3-3-3 references the rpg rating system, which is a scale of 0-3 for the language, sexual, and violent content permitted on any given site. it's been in use in the rp community for at least 10+ years, although it's been far more popular in the rl community than the animanga one.

as i stated previously, i think it's a little outdated now, at least in terms of language and sex, since i think the former should be expanded from solely encompassing swearing to also include hate speech, bigotry, extremist rhetoric, cult-like language, and other such topics that would make sense to be classified there + are typically not always directly addressed in site rules (or tend to be dealt with privately after the fact) and the latter doesn't do anything beyond checking off the box for whether or not explicit smut is permitted (such as addressing kink and/or extreme topics).

i will also agree with illidan main that these days, yeah, most animanga/rl sites tend to advertise themselves as 3-3-3 or 3-2-3 (based on whether or not they permit smut) but the fact of the matter is that most of them aren't actually free-for-alls the way that 3-3-3 is meant to be (in my opinion, they tend to hover anywhere around 2-2-2 to 2-2.5-2.5, depending on the site).

but idk, maybe i'm the weird one who would actually want sites that are 3-3-3 (or whatever the actual equivalent would end up being) to not have limits, including on all of Super Bad Stuff (tm) that i have negative interest in wanting to write, because i just genuinely don't care about if people want to write the most explicitly gods-awful content so long as they're treating it as the appropriate "dead dove: do not eat" that it is and it's something that's genuinely "ic =/= ooc". i'm just tired, okay, i don't want to have to devote time + energy into figuring out if so-and-so is actually a real predator to be concerned about or if they just happen to write a teenage character being appropriately developmentally horny or some hydra character that's not bucky barnes or whatever other bad-faith judgment call is being made here.

gonna quickly clarify since y'know. it's quoting me, it's directly in response to me, and it's definitely putting words in my mouth that aren't actually there.

i'm not saying that you (general) shouldn't be allowed to side-eye someone who wants to write.... honestly, literally anything. heaven knows i would to find out someone was writing, idk, a super in-depth thread about cannibalism (which is one of my big personal "icks"). and it is always (general) your decision to write/interact with someone for any reason, no matter what it is, the same way that it is your decision to place + enforce limits on what you personally are able + willing to write.

what i'm saying is that on a site-wide level, i don't see a problem with permitting even the most extreme content so long as the people wanting to engage with it are taking every single precaution to very clearly label it for what it is, are being conscious about not exposing people to it in unavoidable public areas, and are otherwise just generally able to distinguish the difference between fantasy + reality and keep it that way. or, to put it another way - i should have to knowledgeably open the thread and continue reading past the warnings to find the content, i shouldn't randomly stumble across it in general channels of the discord (yes, including general rp channels), and anyone who is an actual legitimate problem/predator should get yeeted.

(plus, i mean, let's be honest here. even if someone wants to write the most messed up possible content, they would still have to find someone else willing to write it with them. and if by some miracle they do, a lot of the rest of the community they're in is probably going to naturally avoid them for exactly the reason you pointed out. if the person is actually a problem, sure, boot them + delete the content, but like... if it's just a few people existing in a corner doing their own thing + no one is being harmed by it unless they are deliberately going looking to be harmed, i don't feel like it's worth my time as a staffer to intervene + i am going to be massively peeved as a member if a staffer does.)



again, to be clear, i agree with you in that i don't think there's a huge population of people clamoring to write extreme content either (or at least, not in public). no, really, i don't. i truly think the vast majority of people don't want to, and i also truly think that of the people who would, most of them are going to self-censor to some degree specifically out of fear of that side-eye or people avoiding them for it. (plus like imo i do think there is a harm in diluting warnings about legitimate predators in the rpc by co-mingling them with, idk, writing two teenagers being intimate or liking a problematic series or whatever else, but that's a whole different other topic.)

but like, idk. it might be the fact that i grew up in the "don't like? don't read!" era of fanfic (and trust me, i have seen some gods awful stuff posted out there, whether i click on it or not) or maybe the fact that i primarily play canons and thus deal with the additional stupidity of "i don't control how old characters are in canon, i don't control what the actual creators do with the canon story, and i do not control what these creators say or do in their outside lives that might be a problem". but i'd much rather trust in people (who are mostly other adults who have all been saying for forever now that in-character actions/thoughts do not equal out-of-character beliefs/endorsements) to curate their own experiences, enforce their own boundaries with their partners (or non-partners), and otherwise just enable that behavior in others.