was given when I was de-listed for unknown reasons.

I have received two emails, both posted on my blog, that say nothing more than my blog contains “mature content”. That’s rather vague. As determined by whom? What is the limit? How many bloggers “accidentally” stumbled onto my blog and complained? Why was this not laid out in the terms of service?

If my posts are clearly labeled “sex” or “erotica”, that shows up on the category pages, even if the post is appearing in the “literature” section. If someone is looking for Disney stories, they are already informed that the story is not what they are looking for. I have never failed to properly label my material as such, and isn’t that exactly why the labeling system exists?

As far as the shrillness of our cries of censorship go, please explain why blogs which took issue with WordPress’ actions are being de-listed, even if they have no mature content on them.

If that’s not censorship, nothing is.

Thank you for finally actually holding this discussion in public, where it belongs.

As for the WordPress.com homepage, it seems to me that is where your public persona as a company is most at stake. WordPress should do with it as it likes. But I wish that the categories would be more honest. For example instead of “fastest growing,” perhaps “fastest growing G/PG-rated blogs,” or something like that.

As for the accusations of censorship, I understand that WordPress is not censoring the blogger or the content. But they are preventing blog posts from being seen in logical places and that is a type of censoring: a censoring of lists, of pages, etc. Again, it’s WordPress’s right to do it. I read the TOS. I didn’t find anything there that describes this, and I wish it would be clearly outlined there, but I don’t dispute WordPress’s right to control the space.

That’s correct. The current implementation doesn’t allow us to remove posts only from select tag pages – it’s an all or nothing deal.

“Can blogs that are “mature” not be left on those tag pages where people go clearly looking for “mature” content?”

That’s worth looking into.

It seems that you agree with our basic idea of keeping mature content off of public pages like the wordpress.com home page, tag pages and the “next” feature? We’re trying to strike a balance between allowing mature content and not actively promoting that content to the many wordpress.com users who don’t want to see it.

As an aside, I’m finding the accusations of censorship pretty shrill. We’re not censoring mature content – nobody is getting thrown off the service – we’re simply choosing not to promote it.

I’m not so sure a middle ground is really very difficult to find. I’d love to know some stats on how often blogs are reported as mature, how often the reason is sexual content, how often violence, etc.

And I still don’t understand why blogs should be removed from tags that are clearly “mature” tags. Is the system unable to separate out the “erotic” or “sex” tags from other tags? Can blogs that are “mature” not be left on those tag pages where people go clearly looking for “mature” content?

When this site first started and the tag system and the next blog link was put in, we had folks tripping over mature adult blogs left and right. Something had to be done.

I have some adult fiction work son my own blog here. It’s not labeled as mature. Gotta admit that middle ground is kind of hard to find on the issue.

Regards,
-drmike