diversions:

[thene]

You know how it is when you get an idea in your head and then put it aside for months until you hit the worst possible moment to start propagating it properly?

I want to remove all the age ratings from mgs_fanworks and replace them simply with 'SFW' or 'NSFW:*' with a few different categories of '*'.

Oh my god I could rage forever about how much I hate the way fandom uses ratings. Forever.

(This is way less work than it sounds as I could simply rename the G tag as 'SFW' and the NC-17 tag as 'NSFW: sex' and that takes care of about 55% of all the content immediately, and it wouldn't take THAT long to sift through the rest. I'm not going to do it until after the move, though.)

Comments

[stealth_noodle]

I use MPAA ratings because of inertia, pretty much, but I've never really been good at adapting movie age-based ratings to writing, probably because it just doesn't work very well. A decade later, my rating process is still, "Well, it's not gory, and pants stay on during the makeouts, so... PG-13, I guess?"

I also feel a little weird slapping NC-17 on the kind of material that I was reading well before seventeen rolled around for me. :/

[thene]

For the last year or so I have taken to not including a rating with fics posted on LJ. I just warn for anything that's NSFW and no one has bugged me for anything more specific (although because I am a fanatical tagger I do tag-rate my own posts on mgs_f). However I do use the age ratings on AO3 in spite of the fact that they have a 'Not Rated' option, mostly just because I am totally fine with the fact that when I have cause to use the E tag I get me all the eyeballs (even if people who find your work via surfing entire kink tags never leave kudos or comments, fact).

What I really like is the header category queerlygen uses; 'Contains'. Something listed under 'Contains' might be a trigger warning, or it might be an indication that a fic is NSFW, or it might be an enticement in the form of a kink/trope.

I think a lot of people find MPAA ratings too vague, and my experience from running exchanges is that some people find them really unintuitive - for example, we once asked MGS exchange participants to tell us the 'highest' rating they'd want their exchange gift to be, and simply listed the MPAA ratings with no elaboration; when the works were posted we found out that a couple of people (both fanartists iirc and I know at least one of them was not American) did not know that NC-17 was higher than R. Especially if you're not American and not active in areas of fandom that use it a lot, it is possible to get confused.

Besides, the MPAA rating system is a godawful sexist homophobic pile of crap that no one in fandom would actually literally want to use in the way it is used on movies. Which is one of many reasons it DOESN'T WORK VERY WELL.

I don't feel good about age-rating stuff, period; it seems very patronising and out of step with internet culture as a whole, whereas 'SFW' and 'NSFW' are neutral terms that assume we are all mature enough to decide what to read & where we are comfortable reading it.

[stealth_noodle]

MPAA ratings have bothered me, quietly, in the back of my head, for a while now. I've wondered before if anyone might click on something I've MPAA-rated and actually expect it to be rated according to the MPAA's very gross standards, which augh no. I do feel a little icky every time I use their system (especially since seeing This Film Is Not Yet Rated and having so many of my suspicions confirmed), just not icky enough (so far) to have quit using it.

I really need to just convince myself to either a) go back and change the MPAA ratings in my DW/LJ posts or b) just stop using them in new posts and accept that my headers will not be uniform. I usually end up putting in an explanation of what I'm rating for, anyway, so it would be very simple to change "Rating:" to "Contains:" and leave out the MPAA code.

...Realistically, b) it is. Next time I post, I am changing my header!

[kat-nic.livejournal.com]

I came to same conclusion a little while ago--I even edited every single fic header and changed the tags, because I am anal retentive like that. :| It's been the default for pretty much every fandom I have played in ever.

...and now that I have done that, I'm contemplating deleting my sockpuppet LJ account and just using AO3, and maybe getting a DW as a backup. I know my parents know I have a Livejournal, and I'm reasonably certain they know my username. And there are some things, Thene, parents just never ever need to know...I hate it when my mom calls while I'm line editing porn. .___.

[thene]

.___. (problems i am spared the pleasure of dealing with.)

I am sorry you can't get any privacy. :( I <3 your livejournals and would miss them very much if they ever died, but wow could that get messy. geez who told the older generation what a sockpuppet is :(

One thing I do over there - at the bottom of the 'Edit Profile' screen there's a tickbox that says 'Show 'Friend Of' list. If you untick this then communities aren't visible on your profile unless you watch them as well as being a member of them...and you can just un-watch the dubious ones and go visit them manually instead, which is a pain, but it can be worth the peace of mind.

[(Anonymous)]

:( I tend to angstworry about things like that, tbh, although I suspect you know that by now. Truefax, kat_nic isn't even my only quote-unquote real LJ. Although the other I haven't updated in four or five years. I didn't bother making friends or anything; I only used it as a place to dump all my self loathing and guilt, back when I was taking care of my terminally ill grandmother before she passed away. I reread some of the entries a few weeks ago and I cannot understand how I was even functioning, much less able to maintain a 3.8 GPA.

I may just stick with locking the porn posts. My family might be able to take me being gay and an atheist, but finding out I write porn would be the last straw, lawl.

[thene]

oh oh oh /hug forever

caring is hard, as is not being seen & cared for.