Mature Content Filter Revisions

As many of you know, the Mature Content filter was changed pretty drastically to an 18 and older system. This was necessitated by abuse of the system and was put in place as a stop gap measure while we gathered in depth opinion from the community as to what they desired to see in place, and from the artists who post such work.
If you would like to see the course of those events please check out my last several journals as they document this as well as other policy related discussions.

That said, we have made some pretty significant changes to the filtering system to allow for the most flexibility to everyone involved, from viewer to artist. One of the biggest issues we faced was people simply not marking their work if it was mature content or not, and this was mainly due to that option being buried at the bottom of the submission process. To balance that we have now made checking yes or no to Mature Content mandatory to complete your submission. This will greatly reduce the number of unflagged images, and not add too much extra time to the submission process itself.

Flagging Levels

There will now be two levels of flagging available. A strict Mature Content flag, and a Warning content.

Marking an image with the strict warning will make the image non viewable to anyone under the age of 18.

The warning flag is essentially the previous system, which will let a user know that there is Mature Content, but they can make their own judgment call as to whether they are mature enough to view it.

In addition, you will now also be able to add information as to what the image itself contains, so viewers can have an idea of whether or not it is something they wish to see. No longer will the Mature Content thumbnail simply be a door of surprise and mystery!

You will be able to choose from the following options and a brief explanation of them.

Nudity-Fairly self explanatory. If your image, be it a drawing or a photo or anything in between, contains nudity, penis, testicle, vagina, breast, nipples, or buttocks.

Sexual Themes-References to sex or overt sexuality, including sexual based humor. This does not mean you may submit sexually explicit or pornographic images.

Violence/Gore-This refers to overtly bloody or violent images, generally associated with the horror and macabre genres, but could also pertain to photojournalism or written work. This should mainly be applied toward depictions of violence or gore etc, that are portrayed in a "realistic" manner as opposed to the zany cartoon violence of something like Bugs Bunny.

Strong Language-Profanity, vulgarity, and otherwise coarse or offensive language.

Ideologically Sensitive-This is a new term to enter into the lexicon of terminology applied toward deviations and refers to imagery that may be construed as offensive toward a person or group of peoples religious, social, political ort otherwise ideological beliefs. This does not apply as a means in which to justify hate art. That is a subject we will cover later on. What this should be used for is a warning that you as an artist have created something which very well may piss some people off, as we artists are prone to doing. This will allow you to let people know that they should view it at their own risk.

Contains Unicorns

This option is entirely fictitious and is only here to see if you are still reading this far.

Any of these indicators that you choose will be displayed on the Mature Content thumbnail, and are all entirely option. You can simply choose to mark your work as Mature, and use none of them, or as many as apply. But it is in your and the communities best interest to let people know what they may be viewing.

Retroactive Changes

Currently any image that is flagged as Mature Content will simply go back to the older method of filtering, aka the warning method. So if you wish to do so, simply go into and edit your deviations to what you wish them t be displayed and, and what level of flagging you want. This also means that those of you who are under 18 who had flagged your own images as Mature will now be able to get back into them. I apologize for that inconvenience.

Community Challenge

First off, I have to thank those of you who provided invaluable insight and opinion on the reshaping of this system to get it to be something that almost everyone in the community and the administration can agree on being a fair and well rounded system that squarely avoids having to actually censor or restrict anybody. Your involvement has been nothing short of amazing.

And now that we have a new and improved flagging system, one way you as a community can help yet again is to help us whittle away at all the things that need to be flagged that haven't been. You can do this by turning ON your Mature Content filter in your settings, and then simply browse through the newest submission, your favorite categories, or wherever you would normally browse, and if you see something that is not filtered and you feel should be, then report the image. We will be taking some extra time to get on top of the backlog in the report desk this coming week as well, so go out there and give us a hand, and chances are you will also find some brand new art and artists to be amazed by!

Stay tuned later this month for more info on overall policy changes!