Answers about the new policy

[elfwreck]

The official new FAQ 281: How can I mark content as inappropriate for minors?
This setting has several effects and two levels:

• Adult concepts: This rating applies to content that is not explicitly graphic, but may contain things that are of a mature nature and could be inappropriate for anyone under the age of 14 years old.
  
• Explicit Adult: This

Comments

[crystalpyramid]

It sounds like they're trying to come up with a compromise, and it doesn't really sound like such a bad one. Sort the people complaining about adult content from the people complaining about illegal things by saying that adult content is fine.

What does "moderate filters" mean?

[elfwreck]

This isn't about illegal content. This is about what's "inappropriate for minors"--and while I don't mind people saying "my journal is not appropriate for readers under 14/18," I don't want LJ's staff deciding what's appropriate for my kids (or any kids) to read.

If it were *entirely voluntary*, I could accept it. Since LJ has decided it'll be reviewing reported journals, and deciding (by some set of unspecified criteria) whether the content is "inappropriate," I'm complaining. I don't think LJ's abuse team is qualified to decide what's appropriate for other people's children to view.

"Moderate filters" means you won't see stuff flagged as "explicit" in LJ searches. It means those journals will basically not exist for people not logged in, and that people who haven't changed the new default settings won't see them.

They can still go to the individual journals (where everything will be behind a cut-tag that requires a "click to verify that you're old enough to read this" extra step).

[crystalpyramid]

"Moderate filters" means you won't see stuff flagged as "explicit" in LJ searches. Huh, that does actually sound kind of worrisome, at least if you're assuming people do a lot of LJ searches. If you're in the paradigm of connecting to new journals by clicking links from existing journals, though, it won't really have an effect.

I feel like doing it on an entirely voluntary basis amounts to doing nothing at all - some communities already voluntarily warn people that they're explicit. If LJ wanted to somehow take a step about it, I think this was the logical one. Although I'd be more comfortable if tagging was on some kind of more democratic consensus basis, like where everyone could rate a page and it took the average.

My reading habits are such that this won't actually cause me any inconvenience whatsoever (actually, given that I occasionally read LJ at work, it helps a bit), so I should probably shut up now.

[crystalpyramid]

Thanks for the information, though! And "moderate filters" didn't end up meaning nearly what I'd expected them to mean.

"explicit"

[herbmcsidhe]

As if the LJ search engine could find it's anus with both hands.

Anyways, just wanted to let you know I've posted a link to you on this, as it's about the most clear explanation I've seen on the subject yet.

Re: "explicit"

[elfwreck]

Thanks.

I'm debating whether it's worth the effort to gather more solid info on how it actually works, and post that. Like what people's settings were placed at by default, and what that means, and so on.

Mostly, what this means is a great big drop in LJ activity, as people don't bother to click on the annoying identical tags. (Oh, and all those journals disappear from nonmember view.)