Adding standardization for content warnings

[upstreamist]

Pitch

Revamp content warnings by providing for and encouraging (without requiring) standardized labels. The CW field would allow two forms of input: (a) Text input with auto-complete suggestions, and (b) selection from a drop-down menu.

The suggestions and menu items would come from two different lists:

1. Universal: A basic set that comes built in with future versions of tootsuite, covering the most common uses for CWs.

2. Instance-specific: An additional set that's customizable from within the admin panel, so that instances can extend the universal set to cover more specific needs.

To cover any cases not provided for by the built-in options, user would still be allowed to override those options by typing in their own custom CWs.

Then, provide more granular account settings for dealing with CWs, either in the filter pane, or in an new pane specifically for CWs.

Motivation

Lack of standardization limits the utility of CWs. Standardization would make it easier for users to match reliably against CWs when customizing their timelines in their account settings.

While that's technically possible at present, lack of standardization creates gaps. People sometimes abbreviate their CWs, or prefer different ways of describing the same or overlapping triggers. Even universally agreed upon CWs get misspelled, thereby slipping past filters.

Likewise, standardization would allow users more granular control over their timelines. For example, a user could have all CWs set to display by default except for those marked with their personal trigger. Alternately, a user could filter certain triggers so that they don't display at all.

That, in turn, could improve community engagement by hiding less of a users' timeline behind CWs that don't apply to them personally, while squaring away CWs that do.

[stale]

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[davidak]

This would also solve the issue that a poster does not know which CW they should use.

They can also be organized in categories (#8681), so a user can allow or disallow a whole category.

Some CWs or Categories can be allowed by default, because they affect only a minority of users, so we can just teach them in onboarding, how to disallow more topics. So it does not bother most users that don't have a problem with post about e.g. food. CWs should feel like a way to customize the users experience than something that annoys everyone.

But it could also be the other way around. Hide all CW posts by default and who does not need the CW can allow the posts by default. It's the question who should have the burden to change the settings. The people who need a CW or those that don't.

[ThisIsMissEm]

This isn't progress on the Mastodon side of things, but the ActivityPub Trust & Safety Taskforce is currently working on Content Labelling, which would be overall functionally equivalent to what you want here.

The relevant issue: swicg/activitypub-trust-and-safety#41

So for instance, you can have a post that has a content label of "adult content" and you could still add a content warning for "discussion of [an R18+ movie]", and the CW would show both parts. (there's also broader and narrower content labels, so you could block "adult content" or you could specifically just block "hardcore pornography", and under both you'd not see those posts)