Hi all! As promised, here is the proposed text of the newest version of the rules. The staff has gone through like eight drafts and literally thousands and thousands of matrix posts to get here, so please be kind. You can see @limeey's comment on the transparency post if you want more insight into how this sausage was made.
We are opening these rules to commentary from the community before they go into effect. To be clear, this isn't a vote, but we will take all community feedback into account and answer whatever questions we can before finalizing anything.
Please keep in mind that we are not Reddit, we do not have Reddit's resources, and safety and consent are our priorities.
I'll post the draft in two parts in two comments: The new sidebar, and the FAQ/clarifications page.
shouldnt it just read “they are a child” is not allowed?
their pre or post pubescent status doesnt seem to be relevant
The problem here is hentai content based of anime characters. Most of these characters are under 18 canonically and thus any erotic content wouldn't be allowed under current ruling even though they look like and act like adults.
Then there's the gray zone for characters that have progressed or regressed in age in some way, a good example is Ciel from the visual novel Tsukihime who technically is past her 20s, but her body stopped aging at 26 due to lore reasons. Under current ruling it would be hard to be certain whether it's allowed or not even though she both looks and act like an adult (although a weird one as Nasu can't write a proper R18 scene to save his damn life). Another issue is aged up variants of characters where their canonical age is way below 18 but the art depicts them as above it.
That said I do stand by enforcing an age limit for real people, but when it comes to fictional characters (and anime characters in particular) it makes more sense to go by appearance, this rule would include all these characters while still disallowing Loli/Shota which is the main concern for other instances (see burggit for example). This draws a clear line with less ambiguity than "they are a child" as not everyone may have the same opinion and this could lead to more things getting hit in the crossfire than is necessary, yes I know this leaves characters like Megumin in the gray, but it's not as big of a gray zone as "not a child"
I think we'll just have to bite the bullet and make another hentai-instance. Hentai can not and will not work under rules like these.
What about short women? There's a community called Shortstacks. So are they considered underage because they're short? What about Midna from Zelda? Do we just need to add boobs to make a character into an adult? Are flatchests just completely forbidden since you can't assess wether someone is 17, 19 or 21? (Hell the Evangelion girls (Asuka and Rei) are 14 and 13 and look like somewhere between 17 and 19 to me)
Edit: I think the FAQ (haven't read it yet when I wrote this) solves the issue with underage hentai. I still think it's quite restrictive but hey it's probably the best we can get with all the Americans losing their minds over this.
Not sure if rhetorical, but I think most understand it pretty clear that no one is offended simply by short stature or flat chest.
It's short + zero body fat (including boobs) + no hips + twig arms and legs + pigtails + school uniform + baby face + baby voice + childish activity + context clues as to being underage, etc etc etc...
We all know what it means.