New Rule: DNI (Do Not Interact) Lists are Banned

[acara]

not the smartest new rule. dni are useful i have some fandoms i cannot stand on there for a reason.

[iHolli]

you can say that this isn't the place for DNIs all you want, but that's simply not true? this is a forum site. people interact with each other here. some people are traumatized and don't want to interact with those who could potentially send them into an episode. some people get very heated over different opinions and just don't want to interact with those that they have opposing opinions with. some people just.. don't want to interact with certain people?

if you're going to run a website where people interact with each other, you have to be able to let them curate that experience themselves, and for some people that means letting them have a DNI.

I’d have to disagree with this. CS is meant to be child-friendly, and do all they can to protect their users. Posting DNI lists actively makes it much easier for others to cause you harm. The people who are traumatized ESPECIALLY should not be posting DNI lists. That literally tells people exactly how to give you a panic attack, and if you simply don’t want to interact with certain people? Block them! I (along with many others here) have seen the effects of DNI lists for a long while. They cause way more harm than good, which is why the staff have made this announcement.

{100% agree. There's kind of this mindset, I think, that people shouldn't block each other without some really serious reason, but anyone should be using that block as liberally as they feel the need to do. As a petty blocker myself, I definitely think people should block anyone that could be even potentially harmful, and if someone actively bothers you, you need to be reporting and hitting the block button after the first interaction, period.}
{Absolutely want to agree with LemonadeLyric as well. I was a dumb kid on this site too but I was always told never to share personal information. It makes me a little sick [in a concerned way] to see kids now so readily sharing that exact information. The internet is still NOT a safe place. It may be better than it was, or worse, and it's not the monstrous place some older adults believe, but it is still not a safe place. CS is doing what it can to keep this website okay for kids and in a day and age where young people fully believe sharing personal information has no consequences I applaud CS entirely for taking this step.}

.Holli.

[cuddlewuffle]

okay, genuine question for all of the mods. i'd prefer if everyone was able to see the answer as well. /srs

why and when did this even start becoming a problem? we've had dni lists for AGES now, have people really started complaining about it, or was this just another blind attempt to enforce another one of your rules that we didn't have much of a problem with now?

? it's been stated here. (quoted below)
i feel like, if mods have been getting an influx of reports about this, then yeah it's kind of valid to want to create some sort of restriction. as it's been mentioned by others before: CS's other option seems like it'd be micro-managing DNI lists with specific rules in an attempt to tailor them all to something that would both leave people comfortable and stay within CS's guidelines. and as shared by the mods, this is not feasible for them to do . i feel like it would be good for everyone to remember that the people who handle help tickets and reports are real, human people, who have to spend their real, actual time reading and dealing with each and every one.

also wow really why are there people maintaining a mocking tone when speaking to the mods on this like that helps this situation at allll.

Just wanted to say quickly, we don’t come up with rules out of thin air. This has been a topic of discussion among staff for long time now and was not taken lightly. Most rules that we have are created due to an urgent need / influx of reports or incidents that we feel warrants our action. This is a family friendly site and our rules will always prioritize user safety.

[far]

I didn’t even realize this was a thing haha though the most interacting I do lately is just trading x’D

But as an adult, I’m just going to chime in and say that you are going to come across upsetting things throughout your entire life, and you’re not going to be able to tip toe around things as much as you can on the internet. And all it boils down to is that you cannot control what someone else does. You can ask things of others, but not everyone is going to go out of their way to treat you any different than they treat others. It’s just a part of life. You can, however, change your own behaviors to avoid things you don’t like. If someone is bothering you or is a part of a group you determine you don’t like or upsets you, block them and move on.

The internet is not a safe space. You need to keep your personal info and the things that upset you away from the public eye, because while I’d like to say there are people who would respect your wishes, there are also people who will go out of their way to make your life miserable for kicks and giggles. Protect your info, and if something upsets you too much, it may be time to take a step back and take a break.
CS does a good job making this community accepting and as safe as they can, but it’s still the internet.

I agree. CS already blocks and moderates anything that is serious and inappropriate. Anything outside of that is something you should take care of and block users who make you uncomfortable.

[Bip]

I have to agree with this one as well. I’ve seen DNI lists weaponized as a form of bullying towards people who simply interact with a specific person the original person with the DNI list doesn’t like (although this was on toyhouse, and not directly through chickensmoothie)

Speaking as a person with anxiety and PTSD, the unfortunate truth is you simply cannot screen everything you see on the internet. To this day I still get triggered by things I see, even on chickensmoothie, but that’s kind of the nature of the Internet. Thankfully my situation isn’t so bad so that I would suffer a debilitating panic attack or episode every time I saw the thing that triggers me, but if that were the case then that would require a lot more serious attention than a simple DNI list (I can personally attest to therapy or just having a trusted adult to speak to!)

I’d also have to recommend to people with those same issues to download something like a chrome extension that would allow you to block certain topics from your browser to make it easier to avoid them :) I do it for my phobia!

[Silver Pandorica]

I agree with this for so many reasons. One is something that many people have already stated, which is that they basically give people free ammunition to use against you. Not everyone is an honorable person, which is just reality. Some people will look at a dni list and respect it, but in actuality, most will probably ignore it and interact with people anyway, or even go a step further by purposefully bringing up the content on the dni list.

The second reason I've never liked dni lists is because they can target groups of people and create division where there doesn't need to be any. It's totally acceptable to have different political or religious beliefs or differing interests, and it's okay to disagree with people, but there's no need to single people out by telling an entire group of people not to interact with you (if they aren't harming anyone, of course). Aaa I feel like I could be wording this better, but I hope this makes sense. Like for example, if someone has something like "dni if you like -random person or fandom-" or "dni if you believe in -belief, religion, or some other group-," and the people you are telling not to interact with you are not already against cs rules (like political debates or hate groups), then why not just block those people instead as you come across them? Beliefs and fandoms and stuff, unless advertised on profiles or signatures, probably aren't going to come up in normal interactions anyway. What if someone just wants to talk about something completely unrelated, like trading pets or complimenting an oekaki piece? There is literally no way for someone to tell if that person is violating their dni list unless they directly bring it up in conversation, therefore rendering the dni list pointless. They're basically honor systems, and you would just have to trust that whoever is interacting with you isn't violating that dni list. Again, I'm not sure if this makes sense, my brain is a bit scattered, so my wording might be a bit odd.

Essentially, I agree with this:

I honestly agree with this and think CS's reasons for terminating DNIs are valid. In general, most of the DNI's I have seen though haven't really been about trigger topics (though of course racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. is almost always on the list), but rather fandoms that a person doesn't like which seems petty to me. You're, in essence, judging how somebody will interact with you based on a TV show or Youtuber they like? We can't just all respect that we have differences of opinion and leave it at that? I feel like DNIs are used to weed off pet peeves not genuinely bigoted people.

[Jijing]

not the smartest new rule. dni are useful i have some fandoms i cannot stand on there for a reason.

You can always block people you do not want to interact with. I also don't see why somebody being in a fandom would dictate what they are trying to speak with you about. If somebody tries to talk to you about a fandom, just tell them you're not interested in talking about that, but it seems unfair to ignore an entire group of people based on their interests.

[bluestyle]

not the smartest new rule. dni are useful i have some fandoms i cannot stand on there for a reason.

You can always block people you do not want to interact with. I also don't see why somebody being in a fandom would dictate what they are trying to speak with you about. If somebody tries to talk to you about a fandom, just tell them you're not interested in talking about that, but it seems unfair to ignore an entire group of people based on their interests.

it can dictate so many things. it shows that they support the creator, which in most cases arent good people. why would you want to be friends with someone who supports someone who clearly makes the world a worse place?

[Guest]

Also as a note some people can like a creator's content without having knowledge of something they've done wrong. While in the vast majority of cases it's true, not absolutely everyone who likes "bad" things would ignore dni lists and bother people on purpose, as I've seen argued here several times.

[cuddlewuffle]

not the smartest new rule. dni are useful i have some fandoms i cannot stand on there for a reason.

everyone has things that they can't stand. in the case of fandoms that you don't like being on DNI lists (instead of somethign like a phobia, which could be harmful) it essentially boils down to the "polite" internet version of putting "god, i hate this group of ppl who like this thing, they're so annoying, STAY AWAY FROM ME!"

and like, what purpose does that serve? other than being rude ? and petty ? again, genuine question. blocking is the ultimate "DNI", so why not block people who you see that are a part of that fandom?

i've just seen like, the strangest fandom beef and people trying to make other people feel bad about whatever it is that they like by putting each other on DNI lists.

"you know those people, who like that thing? they're so awful! hey, if you're one of them, and you're reading this, go away!" but like... in a """"nice""""" way.

i dunno. just seems rude.