-
-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 7.1k
New issue
Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.
By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.
Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account
Rename content warning (CW) to content notice (CN) #20117
Comments
Why don't we simply use hashtags for that? |
Because hashtags leave no choice if the content should be displayed or not. Hashtags are a completely different concept. |
I described it here in german: https://chaos.social/@leah/109302346469815862 |
This would be a less effective way of solving the problem, whereas the solution described by @leahoswald is the better and, above all, more effective measure. |
Would "content hint" (CH) perhaps be even more accurate, @leahoswald ? |
Because Hashtags would not hide the content, with possibly pictures, from view unless the user chooses to view the toot. Another thing that is mentioned often is that, despite a toot being hidden via a CW, link previews are still visible. That is kinda unexpected because the link may very well be the thing the user wants to warn against. I don't know if there is already an issue for this particular problem, but thought I'd mention it here just in case. |
Maybe but content hint is not already that common like content note. But I get that it is maybe more accurate. |
it's also more in line with ActivityPub's spec. After all, Mastodon is using the subject line from ActivityPub for Content Warnings |
Than content note is even better! Thanks for the hint. |
I would suggest Content Notice (CN) instead of Content Note. It's not as extreme as Warning, but it still has the same effect that it's intended to give readers a heads up. |
I wish there was a taxonomy or list to select from, to get an idea what exactly other people might need to be notified about. To me that is the larger problem (compared to what that thing is named). But that might be worth a different issue here, I presume. |
Content Notice is also possible yes. I think it's even a better wording for this case. For the non native speakers here a good explanation: https://www.differencebetween.com/what-is-the-difference-between-note-and-notice/ |
Updated my initial request accordingly. Thanks @nourkagha |
I didn't know this - but it is helpfully reflected in how many people on Mastodon use it like a subject line or headline, which are standard ways of summarizing information in the domains of email, blogs, and newspapers. So I agree, making the name of the tool more generic is an excellent idea. |
I proposed something along these lines some time ago in #17667. Instead of the sender deciding what needs to be hidden, the sender only needs to add a category, like "politics," and each recipient can choose on their own if they like to hide political toots or not. |
100% yes to renaming Content Warning, it feels emotive and as said above, sounds judgemental. I've see some resistance to using them. Content Notice and Note are both nice. Content Wrapping(/wrapper) was suggested by David Allen Green – which is appealing as it both describes what's happening, and preserves the 'CW' user interface (and so would also allow people to still think of it as Content Warning if they prefer/need/don't want to update their docs). |
Thats, speaking for me, to unspecific and too uncommon. Content Notice is already used in many context and therefore better described online and more people have an understanding of what it is. Also a Notice is a better match than a wrapping ;) It think wrapping would raise many questions for people. |
I think this issue is just as much about naming as it is about education of our user base. I’ve had a lot of discussions about CWs in the past days, especially with people new to Mastodon. They boil down to these key items: [Warning: I’m giving some examples for CWs, and why some people need them, in that list.]
Based on all of that, what’s my suggestion?
Things that could be done outside of Mastodon (the software project):
Thanks for having taken the time to read this. |
Tanks for the explanations @scy but I think "subject" is to general the same as CW is to specific. Making it a subject line would always raise the question "Why should I write a subject if I write about food?" or "Why should I add a subject for a message that is limited to 500 chars?" for example. Subjects are something most of the people know and use totally different than what a Content Notice would and in my opinion should be. A content notice is something to inform the reader about what they could expect reading the content. And as this is something I see as being polite to others I would rather have an more explicit feature and naming than something as general as a subject line. Subject is great but doesn't hint the user for what it should be used for. Beside the naming I agree with the rest. |
This is a great idea. It's in the actvitiy pub spec, everyone knows the subject/message pattern from email, CWs are currently describing the subject of what you get when you click. 'Notice'/'note' is definitely better than 'warning' but I don't think either are as intuitive as 'subject'. Tho I support any improvement from 'Content Warning'!
Very true, 'wrapping' definitely isn't intuitive. It's just the keeping of CW I was drawn to.. |
I really like "content notice" - it seems to be (as a new Mastodon user) to much better match how people are using this feature. I'm really enjoying the way this feature is used by people - a sign of a good feature is when people start using it to solve problems beyond its original purpose - but I understand why other new users are confused at seeing "content warnings" on things that they didn't think they should be warned about. "Content notices" feels a lot easier to form a mental model around to me. |
I don't think subject quite suits the problem. I'm posting a lot of food related stuff on mastodon and when I'm thinking about how to tag them with CWs or CNs, I'm immediately thinking: "Some people don't want to see food, so I should tag it with food." then I notice, some people might not want to see meat or egg or diary products or need to prepare themselves beforehand, etc. So the CNs I generally end up using are along the lines of "Food (vegetarian)". If it was named Subject, I would be thinking about it more from a content perspective, a little summary so to say. Does food need a summary? Normally not. But sometimes, I might tag them with "Look what I made! Delicious!" or "My cacio e pepe turned out clumpy :(", which is absolutely not the intention of CNs imo. But maybe that's just my interpretation. On another note, when I first joined mastodon, I was surprised that it used the wording "Content Warning", as i was used to "Content Notes" from other platforms and moreso I was suprised that the CWs were used as CNs on mastodon. I've gotten used to this over time, but I still feel like Content Note or Content Notice is the best choice of wording. |
I agree, subject is too broad and would make it feel more mandatory just like a subject line in emails. Content Notice is also similar to what's used in TV and movies when there's potentially disturbing content to certain viewers ahead of a certain scene. It's also versatile and can be used for both extreme and non-extreme situations. Subject is not alarming enough in case of extreme content. |
Chinese language selector is ZH, not CN btw. (One may think zh-CN though.) |
Thanks for your feedback. I have put some more thought into this. My conclusion is that I have put too much weight on newcomers’ confusion/rejection of “content warning” and “content notice”. My idea was to provide a compromise: If you think a “warning” about food feels too extreme, and a “notice” is still close to a “warning”, let’s avoid these terms altogether; we simply want you to tell us what the toot is about, even if you don’t think it might be problematic/dangerous/triggering. But I guess “content notice” already is the compromise. It doesn’t directly imply that something might be super unsettling (as a “warning” could), but it still acknowledges that it can be an issue for some people, something they should be given “advance notice” of. I retract my suggestion of renaming it to “subject” and support Leah’s proposal for “content notice”. |
This discussion has become heated. I don't agree with the statements that some of the conversation just "derailed" what would actually be a "simple" change. I also don't think that much of what's going on here is just "bikeshedding". I think at least a good part of the controversy stems from the fact that Mastodon combines two separate properties of the underlying ActivityPub spec into a single feature:
Apparently, as soon as Mastodon's "CW field" is filled by the user, it is assumed that the resulting post needs to be marked as sensitive as well. This means that there's currently no way in Mastodon to use the summary field as intended by ActivityPub, to just neutrally summarize the content of a longer post, without also marking it as sensitive. If we now go and change the "CW field" into something that is more akin to a simple summary, without also allowing resulting posts to not be marked as sensitive, this feels like Embrace&Extend of the originally two separate features of ActivityPub. As such, this suggestion really isn't that simple and uncontroversial and shouldn't be treated as such. If Mastodon wants to comply with ActivityPub specs, there seem to be only two ways:
|
Pleas stop to making a social problem to a technical one and stop derailing it to "but the protocoll!1!!11". That never helps. |
Just as choosing to completely ignore the technical aspects of this doesn't... |
From where I’m standing, it really is a simple request: Rename the field in the UI. Yes, Mastodon is bending, maybe even outright abusing the Yes, being able to use a summary without automatically marking the post as sensitive would be nice. But. I agree with you that all of that is A Whole Can of Worms™, and way more complex to solve than simply renaming something in the UI. Which is why we’re imploring you to discuss these things in different issues, and to keep this issue on topic. I agree that we’re not gonna solve everything related to CWs in one step. That’s why we’re not attempting such a thing in the first place. This issue is about iterative improvement. About solving a current, ongoing issue, namely (mainly) new users being confused about the established praxis of using CWs liberally, because to them the word “warning” comes across as too strong. This is what this issue is about, and this is what should be discussed in here. Which doesn’t mean that the other problems aren’t worth discussing! On the contrary. All of that is stuff that should be improved. But let’s please first do a step in the right direction, and tackle the more complicated things in the next one. |
Everything is simple if we just remove enough context. Using your wording, I believe that this suggestion is not an "iterative improvement" exactly because there are related "complicated things" that would actually be made worse by the change as suggested. |
The technical aspect @bocops brings up seems relevant to me, since Mastodon largely follows the ActivityPub protocol...(recap-"Mastodon combines two separate properties of the underlying ActivityPub spec into a single feature: summary and sensitive). I think there are really 3 options:
Just to make discussion progress, can people react to this with 👎if they prefer 1,👍 if they prefer 2, and 🚀 if they prefer 3? I prefer 2, as it would not actually change anything about user experience on Mastodon (prior to people adjusting their usage of CW) - only the "Always expand posts marked with content warnings" option is relevant (I think?), and since it already is always expand it makes sense for it to just become "Always expand posts with content notices/labels". Mastodon already has a "Mark media as sensitive" checkmark, so it feels like that should be created for posts as well as a separate task, and it'd be clearly be good to de-couple the subject and sensitive properties. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good! |
With regards to the name itself, we've just been using the term Content Wrapper. |
scy wrote
It seems to me a very simple change here would be to simply change the CW button to something like CW+. The issue is that CW on its own is used elsewhere specifically to indicate a serious trigger warning, which can lead new users to think it shouldn't be used for anything else. Admittedly I'm just a new user doing my best to follow the norms of the community I've joined, but I'm using CWs to warn people
together with a wording which explains why the CW is there. Those uses are all warnings, and seem to be standard practice on my server. They also go beyond the range of what someone unfamiliar with Mastodon would expect to merit a CW. Adding the "+" would alert users to this difference, but wouldn't imply that it's no longer for content warnings, and wouldn't imply anything about what "extra" areas it covers. It also has the advantage that CW is familiar from elsewhere and so is the idea of using "+" to extend things, so the meaning ought to be pretty intuitive for most users. Any controversy about when and how CWs should be used is then a separate issue from how it appears in the interface, and likely to be resolved differently on different instances. |
Does someone have a link to a patch file where I can implement this for our server? I'd like to have this 4 years earlier than the resolution of this "discussion" |
I think the top version is ideal, and that you've got it the right way round: the thick bar is the part people initially see. My only change would be to make it a touch narrower. I find the bottom one confusing. Maybe it should have extra lines replacing the thick bar, rather than simply blank space? (Edit: fixed a typo.) |
I like @RianQuenlin 's suggestion! 'CW' is honestly confusing for a new user who hasn't read up on what it means, whereas the UI version makes more sense. Per @timtfj I feel like instead of a set of lines on the bottom it could just be a square or something, and instead of having the icon change it could just be a toggle like the current CW button (it changes color on click0. |
@andreykurenkov I'm with you on the colour change. There can then be just one, self-explanatory symbol, rather than two different ones, and it takes away any potential confusion over whether the button represents the setting you've already got or the one you want to switch to. |
Also, worth pointing out that in my little poll "Just do what this issue asked for and deal with the sensitive property (and any other related aspects) later in separate issues" beat "Deal with renaming and marking posts sensitive (and any other related aspects)" 9 to 7. So i'd love it the discussion could just converge to renaming content warning to something like content notice, and for the UI to be updated per @RianQuenlin's design (it's much better than CW anyway). |
Excuse my ignorance if this is no the right issue. I've been implementing ActivityPub support in a project, and Mastodon being the, well Mastodon in the room, of course I want it to be a first class citizen. The Example flow:
|
@NuSkooler which part is confusing to other systems? that something is marked "sensitive" should have no connection to the summary text. it is perfectly fine for your posts to have a |
@trwnh The fact that a message is marked Please refer to the example flow in my original statement for just one of the real world scenarios. If Mastodon were to separate the two concepts (which I think is pointed out a number of times in this thread) I believe it would be a non-issue. https://www.w3.org/wiki/Activity_Streams_extensions
|
@NuSkooler i still fail to see how this is a problem for non-Mastodon systems. Mastodon transforms incoming activities into statuses according to its own concepts. where's the "grief" in mastodon replies being marked as sensitive? your "example flow" is perfectly fine and shouldn't cause you any issues for your project. |
@trwnh I'm not sure what's being missed here. You have a Note that's not marked sensitive, and replies are automatically marked as |
@NuSkooler How is it confusing? The only thing I can see is if you assume intentions or semantics that are not there. |
How is this not confusing? |
@NuSkooler @trwnh Would you please open a new issue about the connection of using a content warning and getting media automatically marked as sensitive? This issue here is about the purpose/application of Content Warning and how the name Content Notice may better reflect its use. Thank you! |
Pitch
I would suggest to rename content warning to content notice in the mastodon frontend. This would make it more clearly what it is actually used for by many people without changing the meaning to much.
Motivation
After the massive influx of new people to the fediverse there is an enormous discussion, especially in the German speaking parts of the fedi. Many problems occur because of differences in the interpretation of what a warning exactly is and there is a lot of discussion summarized as "It is wrong if you use this feature for something that is not clearly a warning" and "I don't knot what is worth a warning". This is also understandable as warning is a strong word and a bit judgemental. For this reason I would like to rename this feature to content notice (CN) which is a more neutral wording that can be used to inform others about the content of a post if they open it. It can still be used like a content warning but it is more clear for everyone that the main aim is to inform the reader about the following content.
The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered: