Archive Advisories

[abhorsen.]

We've been in the process of rewriting the archive rules + tutorials for the past few months to make them simpler/easier to understand. That concern was raised a couple times in our end-of-year feedback as well, so we'd like to get a sense of which archive advisories members are using as readers - i.e., what advisories might make you avoid (or seek out) a story?

If you have any commentary to add as well, please feel free to leave it below or reach out to the staff privately. Thank you!

[facingthenorthwind]

One of the things I struggle with both as a reader and a tagger is the sexual content advisory -- it might help I think if we had a Mild Sexual Content/Explicit Sexual Content split? because I'm sometimes not sure if I should tag for T-rated sexual content if my fic is M-rated for language, you know?

[abhorsen.]

Just a quick clarification - this is what you use as a reader, not a writer. If you voted as a writer, please just send me a quick PM with what you voted and what your actual votes are, so I can adjust it when we look at the results. ❤️  Thank you!

[abhorsen.]

Anonymous feedback:

Quote

Why bother with adding more and more advisories and warnings to the archive? When was the last time you walked into a major bookstore like Barnes and Noble and saw warnings listed below each book on the shelf? Let me help you with that - the answer is never. Instead of listing off each and every little thing that a reader may or may not find offensive, how about we just stick to the standard movie ratings? Heck, even game ratings would be easier and less cumbersome than those currently in place in the archives.

In general, we're just looking for feedback to take into account moving forward, so as a rule we won't be responding to feedback. However, there seems to be a misunderstanding here, and I'd like to clarify that the intention of this poll is not to add new advisories. The above options are already advisories, and the purpose of this poll is to consider whether all of them are necessary.

[Predictable Chaos]

As a writer, I don't mind adding the advisories. While I completely understand the need for having them since some topics can be very sensitive for people, I, personally, never look at them when choosing what to read. If the reading makes me uncomfortable (which has never really happened on HPFT), I'll just stop reading the story.