It's not something we're using very actively yet, but the tag system actually has a pretty good method for this kind of thing - it supports hierarchies, just like the group system does. So for...
Another point brought up in the discussion was whether it would be better to trigger warning different specific topics with their own tags, such as "trigger warning violence" or something similar.
It's not something we're using very actively yet, but the tag system actually has a pretty good method for this kind of thing - it supports hierarchies, just like the group system does.
So for example, we could have a top-level trigger tag, but it could also have "sub-tags" like trigger.violence. That gives people the option of filtering out all trigger tags if they want to, but also being more specific about individual ones.
Question: why would trigger.violence be a better tag than just violence? If something is violent and I tag it as such, do I also have to add trigger.violence? How can I decide what is just regular...
Question: why would trigger.violence be a better tag than just violence?
If something is violent and I tag it as such, do I also have to add trigger.violence? How can I decide what is just regular violence and what might trigger someone?
I think it would be better to encourage more tagging, and then let people who are triggered by a particular topic to filter on that tag. That stops us from prescribing someone's reaction to them, and empowers them to see or not see the things that they want to.
In practice I don't know if it would be relevant enough to be worth it, but I think the potential benefit is mostly to allow easier "coverage". For example, if there's someone that doesn't want to...
In practice I don't know if it would be relevant enough to be worth it, but I think the potential benefit is mostly to allow easier "coverage". For example, if there's someone that doesn't want to see any trigger tags, they just filter "trigger". They don't have to add 20 different tags like "violence", "child abuse", etc. as they each come up.
The distinction between using a hierarchical tag and just two separate tags is a bit more complex though, and that may be just as good in practice pretty much all the time.
But functionally, tagging something as "tw.violence" is the same thing as "violence" --- unless you're saying that the "tw" tag itself will have some kind of special functionality attached to it?...
But functionally, tagging something as "tw.violence" is the same thing as "violence" --- unless you're saying that the "tw" tag itself will have some kind of special functionality attached to it?
For example, what is the difference between "tw.spiders" and "spiders"? "tw.nazi" and "nazi"?
At some point, the "tw" tag will become so bloated that it will become impractical to filter the entire thing, which will render it pointless.
Yeah, I think maybe tw isn't the best example for this (and it may not even be an appropriate use for it at all). Thinking about it from the perspective of NSFW might make more sense. There are...
Yeah, I think maybe tw isn't the best example for this (and it may not even be an appropriate use for it at all). Thinking about it from the perspective of NSFW might make more sense.
There are situations where people don't want to see any NSFW content, so in that case, it's much more convenient to have a single NSFW tag that they can filter out (temporarily or otherwise) that immediately gets rid of everything, regardless of why it's NSFW. They don't need to individually filter nudity, gore, etc.
Yes, you could always have separate nsfw and nudity tags, but that doesn't always make a lot of sense when the second tag is basically entirely to clarify the type of NSFW. For example (again, not necessarily a realistic one), let's say that we have a nsfw.profanity tag. That's just clarifying why it's NSFW, and might be a useful clarification for people that don't want to open something with nudity, but don't mind if it just has a lot of swearing. A stand-alone profanity tag doesn't make a lot of sense, since it's unlikely that anyone will ever want to search solely for items that have profanity.
Does that make sense? I agree that it's kind of weird and may not ever be very useful in practice, but I think in theory it has some possibilities anyway.
Definitely, but once other, more experienced users can change the tags on posts, they don't really need to understand it (and will probably learn quickly after seeing their tags fixed for them).
Definitely, but once other, more experienced users can change the tags on posts, they don't really need to understand it (and will probably learn quickly after seeing their tags fixed for them).
Yeah, I'm going to point out the difference between NSFW and TW. You see, NSFW is external, while TW is internal. As a general rule, there're some topics that we deem unsafe for work, because they...
Yeah, I'm going to point out the difference between NSFW and TW.
You see, NSFW is external, while TW is internal. As a general rule, there're some topics that we deem unsafe for work, because they are, objectively grounds for sanctions in your workplace. Those topics are imposed by other people, by a structure. Meanwhile, triggers are self imposed. It's your own psyche and experience that imposes them.
As such, what triggers someone can be too wide to be useful in a hierarchal way. I mean, what if I have a severe phobia to balloons, and they trigger me? Or clowns?or, I don't know, people with extremely long nails.
Since "trigger" can cover such a wide array of topic, it ends up making no sense. Yes, you may have issues seeing violence, and you don't want to... but at the same time, I may pass out by the image of a spider, while someone else may be deeply troubled to the point of needing counseling after watching a video of a cat, because some experiences in their past.
No. TW as a hierarchy is just nonsensical because of the subjective and internal nature of the tag. I mean, FFS, some people are deeply bothered (Aka triggered) by public display of affection.
The vast majority of people who claim to want to have trigger warnings are not triggered in the PTSD sense of the word. We've taken something genuinely useful to a small number of people and...
The vast majority of people who claim to want to have trigger warnings are not triggered in the PTSD sense of the word.
We've taken something genuinely useful to a small number of people and corrupted it so it's now meaningless, and worse harmful to the people it claims to be helping.
The point of trigger warnings is not to avoid content that makes people uncomfortable (and that is how the majority of them are used today), but to allow people with PTSD to prepare before engaging with the content.
Trigger warnings are not supported by most psychologists. There is no evidence that trigger warnings protect people, even people with PTSD from harm. There is some evidence that trigger warnings increase harm. We know that avoiding phobic situations increases harm. Trigger warnings suppress and censor survivors. The concept of trigger warnings perpetuates stigma and discrimination - suggesting that people with mental ill health are always on knife edge, on the verge of breaking, utterly unable to cope with normal everyday life.
For content that is actually harmful (eg a description of death by suicide including description of method) we should be pushing to avoid publishing it completely, not publishing it with a trigger warning.
Feel free to use trigger warnings, but please don't think you're doing anything to help survivors.
Here's an article that interviews Prof Metin Basoglu, "a psychologist internationally recognised for his trauma research" who is the founder of trauma studies at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London. He's surely an expert who knows what they're talking about, and he is against the use of trigger warnings.
Well, obviously you have failed to do so in my eye, since we're still discussing it. I've not seen a clear demarcation of what's to be consider a "trigger". And, mor importantly, why those, and...
Well, obviously you have failed to do so in my eye, since we're still discussing it. I've not seen a clear demarcation of what's to be consider a "trigger". And, mor importantly, why those, and not other limits? I think that's the discussion to have here.
1.- Do we need to protect others from potentialy harmful content?
2.- How we define that content?
3.- Up to what point we need to protect them?
Once we're answered those 3 questions, we can start talking about if we should us a system or another, to do so.
Now, for my answers to my own questions (since these are subjective answers, anyway):
1.- No, we don't. It'd be nice if we did, tho.
2.- Defining what can be harmful can be very hard. Specially if we want to avoid excesive censorship and curation, to prevent glamorization of certain topics. I don't think this question can be answered without proper debate and research, as the consequences of a bad answer can have some adverse effects, as proven by Skinner's conditioning experiments in regards to masochism (not in the sexual way).
3.- We only need to inform them politely. Doing anything else would be treating them as children, and, thus, demeaning of their intellectual capacities.
Ah, I see where our disagreement comes from. You're a democrat, and I'm a technocrat. For the record, yes, I call trigger warnings censorship, in the academical sense of the word censorship, that...
Ah, I see where our disagreement comes from. You're a democrat, and I'm a technocrat.
For the record, yes, I call trigger warnings censorship, in the academical sense of the word censorship, that is, censoring in the sense of curating, on the sense of making sure you don't have to read anything unsuitable for you. That is censorship. Not all censorship is bad.
Parents censor what their kids watch on TV. What they read. Political censorship is bad, yes... but that's not the kind of censorship I'm talking about here. But yes, trigger warning act as censor for those who want to use them. It is what it is.
What other point have trigger warnings but to censor a site for those who decide to use them to filter stuff out? I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm just calling it censoring a site, VOLUNTARILY, for yourself. The fact that you're the one doing it to yourself is irrelevant.
And I like your answers, even if I disagree with them. I don't think that a democratic system is the best one to decide what's best for others, but a technocratic system. I am fully aware of the shortcomings of technocracy, specially considering it's a form of oligarchy. And that's why I prefer debating to reach an agreement.
Now, since I understand your position now. I'd ask you: Who'd be responsible for making those trigger warnings. And, this, again, is a serious question. I'm not trolling. And I'll explain what I mean.
If the user posting is the one responsible, this would make every person decide on their own, if what they're posting is triggering or not. There'd be no standarization, and some people would be more liberal in their use of TW, while others would be more conservative. Some people wouldn't even use them at all, thus defeating the system.
On the other hand, having someone to check and decide what's triggering or not would force them to read plenty of disturbing stuff, plus it'd take too much time.
So, again, what do you propose there? Not just you, Kat, but everyone. Should the OP have to tag the posts, or someone else? And still, WHAT is the standard that needs to be tagged.
That is: Should a broken arm with a bone showing be marked as TW? Should a nosebleed? What about cases such as Phineas Gage? Is just mentioning "She was raped" enough to justify a TW, or do we need something more? Should we have TW for common phobias?
That's the discussion here. My answer is that we should only mark the MOST gruesome of our content. A simple mention, or even a depiction shouldn't require a marking. Graphical illustration of an open stomach? Maybe. Just mentioning that someone was raped, without even telling how it happened? Hell no!
It will be a collective effort. The OP can add tags to their own post. Additionally, there will be "tag editors" (for want of a better term) who will have the ability to add/edit/delete tags on...
Should the OP have to tag the posts, or someone else?
It will be a collective effort. The OP can add tags to their own post. Additionally, there will be "tag editors" (for want of a better term) who will have the ability to add/edit/delete tags on other people's posts; one of them can add a 'trigger warning' tag on a post if they see a need for it.
Just mentioning that someone was raped, without even telling how it happened? Hell no!
But, for some rape victims, merely reading about someone else's rape will trigger memories of their own rape, and will cause them distress.
How do you know what will trigger other people? I remember reading a psychological case study of a person, and one of their many quirks was that they used to get triggered by seeing shoe-hooks, because they had been sexually abused by shoe-hooks as a young infant. You don't know what other people's triggers are.
Pretty much my point. If you don't know what will trigger someone, you need to decide what's reasonable. I don't think just the mention IS reasonable... since they're bound to read/hear it...
How do you know what will trigger other people?
Pretty much my point. If you don't know what will trigger someone, you need to decide what's reasonable. I don't think just the mention IS reasonable... since they're bound to read/hear it normally. Hell, couple months ago, in my country, EVERYONE was mentioning rape at least 5 times a day, because of a high profile case. So, "just the mention of rape" is definetly going too far.
That seems to me like an argument for trigger warnings, not against them. If someone is a rape survivor and wants to escape the deluge of news about that case, they can go to ~news.thatcountry and...
Hell, couple months ago, in my country, EVERYONE was mentioning rape at least 5 times a day, because of a high profile case.
That seems to me like an argument for trigger warnings, not against them. If someone is a rape survivor and wants to escape the deluge of news about that case, they can go to ~news.thatcountry and let the tag filtering system work its magic.
Never said the deluge came from the news... but from literaly everyone. Aka, no escape from it. So may as well get on with it. If it's unscapable, a TW won't help.
Never said the deluge came from the news... but from literaly everyone. Aka, no escape from it. So may as well get on with it. If it's unscapable, a TW won't help.
Well, "my dude". I'm not a "dude"... and this shit IS going to fly. Because, see, it's something that's going to happen, which means it's the person who gets triggered who needs to do their best...
Well, "my dude". I'm not a "dude"... and this shit IS going to fly. Because, see, it's something that's going to happen, which means it's the person who gets triggered who needs to do their best to prevent being triggered. Sure, we can help. But it's unreasonable that we "babyproof" everything so they don't have to do any effort on their end. Noone heals if they don't want to heal... So while I'm not saying "go out of your way to trigger them", because that'd be spiteful, also, don't go out of your way to make sure they don't have to get healed.
But the idea that I, a person who doesn't have to deal with anything triggering me, can prescribe what triggers other people is problematic. I don't know what triggers other random people, outside...
But the idea that I, a person who doesn't have to deal with anything triggering me, can prescribe what triggers other people is problematic.
I don't know what triggers other random people, outside of a few particular common things. What about less common things?
One of my friends has an issue with fireworks. Do we add trigger.fireworks? If we don't, doesn't that mean that we're looking down on the fact that this guy gets triggered by fireworks? Adding a hierarchy here is quite problematic, because it adds "value" to the thing that is doing the triggering.
We shouldn't be telling people about their triggers, we should be accurately tagging things so that whatever triggers someone can be avoided.
I think it's relevant. The hierarchy is a great tool for certain subs. This seems like a good use. That way we don't end up with a million different tags for the same thing. Putting them all under...
I think it's relevant. The hierarchy is a great tool for certain subs. This seems like a good use. That way we don't end up with a million different tags for the same thing. Putting them all under one parent tag helps group it in my opinion. Which is important for specific groups. It gives a kind of baseline for organizing and making finding things easier later on.
I think @Deimos mentioned it already, that way someone can filter out all trigger tags easily, rather than having to filter out all of the individual tags.
I think @Deimos mentioned it already, that way someone can filter out all trigger tags easily, rather than having to filter out all of the individual tags.
How do we decide what is triggering and what isn't? Plenty of “triggering” content isn't really triggering to me. But then plenty of “non-triggering content” is very triggering to me. Who gets to...
How do we decide what is triggering and what isn't? Plenty of “triggering” content isn't really triggering to me. But then plenty of “non-triggering content” is very triggering to me.
Who gets to decide what's triggering and what isn't?
I feel like just hitting the vote button on this isn't sufficient. THIS IS SUCH AN IMPORTANT THING. I don't know everything that triggers people, and I shouldn't be prescribing my understanding of...
I feel like just hitting the vote button on this isn't sufficient.
THIS IS SUCH AN IMPORTANT THING.
I don't know everything that triggers people, and I shouldn't be prescribing my understanding of what triggers people to people who have experienced trauma. People who have experienced trauma understand what triggers them, and know what they need to filter out.
In addition to what others have mentioned, I'm not sure all discussions about violence are necessarily triggers. The article referenced in the title could definitely be considered a trigger, but...
In addition to what others have mentioned, I'm not sure all discussions about violence are necessarily triggers. The article referenced in the title could definitely be considered a trigger, but is something like say, a study on the effectiveness of violence in interrogations one? Full disclosure, I'm not the most knowledgeable on the subject and I don't know how severe something has to be to be considered a trigger, but when I think of a trigger I think of something... on the more graphic side of things I guess
In that case a trigger tag would be useful to differentiate the two then right? A violence in interrogation study could definitely be tagged with 'violence,' but more as a reference to the...
In that case a trigger tag would be useful to differentiate the two then right? A violence in interrogation study could definitely be tagged with 'violence,' but more as a reference to the discussion of it, not as a post with violence necessarily in it, such as a video of police brutality. I feel like most people that wouldn't be okay with the latter would probably be okay with the former, so maybe there is, theoretically, some use case for it. How applicable that is day to day I don't know
The consensus on sites like Tumblr is actually really unhelpful, and perhaps even harmful. A "trigger" is an actual affliction that people have, and it's not just "makes me feel uncomfortable" or...
The consensus on sites like Tumblr is actually really unhelpful, and perhaps even harmful. A "trigger" is an actual affliction that people have, and it's not just "makes me feel uncomfortable" or "something I don't want to read about" (which is how it used on Tumblr, in addition to the accepted psychological term).
Not everything you dislike is a strawman argument. Lots of people make the claim that things that make them uncomfortable are triggers. That doesn't make it right, and the tumblr tw/cw stuff is...
You are strawmanning an argument no one here is making.
Not everything you dislike is a strawman argument.
Lots of people make the claim that things that make them uncomfortable are triggers. That doesn't make it right, and the tumblr tw/cw stuff is awful because of how far it dilutes the actual concept of triggers.
Regardless, the end result should be: things should be appropriately tagged so that people who have trigger warning needs or people who merely want to avoid content that makes them feel uncomfortable can do so.
I'm arguing against your "consensus on other sites is that..." claim. You can't take me to task for arguing against how people on other sites use the term when you bring up that other sites use...
I'm arguing against your "consensus on other sites is that..." claim.
You can't take me to task for arguing against how people on other sites use the term when you bring up that other sites use the term in a particular way. That's monumentally unfair.
Once again, there's a problem with prescription here. You are making a judgment call about what should or shouldn't trigger other people. What if someone tags something with violence but not...
Once again, there's a problem with prescription here.
You are making a judgment call about what should or shouldn't trigger other people.
What if someone tags something with violence but not trigger.violence and then someone else suggests that it should get trigger.violence because it triggers them, but someone else thinks that this isn't trigger.violence it's just violence.
In what way is arguing about the legitimacy of somebody's triggers a worthwhile thing?
We should just encourage (perhaps enforce) more descriptive tagging, and let people who need to filter out topics use the filtering that already exists to decide for themselves if something triggers them or if it does not.
I'm not really hardlining for or against this proposal, I'm just thinking about the potential applications such a feature might offer. This would certainly add that layer of complexity you talk...
I'm not really hardlining for or against this proposal, I'm just thinking about the potential applications such a feature might offer. This would certainly add that layer of complexity you talk about as to what really defines a trigger. I personally don't see myself ever using the system but I can see how it might be pretty valuable to some, I can definitely see why you might not want to come across 'Adults want to stab a 12 year old trans child at a school' if you were a trans person just trying to browse the website
Once again, there's a problem with prescription here. You are making a judgment call about what should or shouldn't trigger other people. From PsychCentral: What is a trigger (emphasis mine): This...
Once again, there's a problem with prescription here.
You are making a judgment call about what should or shouldn't trigger other people.
A trigger is something that sets off a memory tape or flashback transporting the person back to the event of her/his original trauma. Triggers are very personal; different things trigger different people.
This article is really useful, actually, and should probably be read by just about everyone who thinks we should be adding "trigger warning".
The common triggers that are listed in this article don't really have much to do with the "common triggers" that are listed below by various people.
Not every topic in a hypothetical ~violence.survivors group would need a trigger.violence tag. Maybe that means that the trigger warning should be part of a tag? E.g. could tw:violence or similar...
Not every topic in a hypothetical ~violence.survivors group would need a trigger.violence tag. Maybe that means that the trigger warning should be part of a tag? E.g. could tw:violence or similar be a workable format?
Worth exploring, but I think it's also worth mentioning that there are edge cases and having seen how it plays out in other places, it's probably good to do what we can to avoid the "is this...
Worth exploring, but I think it's also worth mentioning that there are edge cases and having seen how it plays out in other places, it's probably good to do what we can to avoid the "is this really deserving of a TW?" conversation, which applying the hierarchy in this way still encourages.
I guess part of the issue is that I see potential issues with putting the responsibility of deciding what is and isn't triggering on every OP. Enforcing extensive tags (there's a lot that needs to be done in cementing it as part of site culture, hell it's only now occurred to me that I should be considering lyrical content for my tags on ~music) with maybe an additional "trigger warning" tag for the more obvious cases seems like a better solution for practical reasons.
Right now all topic tags are visible so you're right that it could be a bit much, but eventually the idea was to have a trusted user voting system on the tags themselves so that only the top/most...
Right now all topic tags are visible so you're right that it could be a bit much, but eventually the idea was to have a trusted user voting system on the tags themselves so that only the top/most relevant tags are actually visible and the rest are hidden below a fold (like valve's steam platform does by showing only the top 5 tags and the rest requiring the user to click a [+] in order to see).
Even without trust implemented first, when it comes to a post having multiple trigger tags, it's also possible that the only visible tag could simply be trigger.multiple or trigger.+ which could be clicked to show them all if a user desired. And with that method, even though they are hidden below a fold, since the tags are still applied to the post at least people can still filter for them.
I think that effective tagging can be used in place of trigger warnings. I don't think the onus is on the person who submits something to say "this could trigger you if you have a problem with...
I think that effective tagging can be used in place of trigger warnings. I don't think the onus is on the person who submits something to say "this could trigger you if you have a problem with violence", but I think that they do have a responsibility to tag with "violence". People who are triggered by violence can then filter out anything with that tag.
I understand and appreciate that there are a many of things that can trigger people for a variety of reasons, but I think the responsibility is on the person who is triggered to avoid the things that trigger them, and not on us to avoid mentioning them. I think it's important to enable the people who have issues to deal with software (and other things) on their own terms, and not to prescribe to them that they will get triggered by something.
I come to a similar conclusion for purely practical reasons. Rather than it being a responsibility thing, it's just a fact that not every poster will be effective at deciding what is and isn't...
I come to a similar conclusion for purely practical reasons. Rather than it being a responsibility thing, it's just a fact that not every poster will be effective at deciding what is and isn't triggering, or what edge cases are too far on the edge to get one. It is, however, a reasonable expectation for users to know what their post contains and put that into tags.
Maybe there could also be some kind of trigger or content warning on things that are very obvious and common in that regard (like rape or extreme violence), but I don't think it'll work out as the main way for users who wish to avoid triggers to do so.
I think one thing to keep in mind here is that eventually topic tag editing will be opened up to users other than the OP that posted the topic too. So while the OP may not necessarily understand...
I think one thing to keep in mind here is that eventually topic tag editing will be opened up to users other than the OP that posted the topic too. So while the OP may not necessarily understand or recognize specific triggers in their post, eventually others who have more experience with them (or were in fact triggered themselves) can simply apply the relevant trigger warning tag to the topic to help others filter them out should they desire to. Topic tags will be largely a crowd-sourced effort in the end and not entirely on the OP as they are now.
I still think that "trigger" isn't a good idea for a tag, because triggers are very personal. Things that trigger one person may very well not trigger someone else. To use an above example: I have...
I still think that "trigger" isn't a good idea for a tag, because triggers are very personal. Things that trigger one person may very well not trigger someone else.
To use an above example: I have a friend who is very careful about exposing himself to fireworks. Let's say someone posts a beautiful YouTube clip of fireworks. "Well fuck" says I. "One of my good friends would certainly find this triggering." I add the tag trigger.fireworks so my friend user-one doesn't see it. Someone else, user-two has added trigger as an overall filter. They no longer see this, even though there's absolutely nothing triggering about this for them.
Now consider the alternative. I tag the video with fireworks. user-one has already filtered fireworks. user-two gets to see the video.
That particular scenario you bring up is easily solvable via community standards and limiting the scope of trigger tags to specific "common + severe" ones that are obvious enough to include. And I...
That particular scenario you bring up is easily solvable via community standards and limiting the scope of trigger tags to specific "common + severe" ones that are obvious enough to include. And I would argue that fireworks are not a sufficiently common enough trigger to warrant their own specific trigger tag. Not only that but if a post contained fireworks, it's very likely to have a fireworks tag already anyways so the trigger.fireworks would be redundant.
Do you see the problem intrinsic in what you just said? Let me restate it for you: "Your trigger isn't important enough to get listed here, because it's not a real trigger." That's a super shitty...
And I would argue that fireworks are not a sufficiently common enough trigger to warrant their own specific trigger tag.
Do you see the problem intrinsic in what you just said? Let me restate it for you:
"Your trigger isn't important enough to get listed here, because it's not a real trigger."
That's a super shitty thing to say to people.
Why do we need to make a statement that there are some triggers that are valid, and some triggers that are not valid enough? Can't we just tag things appropriately and let people sort out their own filters?
edit:
Not only that but if a post contained fireworks, it's very likely to have a fireworks tag already anyways so the trigger.fireworks would be redundant.
I am not denying it is a trigger or that it is "valid". However for the purposes of the trigger tag I am arguing that it may not be a sufficiently common enough one to justify including it, since...
I am not denying it is a trigger or that it is "valid". However for the purposes of the trigger tag I am arguing that it may not be a sufficiently common enough one to justify including it, since including every possible and potential "unique to an individual person" trigger in the trigger tag hierarchy would render it effectively useless. IMO the value in a trigger tag (as opposed to flat independent tags) is similar to the NSFW tag, in that it provides a stark visual indication to users of common potential issues to help avoid them. You could take your very same argument and apply it to the NSFW tag, claiming that "what is NSFW is different for everyone so we should just do away with it"... but that is missing the point of the NSFW tag, which is not to include every possible edge-case but merely the most common so as to maximize its value to the community for the purposes of filtering.
That's fair, there are ways to make this more effective in the future that I should've considered(though this is a pretty immediate problem to deal with, I would think), but I think it still begs...
That's fair, there are ways to make this more effective in the future that I should've considered(though this is a pretty immediate problem to deal with, I would think), but I think it still begs the "does this deserve a TW?" conversation and leads to the bloating of the top-level TW tag.
Well in that regard, one of the ideas I had was to have a meta-mode of sorts for the entire site. Basically a switch people could click that would make visible a layer of the site where all the...
Well in that regard, one of the ideas I had was to have a meta-mode of sorts for the entire site. Basically a switch people could click that would make visible a layer of the site where all the meta-conversations could be relegated to. This would keep the default, "normal" mode/layer for groups and comments sections clean/on-topic and the meta discussion confined to that meta-mode layer. Comment tagging could also be used rather effectively in this regard as well, helping automatically push meta-discussions from the normal mode into the meta-mode.
I strongly agree with almost everything you said apart from people having the responsibility to tag something with "violence". I don't think the OP should have to make any specific tags when...
I strongly agree with almost everything you said apart from people having the responsibility to tag something with "violence". I don't think the OP should have to make any specific tags when creating their post personally. If I have to carefully analyze everything I post to make sure there's no hint of violence and my tags are perfect, I'm just not going to post at all.
Why is tagging the thing that is an issue? You already have to do some taxonomic work - you have to choose the group for something. Typing one or two words shouldn't be a barrier to posting, and...
Why is tagging the thing that is an issue?
You already have to do some taxonomic work - you have to choose the group for something. Typing one or two words shouldn't be a barrier to posting, and it's just good practice for searchability (not just for this one issue, which is, honestly, a very niche issue).
The problem is there is no way to know what's triggering when you're not triggered. Sure probably rape and murder could be obvious. But if you post a story about homophobia are you expected to...
it takes three seconds to tag something appropriately
The problem is there is no way to know what's triggering when you're not triggered.
Sure probably rape and murder could be obvious. But if you post a story about homophobia are you expected to know that someone could have been tormented their entire lives and get flashbacks to childhood that ruin their day? Maybe you could assume.
What if someone was involved in a natural disaster like a Tsunami and now just hearing about severe weather triggers them. I can't be held responsible for not realizing that rain can cause PTSD when it's completely normal to everyone else.
Just post the story with an accurate title and let people tag it how they wish.
Does reading a tag "trigger.rape" not remind you just as much about that day as a title saying "Woman raped by coworker?"
Reading both would steer you clear of the story. So long as it's titled correctly and not "Guess she was putting in some extra hours at work" I don't see the problem that's being solved.
I think this is deeply patronizing and insulting to those suffering from those issues. Look. I suffer crippling arachnophobia. I don't need a TW on spiders, because, well, I am able to read. If an...
I think this is deeply patronizing and insulting to those suffering from those issues.
Look. I suffer crippling arachnophobia. I don't need a TW on spiders, because, well, I am able to read. If an article is titled "Arachnid outbreak in Cairo", I know for certain I'm not checking it. I don't even need a tag to tell me not to check it.
You're just assuming that people can't infer content by the title of an article, and that's the insult.
So, don't do that. And yes, I'm comparing a crippling phobia to PTSD. Keep in mind I said "crippling", as in "you see a spider, you pass out of pure fear".
No, you're not "giving a rape survivor a violent flashback", because you're NOT FORCING them to read it. If just reading the title of the article gives them the flashback, then they need psychological help, FAST, since they can't function as normal individuals in a society, and should not be protected to that point.
I don't particularly want to get involved in this conversation, but this claim can be proven false with even the most cursory of google searches. Here's an article I read yesterday: I'm not Connor...
I don't particularly want to get involved in this conversation, but this claim can be proven false with even the most cursory of google searches.
Again, "Step of the chair" is only triggering on a context. If I saw that line, and suicide was something I wanted to avoid, I'd stop reading. Now, let me step of my chair and get some water.
Again, "Step of the chair" is only triggering on a context. If I saw that line, and suicide was something I wanted to avoid, I'd stop reading. Now, let me step of my chair and get some water.
Okay, but now you’ve moved the goalposts from, “Suggesting people can’t always infer content from titles is patronizing,” to, “Once people start reading an article with triggering content they...
Okay, but now you’ve moved the goalposts from, “Suggesting people can’t always infer content from titles is patronizing,” to, “Once people start reading an article with triggering content they should stop reading.”
I will not be replying further because you don’t seem to be arguing in good faith. Moving the goalposts is frequently a sign of someone whose mind is already made up.
Yes, in that topic my mind is completly made up. Thorpe proved, back in the 60s, that people improve and get over phobias and other mental hangups way faster if they're exposed to them. Yes, I...
Yes, in that topic my mind is completly made up. Thorpe proved, back in the 60s, that people improve and get over phobias and other mental hangups way faster if they're exposed to them. Yes, I know this is usually done by a profesional... but even uncontrolled exposure has value, since it lets you know you may have a problem.
However made up my mind is, I'm also open enough to reach an agrement. As you may see in some of my interventions, while I don't think the use of TW is good, I can agree that SOME content could use it. So, even if my mind is made up, you can still reason with me.
The author never actually attempted suicide. You didn't even read the article. Also it was not descriptive or vulgar in any sense. He mentions suicide by hanging. I agree that there was no mention...
The author never actually attempted suicide. You didn't even read the article. Also it was not descriptive or vulgar in any sense. He mentions suicide by hanging. I agree that there was no mention of it from the title, but that doesn't matter. If you can't infer the context from the lines before he even gets into detail, or you literally can't hear the word suicide, you are not fit to be actively engaging with society in any manner and need immediate professional help and assistance. I think you'd struggle to find an article where the first line is a detailed and descriptive writing of a "triggering" subject, and even still, it's reading. If you see where it's heading, just stop. There are a series of words you have to force yourself to read. You cannot happen across extremely graphic or disturbing pictures by chance. The new York times doesn't post pictures of dead people or active rapes.
First of all, yes I did read the article. I think I've read 90% of what the Player's Tribune puts out, their articles are almost always fascinating and well-written. (I'm also a huge hockey fan --...
First of all, yes I did read the article. I think I've read 90% of what the Player's Tribune puts out, their articles are almost always fascinating and well-written. (I'm also a huge hockey fan -- of a pretty dreadful team, unfortunately, but we don't choose who we love!).
In retrospect, I agree that I should have written almost attempted suicide.
Second, this is what I was responding to:
You're just assuming that people can't infer content by the title of an article, and that's the insult.
All I was commenting on was the notion that titles are perfect indicators of content. I posted an article that clearly refuted that claim.
Third, I said, "I don't particularly want to get involved in this conversation" because I'm not entirely certain of my own stance on this issue. It comes up occasionally in my line of academia (although nowhere near as often as fear-mongers would claim) and I haven't encountered a firm consensus one way or the other on this issue.
Exposure therapy certainly is critical in combating certain phobias. It's a gradual desensitization to cognitively arousing material that ultimately will break down maladaptive reactions to old memories.
But I (and my peers) can't imagine a worse forum for that process than the internet.
C'mon you have to admit that an op-ed from a depressed author who talks about suicide is few and far between. The majority of articles everywhere aren't "tricky" like that, and if they were, you...
C'mon you have to admit that an op-ed from a depressed author who talks about suicide is few and far between. The majority of articles everywhere aren't "tricky" like that, and if they were, you can tell what's happening right away and click away from it. Being on the internet should teach people to have some awareness and common sense. If you want to hide from everything, you don't need a trigger warning, just stay offline.
Absolutely. Again, the only thing I was commenting on was this: All I was commenting on was the notion that titles are perfect indicators of content. I posted an article that clearly refuted that...
C'mon you have to admit that an op-ed from a depressed author who talks about suicide is few and far between.
Absolutely. Again, the only thing I was commenting on was this:
I think this is deeply patronizing and insulting to those suffering from those issues.
...
You're just assuming that people can't infer content by the title of an article, and that's the insult.
All I was commenting on was the notion that titles are perfect indicators of content. I posted an article that clearly refuted that claim.
This is all I am saying. Shanara wants basic facts established (see one of their above posts) and this is a basic fact; titles do not always provide insight into their content.
Again, I am still uncertain where I stand on this issue. Thus, "I don't particularly want to get involved in this conversation."
I don't want to decide for traumatized people what is and isn't best for them. On a personal level, it may or may not be the best way to approach your own trauma, it doesn't really matter here. On...
I don't want to decide for traumatized people what is and isn't best for them. On a personal level, it may or may not be the best way to approach your own trauma, it doesn't really matter here.
On the level of this website, it's an essential part of letting "users make their own decisions about what they want to see" to tag posts appropriately. This is more a discussion on how exactly to accomplish that.
I think that anything that has any of the things you've mentioned should certainly be tagged, and we can crowd source the tagging. What value does adding "trigger" to the tag add? If people know...
I think that anything that has any of the things you've mentioned should certainly be tagged, and we can crowd source the tagging. What value does adding "trigger" to the tag add?
If people know about the tags, and know how to filter them, that should be sufficient, plus it doesn't make any kind of value statement about triggers outside of the ones you've mentioned (ie - "your triggers isn't important enough to be added).
As @Deimos explained above, it's so that a hierarchy can be used to filter, such that one could filter all tw topics, or just tw.violence, or just tw.rape if the others aren't triggers to them. If...
What value does adding "trigger" to the tag add?
As @Deimos explained above, it's so that a hierarchy can be used to filter, such that one could filter alltw topics, or just tw.violence, or just tw.rape if the others aren't triggers to them. If a topic is just tagged violence, they can filter for that tag, but they'd have to add all the possible tags that might trigger a reaction—rape is almost always violent, etc. There's a lot of crossover, and someone who has triggered reactions to things should be able to just lump all trigger warnings together by filtering tw.
And what made you assume those are "the big four"? In other words: citation needed. No, I'm serious here. Why are those "the big four". Are those aprticularly prevalent in society? How prevalent?...
And what made you assume those are "the big four"? In other words: citation needed.
No, I'm serious here. Why are those "the big four". Are those aprticularly prevalent in society? How prevalent? How much more prevalent or, say, clourophobia? If we want an honest discussion about this, we need to know these answers. You can't just decide that by yourself.
Maybe an study or two? There're such things, you know? Such as Bourdon et al (1988) Gender differences in phobias: Results of the ECA community survey, Journal of Anxiety disorders, volume 2,...
Maybe an study or two? There're such things, you know? Such as Bourdon et al (1988) Gender differences in phobias: Results of the ECA community survey, Journal of Anxiety disorders, volume 2, issue 3, pages 227-241, mentioning that the most common phobia for both men and woman is spiders and bugs.
So, see.... I knew there're these profesionals... called psychologists, that actually research on human behaviour, so we don't have to use informal consensus, but things that actually work.
I don't know why you're acting so condescending and going out of your way to bicker about minutiae in this thread, but you should probably just stay out of it if that's the only way you're able to...
I don't know why you're acting so condescending and going out of your way to bicker about minutiae in this thread, but you should probably just stay out of it if that's the only way you're able to discuss this subject.
What minutia? Wanting to have a system that resembles reality is not "minutia". Asking for a source that's not based on "common sense" and "common agreements" is not bickering nor acting...
What minutia? Wanting to have a system that resembles reality is not "minutia". Asking for a source that's not based on "common sense" and "common agreements" is not bickering nor acting condescendingly. It's wanting to meet a decent standard.
It looks like your account was just registered today. I would strongly suggest lurking a bit more to get a feel for the community, before jumping headfirst into these sort of potentially-heated...
It looks like your account was just registered today. I would strongly suggest lurking a bit more to get a feel for the community, before jumping headfirst into these sort of potentially-heated discussions about how the site is run.
Thanks for the suggestion... But, I am who I am. And I act how I act. I'm not going to change how I act to adapt to a community. I know, that's sociopathic, to a point. I don't care. That's how I...
Thanks for the suggestion... But, I am who I am. And I act how I act. I'm not going to change how I act to adapt to a community. I know, that's sociopathic, to a point. I don't care. That's how I am. So, yeah, I'm not going to try and get a feel for the community. Wouldn't change anything, anyway.
This isn't condescending or bickering. User shanara99 is asking for proof or backup with scientific entries and user Kat is actually being what you describe. They state: "You undoubtedly knew...
This isn't condescending or bickering. User shanara99 is asking for proof or backup with scientific entries and user Kat is actually being what you describe. They state: "You undoubtedly knew that, so I have no idea what citation you expected me to provide."
Tell me what part of the comment by shannara that I replied to Deimos about was condescending, please. They asked for clarification on what the big four were and you said (paraphrased) "I know...
Tell me what part of the comment by shannara that I replied to Deimos about was condescending, please. They asked for clarification on what the big four were and you said (paraphrased) "I know because I know, and you should have known, too."
I will concede that. The manner with which they spoke to you seems indignant. I simply see it as you inferring the condescending tone because they disagree with you. From my outside perspective...
I will concede that. The manner with which they spoke to you seems indignant. I simply see it as you inferring the condescending tone because they disagree with you. From my outside perspective they seem to be genuinely questioning your methods as you cite nothing and they cited research journalists. Empirically, they are correct, and provided a counter example of research (not an example pertaining to this case, but an example of what they were looking for in a reply) with which you have not produced.
I would also like to state that I am not being angry or purposefully argumentative, but I truly am inquisitive about the subject and logically cannot fathom an instance in which trigger warnings are needed or healthy.
You miss my point entirely. Please. You said: "Shanara didn’t cite a single relevant piece of research;" Yes, and I said that when I typed " [they] provided a counter example of research (not an...
You miss my point entirely. Please.
You said: "Shanara didn’t cite a single relevant piece of research;"
Yes, and I said that when I typed " [they] provided a counter example of research (not an example pertaining to this case, but an example of what they were looking for in a reply) with which you have not produced."
I could get on board with the flat-out "trigger warning" trigger warning if it was that clearly defined. If users were aware of what exactly this filters out and it was locked down so other things...
I could get on board with the flat-out "trigger warning" trigger warning if it was that clearly defined. If users were aware of what exactly this filters out and it was locked down so other things don't make it in, this could very nicely fit in with more extensive tagging in general.
Most of the problems with TWs that lack any modifiers come from opening it up, but having a core TW for the big things and encouraging users to tag extensively enough that most other potential triggers are also covered works just as well and is potentially much more transparent.
I also just personally feel a little bad and I want to be clear that anything I'm saying (which has kinda come in conflict with what you're saying here) comes from a place of genuinely wanting trigger warnings that function the best for the people who need them. I can definitely see how someone could hide behind "well just tag well and that will do it the best" to not have to engage with the problem, but I also think in this case it is the best approach for the sake of traumatized people who want control over what they see.
Great. Now every second thread is going to devolve into an argument about whether an article is triggering and needs a tag, and whether triggering is even a thing. :/ Me, I'm ambivalent about the...
Great. Now every second thread is going to devolve into an argument about whether an article is triggering and needs a tag, and whether triggering is even a thing. :/
Me, I'm ambivalent about the whole thing. To be honest, I am absolutely sick and tired of seeing all the arguments about triggering. And, reading articles about university college students who want trigger warnings for literature, I get the feeling that everything is going to end up having a "trigger warning" tag on it. I get that this is a real issue for some people, but it seems that everything is a trigger to someone these days...
I feel like a "trigger warning" tag would be overused to the point of uselessness.
Well I would throw in that I've been in many Facebook groups that require trigger warnings and this exact thing happens frequently. Usually admins ban arguing about people asking for TWs/CWs...
Well I would throw in that I've been in many Facebook groups that require trigger warnings and this exact thing happens frequently. Usually admins ban arguing about people asking for TWs/CWs because it tends to overrun threads, but even doing that causes a mess in itself.
Of course, this is not a reason to avoid trigger warnings altogether, but just something to take into account in implementation.
No, it's not a slippery slope fallacy. It's a combination of a "users will always find the wrong way to do things" observation from my time working as a Business Analyst, and a "people overreact...
No, it's not a slippery slope fallacy. It's a combination of a "users will always find the wrong way to do things" observation from my time working as a Business Analyst, and a "people overreact to everything" observation from my time on Reddit.
When you provide people with a "trigger warning" tag, it will get used. And, given that lots of people are overly worried about triggering other people, they'll use the "trigger warning" on topics that don't actually contain triggers... just in case. And, any time anyone even mentions that a post might need a "trigger warning" tag, someone will slap a "trigger warning" tag on it... just in case.
We'll see "trigger warning" tags on lots and lots of topics, even topics that don't need it, because everyone will start over-analysing every topic. And, we'll see arguments everywhere about whether a topic needs a "trigger warning" tag. Just have a look at this thread!
IMO, if your theory was correct then every single post on reddit would be tagged as NSFW since it's the same basic principal. And yet they are not and the amount of times I have seen it misused...
IMO, if your theory was correct then every single post on reddit would be tagged as NSFW since it's the same basic principal. And yet they are not and the amount of times I have seen it misused (other than as an occasional joke) are pretty negligible.
And your comment about "just have a look at this thread" is pretty silly IMO considering it's specifically about discussing possibly adding trigger warning tags, when/where they might be appropriate and how best to implement them to avoid any potential misuse. ~tildes posts are all about being analytical and a bit argumentative about exactly this sort of topic to figure out if it's an idea worth exploring and implementing, after all.
Actually, it's not. There's a widely accepted agreement on what is considered "not suitable for work": naked pictures. On the other hand, triggers are highly personal and very subjective. And......
if your theory was correct then every single post on reddit would be tagged as NSFW since it's the same basic principal.
Actually, it's not. There's a widely accepted agreement on what is considered "not suitable for work": naked pictures.
On the other hand, triggers are highly personal and very subjective.
And your comment about "just have a look at this thread" is pretty silly IMO considering this thread is specifically about discussing possibly adding trigger warning tags, when/where they might be appropriate and how best to implement to them to avoid any potential misuse.
And... do we have consensus? Do we have a standard to refer to? All I'm seeing is people (including me!) arguing about what are and are not triggers, and when we should apply them. This same argument is going to happen over and over again in various threads. "Why doesn't this have a trigger warning?" "Why does this have a trigger warning?"
So unless consensus on an idea can be reached in X hours then it's not an idea worth exploring and discussing further? We're all in uncharted territories with Tildes and what it's attempting to do...
So unless consensus on an idea can be reached in X hours then it's not an idea worth exploring and discussing further? We're all in uncharted territories with Tildes and what it's attempting to do with regards to trust based moderation tools, comprehensive filtering and tagging, community standards of behavior, etc... so that's a rather absurd standard you're setting for what merits discussion and what doesn't, IMO.
I'm not saying this doesn't merit discussion. I'm saying there will never be consensus on what topics need a "trigger warning" tag, and that lots of future threads will devolve into meta-arguments...
I'm not saying this doesn't merit discussion. I'm saying there will never be consensus on what topics need a "trigger warning" tag, and that lots of future threads will devolve into meta-arguments about this.
Personally, I don't think it's conceptually much different than all the other types of changes people can (and will) request - title changes, moving to different groups, even changes of "normal"...
Personally, I don't think it's conceptually much different than all the other types of changes people can (and will) request - title changes, moving to different groups, even changes of "normal" tags. Overall, I think we should probably just use the comment-tag concept to be able to tag certain comments/discussions as "meta", and they should probably be hidden/collapsed by default and treated as a "side discussion".
On a similar note, my thinking so far is that it might be best if the entire trigger-warning system (if we do implement one) should probably be opt-in. So by default, the tags wouldn't even show, but the user can choose to enable them if it's something they're concerned about. Then it's something that the large majority of users wouldn't even see, which I think would eliminate almost all of the potential fussiness about it.
Someone else in this thread mentioned being able to pick which tags are coloured. I feel like this would be a good additional solution for topics that don't always need to be filtered out based on...
Someone else in this thread mentioned being able to pick which tags are coloured. I feel like this would be a good additional solution for topics that don't always need to be filtered out based on the tag, but just brought to attention (similar to NSFW).
At the very least this could be a small stepping stone that wouldn't require consensus, which seems to be an issue.
Trigger warnings are more emotive, more subjective, and more personal than most other changes. People will be more emotionally invested in a conversation about whether a topic needs a "trigger...
Personally, I don't think it's conceptually much different than all the other types of changes people can (and will) request - title changes, moving to different groups, even changes of "normal" tags.
Trigger warnings are more emotive, more subjective, and more personal than most other changes. People will be more emotionally invested in a conversation about whether a topic needs a "trigger warning" tag than about whether it belongs in ~tv or ~movies.
Agreed. I'm not going out of my way to offend people but if I get chewed out for not including tags on a link I don't find offensive in the least that's pretty quickly going to kill the fun. I...
Agreed.
I'm not going out of my way to offend people but if I get chewed out for not including tags on a link I don't find offensive in the least that's pretty quickly going to kill the fun.
I think it's fair to have a NSFW for sexual stuff, and a NSFL for graphic or violent stuff. If you're so delicate that you can't read a description about something graphic that's fair. Not everyone can handle that. I'm not making fun of you for your life experiences, but give me a one or two button click to warn people that something might be a bit adult. This can apply to pictures and text alike.
I just feel like the percentage of people affected by trigger warnings is such an exceedingly small % of the average people using the site/the internet that making a mandatory rule specifically to...
Is there a reason that the idea of tagging seems an unreasonable bit of effort to ask of someone?
I just feel like the percentage of people affected by trigger warnings is such an exceedingly small % of the average people using the site/the internet that making a mandatory rule specifically to make absolutely sure they are specifically aware about their possible trigger is a bit out of the way for everyone else.
I'm fine with NSFW and NSFL which would be much more blanket terms identifying sexual content and violence/gore respectively. We can extend them to cover both written and actual visual depictions of both. If you're triggered by either of those two topics to the point that you cannot read or see them, this seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to block. You don't have the problem of the splintering tags. You don't have everyone going out of the way for a small subsection of the site. You still give these people the ability to read and converse with any amount of other content on the site while still not seeing things they don't want to see.
If someone wants to do NSFL.rape that seems fine to me so long as filtering NSFL blocks everything with NSFL.anythingelsehere as it adds specificity without splintering the filtering into requiring someone to block many tags at once.
And not all of them are triggered by discussions about it. There are billions of people in the world. The percentage is still incredibly small when talking about a mandatory rule for tagging...
There are millions
And not all of them are triggered by discussions about it. There are billions of people in the world. The percentage is still incredibly small when talking about a mandatory rule for tagging posts. If people can freely tag their posts however they want then someone posting a story specific to that can tag it.
They are so overly nonspecific that they completely fail
Personally I think we just disagree on the important level of specificity. It's not as if the entire site would be tagged with these. Only a small portion of posts so far have fit either of these. It's going to be a small portion of posts that they will have to purposely block themselves. That doesn't seem overly specific when your line in the sand is "the big 4"
that is overly specific to the majority of people. In mine it's collapsed into one instead of 4. Are all 4 covered already in that description? Yes. Are extra things accidentally covered in both? Yes.
If you are prone to extreme distress about certain topics, isn't it your job to steer clear of those topics? Not to mention, using Tildes as an example, it's extremely easy. How many articles on...
If you are prone to extreme distress about certain topics, isn't it your job to steer clear of those topics? Not to mention, using Tildes as an example, it's extremely easy. How many articles on here will have actual content that is triggering? How many of those articles will be disguised so the person doesn't realize and then are suddenly hit with a triggering image?
In regards to this specifically: how would one know to steer clear of a topic if it's not labelled well enough to denote it's subject or contents? A trigger warning is a courtesy, and amplifying...
If you are prone to extreme distress about certain topics, isn't it your job to steer clear of those topics?
In regards to this specifically: how would one know to steer clear of a topic if it's not labelled well enough to denote it's subject or contents?
A trigger warning is a courtesy, and amplifying information overall.
Be a human being with common sense and awareness. I also want to avoid videos of graphic, distressing things, simply because I dislike them. I mainly frequent Facebook, Tildes, and Reddit, and I...
Be a human being with common sense and awareness. I also want to avoid videos of graphic, distressing things, simply because I dislike them. I mainly frequent Facebook, Tildes, and Reddit, and I am at no harm of finding things there that could cause such a trigger. Explain to me how you could even accidentally stumble upon something that would trigger you? If you are triggered simply by people mentioning suicide, rape, self-harm, or other things of that nature, that is beyond a trigger warning. You need special help to facilitate your recovery.
You say "Unrelated details that can be highly triggering to people show up all the time, both in links and in text posts posted here." So seemingly anything can trigger anyone, and we have no way...
You say "Unrelated details that can be highly triggering to people show up all the time, both in links and in text posts posted here."
So seemingly anything can trigger anyone, and we have no way of telling what those triggers will be. If a trigger is so minute that it can be an "unrelated detail," then that person needs serious professional help right away. It is far beyond a trigger warning. I myself have no past traumas, but I also do not like to hear about or see or view written descriptions of graphic, traumatizing events, so I avoid them.
The point is: if you are so easily and painfully triggered by the mere mention of an act, or series of words, a trigger warning will not have helped you because you need much more serious help than that. If you are NOT so easily triggered, but you do not want to see descriptions or pictures of these harmful and traumatizing acts, then stay away from those parts of the internet. If you stumble upon a text-based, multiple paragraph long description of a gruesome act, and you read the whole thing, and it triggers you, you could have stopped before you read the entire thing, and a trigger warning can't stop you from reading it. They are pointless except to facilitate the attitude that we shouldn't deal with our problems, only use stronger people as shields to avoid them.
You made up that random example. I'm looking for real world stuff. Is there an actual trailer that does that? I'd like to see it if you can muster, please. I reiterate that the trigger warning...
You made up that random example. I'm looking for real world stuff. Is there an actual trailer that does that? I'd like to see it if you can muster, please.
I reiterate that the trigger warning still wouldn't have helped in this instance because avoidance is not a solution to the problem, psychiatric help is, and we are not psychiatrists or psychologists. If they were to tell their patient to avoid all forms of media that may trigger them, would you not self-isolate? Why do they have the desire to browse websites and trailers that may contain things that cause them incredible trauma? And also have the desire to have all of these things warned for them in advance in case, like you said before, an unrelated detail we couldn't possibly know about, comes up and triggers them?
I see you've been pretty active in this thread. And, I'm still not sure on your resistance to having trigger warnings. It's simply a courtesy, that anybody posting has the option to extend. Extend...
I reiterate that the trigger warning still wouldn't have helped in this instance because avoidance is not a solution to the problem, psychiatric help is, and we are not psychiatrists or psychologists.
I see you've been pretty active in this thread. And, I'm still not sure on your resistance to having trigger warnings.
It's simply a courtesy, that anybody posting has the option to extend. Extend it if you wish, don't if you don't, but this whole because avoidance is not a solution to the problem armchair view is honestly condescending to the point of being a bit mean, in my opinion.
You're also asking for "real world" examples, and this whole post was spawn by someone requesting a trigger warning.
I'm honestly not here to argue. I don't believe I can really say anything that hasn't already been mentioned. This is just my two-cents.
Trigger warnings are unnecessary for several reasons. If a person is triggered by simple stimuli, such as seeing the word rape, then they need to be seeking professional help. How would you even...
Trigger warnings are unnecessary for several reasons. If a person is triggered by simple stimuli, such as seeing the word rape, then they need to be seeking professional help. How would you even warn someone that the word rape is in it without just putting the words trigger warning? At that point it's so vague you don't know what it's even for. If a person can handle seeing the word rape, but is triggered by graphic text descriptions of a traumatic event (we'll continue the rape example), then they should possess the awareness to stop reading before they progress through the entire thing. It's no fault but their own if they read a passage about something that triggers them. I challenge you, as I have challenged Kat, for a real world example of a movie trailer that has a surprise rape scene, or even for something as descriptive as a long written passage about rape. I wouldn't even know where to find it, you would almost certainly have to search something like that out. It's not commonplace. If a person is not triggered by either of these things, but some word or phrase that brings up memories that we cannot even know about because it is so personal, then that person either also needs professional help, and a trigger warning would be of no service because we don't know which items to put a warning on, without having to trigger warning everything. Which goes back to my earlier idea that they serve no purpose except to say "keep living your life, but avoid your trauma forever." If the trauma is so powerful it cannot be overcome, trigger warnings are not the solution, and if it isn't so powerful that it can be overcome, trigger warnings are not the solution.
Furthermore, I have a real-world counter example. I was watching a youtube video game channel that said "Heart-stopping moments in Smash." Should this have had a trigger warning? What if I had seen my father die of a heart attack and this title triggered me? You could argue what's the point of writing heart-stopping when it's such a negative phrase with negative connotation. You could have just written exciting moments. It's needless censoring for the sake of acting like you're helping. A trigger warning on this video would only serve to remind people of their trauma, because it's a video that has nothing to do with heart-stopping other than those words.
You said: "Extend it if you wish, don't if you don't, but this whole because avoidance is not a solution to the problem armchair view is honestly condescending to the point of being a bit mean, in my opinion." This whole thread is armchair psychology. It's mean and condescending and ASSUMING of everyone to say they have experiences trauma and know what needs to be triggered but I don't. It's armchair psychology to say that we should protect everyone from their trauma without backing it up with science or noted efforts or even provide a counter example to my examples. Everyone is just set in their ways that it is the right way. Nobody is providing examples of things that actually happen or even people that actually get "triggered." People are simply saying "We should warn everyone of everything." I believe people who need trigger warnings can overcome their trauma, I don't believe it will be done by avoiding it, but by facing it with professional help. The only thing trigger warnings are doing is facilitating armchair psychology to the point of harm. We already have rating labels on games and movies and TV. You should have enough awareness to use them.
That's not what trigger warnings are about. You might click on a post, read a little bit and have that little bit trigger you. A lot of times triggering content is in the middle of other regular...
If a person is triggered by simple stimuli, such as seeing the word rape, then they need to be seeking professional help
That's not what trigger warnings are about.
If a person can handle seeing the word rape, but is triggered by graphic text descriptions of a traumatic event (we'll continue the rape example), then they should possess the awareness to stop reading before they progress through the entire thing
You might click on a post, read a little bit and have that little bit trigger you. A lot of times triggering content is in the middle of other regular content.
I challenge you, as I have challenged Kat, for a real world example of a movie trailer that has a surprise rape scene
You're creating an arbitrary standard.
Furthermore, I have a real-world counter example. I was watching a youtube video game channel that said "Heart-stopping moments in Smash." Should this have had a trigger warning? What if I had seen my father die of a heart attack and this title triggered me? You could argue what's the point of writing heart-stopping when it's such a negative phrase with negative connotation. You could have just written exciting moments. It's needless censoring for the sake of acting like you're helping.
You're using a form of the slippery slope fallacy. @Kat proposed a good standard that could be easily applied & has a clear limit.
A trigger warning on this video would only serve to remind people of their trauma, because it's a video that has nothing to do with heart-stopping other than those words.
You have no idea what helps or reminds people of their trauma. You are not a trauma victim (well I'm assuming that you aren't, because if you were you would have likely brought it up at this point), and do not understand the mechanisms by which flashbacks are triggered.
It's mean and condescending and ASSUMING of everyone to say they have experiences trauma and know what needs to be triggered but I don't.
What?
It's armchair psychology to say that we should protect everyone from their trauma without backing it up with science or noted efforts or even provide a counter example to my examples.
Trigger warnings for PTSD is something that has been used in psychology and psychiatry for decades & is widely recommended lol.
Nobody is providing examples of things that actually happen or even people that actually get "triggered."
People are simply saying "We should warn everyone of everything."
This is a complete strawperson and doesn't reflect any of the views that people are expressing in this thread.
I believe people who need trigger warnings can overcome their trauma, I don't believe it will be done by avoiding it, but by facing it with professional help
Professional help is all about "exposure therapy, delivered slowly and voluntarily by a mental health professional" (from @Kat). It's not unnecessarily exposing people to traumatic content on the internet because you think that it will help people.
Here's the thing. People who have actually lived through significant trauma, such as rape, say trigger warnings benefit them. You, who as far as you've said in this thread haven't experienced any...
Here's the thing. People who have actually lived through significant trauma, such as rape, say trigger warnings benefit them.
You, who as far as you've said in this thread haven't experienced any trauma of that sort, say those people are wrong, and that even if they think trigger warnings help them, they really don't.
I'm going to believe those people over you. Sorry, but that's just how it is. To me that's just basic human decency, to believe people when they make statements about their own personal experience like that.
If you think Tildes is an "echo chamber" of basic human decency, you know what? I'm OK with having that sort of echo chamber.
I don't think they are wrong to want warnings. They are not a bad idea in itself, I simply want better for trauma victims. I want them to recover and I don't think complete avoidance is the way....
I don't think they are wrong to want warnings. They are not a bad idea in itself, I simply want better for trauma victims. I want them to recover and I don't think complete avoidance is the way. Building a sheltered life for them on the internet, to me, serves only to "pretend" to safeguard their hobby. To make a safe zone for them from avoidance makes me worry that they'll have to face that trauma elsewhere and it'll be far worse than if they had been exposed previously.
Please stop saying things like "If you think Tildes is an "echo chamber" of basic human decency, you know what? I'm OK with having that sort of echo chamber." It paints you as the good person and me as the bad person. You know nothing about me as a person and what my acceptable standards for human decency are. I simply have a differing opinion from you and other people in this thread. Nowhere am I suggesting we force these people to face their traumas head-on, without support or therapy. Nowhere do I use malicious or aggravated terminology or attack other persons instead of their arguments. I am simply stating my case, and it happens to differ from the norm, or your own, or the whole thread.
I'm just asking for research examples. Research isn't the be-all-end-all of discussion, but it helps to point to something other than anecdotal evidence. I have plenty of anecdotal evidence...
I'm just asking for research examples. Research isn't the be-all-end-all of discussion, but it helps to point to something other than anecdotal evidence. I have plenty of anecdotal evidence myself. I live with my partner who has BPD. She has faced down several of her triggers and has had success with it, with and without therapy to back it up. She has made leaps and bounds in her trauma recovery by using other coping methods than avoidance. It doesn't mean it's the only solution, or that it's perfect. I'm only looking to help people as well, and I don't think trigger warnings are the answer.
If you're interested in research on Trigger Warnings and their utility in non-clinical settings, you might find Boysen (2017) an interesting article (I'll cite it at the end). One caveat, however,...
If you're interested in research on Trigger Warnings and their utility in non-clinical settings, you might find Boysen (2017) an interesting article (I'll cite it at the end).
One caveat, however, is that this is of course the finding of only one researcher.
Unfortunately, it's behind a pay-wall. But I doubt he'd mind if I quoted a relevant passage to this discussion:
Exposure to trauma-related stimuli may be a
central factor in the treatment of PTSD, but it is
not the only factor. For exposure to be helpful,
it must occur in a therapeutic setting. The
American Psychiatric Association’s practice
guidelines emphasize the importance of maintaining a safe treatment environment (Ursano et al., 2010). The guidelines state that clients with PTSD require assurances of safety and trust when initially facing traumatic stimuli in therapy. Exposure to trauma stimuli in unsafe situations can increase symptoms...
In summary, avoidance behaviors maintain
and exacerbate symptoms of PTSD. Effective
treatment for PTSD includes overcoming avoidance through exposure. For exposure to be helpful rather than harmful, however, it must occur in a safe, therapeutic setting.
Citation: Boysen, G. A. (2017). Evidence-based answers to questions about trigger warnings for clinically-based distress: A review for teachers. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 3(2), 163.
I hope you don't mind my jumping in here -- I'm still withholding my personal judgment on the matter, but I thought you mind find this article interesting.
Edit: just for total transparency, I cut out a few lines about the APA's recommendations for therapists because I didn't want to quote too much and potentially violate copyright (although I may have already done so...). These lines just referred to putting together a relapse prevention plan with the client.
Thanks for the information! This is very interesting indeed, I wish I could read the whole thing. This research echoes my own sentiments. Avoidance is bad, but exposure should happen in a safe...
Thanks for the information! This is very interesting indeed, I wish I could read the whole thing. This research echoes my own sentiments. Avoidance is bad, but exposure should happen in a safe area. I don't think that safe area is online or in many forms of media, but maybe I was too hasty in expressing my disdain for trigger warnings. Speaking on it now, I realize my problem with trigger warnings is the culture surrounding them seems to be that they are the sole method of recovery, with people living exclusively on trigger warnings, in a perpetual safe zone. I can see them as a stepping stone to effective treatment. Thanks again.
Actually.... in psychiatry, trigger was a transitive verb. You trigger a flashback. You trigger a phobia attack. You trigger a panic reaction. "Triggered" by itself is a synonim of "deeply...
Actually.... in psychiatry, trigger was a transitive verb. You trigger a flashback. You trigger a phobia attack. You trigger a panic reaction. "Triggered" by itself is a synonim of "deeply torubles" or "bothers". A person isn't triggered, a person is bothered. There's difference between having a flashback, and just "being bothered by something". That is the problem of trigger warnings, when used improperly: They equalize those 2 things.
Not to mention that the associative nature of memory will make random images trigger very specific flashbacks, completly unrelated. Seeing a tomato CAN trigger a PTSD flashback of a companion stepping on a mine 2 feet from you.
Fair enough... but that brings us to that other topic we're already discussing. How do you know which ones are "the common ones"? Because, if this topic is important, and serious, common sense...
Fair enough... but that brings us to that other topic we're already discussing. How do you know which ones are "the common ones"? Because, if this topic is important, and serious, common sense should not suffice.
A thread could be started, "What trigger warnings would you like on Tildes?" to diplomatically decide what would be best/necessary/desired. I like the hierarchical tag structure that Deimos...
A thread could be started, "What trigger warnings would you like on Tildes?" to diplomatically decide what would be best/necessary/desired.
I like the hierarchical tag structure that Deimos explains elsewhere in this thread—it would allow for easily adding new things as they might arise, within reason, of course (I don't think people should be allowed to filter out tomatoes, because there has to be a limit). But, if ten people had a legit reason to ask for a tw.tomato tag, it could easily be used.
I have chronic PTSD from sexual assault. I'm in therapy. I've been doing EMDR. It's been helping. For a little while I couldn't function as normal people do. I stayed inside. I had flashbacks of...
I have chronic PTSD from sexual assault. I'm in therapy. I've been doing EMDR. It's been helping.
For a little while I couldn't function as normal people do. I stayed inside. I had flashbacks of the events. I could barely take care of myself in terms of getting out of bed, eating three meals, taking a shower, not killing myself, and maybe going outside for generally less than an hour. All of my responsibilities fell apart around me. During this time I tried going online to do the things I used to find normal: reading reddit, watching netflix/movies, going on youtube, reading the news, reading books, reading/looking at porny material. I the majority of the time I went to do any of these things there would something in them that would cause me to mentally and emotionally fall apart again. It was an obstacle to getting better. After a particularly bad week I realized that if something didn't change the few things positive things/people in my life were all going to leave. I stopped consuming media, I stopped consuming content online, in books, or in movies unless a friend of mine that had intimate knowledge of my triggers consumed them first.
I started getting better.
It was so hard during that time because I wanted to be able to be able to connect with the modern world in any way. I looked to see if there were trigger warnings on so many different kinds of content. They don't exist as far as I can tell. The most frustrating part was that people didn't even try. The argument so often was:
"because we can't accommodate all triggers we won't even bother trying with the most general of them".
Beyond that most content doesn't even have content warnings. Film is the best at this because at least they will tell what to most generally what to expect. They also have easy to find synopses.
I started going back online a while after I started getting my feet back on the ground again. At first it was only discord and only in small friend chatrooms/dms. Slowly I started to craft a world around me that I could be happy and healthy in. I started adding a few more sites here and there. It's incredibly slow going but I'm gradually being able to live happily while also doing the things I want to. Now every once in a while I can be in forums with people who discuss topics that are difficult for me to handle.
One thing that would have made this process so much easier would have been if there were short agreed upon list of content warnings to give people the barest notion of what something is. The ones I'd suggest are based off of the most common causes of PTSD: Veterans Affairs Statistics Overview
War:
Violent injury or death
Explosions
Gunfire
Terrorism:
Mass Shooting
Suicide bomber
Building explosion
Car bomb
Violence and Abuse:
Physical abuse
Verbal abuse
Emotional abuse
Financial abuse
Explicit sexual abuse
Non-consensual sexual acts
Disasters:
Earthquake
Tornado
Fire
Flood
It would be great if people provided these content warnings with the format of "General type" "specific content" in the tags. It may seem like this is a small issue but it affects a huge number of people:
"
About 7 or 8 out of every 100 people (or 7-8% of the population) will have PTSD at some point in their lives.
About 8 million adults have PTSD during a given year. This is only a small portion of those who have gone through a trauma.
About 10 of every 100 women (or 10%) develop PTSD sometime in their lives compared with about 4 of every 100 men (or 4%).
"
For perspective this means approximately 1 in 13 or slightly over 2 in 30 (comparable to classroom size). Veterans Affairs Statistics Overview
Edit: I know this might not fit this thread exactly but I'm putting it here anyway because I feel it's relevant. I'll be posting the same comment to the other thread.
TW is pretty standardized by now, right? Though I don't know if any barrier to understanding is worthwhile with something that could have this much of an impact.
TW is pretty standardized by now, right? Though I don't know if any barrier to understanding is worthwhile with something that could have this much of an impact.
Actually, you know what would be better? If there was a user setting to add styles to tags. We can set it up so that the various 'special' tags all have whatever style by default but we can change...
Actually, you know what would be better? If there was a user setting to add styles to tags. We can set it up so that the various 'special' tags all have whatever style by default but we can change them if we don't care for them. That would also give you the power to emphasize whichever tags are more important to you.
I've commented a few times here that surely every trigger warning could just be covered by a NSFL tag. Leave NSFW for sexual stuff, NSFL is violent or gore. You have sensitivities to sexual stuff,...
I've commented a few times here that surely every trigger warning could just be covered by a NSFL tag. Leave NSFW for sexual stuff, NSFL is violent or gore.
You have sensitivities to sexual stuff, maybe block out NSFW. You have PTSD of something violent. Covered.
You combine those into the already important tags to people working who probably shouldn't be reading that type of content for other reasons, and you save the space. If you want to add a .morespecificreason after why not
It's not blocking them from reading it, it's alerting them that something they may find offensive is included in here. How are we to know at what length of sexual description will be triggering?...
It's not blocking them from reading it, it's alerting them that something they may find offensive is included in here. How are we to know at what length of sexual description will be triggering? Maybe a tag can specify fantasy.rape, but that hardly seems like something that should be a mandatory site-wide rule.
If you're possibly triggered about sexual topics then yeah it seems like you personally choosing to block topics related to that would be the most reasonable choice.
But there is no concrete definition as you're discussed multiple points here. Hearing a rape occurred can trigger someone while others it may take a more direct specific description of what...
But there is no concrete definition as you're discussed multiple points here. Hearing a rape occurred can trigger someone while others it may take a more direct specific description of what occured. Others can be triggered from completely non-related things as someone mentioned with the .tomato.
Giving them a blanket statement describing "some description of violence here" is about the best way I can see to make a mandatory site wide rule that you expect all others to abide by.
It could be solved by having short explanations for suggested tags by the Tags section when you make a new topic, and by the Filter Tags under the Edit Filter Tags section. Just a little TW is...
It could be solved by having short explanations for suggested tags by the Tags section when you make a new topic, and by the Filter Tags under the Edit Filter Tags section. Just a little TW is used for Trigger Warnings should be enough.
I won't comment about what I think of implementing content/trigger warnings, but if they are implemented, don't make the same mistake Mastodon did in using freeform text, which ends up getting...
I won't comment about what I think of implementing content/trigger warnings, but if they are implemented, don't make the same mistake Mastodon did in using freeform text, which ends up getting used for random things that aren't at all triggering to anyone, or used as a joke.
On Mastodon you can add a "content warning" to your post that will hide the rest of your post until you expand it. While it is used for things that are potentially triggering, it is also used...
On Mastodon you can add a "content warning" to your post that will hide the rest of your post until you expand it. While it is used for things that are potentially triggering, it is also used sarcastically quite a bit.
Scishow had a video where they summarized all the arguments for and against trigger warning. They pretty much covered everyone's sentiments here and more.
Scishow had a video where they summarized all the arguments for and against trigger warning. They pretty much covered everyone's sentiments here and more.
It's not something we're using very actively yet, but the tag system actually has a pretty good method for this kind of thing - it supports hierarchies, just like the group system does.
So for example, we could have a top-level
triggertag, but it could also have "sub-tags" liketrigger.violence. That gives people the option of filtering out all trigger tags if they want to, but also being more specific about individual ones.Question: why would
trigger.violencebe a better tag than justviolence?If something is violent and I tag it as such, do I also have to add
trigger.violence? How can I decide what is just regular violence and what might trigger someone?I think it would be better to encourage more tagging, and then let people who are triggered by a particular topic to filter on that tag. That stops us from prescribing someone's reaction to them, and empowers them to see or not see the things that they want to.
In practice I don't know if it would be relevant enough to be worth it, but I think the potential benefit is mostly to allow easier "coverage". For example, if there's someone that doesn't want to see any trigger tags, they just filter "trigger". They don't have to add 20 different tags like "violence", "child abuse", etc. as they each come up.
The distinction between using a hierarchical tag and just two separate tags is a bit more complex though, and that may be just as good in practice pretty much all the time.
But functionally, tagging something as "tw.violence" is the same thing as "violence" --- unless you're saying that the "tw" tag itself will have some kind of special functionality attached to it?
For example, what is the difference between "tw.spiders" and "spiders"? "tw.nazi" and "nazi"?
At some point, the "tw" tag will become so bloated that it will become impractical to filter the entire thing, which will render it pointless.
Yeah, I think maybe
twisn't the best example for this (and it may not even be an appropriate use for it at all). Thinking about it from the perspective of NSFW might make more sense.There are situations where people don't want to see any NSFW content, so in that case, it's much more convenient to have a single NSFW tag that they can filter out (temporarily or otherwise) that immediately gets rid of everything, regardless of why it's NSFW. They don't need to individually filter
nudity,gore, etc.Yes, you could always have separate
nsfwandnuditytags, but that doesn't always make a lot of sense when the second tag is basically entirely to clarify the type of NSFW. For example (again, not necessarily a realistic one), let's say that we have ansfw.profanitytag. That's just clarifying why it's NSFW, and might be a useful clarification for people that don't want to open something with nudity, but don't mind if it just has a lot of swearing. A stand-aloneprofanitytag doesn't make a lot of sense, since it's unlikely that anyone will ever want to search solely for items that have profanity.Does that make sense? I agree that it's kind of weird and may not ever be very useful in practice, but I think in theory it has some possibilities anyway.
Definitely, but once other, more experienced users can change the tags on posts, they don't really need to understand it (and will probably learn quickly after seeing their tags fixed for them).
Yeah, I'm going to point out the difference between NSFW and TW.
You see, NSFW is external, while TW is internal. As a general rule, there're some topics that we deem unsafe for work, because they are, objectively grounds for sanctions in your workplace. Those topics are imposed by other people, by a structure. Meanwhile, triggers are self imposed. It's your own psyche and experience that imposes them.
As such, what triggers someone can be too wide to be useful in a hierarchal way. I mean, what if I have a severe phobia to balloons, and they trigger me? Or clowns?or, I don't know, people with extremely long nails.
Since "trigger" can cover such a wide array of topic, it ends up making no sense. Yes, you may have issues seeing violence, and you don't want to... but at the same time, I may pass out by the image of a spider, while someone else may be deeply troubled to the point of needing counseling after watching a video of a cat, because some experiences in their past.
No. TW as a hierarchy is just nonsensical because of the subjective and internal nature of the tag. I mean, FFS, some people are deeply bothered (Aka triggered) by public display of affection.
The vast majority of people who claim to want to have trigger warnings are not triggered in the PTSD sense of the word.
We've taken something genuinely useful to a small number of people and corrupted it so it's now meaningless, and worse harmful to the people it claims to be helping.
The point of trigger warnings is not to avoid content that makes people uncomfortable (and that is how the majority of them are used today), but to allow people with PTSD to prepare before engaging with the content.
Trigger warnings are not supported by most psychologists. There is no evidence that trigger warnings protect people, even people with PTSD from harm. There is some evidence that trigger warnings increase harm. We know that avoiding phobic situations increases harm. Trigger warnings suppress and censor survivors. The concept of trigger warnings perpetuates stigma and discrimination - suggesting that people with mental ill health are always on knife edge, on the verge of breaking, utterly unable to cope with normal everyday life.
For content that is actually harmful (eg a description of death by suicide including description of method) we should be pushing to avoid publishing it completely, not publishing it with a trigger warning.
Feel free to use trigger warnings, but please don't think you're doing anything to help survivors.
Here's an article that interviews Prof Metin Basoglu, "a psychologist internationally recognised for his trauma research" who is the founder of trauma studies at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London. He's surely an expert who knows what they're talking about, and he is against the use of trigger warnings.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/11106670/Trigger-warnings-more-harm-than-good.html
That is how some people use them.
Then we should start by defining what we mean by triggers, instead of assuming everyone is in the same page.
Well, obviously you have failed to do so in my eye, since we're still discussing it. I've not seen a clear demarcation of what's to be consider a "trigger". And, mor importantly, why those, and not other limits? I think that's the discussion to have here.
1.- Do we need to protect others from potentialy harmful content?
2.- How we define that content?
3.- Up to what point we need to protect them?
Once we're answered those 3 questions, we can start talking about if we should us a system or another, to do so.
Now, for my answers to my own questions (since these are subjective answers, anyway):
1.- No, we don't. It'd be nice if we did, tho.
2.- Defining what can be harmful can be very hard. Specially if we want to avoid excesive censorship and curation, to prevent glamorization of certain topics. I don't think this question can be answered without proper debate and research, as the consequences of a bad answer can have some adverse effects, as proven by Skinner's conditioning experiments in regards to masochism (not in the sexual way).
3.- We only need to inform them politely. Doing anything else would be treating them as children, and, thus, demeaning of their intellectual capacities.
Ah, I see where our disagreement comes from. You're a democrat, and I'm a technocrat.
For the record, yes, I call trigger warnings censorship, in the academical sense of the word censorship, that is, censoring in the sense of curating, on the sense of making sure you don't have to read anything unsuitable for you. That is censorship. Not all censorship is bad.
Parents censor what their kids watch on TV. What they read. Political censorship is bad, yes... but that's not the kind of censorship I'm talking about here. But yes, trigger warning act as censor for those who want to use them. It is what it is.
What other point have trigger warnings but to censor a site for those who decide to use them to filter stuff out? I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm just calling it censoring a site, VOLUNTARILY, for yourself. The fact that you're the one doing it to yourself is irrelevant.
And I like your answers, even if I disagree with them. I don't think that a democratic system is the best one to decide what's best for others, but a technocratic system. I am fully aware of the shortcomings of technocracy, specially considering it's a form of oligarchy. And that's why I prefer debating to reach an agreement.
Now, since I understand your position now. I'd ask you: Who'd be responsible for making those trigger warnings. And, this, again, is a serious question. I'm not trolling. And I'll explain what I mean.
If the user posting is the one responsible, this would make every person decide on their own, if what they're posting is triggering or not. There'd be no standarization, and some people would be more liberal in their use of TW, while others would be more conservative. Some people wouldn't even use them at all, thus defeating the system.
On the other hand, having someone to check and decide what's triggering or not would force them to read plenty of disturbing stuff, plus it'd take too much time.
So, again, what do you propose there? Not just you, Kat, but everyone. Should the OP have to tag the posts, or someone else? And still, WHAT is the standard that needs to be tagged.
That is: Should a broken arm with a bone showing be marked as TW? Should a nosebleed? What about cases such as Phineas Gage? Is just mentioning "She was raped" enough to justify a TW, or do we need something more? Should we have TW for common phobias?
That's the discussion here. My answer is that we should only mark the MOST gruesome of our content. A simple mention, or even a depiction shouldn't require a marking. Graphical illustration of an open stomach? Maybe. Just mentioning that someone was raped, without even telling how it happened? Hell no!
It will be a collective effort. The OP can add tags to their own post. Additionally, there will be "tag editors" (for want of a better term) who will have the ability to add/edit/delete tags on other people's posts; one of them can add a 'trigger warning' tag on a post if they see a need for it.
But, for some rape victims, merely reading about someone else's rape will trigger memories of their own rape, and will cause them distress.
How do you know what will trigger other people? I remember reading a psychological case study of a person, and one of their many quirks was that they used to get triggered by seeing shoe-hooks, because they had been sexually abused by shoe-hooks as a young infant. You don't know what other people's triggers are.
Pretty much my point. If you don't know what will trigger someone, you need to decide what's reasonable. I don't think just the mention IS reasonable... since they're bound to read/hear it normally. Hell, couple months ago, in my country, EVERYONE was mentioning rape at least 5 times a day, because of a high profile case. So, "just the mention of rape" is definetly going too far.
That seems to me like an argument for trigger warnings, not against them. If someone is a rape survivor and wants to escape the deluge of news about that case, they can go to ~news.thatcountry and let the tag filtering system work its magic.
Never said the deluge came from the news... but from literaly everyone. Aka, no escape from it. So may as well get on with it. If it's unscapable, a TW won't help.
Well, "my dude". I'm not a "dude"... and this shit IS going to fly. Because, see, it's something that's going to happen, which means it's the person who gets triggered who needs to do their best to prevent being triggered. Sure, we can help. But it's unreasonable that we "babyproof" everything so they don't have to do any effort on their end. Noone heals if they don't want to heal... So while I'm not saying "go out of your way to trigger them", because that'd be spiteful, also, don't go out of your way to make sure they don't have to get healed.
The NSFW example makes a lot more sense!
But the idea that I, a person who doesn't have to deal with anything triggering me, can prescribe what triggers other people is problematic.
I don't know what triggers other random people, outside of a few particular common things. What about less common things?
One of my friends has an issue with fireworks. Do we add
trigger.fireworks? If we don't, doesn't that mean that we're looking down on the fact that this guy gets triggered by fireworks? Adding a hierarchy here is quite problematic, because it adds "value" to the thing that is doing the triggering.We shouldn't be telling people about their triggers, we should be accurately tagging things so that whatever triggers someone can be avoided.
Yeah the whole idea of trigger warnings is ridiculous. I know people triggered by dogs. Do we add
trigger.dogs?I think it's relevant. The hierarchy is a great tool for certain subs. This seems like a good use. That way we don't end up with a million different tags for the same thing. Putting them all under one parent tag helps group it in my opinion. Which is important for specific groups. It gives a kind of baseline for organizing and making finding things easier later on.
I think @Deimos mentioned it already, that way someone can filter out all trigger tags easily, rather than having to filter out all of the individual tags.
How do we decide what is triggering and what isn't? Plenty of “triggering” content isn't really triggering to me. But then plenty of “non-triggering content” is very triggering to me.
Who gets to decide what's triggering and what isn't?
I feel like just hitting the vote button on this isn't sufficient.
THIS IS SUCH AN IMPORTANT THING.
I don't know everything that triggers people, and I shouldn't be prescribing my understanding of what triggers people to people who have experienced trauma. People who have experienced trauma understand what triggers them, and know what they need to filter out.
That's a problem, not a feature, and I talk about why in this comment below.
In addition to what others have mentioned, I'm not sure all discussions about violence are necessarily triggers. The article referenced in the title could definitely be considered a trigger, but is something like say, a study on the effectiveness of violence in interrogations one? Full disclosure, I'm not the most knowledgeable on the subject and I don't know how severe something has to be to be considered a trigger, but when I think of a trigger I think of something... on the more graphic side of things I guess
In that case a trigger tag would be useful to differentiate the two then right? A violence in interrogation study could definitely be tagged with 'violence,' but more as a reference to the discussion of it, not as a post with violence necessarily in it, such as a video of police brutality. I feel like most people that wouldn't be okay with the latter would probably be okay with the former, so maybe there is, theoretically, some use case for it. How applicable that is day to day I don't know
Triggers are so personal that I think that you categorically saying how they work is problematic.
The consensus on sites like Tumblr is actually really unhelpful, and perhaps even harmful. A "trigger" is an actual affliction that people have, and it's not just "makes me feel uncomfortable" or "something I don't want to read about" (which is how it used on Tumblr, in addition to the accepted psychological term).
Not everything you dislike is a strawman argument.
Lots of people make the claim that things that make them uncomfortable are triggers. That doesn't make it right, and the tumblr tw/cw stuff is awful because of how far it dilutes the actual concept of triggers.
Regardless, the end result should be: things should be appropriately tagged so that people who have trigger warning needs or people who merely want to avoid content that makes them feel uncomfortable can do so.
I'm arguing against your "consensus on other sites is that..." claim.
You can't take me to task for arguing against how people on other sites use the term when you bring up that other sites use the term in a particular way. That's monumentally unfair.
Once again, there's a problem with prescription here.
You are making a judgment call about what should or shouldn't trigger other people.
What if someone tags something with
violencebut nottrigger.violenceand then someone else suggests that it should gettrigger.violencebecause it triggers them, but someone else thinks that this isn'ttrigger.violenceit's justviolence.In what way is arguing about the legitimacy of somebody's triggers a worthwhile thing?
We should just encourage (perhaps enforce) more descriptive tagging, and let people who need to filter out topics use the filtering that already exists to decide for themselves if something triggers them or if it does not.
I'm not really hardlining for or against this proposal, I'm just thinking about the potential applications such a feature might offer. This would certainly add that layer of complexity you talk about as to what really defines a trigger. I personally don't see myself ever using the system but I can see how it might be pretty valuable to some, I can definitely see why you might not want to come across 'Adults want to stab a 12 year old trans child at a school' if you were a trans person just trying to browse the website
Once again, there's a problem with prescription here.
You are making a judgment call about what should or shouldn't trigger other people.
From PsychCentral: What is a trigger (emphasis mine):
This article is really useful, actually, and should probably be read by just about everyone who thinks we should be adding "trigger warning".
The common triggers that are listed in this article don't really have much to do with the "common triggers" that are listed below by various people.
Not every topic in a hypothetical ~violence.survivors group would need a trigger.violence tag. Maybe that means that the trigger warning should be part of a tag? E.g. could tw:violence or similar be a workable format?
Worth exploring, but I think it's also worth mentioning that there are edge cases and having seen how it plays out in other places, it's probably good to do what we can to avoid the "is this really deserving of a TW?" conversation, which applying the hierarchy in this way still encourages.
I guess part of the issue is that I see potential issues with putting the responsibility of deciding what is and isn't triggering on every OP. Enforcing extensive tags (there's a lot that needs to be done in cementing it as part of site culture, hell it's only now occurred to me that I should be considering lyrical content for my tags on ~music) with maybe an additional "trigger warning" tag for the more obvious cases seems like a better solution for practical reasons.
Right now all topic tags are visible so you're right that it could be a bit much, but eventually the idea was to have a trusted user voting system on the tags themselves so that only the top/most relevant tags are actually visible and the rest are hidden below a fold (like valve's steam platform does by showing only the top 5 tags and the rest requiring the user to click a [+] in order to see).
Even without trust implemented first, when it comes to a post having multiple trigger tags, it's also possible that the only visible tag could simply be
trigger.multipleortrigger.+which could be clicked to show them all if a user desired. And with that method, even though they are hidden below a fold, since the tags are still applied to the post at least people can still filter for them.I think that effective tagging can be used in place of trigger warnings. I don't think the onus is on the person who submits something to say "this could trigger you if you have a problem with violence", but I think that they do have a responsibility to tag with "violence". People who are triggered by violence can then filter out anything with that tag.
I understand and appreciate that there are a many of things that can trigger people for a variety of reasons, but I think the responsibility is on the person who is triggered to avoid the things that trigger them, and not on us to avoid mentioning them. I think it's important to enable the people who have issues to deal with software (and other things) on their own terms, and not to prescribe to them that they will get triggered by something.
I come to a similar conclusion for purely practical reasons. Rather than it being a responsibility thing, it's just a fact that not every poster will be effective at deciding what is and isn't triggering, or what edge cases are too far on the edge to get one. It is, however, a reasonable expectation for users to know what their post contains and put that into tags.
Maybe there could also be some kind of trigger or content warning on things that are very obvious and common in that regard (like rape or extreme violence), but I don't think it'll work out as the main way for users who wish to avoid triggers to do so.
I think one thing to keep in mind here is that eventually topic tag editing will be opened up to users other than the OP that posted the topic too. So while the OP may not necessarily understand or recognize specific triggers in their post, eventually others who have more experience with them (or were in fact triggered themselves) can simply apply the relevant trigger warning tag to the topic to help others filter them out should they desire to. Topic tags will be largely a crowd-sourced effort in the end and not entirely on the OP as they are now.
I still think that "trigger" isn't a good idea for a tag, because triggers are very personal. Things that trigger one person may very well not trigger someone else.
To use an above example: I have a friend who is very careful about exposing himself to fireworks. Let's say someone posts a beautiful YouTube clip of fireworks. "Well fuck" says I. "One of my good friends would certainly find this triggering." I add the tag
trigger.fireworksso my frienduser-onedoesn't see it. Someone else,user-twohas addedtriggeras an overall filter. They no longer see this, even though there's absolutely nothing triggering about this for them.Now consider the alternative. I tag the video with fireworks.
user-onehas already filtered fireworks.user-twogets to see the video.That particular scenario you bring up is easily solvable via community standards and limiting the scope of trigger tags to specific "common + severe" ones that are obvious enough to include. And I would argue that fireworks are not a sufficiently common enough trigger to warrant their own specific trigger tag. Not only that but if a post contained fireworks, it's very likely to have a
fireworkstag already anyways so the trigger.fireworks would be redundant.Do you see the problem intrinsic in what you just said? Let me restate it for you:
"Your trigger isn't important enough to get listed here, because it's not a real trigger."
That's a super shitty thing to say to people.
Why do we need to make a statement that there are some triggers that are valid, and some triggers that are not valid enough? Can't we just tag things appropriately and let people sort out their own filters?
edit:
My point is the same, but for all triggers.
I am not denying it is a trigger or that it is "valid". However for the purposes of the trigger tag I am arguing that it may not be a sufficiently common enough one to justify including it, since including every possible and potential "unique to an individual person" trigger in the trigger tag hierarchy would render it effectively useless. IMO the value in a trigger tag (as opposed to flat independent tags) is similar to the NSFW tag, in that it provides a stark visual indication to users of common potential issues to help avoid them. You could take your very same argument and apply it to the NSFW tag, claiming that "what is NSFW is different for everyone so we should just do away with it"... but that is missing the point of the NSFW tag, which is not to include every possible edge-case but merely the most common so as to maximize its value to the community for the purposes of filtering.
That's fair, there are ways to make this more effective in the future that I should've considered(though this is a pretty immediate problem to deal with, I would think), but I think it still begs the "does this deserve a TW?" conversation and leads to the bloating of the top-level TW tag.
Well in that regard, one of the ideas I had was to have a meta-mode of sorts for the entire site. Basically a switch people could click that would make visible a layer of the site where all the meta-conversations could be relegated to. This would keep the default, "normal" mode/layer for groups and comments sections clean/on-topic and the meta discussion confined to that meta-mode layer. Comment tagging could also be used rather effectively in this regard as well, helping automatically push meta-discussions from the normal mode into the meta-mode.
I strongly agree with almost everything you said apart from people having the responsibility to tag something with "violence". I don't think the OP should have to make any specific tags when creating their post personally. If I have to carefully analyze everything I post to make sure there's no hint of violence and my tags are perfect, I'm just not going to post at all.
Why is tagging the thing that is an issue?
You already have to do some taxonomic work - you have to choose the group for something. Typing one or two words shouldn't be a barrier to posting, and it's just good practice for searchability (not just for this one issue, which is, honestly, a very niche issue).
I think the point is that it would be nice to let them know not that you must.
The problem is there is no way to know what's triggering when you're not triggered.
Sure probably rape and murder could be obvious. But if you post a story about homophobia are you expected to know that someone could have been tormented their entire lives and get flashbacks to childhood that ruin their day? Maybe you could assume.
What if someone was involved in a natural disaster like a Tsunami and now just hearing about severe weather triggers them. I can't be held responsible for not realizing that rain can cause PTSD when it's completely normal to everyone else.
Just post the story with an accurate title and let people tag it how they wish.
Does reading a tag "trigger.rape" not remind you just as much about that day as a title saying "Woman raped by coworker?"
Reading both would steer you clear of the story. So long as it's titled correctly and not "Guess she was putting in some extra hours at work" I don't see the problem that's being solved.
So then if the title explains what happens in the link you wouldn't accidentally read something anyway.
I think this is deeply patronizing and insulting to those suffering from those issues.
Look. I suffer crippling arachnophobia. I don't need a TW on spiders, because, well, I am able to read. If an article is titled "Arachnid outbreak in Cairo", I know for certain I'm not checking it. I don't even need a tag to tell me not to check it.
You're just assuming that people can't infer content by the title of an article, and that's the insult.
So, don't do that. And yes, I'm comparing a crippling phobia to PTSD. Keep in mind I said "crippling", as in "you see a spider, you pass out of pure fear".
No, you're not "giving a rape survivor a violent flashback", because you're NOT FORCING them to read it. If just reading the title of the article gives them the flashback, then they need psychological help, FAST, since they can't function as normal individuals in a society, and should not be protected to that point.
I don't particularly want to get involved in this conversation, but this claim can be proven false with even the most cursory of google searches.
Here's an article I read yesterday:
I'm not Connor McDavid - The Player's Tribune. Could you have told me that literally the first line of this article would describe the moments before the author attempted suicide?
Again, "Step of the chair" is only triggering on a context. If I saw that line, and suicide was something I wanted to avoid, I'd stop reading. Now, let me step of my chair and get some water.
Okay, but now you’ve moved the goalposts from, “Suggesting people can’t always infer content from titles is patronizing,” to, “Once people start reading an article with triggering content they should stop reading.”
I will not be replying further because you don’t seem to be arguing in good faith. Moving the goalposts is frequently a sign of someone whose mind is already made up.
Yes, in that topic my mind is completly made up. Thorpe proved, back in the 60s, that people improve and get over phobias and other mental hangups way faster if they're exposed to them. Yes, I know this is usually done by a profesional... but even uncontrolled exposure has value, since it lets you know you may have a problem.
However made up my mind is, I'm also open enough to reach an agrement. As you may see in some of my interventions, while I don't think the use of TW is good, I can agree that SOME content could use it. So, even if my mind is made up, you can still reason with me.
The author never actually attempted suicide. You didn't even read the article. Also it was not descriptive or vulgar in any sense. He mentions suicide by hanging. I agree that there was no mention of it from the title, but that doesn't matter. If you can't infer the context from the lines before he even gets into detail, or you literally can't hear the word suicide, you are not fit to be actively engaging with society in any manner and need immediate professional help and assistance. I think you'd struggle to find an article where the first line is a detailed and descriptive writing of a "triggering" subject, and even still, it's reading. If you see where it's heading, just stop. There are a series of words you have to force yourself to read. You cannot happen across extremely graphic or disturbing pictures by chance. The new York times doesn't post pictures of dead people or active rapes.
First of all, yes I did read the article. I think I've read 90% of what the Player's Tribune puts out, their articles are almost always fascinating and well-written. (I'm also a huge hockey fan -- of a pretty dreadful team, unfortunately, but we don't choose who we love!).
In retrospect, I agree that I should have written almost attempted suicide.
Second, this is what I was responding to:
All I was commenting on was the notion that titles are perfect indicators of content. I posted an article that clearly refuted that claim.
Third, I said, "I don't particularly want to get involved in this conversation" because I'm not entirely certain of my own stance on this issue. It comes up occasionally in my line of academia (although nowhere near as often as fear-mongers would claim) and I haven't encountered a firm consensus one way or the other on this issue.
Exposure therapy certainly is critical in combating certain phobias. It's a gradual desensitization to cognitively arousing material that ultimately will break down maladaptive reactions to old memories.
But I (and my peers) can't imagine a worse forum for that process than the internet.
C'mon you have to admit that an op-ed from a depressed author who talks about suicide is few and far between. The majority of articles everywhere aren't "tricky" like that, and if they were, you can tell what's happening right away and click away from it. Being on the internet should teach people to have some awareness and common sense. If you want to hide from everything, you don't need a trigger warning, just stay offline.
Absolutely. Again, the only thing I was commenting on was this:
All I was commenting on was the notion that titles are perfect indicators of content. I posted an article that clearly refuted that claim.
This is all I am saying. Shanara wants basic facts established (see one of their above posts) and this is a basic fact; titles do not always provide insight into their content.
Again, I am still uncertain where I stand on this issue. Thus, "I don't particularly want to get involved in this conversation."
I don't want to decide for traumatized people what is and isn't best for them. On a personal level, it may or may not be the best way to approach your own trauma, it doesn't really matter here.
On the level of this website, it's an essential part of letting "users make their own decisions about what they want to see" to tag posts appropriately. This is more a discussion on how exactly to accomplish that.
I think that anything that has any of the things you've mentioned should certainly be tagged, and we can crowd source the tagging. What value does adding "trigger" to the tag add?
If people know about the tags, and know how to filter them, that should be sufficient, plus it doesn't make any kind of value statement about triggers outside of the ones you've mentioned (ie - "your triggers isn't important enough to be added).
I think that we should be strongly tagging things as much as possible, and the faster we can add community driven tagging, the better.
As @Deimos explained above, it's so that a hierarchy can be used to filter, such that one could filter all
twtopics, or justtw.violence, or justtw.rapeif the others aren't triggers to them. If a topic is just taggedviolence, they can filter for that tag, but they'd have to add all the possible tags that might trigger a reaction—rapeis almost always violent, etc. There's a lot of crossover, and someone who has triggered reactions to things should be able to just lump all trigger warnings together by filteringtw.And what made you assume those are "the big four"? In other words: citation needed.
No, I'm serious here. Why are those "the big four". Are those aprticularly prevalent in society? How prevalent? How much more prevalent or, say, clourophobia? If we want an honest discussion about this, we need to know these answers. You can't just decide that by yourself.
Maybe an study or two? There're such things, you know? Such as Bourdon et al (1988) Gender differences in phobias: Results of the ECA community survey, Journal of Anxiety disorders, volume 2, issue 3, pages 227-241, mentioning that the most common phobia for both men and woman is spiders and bugs.
So, see.... I knew there're these profesionals... called psychologists, that actually research on human behaviour, so we don't have to use informal consensus, but things that actually work.
I don't know why you're acting so condescending and going out of your way to bicker about minutiae in this thread, but you should probably just stay out of it if that's the only way you're able to discuss this subject.
What minutia? Wanting to have a system that resembles reality is not "minutia". Asking for a source that's not based on "common sense" and "common agreements" is not bickering nor acting condescendingly. It's wanting to meet a decent standard.
It looks like your account was just registered today. I would strongly suggest lurking a bit more to get a feel for the community, before jumping headfirst into these sort of potentially-heated discussions about how the site is run.
Thanks for the suggestion... But, I am who I am. And I act how I act. I'm not going to change how I act to adapt to a community. I know, that's sociopathic, to a point. I don't care. That's how I am. So, yeah, I'm not going to try and get a feel for the community. Wouldn't change anything, anyway.
This isn't condescending or bickering. User shanara99 is asking for proof or backup with scientific entries and user Kat is actually being what you describe. They state: "You undoubtedly knew that, so I have no idea what citation you expected me to provide."
Tell me what part of the comment by shannara that I replied to Deimos about was condescending, please. They asked for clarification on what the big four were and you said (paraphrased) "I know because I know, and you should have known, too."
I will concede that. The manner with which they spoke to you seems indignant. I simply see it as you inferring the condescending tone because they disagree with you. From my outside perspective they seem to be genuinely questioning your methods as you cite nothing and they cited research journalists. Empirically, they are correct, and provided a counter example of research (not an example pertaining to this case, but an example of what they were looking for in a reply) with which you have not produced.
I would also like to state that I am not being angry or purposefully argumentative, but I truly am inquisitive about the subject and logically cannot fathom an instance in which trigger warnings are needed or healthy.
You miss my point entirely. Please.
You said: "Shanara didn’t cite a single relevant piece of research;"
Yes, and I said that when I typed " [they] provided a counter example of research (not an example pertaining to this case, but an example of what they were looking for in a reply) with which you have not produced."
Trigger warnings are used for victims of trauma. Very very few people have traumatic experiences with spiders and bugs.
I could get on board with the flat-out "trigger warning" trigger warning if it was that clearly defined. If users were aware of what exactly this filters out and it was locked down so other things don't make it in, this could very nicely fit in with more extensive tagging in general.
Most of the problems with TWs that lack any modifiers come from opening it up, but having a core TW for the big things and encouraging users to tag extensively enough that most other potential triggers are also covered works just as well and is potentially much more transparent.
I also just personally feel a little bad and I want to be clear that anything I'm saying (which has kinda come in conflict with what you're saying here) comes from a place of genuinely wanting trigger warnings that function the best for the people who need them. I can definitely see how someone could hide behind "well just tag well and that will do it the best" to not have to engage with the problem, but I also think in this case it is the best approach for the sake of traumatized people who want control over what they see.
We could just have a nsfw tag
Then there is nothing graphic shown.
You can tag text posts with NSFW just the same. Maybe even separately create a NSFL tag to apply to anything graphic, description or visually.
Because every trigger that's "reasonably expected to trigger someone" would fall under NSFL.
Great. Now every second thread is going to devolve into an argument about whether an article is triggering and needs a tag, and whether triggering is even a thing. :/
Me, I'm ambivalent about the whole thing. To be honest, I am absolutely sick and tired of seeing all the arguments about triggering. And, reading articles about university college students who want trigger warnings for literature, I get the feeling that everything is going to end up having a "trigger warning" tag on it. I get that this is a real issue for some people, but it seems that everything is a trigger to someone these days...
I feel like a "trigger warning" tag would be overused to the point of uselessness.
Well I would throw in that I've been in many Facebook groups that require trigger warnings and this exact thing happens frequently. Usually admins ban arguing about people asking for TWs/CWs because it tends to overrun threads, but even doing that causes a mess in itself.
Of course, this is not a reason to avoid trigger warnings altogether, but just something to take into account in implementation.
No, it's not a slippery slope fallacy. It's a combination of a "users will always find the wrong way to do things" observation from my time working as a Business Analyst, and a "people overreact to everything" observation from my time on Reddit.
When you provide people with a "trigger warning" tag, it will get used. And, given that lots of people are overly worried about triggering other people, they'll use the "trigger warning" on topics that don't actually contain triggers... just in case. And, any time anyone even mentions that a post might need a "trigger warning" tag, someone will slap a "trigger warning" tag on it... just in case.
We'll see "trigger warning" tags on lots and lots of topics, even topics that don't need it, because everyone will start over-analysing every topic. And, we'll see arguments everywhere about whether a topic needs a "trigger warning" tag. Just have a look at this thread!
IMO, if your theory was correct then every single post on reddit would be tagged as NSFW since it's the same basic principal. And yet they are not and the amount of times I have seen it misused (other than as an occasional joke) are pretty negligible.
And your comment about "just have a look at this thread" is pretty silly IMO considering it's specifically about discussing possibly adding trigger warning tags, when/where they might be appropriate and how best to implement them to avoid any potential misuse. ~tildes posts are all about being analytical and a bit argumentative about exactly this sort of topic to figure out if it's an idea worth exploring and implementing, after all.
Actually, it's not. There's a widely accepted agreement on what is considered "not suitable for work": naked pictures.
On the other hand, triggers are highly personal and very subjective.
And... do we have consensus? Do we have a standard to refer to? All I'm seeing is people (including me!) arguing about what are and are not triggers, and when we should apply them. This same argument is going to happen over and over again in various threads. "Why doesn't this have a trigger warning?" "Why does this have a trigger warning?"
So unless consensus on an idea can be reached in X hours then it's not an idea worth exploring and discussing further? We're all in uncharted territories with Tildes and what it's attempting to do with regards to trust based moderation tools, comprehensive filtering and tagging, community standards of behavior, etc... so that's a rather absurd standard you're setting for what merits discussion and what doesn't, IMO.
I'm not saying this doesn't merit discussion. I'm saying there will never be consensus on what topics need a "trigger warning" tag, and that lots of future threads will devolve into meta-arguments about this.
Personally, I don't think it's conceptually much different than all the other types of changes people can (and will) request - title changes, moving to different groups, even changes of "normal" tags. Overall, I think we should probably just use the comment-tag concept to be able to tag certain comments/discussions as "meta", and they should probably be hidden/collapsed by default and treated as a "side discussion".
On a similar note, my thinking so far is that it might be best if the entire trigger-warning system (if we do implement one) should probably be opt-in. So by default, the tags wouldn't even show, but the user can choose to enable them if it's something they're concerned about. Then it's something that the large majority of users wouldn't even see, which I think would eliminate almost all of the potential fussiness about it.
Someone else in this thread mentioned being able to pick which tags are coloured. I feel like this would be a good additional solution for topics that don't always need to be filtered out based on the tag, but just brought to attention (similar to NSFW).
At the very least this could be a small stepping stone that wouldn't require consensus, which seems to be an issue.
Trigger warnings are more emotive, more subjective, and more personal than most other changes. People will be more emotionally invested in a conversation about whether a topic needs a "trigger warning" tag than about whether it belongs in ~tv or ~movies.
Agreed.
I'm not going out of my way to offend people but if I get chewed out for not including tags on a link I don't find offensive in the least that's pretty quickly going to kill the fun.
I think it's fair to have a NSFW for sexual stuff, and a NSFL for graphic or violent stuff. If you're so delicate that you can't read a description about something graphic that's fair. Not everyone can handle that. I'm not making fun of you for your life experiences, but give me a one or two button click to warn people that something might be a bit adult. This can apply to pictures and text alike.
Could this not be entirely covered in one by just using a NSFL for violence tag?
I just feel like the percentage of people affected by trigger warnings is such an exceedingly small % of the average people using the site/the internet that making a mandatory rule specifically to make absolutely sure they are specifically aware about their possible trigger is a bit out of the way for everyone else.
I'm fine with NSFW and NSFL which would be much more blanket terms identifying sexual content and violence/gore respectively. We can extend them to cover both written and actual visual depictions of both. If you're triggered by either of those two topics to the point that you cannot read or see them, this seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to block. You don't have the problem of the splintering tags. You don't have everyone going out of the way for a small subsection of the site. You still give these people the ability to read and converse with any amount of other content on the site while still not seeing things they don't want to see.
If someone wants to do NSFL.rape that seems fine to me so long as filtering NSFL blocks everything with NSFL.anythingelsehere as it adds specificity without splintering the filtering into requiring someone to block many tags at once.
And not all of them are triggered by discussions about it. There are billions of people in the world. The percentage is still incredibly small when talking about a mandatory rule for tagging posts. If people can freely tag their posts however they want then someone posting a story specific to that can tag it.
Personally I think we just disagree on the important level of specificity. It's not as if the entire site would be tagged with these. Only a small portion of posts so far have fit either of these. It's going to be a small portion of posts that they will have to purposely block themselves. That doesn't seem overly specific when your line in the sand is "the big 4"
that is overly specific to the majority of people. In mine it's collapsed into one instead of 4. Are all 4 covered already in that description? Yes. Are extra things accidentally covered in both? Yes.
If you are prone to extreme distress about certain topics, isn't it your job to steer clear of those topics? Not to mention, using Tildes as an example, it's extremely easy. How many articles on here will have actual content that is triggering? How many of those articles will be disguised so the person doesn't realize and then are suddenly hit with a triggering image?
In regards to this specifically: how would one know to steer clear of a topic if it's not labelled well enough to denote it's subject or contents?
A trigger warning is a courtesy, and amplifying information overall.
Be a human being with common sense and awareness. I also want to avoid videos of graphic, distressing things, simply because I dislike them. I mainly frequent Facebook, Tildes, and Reddit, and I am at no harm of finding things there that could cause such a trigger. Explain to me how you could even accidentally stumble upon something that would trigger you? If you are triggered simply by people mentioning suicide, rape, self-harm, or other things of that nature, that is beyond a trigger warning. You need special help to facilitate your recovery.
You say "Unrelated details that can be highly triggering to people show up all the time, both in links and in text posts posted here."
So seemingly anything can trigger anyone, and we have no way of telling what those triggers will be. If a trigger is so minute that it can be an "unrelated detail," then that person needs serious professional help right away. It is far beyond a trigger warning. I myself have no past traumas, but I also do not like to hear about or see or view written descriptions of graphic, traumatizing events, so I avoid them.
The point is: if you are so easily and painfully triggered by the mere mention of an act, or series of words, a trigger warning will not have helped you because you need much more serious help than that. If you are NOT so easily triggered, but you do not want to see descriptions or pictures of these harmful and traumatizing acts, then stay away from those parts of the internet. If you stumble upon a text-based, multiple paragraph long description of a gruesome act, and you read the whole thing, and it triggers you, you could have stopped before you read the entire thing, and a trigger warning can't stop you from reading it. They are pointless except to facilitate the attitude that we shouldn't deal with our problems, only use stronger people as shields to avoid them.
You made up that random example. I'm looking for real world stuff. Is there an actual trailer that does that? I'd like to see it if you can muster, please.
I reiterate that the trigger warning still wouldn't have helped in this instance because avoidance is not a solution to the problem, psychiatric help is, and we are not psychiatrists or psychologists. If they were to tell their patient to avoid all forms of media that may trigger them, would you not self-isolate? Why do they have the desire to browse websites and trailers that may contain things that cause them incredible trauma? And also have the desire to have all of these things warned for them in advance in case, like you said before, an unrelated detail we couldn't possibly know about, comes up and triggers them?
I see you've been pretty active in this thread. And, I'm still not sure on your resistance to having trigger warnings.
It's simply a courtesy, that anybody posting has the option to extend. Extend it if you wish, don't if you don't, but this whole
because avoidance is not a solution to the problemarmchair view is honestly condescending to the point of being a bit mean, in my opinion.You're also asking for "real world" examples, and this whole post was spawn by someone requesting a trigger warning.
I'm honestly not here to argue. I don't believe I can really say anything that hasn't already been mentioned. This is just my two-cents.
Trigger warnings are unnecessary for several reasons. If a person is triggered by simple stimuli, such as seeing the word rape, then they need to be seeking professional help. How would you even warn someone that the word rape is in it without just putting the words trigger warning? At that point it's so vague you don't know what it's even for. If a person can handle seeing the word rape, but is triggered by graphic text descriptions of a traumatic event (we'll continue the rape example), then they should possess the awareness to stop reading before they progress through the entire thing. It's no fault but their own if they read a passage about something that triggers them. I challenge you, as I have challenged Kat, for a real world example of a movie trailer that has a surprise rape scene, or even for something as descriptive as a long written passage about rape. I wouldn't even know where to find it, you would almost certainly have to search something like that out. It's not commonplace. If a person is not triggered by either of these things, but some word or phrase that brings up memories that we cannot even know about because it is so personal, then that person either also needs professional help, and a trigger warning would be of no service because we don't know which items to put a warning on, without having to trigger warning everything. Which goes back to my earlier idea that they serve no purpose except to say "keep living your life, but avoid your trauma forever." If the trauma is so powerful it cannot be overcome, trigger warnings are not the solution, and if it isn't so powerful that it can be overcome, trigger warnings are not the solution.
Furthermore, I have a real-world counter example. I was watching a youtube video game channel that said "Heart-stopping moments in Smash." Should this have had a trigger warning? What if I had seen my father die of a heart attack and this title triggered me? You could argue what's the point of writing heart-stopping when it's such a negative phrase with negative connotation. You could have just written exciting moments. It's needless censoring for the sake of acting like you're helping. A trigger warning on this video would only serve to remind people of their trauma, because it's a video that has nothing to do with heart-stopping other than those words.
You said: "Extend it if you wish, don't if you don't, but this whole because avoidance is not a solution to the problem armchair view is honestly condescending to the point of being a bit mean, in my opinion." This whole thread is armchair psychology. It's mean and condescending and ASSUMING of everyone to say they have experiences trauma and know what needs to be triggered but I don't. It's armchair psychology to say that we should protect everyone from their trauma without backing it up with science or noted efforts or even provide a counter example to my examples. Everyone is just set in their ways that it is the right way. Nobody is providing examples of things that actually happen or even people that actually get "triggered." People are simply saying "We should warn everyone of everything." I believe people who need trigger warnings can overcome their trauma, I don't believe it will be done by avoiding it, but by facing it with professional help. The only thing trigger warnings are doing is facilitating armchair psychology to the point of harm. We already have rating labels on games and movies and TV. You should have enough awareness to use them.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/11106670/Trigger-warnings-more-harm-than-good.html
That's not what trigger warnings are about.
You might click on a post, read a little bit and have that little bit trigger you. A lot of times triggering content is in the middle of other regular content.
You're creating an arbitrary standard.
You're using a form of the slippery slope fallacy. @Kat proposed a good standard that could be easily applied & has a clear limit.
You have no idea what helps or reminds people of their trauma. You are not a trauma victim (well I'm assuming that you aren't, because if you were you would have likely brought it up at this point), and do not understand the mechanisms by which flashbacks are triggered.
What?
Trigger warnings for PTSD is something that has been used in psychology and psychiatry for decades & is widely recommended lol.
https://wearyourvoicemag.com/identities/ableism/defense-trigger-warnings
This is a complete strawperson and doesn't reflect any of the views that people are expressing in this thread.
Professional help is all about "exposure therapy, delivered slowly and voluntarily by a mental health professional" (from @Kat). It's not unnecessarily exposing people to traumatic content on the internet because you think that it will help people.
Wow one medical professional has an opinion. That certainly doesn't represent the views of all medical professionals or trauma victims.
Its no use arguing. You all already have your minds made up. None of your argument makes sense. It's a real echo chamber in here.
Here's the thing. People who have actually lived through significant trauma, such as rape, say trigger warnings benefit them.
You, who as far as you've said in this thread haven't experienced any trauma of that sort, say those people are wrong, and that even if they think trigger warnings help them, they really don't.
I'm going to believe those people over you. Sorry, but that's just how it is. To me that's just basic human decency, to believe people when they make statements about their own personal experience like that.
If you think Tildes is an "echo chamber" of basic human decency, you know what? I'm OK with having that sort of echo chamber.
I don't think they are wrong to want warnings. They are not a bad idea in itself, I simply want better for trauma victims. I want them to recover and I don't think complete avoidance is the way. Building a sheltered life for them on the internet, to me, serves only to "pretend" to safeguard their hobby. To make a safe zone for them from avoidance makes me worry that they'll have to face that trauma elsewhere and it'll be far worse than if they had been exposed previously.
Please stop saying things like "If you think Tildes is an "echo chamber" of basic human decency, you know what? I'm OK with having that sort of echo chamber." It paints you as the good person and me as the bad person. You know nothing about me as a person and what my acceptable standards for human decency are. I simply have a differing opinion from you and other people in this thread. Nowhere am I suggesting we force these people to face their traumas head-on, without support or therapy. Nowhere do I use malicious or aggravated terminology or attack other persons instead of their arguments. I am simply stating my case, and it happens to differ from the norm, or your own, or the whole thread.
I'm just asking for research examples. Research isn't the be-all-end-all of discussion, but it helps to point to something other than anecdotal evidence. I have plenty of anecdotal evidence myself. I live with my partner who has BPD. She has faced down several of her triggers and has had success with it, with and without therapy to back it up. She has made leaps and bounds in her trauma recovery by using other coping methods than avoidance. It doesn't mean it's the only solution, or that it's perfect. I'm only looking to help people as well, and I don't think trigger warnings are the answer.
If you're interested in research on Trigger Warnings and their utility in non-clinical settings, you might find Boysen (2017) an interesting article (I'll cite it at the end).
One caveat, however, is that this is of course the finding of only one researcher.
Unfortunately, it's behind a pay-wall. But I doubt he'd mind if I quoted a relevant passage to this discussion:
Citation: Boysen, G. A. (2017). Evidence-based answers to questions about trigger warnings for clinically-based distress: A review for teachers. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 3(2), 163.
I hope you don't mind my jumping in here -- I'm still withholding my personal judgment on the matter, but I thought you mind find this article interesting.
Edit: just for total transparency, I cut out a few lines about the APA's recommendations for therapists because I didn't want to quote too much and potentially violate copyright (although I may have already done so...). These lines just referred to putting together a relapse prevention plan with the client.
Thanks for the information! This is very interesting indeed, I wish I could read the whole thing. This research echoes my own sentiments. Avoidance is bad, but exposure should happen in a safe area. I don't think that safe area is online or in many forms of media, but maybe I was too hasty in expressing my disdain for trigger warnings. Speaking on it now, I realize my problem with trigger warnings is the culture surrounding them seems to be that they are the sole method of recovery, with people living exclusively on trigger warnings, in a perpetual safe zone. I can see them as a stepping stone to effective treatment. Thanks again.
https://tildes.net/~tildes/50o/trigger_warning_tag_special_flair#comment-1h4e
Actually.... in psychiatry, trigger was a transitive verb. You trigger a flashback. You trigger a phobia attack. You trigger a panic reaction. "Triggered" by itself is a synonim of "deeply torubles" or "bothers". A person isn't triggered, a person is bothered. There's difference between having a flashback, and just "being bothered by something". That is the problem of trigger warnings, when used improperly: They equalize those 2 things.
Not to mention that the associative nature of memory will make random images trigger very specific flashbacks, completly unrelated. Seeing a tomato CAN trigger a PTSD flashback of a companion stepping on a mine 2 feet from you.
Fair enough... but that brings us to that other topic we're already discussing. How do you know which ones are "the common ones"? Because, if this topic is important, and serious, common sense should not suffice.
A thread could be started, "What trigger warnings would you like on Tildes?" to diplomatically decide what would be best/necessary/desired.
I like the hierarchical tag structure that Deimos explains elsewhere in this thread—it would allow for easily adding new things as they might arise, within reason, of course (I don't think people should be allowed to filter out tomatoes, because there has to be a limit). But, if ten people had a legit reason to ask for a
tw.tomatotag, it could easily be used.I have chronic PTSD from sexual assault. I'm in therapy. I've been doing EMDR. It's been helping.
For a little while I couldn't function as normal people do. I stayed inside. I had flashbacks of the events. I could barely take care of myself in terms of getting out of bed, eating three meals, taking a shower, not killing myself, and maybe going outside for generally less than an hour. All of my responsibilities fell apart around me. During this time I tried going online to do the things I used to find normal: reading reddit, watching netflix/movies, going on youtube, reading the news, reading books, reading/looking at porny material. I the majority of the time I went to do any of these things there would something in them that would cause me to mentally and emotionally fall apart again. It was an obstacle to getting better. After a particularly bad week I realized that if something didn't change the few things positive things/people in my life were all going to leave. I stopped consuming media, I stopped consuming content online, in books, or in movies unless a friend of mine that had intimate knowledge of my triggers consumed them first.
I started getting better.
It was so hard during that time because I wanted to be able to be able to connect with the modern world in any way. I looked to see if there were trigger warnings on so many different kinds of content. They don't exist as far as I can tell. The most frustrating part was that people didn't even try. The argument so often was:
Beyond that most content doesn't even have content warnings. Film is the best at this because at least they will tell what to most generally what to expect. They also have easy to find synopses.
I started going back online a while after I started getting my feet back on the ground again. At first it was only discord and only in small friend chatrooms/dms. Slowly I started to craft a world around me that I could be happy and healthy in. I started adding a few more sites here and there. It's incredibly slow going but I'm gradually being able to live happily while also doing the things I want to. Now every once in a while I can be in forums with people who discuss topics that are difficult for me to handle.
One thing that would have made this process so much easier would have been if there were short agreed upon list of content warnings to give people the barest notion of what something is. The ones I'd suggest are based off of the most common causes of PTSD: Veterans Affairs Statistics Overview
War:
Terrorism:
Violence and Abuse:
Disasters:
It would be great if people provided these content warnings with the format of "General type" "specific content" in the tags. It may seem like this is a small issue but it affects a huge number of people:
"
About 7 or 8 out of every 100 people (or 7-8% of the population) will have PTSD at some point in their lives.
About 8 million adults have PTSD during a given year. This is only a small portion of those who have gone through a trauma.
About 10 of every 100 women (or 10%) develop PTSD sometime in their lives compared with about 4 of every 100 men (or 4%).
"
For perspective this means approximately 1 in 13 or slightly over 2 in 30 (comparable to classroom size).
Veterans Affairs Statistics Overview
Edit: I know this might not fit this thread exactly but I'm putting it here anyway because I feel it's relevant. I'll be posting the same comment to the other thread.
TW is pretty standardized by now, right? Though I don't know if any barrier to understanding is worthwhile with something that could have this much of an impact.
Actually, you know what would be better? If there was a user setting to add styles to tags. We can set it up so that the various 'special' tags all have whatever style by default but we can change them if we don't care for them. That would also give you the power to emphasize whichever tags are more important to you.
I've commented a few times here that surely every trigger warning could just be covered by a NSFL tag. Leave NSFW for sexual stuff, NSFL is violent or gore.
You have sensitivities to sexual stuff, maybe block out NSFW. You have PTSD of something violent. Covered.
You combine those into the already important tags to people working who probably shouldn't be reading that type of content for other reasons, and you save the space. If you want to add a .morespecificreason after why not
It's not blocking them from reading it, it's alerting them that something they may find offensive is included in here. How are we to know at what length of sexual description will be triggering? Maybe a tag can specify fantasy.rape, but that hardly seems like something that should be a mandatory site-wide rule.
If you're possibly triggered about sexual topics then yeah it seems like you personally choosing to block topics related to that would be the most reasonable choice.
But there is no concrete definition as you're discussed multiple points here. Hearing a rape occurred can trigger someone while others it may take a more direct specific description of what occured. Others can be triggered from completely non-related things as someone mentioned with the .tomato.
Giving them a blanket statement describing "some description of violence here" is about the best way I can see to make a mandatory site wide rule that you expect all others to abide by.
First time I'm seeing it. I guess it depends on where exactly you hang out online.
It could be solved by having short explanations for suggested tags by the
Tagssection when you make a new topic, and by theFilter Tagsunder theEdit Filter Tagssection. Just a little TW is used for Trigger Warnings should be enough.I won't comment about what I think of implementing content/trigger warnings, but if they are implemented, don't make the same mistake Mastodon did in using freeform text, which ends up getting used for random things that aren't at all triggering to anyone, or used as a joke.
On Mastodon you can add a "content warning" to your post that will hide the rest of your post until you expand it. While it is used for things that are potentially triggering, it is also used sarcastically quite a bit.
Scishow had a video where they summarized all the arguments for and against trigger warning. They pretty much covered everyone's sentiments here and more.