[uf-discuss] rel="nsfw"

[Frances Berriman]

On 29/12/06, Andy Mabbett <andy at pigsonthewing.org.uk> wrote:
> In message <BC9F5796-2C67-462D-B48A-9FE6DB056554 at randomchaos.com>, Scott
> Reynen <scott at randomchaos.com> writes
>
> >many  people are publishing "NSFW" warnings.  So vague as it may be,
> >it's  apparently communicating something useful on the live web today.
>
> That's "something useful in a large judeo-christian western democracy",
> then...
>
> What's "safe for work" in China, or Iran?
>
> Is a nude picture of a 17-year old safe for work in Holland? Or the UK?
>

This is exactly the issue we came up with when we started discussing a
content-rating format a few months back, and previous again to that
[1].

It's very difficult to come up with a universal standard for
describing content and it's "safety".  However, "NSFW" is a term
starting to be used as commonly as other "web speak" terms such as
"LOL" or "RTFM" (poor examples, but the point is - not everyone who
uses that necessarily knows what it means or where it originates).

The concept of being able to mark something as unsafe, mature, NSFW,
etc. *does* keep cropping back up though - so this may point to either
the need to explain and introduce/encourage people to use the
resolution suggested previously (i.e. using rel), or thinking again
about something a little more solid.

[1]http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-discuss/2006-July/004942.html

-- 
Frances Berriman
http://fberriman.com