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FINALLY: Warning Reasons for Gallery Images

Posted by Kim on November 28, 2022, 9:00am

You may have already noticed a new system for gallery image warnings that rolled out over the last couple of weeks. I'm very excited to officially announce it today.

Now, when you mark a character or group gallery image as mature/warn before viewing, you will be presented with a little window asking you to select the closest reason as to why the image needs a warning, like this:

A screenshot of the pop-up you get when marking an image as mature. The window reads What are we warning potential viewers about? This helps people make informed choices about whether to view or not. There are then a series of buttons, reading: Nudity & sexy stuff, gore or injury, obscenity, flash warning, eye strain, other

Some of those buttons will open up further options, getting you closer to the ballpark for your warning reason.

If none of them are quite right, you can choose "other" and type in your own reason.

When someone views your gallery, they will get to see the reason you have chosen, and make an informed decision about whether to proceed:

A screenshot of the warning as seen in the gallery. The warning reads This image has the following warning: This is a test of the warning explanation system. Do you want to Display it? Buttons say No and Yes

Find certain warnings to be totally unnecessary for you? There's new granular controls for which images will be preceded by a warning for you in your comfort & privacy settings:

A screenshot of the new image content warnings available in comfort & privacy settings. It is quite long.

Why was this added?


I view this update as a crucially important fix to a long-standing problem of users not having good control of the media that they see on-site.

There are a few things that REQUIRE a mature flag when uploaded to the gallery.
  • Sexy bits or female nipples visible
  • Sexual activity
  • Gore or fountains of blood
  • F-bombs or flipping the bird, slurs

People can get in trouble for repeatedly uploading these things without adding the mature tag. But frequently, people choose to be extra careful and flag things as mature that don't strictly require it. Generally, we allow people to be over-cautious with the mature flag if they want to.

Unfortunately, this wide range of reasons for providing a warning creates its own problem.

When a viewer went to a profile and was told, "there is a content warning on this image, do you want to display it?" they would have NO IDEA what they were getting themselves into. They were playing a potentially scary game when they picked yes -- It could be something that really disturbed them, or it could be a sedate scene of a woman in a bathing suit enjoying herself at the beach, or even just a photo of a housecat that was flagged mature for no one knows what reason. This was Bad. It gave people no opportunity to control their media diet/exposure to triggers beyond a sort of legal fig leaf. :(

Thus, the above Explanations have been created, to try and make viewing images with warnings happen with informed consent as often as possible. The most important part about the explanation is giving a potential viewer enough information that they can make an informed decision about whether the image is, indeed, something they want to view or something they want to pass on.
With this in mind, the mods have been hard at work on an ENORMOUS project of reviewing all images currently on the site that have been flagged as mature, and trying to add a description to every single one of them. We've described gore, we've described pr0n, we've written "Eye contact (potential neurodivergent trigger)" on faces that the uploader flagged as needing a warning, we've even stared in bafflement and then hit "other" and typed in "It's a guitar" so that potential viewers know what they are agreeing to seeing. We're about half-way through the backlog at this point, and still going.

Will users be required to go back and update all their previously uploaded images?

We aren't requiring users to go back and re-tag all their old mature images, though we'd certainly appreciate it! The mods are sifting through the backlog and you may find that we've done it for you already, or in the coming weeks! If you want to save us the trouble by going back and adding your own warning explanation, we'd appreciate the assist, but no one is going to get in trouble for having used the old system as it existed at the time.

I am overwhelmed by the potential warning options, is there a guide?

We've got you! :D https://www.rprepository.com/help/guide-to-warn-before-viewing-gallery-image

Other updates

  • Images with certain warnings will no longer be shown to accounts registered as minors
  • The list of users you have blocked, as well as the control about whether to see forum posts from them, has been moved off of the Comfort & Privacy settings page, and into its own Settings page titled Block List
  • An attempt has been made to improve search results in the help center :)

Post tags: Feature Explanations

Comments

Veliona

November 28, 2022
10:01pm

Thank you for your hard work.

Kim

November 28, 2022
11:31am

@Rowboat - Okay, I went ahead and added the word "Hidden" to gallery thumbnails.

gallerythumbs.png

It's not quite as sleek, but hopefully this makes it more obvious why it's blacked out so I don't get bug reports that the thumbnail didn't generate, and also solves your issue of people not knowing there's images there at all on black background styles.

Luscinioide

November 28, 2022
10:11am

the 'not showing images marked with sexual content to minors' thing is MAD poggers. definitely something that's needed to happen for a long time. good compromise between "kiddo accidentally stumbles into full on intercourse" and "kiddo sees a picture of a middle finger."

i, for one, will appreciate finally being able to differentiate between those two lmfao. can't tell you how many times i got blasted with a full on #### because there weren't specific warnings at the time

noice job

Auberon

November 28, 2022
9:54am

@Rowboat

I believe this may already be on Kim's radar, but just to be sure, would you mind filling out a bug report so that she can officially add it to the list? She uses that system to keep everything in order.

Sanne

November 28, 2022
9:53am

Rook wrote:
I'm a little curious about the nudity tag, as I've had one picture that is a couple of chars in a scene at an ocean and at most, there's just bare male chests, which isn't sexual or suggestive.

Nudity tags are not considered sexual or suggestive, but they are what it says on the tin: nudity. :) I have characters with bare breasts who are not flagged for sexual content myself, just the nudity of existing without tops on.

If you're asking why we assigned a nudity label to masculine characters with exposed chests, likely the mature tag already existed and we elaborated on it. We don't remove mature tags, we only add the additional warning. If there's nothing inherently mature about the image, you're always welcome to remove the mature tag entirely.

(You may just have been asking which tag to use, in which case the answer is simply that masculine presenting characters with bare chests require no tag at all.)

Rook

November 28, 2022
9:30am

I'm a little curious about the nudity tag, as I've had one picture that is a couple of chars in a scene at an ocean and at most, there's just bare male chests, which isn't sexual or suggestive.

Copper_Dragon

November 28, 2022
9:22am

No wonder you guys have been so busy! Fantastic work on this update!!

Rowboat

November 28, 2022
9:20am

Users using style templates with black backgrounds (default styles included) are experiencing the issue of their entire gallery being blacked out. You cannot see that there is a gallery there anymore. I suggest changing the spoiler colour to something other than black or white (as this is a common style background choice)

Auberon

November 28, 2022
9:11am

Honestly very excited for this one! Getting rid of the roulette aspect of clicking mature images is extremely nice.

Sanne

November 28, 2022
9:04am

Quote:
we've even stared in bafflement and then hit "other" and typed in "It's a guitar" so that potential viewers know what they are agreeing to seeing

Citharaphobia has entered chat. XD

I'm super stoked about this feature, it's making it SO much easier to navigate the site, even on bad mental health days!

Conqueeftador

November 28, 2022
9:00am

Very poggers