DISCUSSION: Rating System Review

[Ghostsoul]

Is it just me or does the ratings system here seem rather vague to anyone else?

There isn't really a 'checklist' for what makes a work qualify for a 'Teen' or 'Mature' and because of this many works (especially in the 'Mature') category seem to vary a lot in terms of extremity.

It's possibly because most of the rating information is only given to us through examples, and most of those examples focus on the violence in the work and no other aspects. There is also a quest on whether cursing alone should make a work 'Teen' or 'Mature' how many 'strong' curse words would move the work from one category into the next?

I think if we had a rating system based off (but not the same as) an actual one such as the BBFC or MPAA so that people can help place their fics in categories better. It'll also work better if we had a 'checklist' system for content, covering all areas: violence, language, themes, etc.

We could also introduce new categories such as '10+' between 'Everyone' and 'Teen' and 'Mature+' for the most extreme content still within forum rules.

What do you think? Could it be possible? Or is it too complicated for a forum such as this?

 

[Beth Pavell]

Funnily enough I was moderating when we last overhauled the system. The inevitable problem is this - the more specific a rating system becomes, the less responsive it is to tone and context. That's the reason why official classification boards like the BBFC essentially act like moderators, i.e: a panel of judges applying their interpretation of the guidelines to the story.

The key question is whether the current system is really creating any significant problems

 

[Ghostsoul]

he less responsive it is to tone and context.

I personally feel like tone and context would be a part of that checklist, and of course the user knows their story best and so they would make the final judgement along with what they know about the tone and context of their own story in the grand scheme of things.

 

[AceTrainer14]

The only real problem with the current rating system is that it is a little broad. A fourth category, something potentially between teen and mature to better differentiate between people's different definitions between teen-appropriate and 'R rated' could be more beneficial, but most writers tend to lob everything into Mature anyway because of 'violence' or 'scary themes' or what have you. I don't think a new category will necessarily change that unless you get to the point of listing every single thing that could be considered 'not Everyone' (i.e. murder, gunshots, decapitation, amputation, rape, assault, fighting, scuffling, swearing, the F and C words) and splitting them explicitly between categories.

We did use to have pretty much a checklist, but it was decided, and I think rightly so, that it was pretty tedious and removes any sort of context from the situation. A story could feature something like a murder that one author considers graphic, but it's written in such a way that it really is only teen.

 

[diamondpearl876]

Just posting that this was mod-approved and I'm open to feedback about the system. This isn't the first time I've heard about it not being specific enough.

I don't personally think it's creating problems on a massive scale, but it's clearly a source of confusion when authors go to rate their own stories. There's a huge gap between some fics posted MATURE. Some authors mark it MATURE for 3-4 swears now and then (when it's not absolutely needed), while others mark it for gore (that's needed). Which means that someone who doesn't like MATURE fics because of gore might not even look at the MATURE fics for those 3-4 swears because of the connotation behind such a rating. And far, far more people are tolerant of swears than gore. Meaning, basically, that fics labeled MATURE might be losing out on readers for unnecessary reasons. Maybe a bad example, but I'm trying to think of it from the eyes of someone younger and I'm not that young anymore, nor am I sensitive to any material I could possibly read.

 

[Ghostsoul]

I definitely think that it's the bridge between 'teen' and 'mature' that is the most vague. I'm not sure if there is more 'mature' fics than there needs to be, however, there might also be less 'everyone' fics as well. Since people assume 'Everyone' is the category that nobody pays attention to.

Perhaps it's not too vague so much as needing some more categories to accommodate more fics, either making 'mature' exclusively for more extreme content or making a new category for that exceptionally extreme content.

 

[Persephone]

For me there are really two separate classes of mature fics. There are the ones that are mature because they swear a lot and deal with heavier things, or have one or two intense moments, and the ones that focus more heavily on gore or sex. And it always seemed weird to me that things I'd pick up on riding a public school bus in high school were in the same category as... rather intense things. I know threads have individual content warnings, but the gore of Land of the Roses (a cow dissection and a skeletal creature) is... not the gore of Hunter, Haunted.

I feel like a PG-13 esque tier to sweep up things like LotR, Because You Were There, Unpredictable and others things that are occasionally dark but never very over the top or that really only have some colorful language (seriously, after high school bus rides) I think swearing is so overrated in most ranking systems).

Not sure what you name it or where the boundary is, but for me it's more or less "is this worse than what late teenagers talk about in normal conversations" vs "sexually explicit or you will be disturbed."

 

[Ghostsoul]

Not sure what you name it or where the boundary is, but for me it's more or less "is this worse than what late teenagers talk about in normal conversations" vs "sexually explicit or you will be disturbed."

My guess is it'll be something like '15+' vs '18+/17+' or 'NC - 17'. Many rating systems do have an area between 'Teen' and 'Mature(+)' and more often than not, this in-between category is one of the most used categories, whereas the '18+' categories tend to be some of the most empty ones with the least movies in them.

 

[canisaries]

if changes are made, i suggest not using a existing real life scale in naming, because a) they're almost always country- or region-specific, which makes the unfamiliar ones possibly feel like they don't know the full context and b) those familiar with them might assume false things based on that context.

 

[Ghostsoul]

if changes are made, i suggest not using a existing real life scale in naming, because a) they're almost always country- or region-specific, which makes the unfamiliar ones possibly feel like they don't know the full context and b) those familiar with them might assume false things based on that context.

I suggested that the rating system might be based off of one of those, not directly taken from them. They could be used as a guideline but the final result will mostly certainly be applied to the forum as context, rather than the real world or 'X' country as context.

 

[Beth Pavell]

I think it's worth clarifying what we want a rating system to do. A couple of points occur to me:

Do readers, in practice, base their reading choices off the rating tags? If they do, how do they influence what they read? This isn't something I don't think has ever seen discussed here. I'm tempted to say that the influence of the rating tags is so slight as to be virtually irrelevant - I doubt any more readers would be attracted to Kanto: There and Back Again if I'd labelled it Teen.

The other point that occurs is that I'm reluctant to countenance the idea of "Kids/Teens read it anyway". Like a lot of things online, just because a teenager can read mature fanfiction (And let's face it, it's impossible to be gatekeepers of it) doesn't mean that it's suitable for them. My classic example is A Song of Ice and Fire, a series I discouraged parents from buying for their younger teenagers when I worked in a bookstore. Not because I thought their bairns would be somehow scarred and horrified, but because an impressionable fourteen year-old ought not to be reading about otherwise affable characters cheerfully discussing their latest pump and dump.

 

[diamondpearl876]

Talking solely from a mod perspective here, just for you guys to think about.

It's not entirely fair to change the current tags drastically. If I delete EVERYONE, TEEN, and MATURE in favor of a whole new rating system, then fics dating back for several years lose that tag. And it's not mine or anyone else's place to go and apply new ratings to those fics, especially for authors who are no longer around. Members who are still around can do it themselves just fine, sure, but it's not something I'm going to think is worth enforcing.

Yes, there are many, many years' worth of fics without any rating at all because a rating system with prefixes didn't exist at some point, but there's no reason to add to that if there's a better option.

I could replace EVERYONE, TEEN, and MATURE, leaving the tags in existence but adding a new rating system. I could leave old fics alone and let authors who are around change their ratings, but then, we look like we have two different ratings for anyone new or old passing by. Awkward. Then I'd really have to enforce this, and again, I don't find it worth enforcing because "warning" anyone over this seems silly.

I also agree that any specific, regional rating system shouldn't be used. Bulbagarden is a very diverse site, and we don't need to confuse members not part of a certain region. The current system, as I was told, works alongside the forumwide rules.

The rules would have to be updated accordingly if any changes made, which is fine. But if looking at the current rating descriptions would help, then here's a reminder that it exists.

If the issue is a gap between perceived "mature" and "graphic" fics, then I'm inclined to just make a "GRAPHIC" rating/tag.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Speaking as an author, I'd rather include a series of "warnings" in my preface rather than faff around with multiple ratings. Taking my main story, The Long Walk is generally Teen-appropriate, with some content that may put it on the upper end of Teen (At least as far as the current guidelines go).

 

[AceTrainer14]

I really think the simplest solution, rather than deleting tags or doing anything mad like that, would be making a new tag. I personally think 'Graphic' only applies to about one or two stories on the site at the moment, but, due to personal opinion, people may want a lot more classified under that. I think the safest option would be some sort of Teen + category as more of a middle ground between the two categories: move 'frequent explicit language' up there, descriptions of first and second base, but basically serve as a 'Hard Teen' (go clean your dirty minds) for stories that may be more mature but are not at Game of Thrones levels yet.

Though really, one of the main issues is that a lot of people tend to lean towards 'Mature to be safe' for little reason. The current system basically lets you get away with anything under Teen except for detailed descriptions of sex, violent acts, substance abuse and sexual/psychological abuse. Quite a lot tends to be lumped under Mature - for example, Eternal Bloodline which I judged in the awards has none of those things in it yet is labelled Mature. Things such as swearing and violence are much more influenced by cultural experiences than the current guidelines give things credit for. The f and c bombs are fairly common in both my country and Australia, but I have found that Americans tend to be much more prickly about these words. Sex and violence also seems to be something where one culture will find one thing worse than the other (sex scenes seem to bother Americans, whereas scenes of violence often cause controversy on UK television). And I don't think this is something the ratings guide can be blamed on when the examples given are fairly clear in what you should be comparing yourself to. I would not rank any of the 'Mature' rated stories I judged during the awards anywhere close to Game of Thrones or Veep.