While Forumwarz contains some material that can be construed as offensive, and while you must agree that you are “not offended easily” before joining, at no point within the Forumwarz storyline will you see any actual “shock” images. We prohibit embedded shock images outside of our role-playing areas (excluding the Advanced Role-Playing forum), and also prohibit unlabeled links to “surprise” shock images anywhere on Forumwarz. (See our site rules.)

Wikipedia defines shock content as “intended to be offensive, disgusting or disturbing to its viewers, containing materials of high shock value which is also considered distasteful and crude, and is generally of a pornographic, scatological, extremely violent, extremely profane, or extremely provocative nature.” Generally speaking, a shock image is anything that’s deliberately posted in order to provoke a user into reactions of stress, disgust, fear, anger or other involuntarily negative emotions.

The most common examples of shock tend to deal with gore, mutilation, death, bodily fluids, and extreme racism and bigotry. However, things that can be considered shocking do not always fall neatly into categories. While this means the definition can be subjective at times, it’s the best definition available.

A general rule of thumb: If you were to show an image to 100 random people on the street (or on the internet outside the Forumwarz community), and the vast majority would be disgusted or greatly offended, we’d most likely classify that image as “shock.” Note that Forumwarz does not consider conventional pornography “shock.” Unless it is of a markedly violent, grotesque or illegal variety, mainstream pornography (including gay and lesbian porn), while possibly offensive to some, is not shock.

Overall, use your best judgment. Even though you, personally, may not be shocked by Goatse anymore, you have to realize that not everyone is similarly desensitized.

For examples of shock sites and images, Encyclopedia Dramatica had done an excellent job of cataloging them. You could have seen the list there, before the site was discontinued, but you can still view it through the web archive at http://web.archive.org/web/20090326060406/http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Shock_sites (Warning – Page contains shock image).