Hawks Aviator
As of reading a recent post in June regarding age Assurance it has come to my attention that I find many things regarding the situation to be an issue, as well as problematic not just for users, but for the community as a whole. I wish to detail a list of concerns and problems that I see, and that I wish to be addressed in some form.
  1. The system as it stands, seems to disregard a somewhat terrible design decision that makes changing, and adjusting avatars that are currently uploaded that are counted as sexually suggestive very tedious, and tiresome. The website, by in large, should have a way to view avatars differently, so they are not in a list, as well as being able to bulk tag avatars. As a user with multiple uploads private or not having to roll through my list and tag everything because I may be punished, makes me feel less compelled to go through the wave of 100s of avatars just to secure my account security due to a fault in design. As I see it, even adding a "Tag all" button on the website, would mean that users with large quantities of either Non Sexually suggestive, or sexually suggestive avatars will be able to adjust and bulk change much of what they have uploaded. I believe this change would benefit however only for this moment, and is sort of a solution that may only be viable now, but could be used in future.
  2. Tagging All avatars, while there is no way to tag non sexually suggestive avatars as non sexual, makes me think that there should be something in place to do 'non sexual'. My reasoning for it is simple; You can easily ensure all avatars untagged prior to a certain date (01/01/2025 i think is best,) be marked as Sexual or non sexual (However VRCHAT chooses to see fit). This allows users to go through and mark only a select couple they may need, ensuring the player base is able to use whatever they do or don't tag because there was a helpful system in place. If this however is not a great solution, I think my third point my be quite positive.
  3. When a user loads up an avatar they own for the first time after the change, a pop up could appear, allowing users to mark the avatar as Non sexually suggestive, or sexually suggestive. This also can allow future uploads to include this and make avatar uploading easier on the user and the current player base. By allowing us to tag it in game, this prevents the punishment, while also providing VRChat with the security they were asking of it's users. Obviously, this does not include public avatars, which should, by in large, be tagged prior to the change to ensure there is no issue. This does however protect a majority of the player base who may not even know this change is coming and don't have a good way to manage it, as with reasons stated above. As I said too, this change means that those who upload and merely just forgot to make a tag will be notified in game and will be able to fix this issue. This is why I suggested that a 'non sexually suggestive' tag be implemented, so each avatar is properly able to be checked and no longer receive such a pop up. Avatars from beyond the date of the change, should no longer be able to be made public without these tags too, providing more security, so users do not retroactively make private sexual avatars available.
  4. Make a clearer, concise list of what is considered sexually suggestive. One of the major issues I found while reading the guidelines, is that the guidelines for what is and isn't Sexually suggestive does have some things that can be left to interpretation. This is a massive issue, because if we, the creators, read such guidelines and deem our content appropriate because as we understood it, it was, and the team for VRChat disagrees, we are punishment due to an error in conveyance. As such, more examples and stricter wording would help regarding this situation. This can also be confusing, due to the idea that something that is 'sexually suggestive' is agreed to be, by all people, and all sexual orientations. Better guidelines will help everyone, and again, will improve future content creation for all users.
I hope that these ideas could be implemented, even if it's just one of them, as they each make an impactful difference to the community and creators as a whole. I hope this is considered as things roll out.