I imagine it was in the name of 'E for Everyone'?

I saw, and posted, on a thread I found interesting which was about someone making same gender couples within their families in VF.

I came back after a couple of days to check on this thread as I was interested in it, which only had a couple of posts on it, to see how the discussion had progressed.

It was not available in My Posts, nor by me scouring the forum lists. Finally I looked in my history, and the whole thread is missing without trace.

I can only assume it has been deleted.

I sincerely hope this was because a heated and uncontrollable argument took place on that thread...because otherwise what was the need to delete it?

In this day and age I don't think we can ignore the issue of same gender couples. I know this particular game is not geared up for this eventuality (which is fair enough), but don't deny discussion about it - there's no reason to.

Surely E for Everyone means everyone?

There is a posting by LadyCFII in the fan fiction forum that discusses ratings and why LDW will not allow discussions such as was contained in the thread. In it are contained links to the ESRB ratings site that explain what E for everyone means.

While I understand your frustration, if kissing is enough to raise a rating from E to E10+, there is no possible way to discuss the topic of lifestyle choices in a manner consistant with the E rating that LDW strives to maintain on their forums.

As an adult, I agree that such a topic needs to be discussed, but as a mother of a young child who can and does visit and read these forums, I don't think it should be here. Many of the members are quite young and therefore still innocent in the ways of any adult relationship. It is because discussions of this nature are disallowed that there are members who have barely learned their sight words permitted by their parents to visit these forums.

knksmiles is correct, and she has explained the reasons very well. I actually tried to leave that thread in place, since it had some interesting concepts about game modding. However, the discussion didn't stay technical, and it was moved to an admin area.

Ok, that is all fair enough....I had an inkling that was what had happened (judging by what happened with the "genetics" threads that got out of hand).

I believe that boundaries sometimes need to be lowered or bent, but possibly this is still not the time to be doing that, if people are still offended by these issues.

However I also want to make the point that it was probably the minority that spoilt it for the majority (as is life), and that it's probably the people that go too far that need to think about themselves and their views, rather than the people who want to discuss these issues.

As with all the issues in the game (like "making babies" - which is blatantly addressed within the game in a non-adult fashion), the issue of lifestyle choice may be able to be integrated into the game as a way of teaching younger players about these things.

If you took away the baby making aspect, and left it as two people living together who could adopt a child at will, the game would be the same as it is now.

Like I've already said, this may not be the time and it might only be in the future when these things can be talked about freely, but it is something to think about, and an issue that won't go away.

Sometimes suppressing things isn't always the best way to deal with them, although I know why it is absolutely necessary in a forum such as this.

We really aren't suppressing things for the sake of censorship, Elizabeth. The ESRB has very clear guidelines about what is allowable in an E-rated context, and those are the guidelines we use for the forums and the games.

Yep I completely understand