Trigger Warnings

Er, wait a minute. Are we talking about the brief little comments people make regards why they think you should read it, and content warnings and whatnot?

If so, uh, why would we want to move those? Am I the only person who likes having them all on the main page, rather than having to waste time clicking to the "review" link for every likely-looking fic? (Not that I'm sure how you'd even do that, since most fics on the Fanfics Recs pages don't have Works pages here.) Especially since I'd think of a Reviews section as being for long-form, in-depth reviews, not one paragraph little comments.

...basically, I think I'm missing something here.

edited 4th May '11 10:58:31 PM by Jeysie

Not the content warnings, but the other comments, yes. But please make a new thread if you want to discuss the policy for Fan Fic Recs.

Wait, let me check if i got this straight. So, what it's about is:

Let's scan phobialist. Then e.g. "arachnophobia" is on the list so if any article somewhere mentions spiders (such as Main.LittleMissMuffet) - it have to be accompanied by a little airlock with warning: "this article contains mentions of spiders. Get it? BIG HAIRY SPIDERS!". Supposedly for the sake of the people with arachnophobia so big they can't stand a mention of a spider.

Correct?

No. Simple mention of spiders is not relevant - we do not need to put any content warnings on our pages. If a character's fear of spiders is relevant to the tropology of a work, it would go under Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?, and a sensitive reader looking at our page would think, "Oh, right, Miss Muffet is afraid of spiders; therefore I probably shouldn't read this."

If a work contains Rape Tropes, then the mention of those tropes in the article should be sufficient warning.

The mere fact that we mention that a work contains rape, violence, spiders, or whatever might trigger someone is not sufficient reason to put special warnings on our pages.

Except, as far as I know, even severe phobias aren't likely to trigger intense flashbacks from the mere description of the thing the person is phobic of. PTSD is.

EDIT: whoops, ninja'd

edited 5th May '11 11:27:40 AM by joeyjojojuniorshabadoo

Similarly, we aren't going to put a warning that says This work contains lots of violence on any violent work. If a person is concerned that something might trigger their PTSD or whatever, it's up to them to do the research.

Our articles themselves do not contain triggers merely by describing the thing in question. We aren't the work, we are a catalogue of tropes relating to the work. If someone is terrified to catatonia by telephones, the phone company isn't required to put a MAY TRIGGER TELEPHONOPHOBIA next to every single listing in the book. Nor are places with public phone booths required to conceal them behind huge barriers plastered with, "WARNING: There is a phone behind this wall." When I go to the grocery store, I don't expect them to put a sign up stating, "Warning: Products sold in this store contain allergens." If a product has peanuts, it's not required to say, "Warning: If you are allergic to nuts, do not read this label."

edited 5th May '11 11:34:23 AM by Fighteer

Nice strawmanning there, but I think you're getting all worked up for nothing. I basically agree with the official policy. Due to the nature of PTSD (and probably phobias for that matter) things that are likely to be triggers are things the general hivemind would find notable enough to mention anyway, so I think we do a reasonable amount of warning without specifically trying to. And we already don't allow for graphic descriptions on-site without some sort of warning, so I think we're good.

edited 5th May '11 11:39:35 AM by joeyjojojuniorshabadoo

I smell this derailing into the exact Flame War about triggers and warnings Cryptic Mirror was talking about. Perhaps, now that a mod decision has been made, this can be locked?