Okay final thoughts on this:
Some days I'll log onto Mastodon and MOST of my timeline will be indistinct blobs.
I think the heart of my issue is that if you content warning everything...it kinda defeats the purpose of content warning anything? A CW is no longer an aberration in need of investigation to see if its safe its...every other post on the website.
And oh yeah you can turn that off, BUT GUESS WHAT then you're seeing what you wanted to block.
It just seems...overabundant to me, to the point it actually nerfs the usefulness of the feature?
If I see a content warning on another site, I'll generally scroll right past, but if base features CW is on here, I'd miss 1/2 the timeline.
I think there needs to less stringent CW rules, and more robust term blocking pools for individual members. That is my two cents.
I'll continue using Mastodon otherwise, but its very clear I'm not the only person who feels this way.
Also yes, I know you can block terms but isn't that...more reason to be less stringent on the CW warnings?
It just feels like a bit too much fiddling to do 'From sign up' to get a good experience. One of the things I heard in my talks with other folks in the biz is it kinda feels like the site doesn't 'Trust' adult content?
Not true SURELY but vibes man, vibes.
@Caudlewag I could set up an instance for just our house and close friends where cw is not moderated as heavily. My only concern is if I can assure its up time and I'm just not interested in being a mod
@oceanotter Nah, no worries, this site is fine, I wouldn't be this complain-y if I didn't like it. Mostly there's just a thing as 'Too many safety bumpers and that's just gonna chafe some folks!
If Meow Dot Social likes the bumpers, more power to them! If I didn't voice these concerns on a site with such an open-eared mod community though, I'd feel I'd miss my opportunity to voice myself as someone who likes using it.
@Caudlewag @oceanotter I'd have given up on social media if the places I see on my timeline didn't enforce so many CWs. I don't want to hide away from all the content all the time so blocking keywords isn't actually the solution; but I want to be able to make a decision before getting into it about if I think it's worth the spoons. This isn't specifically about adult content btw; it's much more general than that. There's a lot of horror in the world these days and it frankly has me worn down.
@Freakus @Caudlewag yeah I know we're all world news weary and just want a place where we can reasonably separate it from our timelines. Specifically I'm more upset about not so obvious things needing content warnings. It's as easy as editing things in, but at the end of the day do I really need to cw hugging or petting?
@Freakus @Caudlewag my flow chart is.
Is it controversial, nsfw, fetish, or implied (like my null toon art)
These are obvious to me.
What's annoying is "eye contact" "petting" or "two males kissing" those are some examples that's like. I don't agree with the "need" for cw in this case.
@oceanotter @Freakus @Caudlewag Speaking as someone who finds eye contact extremely off-putting to show up all the time, i *really* appreciate the fact that people tend to CW eye contact on here. it makes it a lot less stressful to be on here
-F
@oceanotter @Freakus @Caudlewag a lot of the less obvious CWs you can think of as accessibility concerns--eye contact is off-putting for a lot of autistic people like us, pictures of food can be a problem for people with eating disorders, a *lot* of people we know find AI-generated art to be viscerally upsetting,
The norms on here are norms for a reason
-F
