Michael Faragher
Wormwood Studios
Main thing is for the devs/artists to maintain complete control over any content that is produced. If backer content doesn't fit the setting it needs to be either rejected or modified to a state that it does.
A lot of the backer fanfic shit that ended up in Pillars should have been rejected outright.
Everything will be trolled. Have a sprawling 40+ hour RPG which is mostly serious? Darven. Have a chance to memorialize the fallen? Limericks. Manning a customs booth? Here comes Ur-Quan! (Although, seriously, if they gave me the option to ask Kor-Ah or Kzer-Za, I'd have laughed so hard)
As you say, the developer has to be clear (this is the scope, this is the tone, we'll work with you but if you're unreasonable, you're out) but sometimes it's not so clear during development. Fallout 2 is a famous case of this. Fallout 1 had jokes. Neat, we loved it. Fallout 2 had everyone throw in jokes. Suddenly it's not the joke that's the problem, it's the frequency. And the tone; QFG4 had gravestone limericks, and they're great, but as a reward tier, there's some . . . tonal dissonance reading two grave markers next to each other and one being a witty limerick and the other a heartfelt farewell to their real world dead child. The funny names in Papers Please? I'm sad they're gone. There's no real problem since the entire game is absurdist.
Wild Wasteland was a good solution, but it's not for every game. Alien Isolation would not have been improved with party clowns every six minutes. (just once would be hilarious). The more the game relies on atmosphere and tone, the more jarring this stuff is. It's certainly up to the developers to establish and enforce limits for their crowdsourced content. It's why I'm against it, personally and professionally. If I'm going to spend years of my life writing and designing this game, I am not putting in your nonsense self-insert for any reasonable sum. The game is what the game is, if you don't want the game, there are others. If you want to change my game, pound sand. Or three million USD. For three million, I retire into the sunset and you can have the game. Pay off Vic seperately.