Archive housekeeping post

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

In light of the recent discussion/argument over warnings going on in wider fandom:

If any of y'all have any suggestions, criticism, or comments on the warnings and genre tags and other metadata at the Tales of Suspense website/archive (a tag you would like to see included, an issue with the way something is currently being labeled or warned for), please feel free to either comment here about it or to PM or email myself or seanchai.

ToS currently has a list of optional warning tags, with two mandatory-warning exceptions: major character death (yes, even if it's Steve's death that happened in canon, and no, I don't care if that's silly) and non-con/rape.

The non-con/rape warning is mandatory both because issues of consent in general and onscreen rape in particular can be major triggers for surviors of sexual abuse or assault, and because several people on the comm specifically asked for such a warning on the site.

A generic "Kink!" tag is currently included on the ToS archive's list of warnings. I am considering altering that, and making a seperate metadata category for kinks, because several people have said during the ongoing warnings/triggers discussion currently going on in wider fandom that they dislike it when authors lump consensual sex acts in with death/abuse/assault. We'd also welcome y'all's opinions on that, as well as any suggestions on specific kinks you'd like to have the option of labelling for.

edit: Things already on the warnings list (all warnings that don't have "mandatory" next to them are 100% optional):
cancer
character death: OTP (mandatory)
character death: other
dub-con
graphic violence
kink! (becoming it's own new section, so it won't be on the warnings list anymore)
mpreg
rape (mandatory)

Things suggested as additional warnings:
torture
brain damage
sexual violence
drug abuse
eating disorders
suicide

Things suggested for kinks list:
amnesia
mpreg (moved over from warnings)
bondage
D/s
genderswap
s/m
maybe some generic kink tag for people that want to advertise that a story contains kinky sex without spelling everything out?

Note: this is warnings for the Tales of Suspense archive, not for the comm.

Comments

[starsunwanted.livejournal.com]

There's another great thing about kink and warning tags; being able to search for them specifically! In that vein, I say the more the merrier on the tags. For the people who don't want to list kinks or content for lit reasons, you might try offering a special tag that says that "This piece may contain content ordinarily tagged or warned for," so that people can go into fics with their eyes open.



Anyway, that's my lurkish input.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

If you click on one of the tags, it should in theory pull up all stories with that tag. It took great strength of will not to have about sixty of them and make them double as subject-descriptor tags when I figured that out.

Considering that the Big Two of rape and major character death are mandatory... offering the option of an "I don't warn" tag would be misleading, I think (in that I suspect people would start not using the two mandatory tags if they had that tag as an excuse not to).