You’re near from a Godwin Point here :mrgreen:
Damned I’m too late 
But still, I don’t see why two or three more threads on loli would hurt. I hate having to constantly be bothered with things like “OMFG IT’S ILLEGAL!!1” or “NUH UH IT IS LEGAL!!1” when going on every loli thread: It gets tiring.
Besides, posts and threads are not material things. Other than taking up like a few bytes of space on a 700 GB server, there really isn’t much to waste. And I’m pretty sure this thread hasn’t gone back on topic yet, either. If there isn’t anything on-topic to discuss anymore, why do we have to keep it alive with extraneous crap?
And it never will my friend!
This thread belongs to the Loonie Legal Loli Litigators! We’re not getting of this derailed ride, until it crashes, burns, sinks, and atomizes… even then - we’re still hanging around!
If you want to keep it open, then keep the legal shit on this thread and this thread only. I don’t want to see it on any more loli threads that may pop up.
If there’s a thread in the future that is named “What is your favorite loli character?” then I expect it to be all about various users’ favorite loli characters and not about whether loli is legal or not. :x
You might as well ask the sun to stop shinning. 
Dude, the legality of loli material is a serious matter that could affect how we define the extent of free speech, as well as what kind of games that can be localized here. People may get imprisoned depending on what is and what isn’t the case. I’d rather not have loli-based discussions be so goddamned serious all the time.
For once, I’d like to have a thread named “Favorite loli character discussion” being a lighthearted discussion about people’s favorite loli characters, without fear of being derailed by a serious discussion about whether loli is legal or not.
Keep your law school bullshit where it’s on topic. You think this is some sort of joke? :?
I’d like to remind everyone that this forum is officially managed by JAST USA, and as such we have an interest in maintaining the company image and reputation for adhering both to the letter and the spirit of the law regarding the depiction of minors in media we produce. Our policy is that all characters engaging in adult activity in our games are a) fictional non-realistic depictions with no relation to individual or collective concepts of actual people, AND b) above the age of 18. This is a policy we have adopted in order to both function as a profitable business and to meet fan expectations to the greatest extent possible. We think it is an acceptable balance given our limited resources; any other stance on our part might cast us as legal crusaders, an admirable position but one which we can’t afford the financial and bad-publicity risk of taking.
As long as there is legal ambiguity surrounding this issue, it’s natural that any discussion of it in an environment such as this (one defined by the safest possible interpretation of the law as it stands) will involve discussion of the current legal status quo, precedent, and related issues. We don’t want to stifle discussion of the issue, but it’s unrealistic to expect the tension between fan expectations and our official company standards not to exist in this discourse space.
In other words: if you want loli discussion totally free of the complexity surrounding the issue that exists in the real world of politics and law, you’re probably not going to find that here. I’m leaving this thread open unless/until it degrades into ad hominem attacks, illegal activity or unsalvageable nonsense; if you have any question about forum policy, JAST USA company policy or anything else please feel free to direct them to me via PM or at (pr@jastusa.com).
I know there is controversy surrounding it and there’s bound to be discussions regarding its legality (which is already a sensitive topic), but does every thread mentioning it have to go completely off-topic with such discussions, when one can post a thread specifically dedicated to that sort of stuff? Not to mention, I also got angry when the way they worded their posts made it seem as if the subject was some casual topic they can joke about.
I mean, this started out as an ID thread, of all discussion types. When I first came to this thread, the last thing I expected was for it to be one of those legal debates, of which have already become stale for me (and they tend to be magnets for trolls, too). I would have just avoided it had I known it was a debate, but here I was, thinking it was an ID thread. I initially posted to rebuke some misconceptions some users had and expected things to end there, but it just kept dragging itself off topic. I mean, I’m pretty sure that the new Supreme Court ruling would have already justified making a new thread.
I guess we can agree to disagree, but as someone who’s had to deal with divisive and panicky people, as well as the trolls in legitimate legality debates, I’m not particularly fond of otherwise irrelevant threads turning into such discussions. I mean, every time I step into an off-topic debate on accident, thinking it was a completely different discussion, I see some person declaring something controversial without reading things through, causing me to become angry or otherwise emotional for no reason. I don’t mind if a loli legality thread was made with the title “loli legality thread”, but if I created a thread that had didn’t have anything to do with its legality, I wouldn’t appreciate it getting derailed like this.
Sorry if there was any misunderstanding. Peace out.
As Nargrakhan has mentioned, threads in this forum routinely go off-topic. It’s been a decision of the moderation staff to resist aggressive pruning, as this free approach seems to be what most forum-goers want; if this isn’t the case and people would prefer that threads be forcibly kept on topic it’s an issue we’re open to discussing.
For now, though, threads flow as posters dictate with their individual post content. If you want to start a thread and aggressively shepherd it by encouraging people to stick to a certain theme you’re more than welcome to do so - as you say, that’s what the bits and bytes are for.
I don’t believe members are deliberately targeting this specific thread for derailment; this sort of entropy is the norm here. If you’d like to discuss changes to board policy I think that’s a discussion worth having, but it’s a broader discussion than the scope of this particular thread.
Well, I suppose this has a lot to do with how sensitive this topic of legality tends to be, but if this free approach is what you guys like to do, I guess there isn’t much to do than leaving it be.
That’s understandable, thanks for making your position more clear. We don’t want to feed any trolls that might appear, so if you or anyone else sees something potentially inflammatory please let a moderator know either with the “report this post” button above each post or via PM.
We try to avoid sensitive topics unrelated to games on these forums as they only lead to needless strife, but on the few sensitive topics that are related to the games we’d like to promote free and fair discussion without things going overboard. I don’t think any such lines have been crossed in this thread, but if it (or any similar thread) degenerates into a flame war appropriate moderating action will be taken.
I think you’re getting a little too worked up over this or perhaps misunderstand me. The Supreme Court has already ruled that you can’t go to prison - nor can you be prosecuted by the law - for loli eroge. Since no REAL child was actually harmed, no crime has been committed. That’s been affirmed twice now (the Ashcroft case, and now this PROTECT act case). You can buy all the loli eroge you want… cops can’t do a thing.
As far as I know, except for one time (hence that Ashcroft case), no one in the history of the US Criminal System has been thrown into federal prison for just owning FICTIONAL loli artwork. The only kind of loli art that you can get thrown in jail for, are those based on REAL criminal activity. But that’s not the case for us here. In fact, this is the same standards applied to motion pictures. Hence this quote at the end of all films:
As far as the United States is concerned, loli eroge is PROTECTED by free speech. That’s the final ruling. That’s what the highest court in America says.
All those ultra conservatives can’t do a thing. So yes… we can joke about it. 
What got that guy in the PROTECT ACT issue in trouble, was that he was a repeated offender of REAL child porn. He also had (what is assumed) to be Japanese loli hentai. The US Attorney’s Office was going to use the ruling against that man, to circumvent the Ashcroft ruling for other people: i.e. prosecute individuals who ONLY have fictional loli art (but not real). They can’t do that, because again, the Supreme Court said you can’t. There’s no crime to prosecute… and it violates Free Speech.
Remember: You’re innocent until proven guilty. You have to actually break a law, before you can be punished for it. If I claim I have a garage full of illegal guns, and all the neighbors say I have a garage full of illegal guns, then the cops have a search warrant to go through my house but find no guns, I’m not going anywhere. Sure the cops might be pissed and give me fine for something off the wall (like disturbing the peace) - but the SERIOUS crime of illegal firearms has not been committed. People claim and/or say a lot of things… doesn’t mean its real. That’s what the Supreme Court was saying about the PROTECT ACT. It’s Constitutional, but there’s limits to how far it goes. The burden of proof still lies on the prosecution.
Do I agree with that ruling? Doesn’t matter… its the law.
Loli may be winning in the United States, but it won’t come to much if it’s stopped at the source.
http://kotaku.com/5010321/petition-to-s … characters
EDIT: Given the wording of the complaint, and the amount of inherent BS in it, I don’t think it stands a chance. But still… =p
I’m perfectly aware that it’s legal, I meant that the outcome of what happens in these legal proceedings may affect whether people can get into prison or not. I wasn’t fully sure if you understood just how serious these kind of situations tend to be.
Along with the Japanese government’s resilience towards change, I highly doubt that the diet will even give it a passing glance, considering how much yen the ero and doujinshi market puts into the Japanese economy. I even heard rumors that a few politicians were real life pedophiles, too.
I agree. America is probably just as conservative as Japan (in their individual ways), but the pron industry rakes in a lot of tax dollars. Nothing governments like more than tax. If they ban an entire market, not only does it piss off voters and create an underground illegal market for it - they lose out on the tax.
Heh… thank God for tax? :shock:
And besides… its NEVER been proven that criminal sexual activity has been increased by a porn market. Some research suggests it goes down (University of Hawaii). People don’t like something, so they wanna make it hard on everyone who do like it. I wish they’d focus their energy on REAL issues… like the genocide in Africa, the dwindling rain forests in the Amazon, or people smuggling out of Southeast Asia. 
…Or real child pornography?
I for one do not want such pruning. When someone in a thread makes a comment, and I want to respond to it, I post a reply. I’m not going to start a new thread to continue a discussion that’s already going in a different thread. It’s more work, it’s less reliable (someone might have created their OWN, different, followup, so then there’s TWO threads dealing with the same thing, not just one, and that just … is needlessly confusing), and the end result is less posting. One thread is perfectly capable of having more than one topic.
B173_M3 – the original post was a request for a list of games, not a list of characters. Furthermore the original post itself mentioned the issue of legality by way of inquiring as to the legal status of a title that was listed, in the US. Since it happened to be well-timed, the discussion naturally segued into the pending SCOTUS case. So this thread isn’t actually off-topic at all. Except for everyone arguing about how off-topic it is
Perhaps if you want your own thread on a topic of which loli character is whose favorite, you could start one? I don’t actually recall seeing one before.
As for this topic (or any other) degenerating into trolling, we’re pretty good about that here; several forum members are fairly good at defusing forum trolls. Take Narg, for example. All you have to do is say Narg, I think this thread needs some loli twincest and he’ll probably go get some. Many times, you don’t even have to ask. He’ll somehow sense when a thread is going sour, and suddenly show up with his supply of loli twincest. Because you can’t have spam, ham, and loli twincest without Pocky.
That’s because twincest has been scientifically proven to reduce the risk of terminal illnesses and flame wars.
And now this topic is off topic again.
Ah, but how beautifully off-topic…
savesavesavesavesavesavesavesave*