Kitsunaki
Currently we have the choice between Public or Private worlds and avatars. Everything that is private is hidden and inaccessible.
- As an artist, noone would find your private content if you have no direct link.
- Private avatars can't be used from other players. Of course it makes sense that you can't access other people's avatars, that were meant to represent JUST them. But commissioned avatars can't be NSFW, otherwise it would be against TOS, if they'd just be uploaded publicly by the artist.
- With millions of avatars the mod team can't go through every single one and I sometimes ran into clearly public NSFW uploads in avatar search worlds.
- Private worlds can't be saved to favorites without programs like VRCX, making them even harder to find.
- But also some creators are giving access to kinky private worlds via link and everyone can get into that world via said link. So even non-verified people would roam around NSFW worlds, but noone would even notice.
But why not using the exising 18+ verified badge for worlds and avatars similiar to how it is already used for accessing instances? I already see request-only groups in which you're not accepted, if not age-verified. And instances being age gated to allow kinky communities to not be hidden in private and to be legal. I recommend a similar step for Worlds and Avatars.
+ All the points above would not be a problem, if we would have a third category for both avatars and worlds -> [18+].
+ Every not verified person could not wear such an avatar.
+ Every not verified person would see such an avatar as a robot, not showing them.
+ Every not verified person could not join any instance to such a world, even when having the link from chats they shouldn't roam in.
+ 18+ Worlds and Avatars could even be invisible and not listed for not verified people.
+ Artists would not have to hide their content anymore, never to be seen from anyone.
+ Noone have to deal with very unhandy downsides anymore, like being unable to favorite private worlds or can't upload NSFW avatars publicly for friends or customers.
It would give a safespace for not just the many kinky bubbles out there, but also for the masses of vanilla NSFW people, who're searching for communities, that're not nearly invisible. I think age verification will spread much more with such an update.
> Why even bother?
Recently I received many messages of friends who uploaded teasy worlds or ran teasy groups and meetups. VRC is not just used by minors. Those friends were temp-banned and their groups and worlds deleted. Sometimes content that was uploaded for 5 years to the public and people had nice memories there. Worlds with 100s of thousands of visits and thousands of favorite entries. The need for such worlds and groups is obvious.
It also often isn't obvious why. Those groups or worlds had no naked characters in them, but instead kink groups and worlds with suggestive content, that they were into. People in my bubbles starting to be confused about what's okay and what not anymore. Especially because there is no warning, no 'set to private until review', just deletion and temp-ban. And the explanation mail always just states 'against our guidelines.' Yeah which of those exactly and what detail in that world was too much? People can't really learn from that, just repeating what they're always doing and running into the same problem again.
VRC mods being stricter to keep the public free of any lewd content? Okay, but then give us a red-light district at the harbor. If there was an 18+ option for worlds, every kink content creator automatically categorized their work there, to be safe but not longer hidden. So many users would have reason to breathe a sigh of relief, and your mod team would be way less in stress.
VRC itself stated "Let adults be adults." Yes, give us places that're gated by a bouncer checking your ID, not just tolerating hidden blackmarkets that're accessible through a hole close to the sewers.