melannen: Commander Valentine of Alpha Squad Seven, a red-haired female Nick Fury in space, smoking contemplatively (Default)
melannen ([personal profile] melannen) wrote2019-01-10 01:50 pm

You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone

Okay, I was going to post my YT followup today, but then there was a post on [community profile] fictional_fans that triggered a rant that was apparently all ready to go. So here: My Thoughts On Adult Content Warnings on DW.

As far as I know, setting your entire journal to adult on DW does three things:

1) It puts a note on your profile under your username.
2) It means that people who have deliberately chosen to block adult content will get a warning.
3) It means that logged-out users will get a warning.

-It does not automatically block under-18 users from seeing your content (DW leaves this up to individual users and does not age-check.) ETA: It looks like I was reading the FAQ wrong: if you don't give a birth year that marks you as over 18, it does automatically apply the filter. There's no attempt to verify the birth year given, though, except requiring it to be less than 120 years ago, and they're not actually blocked - they can still click through the warning.
-It does not trigger external porn filters (at least, not the fairly stupid one where I work.)
-It does not mark entries as adult in any way that logged-in users without the filter turned on can see, unless they check your profile.
-It *might*, as a side effect, block your content from getting indexed/archived by bots, but there's a separate setting you can choose to turn that off if that's the actual effect you want (And if you do want to be able to google-search your journal, you might not be able to).

And what I think a lot of people don't realize (because they don't use DW logged out very often) is what the warnings actually look like for logged-out users. I spend a lot of time in incognito browser windows, so I see them a lot.

First, they are VERY ANNOYING. If I'm trying to read the journal of someone who has that setting, I first have to click through a warning page to see their journal at all; then every individual entry has its content replaced with the warning; then if I click through the entry, I have to click through the same warning page again to see the entry. If it's on a reading list, I see the entry text replaced with the warning, and click on it, and then still have to click through the second warning page to see the entry. I have to do this for every individual entry, it does not remember. There is no way to see them on the reading list without clicking though to the individual entries. If it's a direct link, the direct link redirects to the warning page, which I then have to click through. And there is no way to see an adult-content entry with cuts if you're not logged in (which is especially a problem if you're using cuts for things like extra trigger warnings.)

Maybe that is your intent, you want to scare people off with annoyingness! But if you haven't tried reading your journal logged-out recently, I suggest opening an icognito window and trying, just so you actually know what it looks like.

Because the other thing is: the adult content warning on all the entries does not make a distinction between "this entry is marked adult" and "this journal is marked adult". When you click through to the second warning page, it does give a reason if you entered a reason, but that's it, and that doesn't show on reading pages. And most people who have their entire journal set to adult are doing it "just in case", and 90% of their entries are not, in fact, adult. This can lead to a weird impression.

What people actually see is an entry text replaced with ( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

When the content under the cut is, like, a chocolate chip cookie recipe or a cute cat picture, it's just kind of funny.

When the content under the cut is talking about a fun date they went on with a same-sex partner, or a list of crisis hotlines, or a photo of their toddler in a swimsuit, or something like that, it's less funny.

Once in awhile, I have had to click through ( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. ) in order to read a rant about how it's homophobic to mark all lgbt-related content as adult, and then it's just kind of deeply tragic.

So I strongly suggest:
1) Look at what your account looks like to logged-out users once in awhile.*
2) Unless your journal really is at least 75% adult content (it's a sideblog for just your pornfic, it's a journal of your D/s adventures, something like that), don't mark it as adult content by default, or you will be implying things you may not mean to imply.
3) If you are posting mostly non-adult content but still want to cover yourself, you write your own warning in your profile and/or sidebar, and then put the official adult content warning on individual posts that are actually adult.
4) If you do want to keep the default adult content warning anyway, because your journal's not for logged-out users, you can individually mark entries as not-adult, and you should think about that when posting an entry where the adult content warning might create the wrong impression about what you think is adult content (or if you're posting an entry you intend to be linked to people outside DW.)



* Actually, I strongly recommend this for all websites everywhere, because so many of them are just a crappy experience for logged-out users - I had to point out an AO3 bug recently that had been ongoing for years that nobody had noticed because I'm apparently the only power user who ever reads the site logged-out. This is something that's become sort of a social-justice bugbear for me, actually. Because if you're assuming all your users will just log in and stay logged in, you're assuming they all have their own computer, which they control access to, and use on connections and in spaces that are secure enough that they are comfortable leaving everything logged in all the time. And, as a library employee, I can tell you: there are a lot of people who do not. And they are poor people, people in insecure housing, people living with abusers, etc. So maybe most of your users do stay logged in all the time: but when you design your site around that, you're telling the person who walked to the library from the women's shelter that your site isn't for people like her.

(DW in general is really good about this, it's just the adult content warnings in individual journals that don't need them where I notice it.)

(Tumblr has actually gotten better about this lately: it used to hide the login button up in the corner of the logged-out homepage, but it moved it front and center awhile ago. An actual interface improvement on Tumblr!!!)

/rant.
batrachian: (Hanging Frog)

[personal profile] batrachian 2019-01-10 07:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Good points.

*goes to change journal setting, I think*

EDIT: or apparently past-me had already done this and forgot afterwards. So, yeah.
Edited 2019-01-10 19:13 (UTC)
quinfirefrorefiddle: Van Gogh's painting of a mulberry tree. (Default)

[personal profile] quinfirefrorefiddle 2019-01-10 07:16 pm (UTC)(link)
Oooh, will do, thanks!
harpers_child: melaka fray reading from "Tales of the Slayers". (Default)

[personal profile] harpers_child 2019-01-10 07:21 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you for reminding me to double check my settings. At some point I know I'd marked my journal as 18+ because there was a thing about how adults needed to mark themselves so minors didn't interact with them by accident. In hindsight I did it out of frustration for no good reason because as you point out 90% of what I talk about isn't adult content.

redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)

[personal profile] redbird 2019-01-10 07:35 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks, I set this to "should be viewed with discretion" ages ago (for nude photos) and mostly forgot about it. My journal is now marked as suitable for everyone, and the sticky post notes that those photo posts are there, so nobody will get an unwelcome surprise.
Edited 2019-01-10 19:58 (UTC)
sylvaine: Dark-haired person with black eyes & white pupils. (Default)

[personal profile] sylvaine 2019-01-10 07:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Ultimately I've got it set for default at "view with discretion" because I am awful at determining what needs an age warning and what doesn't. Just, absolutely awful. So I'm not really sure how to fix that - is not warning at all even if it would be necessary a better option?

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novembermond: (fandral_levi)

[personal profile] novembermond 2019-01-10 07:43 pm (UTC)(link)
is there a difference between "should be viewed with discretion" and "18+"? Because that's my setting (which don't remember putting in). If it's the same effect I'll change it because I was not aware of this at all.
peoriapeoriawhereart: line art Ecto-1 (Ecto-1)

[personal profile] peoriapeoriawhereart 2019-01-10 07:49 pm (UTC)(link)
Good post; I don't DW without being logged in, so it's been awhile since I saw what it does. I'll go fix my settings.
ratcreature: RatCreature shrugs: Whatever. (whatever)

[personal profile] ratcreature 2019-01-10 07:53 pm (UTC)(link)
I never bother with ratings. My journal is not set to adult and I do not try to figure out what US users might consider adult. I find the US rating system stupid anyway. And like you say, the click through is annoying. If I post fanart I put it behind a cut and warm for "NSFW" if there's nudity or such and give a description, but otherwise I don't bother.

And legally click through warnings are pointless here. AFAIK in Germany real adult content protection needs to be done with a legal photo ID check, or you aren't allowed to make stuff available where children could see, but none of my content is actually unsuitable for children in that sense.

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tassosss: Shen Wei Zhao Yunlan Era (Default)

[personal profile] tassosss 2019-01-10 08:13 pm (UTC)(link)
So much this! I used to never sign in when I was looking at DW on my phone and I basically just ignored anyone that had their journal set to 18+ because it was so AWFUL to deal with, especially on a tiny screen.
lannamichaels: Astronaut Dale Gardner holds up For Sale sign after EVA. (Default)

[personal profile] lannamichaels 2019-01-10 08:15 pm (UTC)(link)
I saw your subject line show up on my flist and said "oh shit my login cookie expired again". Yeah, those warnings are not that helpful. It's much easier to have it in the subject line/above-cut text of a not filtered entry.

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sholio: sun on winter trees (Default)

[personal profile] sholio 2019-01-10 08:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, this is a big part of why I don't have that setting turned on for mine. Well, that and I rarely post NSFW stuff anyway, but when I do it's always under a cut, so I really couldn't see any point at all.

The thought never actually occurred to me that some people might have it turned on and not realize that you have to click through to get to the content if you're logged out.
Edited 2019-01-10 20:29 (UTC)

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slashmarks: (Default)

[personal profile] slashmarks 2019-01-10 09:06 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, rereading old stuff with the adult content warning is the only reason I ever log in to LJ. I wish that the setting did not exist and also that no one would use it for anything. Including adult content. Cuts are plenty.

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the_rck: (Default)

[personal profile] the_rck 2019-01-10 09:13 pm (UTC)(link)
I just checked, and I don't have the content warning thing turned on for this account. I do for my WIP account (used mostly to backup drafts), but that's also 95% access locked so that people can't see things without being logged in anyway, so maybe I should change it for that 5% that's public.
nyctanthes: (But I'm a Cheerleader)

[personal profile] nyctanthes 2019-01-10 09:38 pm (UTC)(link)
I think for the first week I was on DW I had the 18+ warning on for, of all things, bad language. Then I remembered that when I was in 4th grade I read Clan of the Cave Bear, and in 5th grade Flowers in the Attic. And I took it off.



elaiel: monty the cat (Default)

[personal profile] elaiel 2019-01-10 09:40 pm (UTC)(link)
This made me laugh as I read these books at about the same ages too. And Jilly Cooper's 'Riders' and 'Rivals' and Shirley Conran's 'Savages' (OMG lesbian sex!!!)

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sheliak: Handwoven tapestry of the planet Jupiter. (Default)

[personal profile] sheliak 2019-01-10 09:53 pm (UTC)(link)
I read DW for a long time before I got an account, and yeah, the warning clickthrough pages are/were super annoying. (I've got my password memorized these days, so I can read logged in all the time even if I'm on a library computer.)

I've used the "viewer discretion advised" setting once, I think--I had an icon in a big batch that I was a bit worried about (artistic nudity), so I set the warning. My usual strategy is that if I post anything disturbing I'll use a cut and mention why above the cut/in the cut text.
anehan: Elizabeth Bennet with the text "sparkling". (Default)

[personal profile] anehan 2019-01-10 10:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you for this rant! :D I had my journal set to "view with discretion" and decided to turn it off.

I don't remember if the option to warn was there from closed beta (which is when I came to DW), but it must have been there from early on, right? Because I think I remember choosing to warn just in case, probably as a consequence of strikethrough and boldthrough and the paranoia from being in slash fandom in the era of but think of the children.

Think of the children is, of course, still going on, even though the things we need to protect children from have changed some. It's just that I don't really care all that much anymore, especially as I don't post any actual NSFW content.

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primeideal: Multicolored sideways eight (infinity sign) (Default)

[personal profile] primeideal 2019-01-10 10:35 pm (UTC)(link)
Anyone who has multiple accounts probably has to log in and out all the time, very frustrating.

But not as much so as on Ao3 where we have to click through the stupid "yes I read the new terms of service" all the time. Dear Ao3, there is a reason I'm using incognito mode to switch into another account or browse anonymously! I'm sure you can think of several!

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ruric: (Default)

[personal profile] ruric 2019-01-10 11:07 pm (UTC)(link)
GAH - I had no idea - thank you.

Like many others I think I did it in one of the "think of the children" panics and when I was posting way more fanfic (like 5 years ago). Since it's mostly mundane stuff now the whole warning idea seems ridiculous!

*Nips off to change journal setting"
Edited 2019-01-10 23:13 (UTC)
elf: Computer chip with location dot (You Are Here)

[personal profile] elf 2019-01-10 11:07 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes yes all of this.

My journal is unrated, in part because the rating thing is such a hassle for logged-out people and anyone who doesn't have it turned off, and in part because I don't trust any org not to use ratings against people later.

Well, actually, I do trust Dreamwidth not to decide that an 18+ journal rating means explicit porn content. But I don't trust Google or potential employers or anyone else to acknowledge that there is NSFW content that is entirely legal and not at all immoral, much less to realize that an entire journal's rating may not apply to every post in it.

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dhampyresa: (Default)

[personal profile] dhampyresa 2019-01-10 11:43 pm (UTC)(link)
This is something that's become sort of a social-justice bugbear for me, actually. Because if you're assuming all your users will just log in and stay logged in, you're assuming they all have their own computer, which they control access to, and use on connections and in spaces that are secure enough that they are comfortable leaving everything logged in all the time.

Yeah, this.

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juniperphoenix: Fire in the shape of a bird (Default)

[personal profile] juniperphoenix 2019-01-10 11:46 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you for this post.
perspi: By <user name=dhamphir> (Default)

[personal profile] perspi 2019-01-11 12:10 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you for this commentary; I have discovered I have similar feelings about usability for logged-out users!! Also, I'm linking to this discussion in my own DW. Cheers!
highlander_ii: Steve from "Arthur Christmas" half-smiling at the camera with his arms crossed over his chest ([AC] Steve)

[personal profile] highlander_ii 2019-01-11 01:25 am (UTC)(link)
i mentioned this else-DW, but mine's set to 'viewer discretion' so if i'm hitting up my journal while at work, it has all the entries collapsed and 'spying eyes' can't see anything that i may have left outside a cut that i don't want work-ppl to see. (and yup, it's come in handy... it's a lot less 'oh shit' if all the entries are 'this should be viewed with discretion' than 'big giant not-work-appropriate thing visible')
Edited 2019-01-11 01:25 (UTC)

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itsamellama: (Default)

[personal profile] itsamellama 2019-01-11 02:31 am (UTC)(link)
I don't think mine has been set to adult, but wow, this is really useful information I had no idea about. The implications, however unintentional, really could be a problem, too, that I'd never really thought about. Thank you for taking the time to write this up!
marginaliana: Buddy the dog carries Bobo the toy (Default)

[personal profile] marginaliana 2019-01-11 03:17 am (UTC)(link)
This was great info - I've changed mine now as well. I think that, like most people, I put the setting on way back in the day as a 'just in case' thing when that was going around, and then I forgot about it.

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