Looking East posted:
I just thought I would add my two cents after being redirected from the Ends of a Dream discussion. Although I think it's nice to put up tags to warn people about potentially triggering content, please take into consideration that there are cases where more specific traumatic content tags like Suicide can be extreme spoilers for some stories and that in those instances it may be a better compromise to stick with more broad warning tags such as Angst and Drama or Depressing as Fuck.
In the case of "Ends of a Dream," it could probably use a slightly stiffer warning than Drama without it being too spoilery. Not much gets to me badly, but that one has some seriously gutting stuff in it for those who have lived something similar.
We do keep spoilers in mind when making tagging decisions and that won't change. Personally, I'd like to begin moving past this for works that are a year or more past their initial post date. The utility of avoiding spoilers can turn into frustrating inconsistencies and a functional inability to use the backlog when looking up tags like Yandere. I won't go into further details lest I say anything controversial that misleads anyone into believing change is coming, but it's an ongoing discussion.
Suicide was added specifically given we've had multiple requests about it, and there are a dozen or so stories where it's a dominant theme without being a spoiler at all. Due to busyness, I'm yet to do the tagging work or have any tricky situations to figure out. (No word on Ends of a Dream yet, but I really do think Depressing as Fuck encapsulates the first chapter well, so we'll wait and see what ch 2 brings.)
Young Blasarius posted:
Maybe general Trigger Warning tag for those cases?
It’s difficult to find a balance between properly advising readers what they are in for, accurately tagging for search results and filtering, and outright spoiling the story in the tags. Does Dynasty have any kind of “invisible tagging” function, that is recognized by individual blacklists and the search bar, but is not visibly displayed in the tags list?
Sort've repeating some posts I've made in the past. Implementing a proper spoiler tagging system would cause a lot of issues as the site is currently designed. Doing it would take gargantuan effort and demand restricting other parts alongside it. Never say never, but it's not remotely a priority just due to the work involved.
I would second the use of a Trigger Warning tag, and perhaps have it apply more broadly to such content that warrants a warning (suicide, rape, mutilation, etc.), but would otherwise constitute a major spoiler if tagged as such directly. My worry is that if the Trigger Warning tag is used too narrowly (such as only for suicide), it would be no different than having tagged it directly, as a reader would still be able to guess what the Trigger Warning tag contains, and would thus serve no purpose in hiding narrative spoilers.
We take spoilers very seriously, leaving broad content warning tags very tricky to balance. Your phrasing does work out convincingly though; maybe the Depressing as Fuck or Tragedy tag could just be folded into something like that? Could encapsulate any number of other triggering items left un-tagged to keep us from telegraphing what the warning is for, specifically. This still leaves the unfortunate battle between spoilers and content warnings reigning in some instances.
My personal preference is to create the equivalent of Trigger Warning (Read the first post in the forum thread) that includes all tags missing from a given work due to concerns over spoilers. In some cases, positive tags like Marriage have been left off of deserving work because this is a spoiler. In more neutral cases, tags like Incest or Cheating have been left off for fear of spoilers. This Missing tags tag would encompass all scenarios, and direct readers to some place (the final page, the first post of the forum, or maybe both) if they needed more information before reading. We could also fold what runrin did for Ponko into this implementation, as well.
Thus far, this thought is as far as I've gotten in figuring out how to avoid this division between spoilers and sensitivity. However, it also opens any number of other issues. The administration involved would be nightmarish and tagging older works functionally impossible. This doesn't address my earlier-stated concerns over searching the backlog. It also opens up new issues entirely - does the presence of such a system encourage us to apply tags like Tragedy even less consistently, given that we have a more comprehensive out? How do we succinctly communicate to people what the tag means and how they should use it? There's a lot, it's tough.
last edited at Jul 30, 2021 12:38AM
