Posted by Tamar on March 14, 2006, at 15:35:49
In reply to Re: Trigger warnings, posted by Dr. Bob on March 14, 2006, at 2:02:49
> I think "mandatory" trigger warnings may sound like a good idea because it would be great if you could rely on triggering posts to be flagged. Like you can rely on all posts to be civil.
Er… not sure I’m following. Can we in fact rely on all posts to be civil? How do people get blocks if we can rely on all posts to be civil? Or have I missed your point?
> But some of you, at least, have seen how hard it is to make civility mandatory. And that's after years of refining the guidelines.
Indeed. And I suppose if we had mandatory trigger warnings we’d also have to refine the guidelines. But that’s no reason to put it off, in my opinion.
> As far as triggers, we haven't even agreed yet on whether:
>
> > self-injury
> > suicidal intent
> > violence
>
> or:
>
> > suicide
> > self injury
> > abuse
> > violence
> > substance abuseI favour the second list here. But ‘abuse’ would have to be defined, I reckon.
> are the general topics that should be flagged. And then the next question is what specifically about those topics should be considered triggers.
It’s hard to call. Sometimes specific words are particularly emotive. I’d suggest that any post containing words such as suicide, self-injury, rape, incest, child sexual abuse, and alcohol might be subject to mandatory trigger warnings. Maybe other people have other words. I’m not sure it should be a case of everyone listing their most-hated words, but with any luck we should be able to agree on it as a community.
> I think we need to be able to spell out more clearly what would count as a trigger before it would be fair to require warnings. In other words, the biggest difficulty with a mandatory system is that sometimes people simply don't know what may trigger others.
Yes, that’s very true. But it also seems abundantly clear to me that sometimes people don’t know what may lead others to feel accused or put down!
Of course, it’s entirely possible to have a different set of incentives in place for trigger warnings. Maybe more warnings and shorter blocks, if it’s really very difficult for people to know what triggers others. It’s something to think about, anyway.
> It's an interesting question, how well voluntary civility rules would work...
Yes! I suppose it would be a bit more like real life! Not sure if I’d like that… :)
Tamar
poster:Tamar
thread:614568
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20060225/msgs/620267.html