[uf-discuss] rel="nsfw"

[Ben Buchanan]

> practice, almost no one is publishing ratings with links, and many
> people are publishing "NSFW" warnings.  So vague as it may be, it's
> apparently communicating something useful on the live web today.

I don't think it is actually as vague as people are suggesting, since
I would look at it another way entirely.

NSFW means nothing more or less than "the author of the post would
consider the target content unsafe for work". It doesn't need to be a
universal definition, which is unworkable anyway. It's something
relative to the author, probably (but not necessarily) with some level
of consideration of their imagined audience.

To put it another way, it's an opinion; much the same as a review,
vote or tag. We don't require all tag links to be tagged according to
a universal definition of the tag in question; nor do we require all
the world to agree with a review or a vote.

So I'd happily support rel="nsfw". It would be as useful as the author
adding the text "NSFW"; with the added benefit that the UA could be
set to perform actions like prominently alert the user or even prevent
them clicking that link.

cheers,

Ben

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