Trigger warnings

[Teasday]

Bleeding seems way too common to even need consideration. We'll still want the tags to be representative of the title, even if we decided to lower the bar for Content tags in particular (which we haven't even talked about). I find it hard to believe anyone who's particularly averse to bleeding wouldn't already have a good idea what kind of manga they need to avoid, nor does it sound like something you'd need to specifically look for.

Self harm doesn't sound unreasonable. It can encompass a variety of self-destructive behaviours including suicide, and as a spoiler it feels like it's either obvious from the title description or first chapter, or it's vague enough that there's no real way to tell how or when it'll come up. Mental illness would cover that and more and be even less spoilery, but I'm wondering if it starts straying too far from being useful. Maybe not.

Torture I'm not a big fan of, both because as AbyssalMonkey said it's usually a subset of physical abuse, and because it doesn't feel like it would be particularly useful anyway. Several JoJo parts technically have what's undeniably torture (and arguably even gore to a small extent), but even when it turned into a seinen series from shounen, it's essentially a battle manga that I probably wouldn't tag as having physical abuse. The same is probably true even for series like Dragon Ball.

I feel like Physical abuse covers subjects like domestic or otherwise particularly disturbingly depicted violence/torture.

 

[DANDAN_THE_DANDAN]

@Vofuro @Teasday Yeah I guess you're right.

Not really sold on the "mental illness > self-harm/bleeding" thing tho. Might be just me personally but stuffs basically relating to self harm are the things I avoid reading/watching in public and only those. I feel no problem reading a manga with schizophrenic/autistic characters outside so that's why I feel like mental illness is too wide to the point that it fails to accomplish the main purpose: warn the reader of depression topics.

But then again now that I recall most mangas make it obvious that they're gonna touch on depression from the title and others so maybe we don't need this tag specifically.

Also yeah bleeding, as if from physical violence, is probably way too common that it's kinda useless you're right.

 

[MadeOfMagicAndWires]

@Yautja

I also sent you a PM regarding my issues with the scope and methodology of the studies since I do not want to further go into that here but to go into the relevant parts:

Ironically, I'd say that people taking this thread to mean more tags are the ones off topic considering the actual nature of what a trigger warning is.
...
It's almost like a trigger warning is not the same thing as a content / genre tag.

The original suggestion of a separate trigger warning system was quickly rejected, and so the discussion evolved into expanding the Content tags (as this already fulfilled the desired purpose).
So that's what's currently up for debate: should we expand the content tags, and if so, with what, and how should we name them (This is also why I've used content warning rather than the specific term trigger warning.
(@Vofuro, if possible you might want to change the thread's title and/or OP post to reflect that for any newcomers.)

"Physical Violence", an incredibly vague term if I've ever seen one. At least the other guy mentioned "extreme". What qualifies? Attack on Titan? BnHA? How bout Nagatoro? All have violence of some sort. This is why a lot of people are against such generic "trigger warning-esque" descriptors. Someone even complained about gore being misused.

Like with all tags here, any tag suggested here would first be up for staff review, and then what gets tagged with what would simply be up to community consensus. So far, this has worked fine with "shounen ai/BL", "ecchi/smut", etc. so generally, I don't think we'd have to worry about tags being overused.
That said, even if said tags were to become very prevalent I think the positive effects (as in, when used by anyone interested, not specifically related to trauma) of them would vastly exceed any negative effects. Probably over half of the content here is tagged with "Ecchi", but t I've yet to hear anyone complain about its misuse, even when the tag is only tangentially related to its content. This signals to me that people who have no specific use for a tag for in- or exclusion are not really affected by it being used.

Although as far as I'm concerned this is more a discussion about whether to augment the current Content tags rather than one about how potential new tags should be used but my initial description of this tag was "concerning excessive abuse/violence that would not necessarily fall under gore" (which would also fix misuse of the gore tag where it is not applicable) so personally I would not tag any of the examples you mentioned above.
Additionally, all tag names are obviously a WIP and I do agree that the mentioned alternatives of "Excessive Violence" or "Physical Abuse" describe their use and content more clearly.

---

Out of any of the mental disorder related tags discussed here I definitely think "Self harm" would be the most useful. "Mental disorder" is indeed too broad to be useful as anything but a theme, especially where "Psychological" would suffice; which in turn is too often used to mean "Cerebral" rather than anything actually related to Psychology to be useful as a warning.

 

[Vofuro]

@Teasday

I'm tempted to suggest in another thread that function that before you submit your post, you get a message from the system when another person replied before you and if you want to see what they said - because I always seem to post very closely before or after you xD (I'm sort of scared though after this thread, to suggest anything for a while...)

So, just wanted to repeat the suggestion list of the tags we've overall agreed make sense, just so people can see them and discuss them and don't have to go back 2+ pages:
- Psychological Abuse
- Mental Illnesses (possibly)
- Physical Abuse (as an umbrella term instead of Torture)
- Child abuse
- Substance abuse

Also, I just want to point out that it might be better for something to be more general than for it to spoiler things. If someone does want to know more about what the tag entails for a specific manga, they can ask the community. Most people here are actually nice and helpful, so it shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Vofuro]

@MadeOfMagicAndWires
Now that you mention it - wouldn't be a bad idea. (I hope I can change the title...). Will do, thanks for the suggestion!

Edit: Can't change the title, sorry :/ Post itself was updated, though

 

[Yautja]

@MadeOfMagicAndWires
Then this thread should have been locked or recreated since the idea was rejected. As I agree, this has morphed into an entirely new suggestion and all the previous and entirely now unrelated baggage completely muddies the new request.

Shounen Ai / BL and Ecchi / Smut are obvious, one has sex, the other does not.

The problem is distinction, something that is extremely difficult on it's own, and entirely lost within trigger warnings. And as for your other example, if that's true, a tag would be functionally useless if such a degree of content were classified with it. More so if it's inaccurate as you seem to imply.

 

[Vofuro]

I already wrote a list of rather final tags above. Unless someone has new additions and ideas, those are the additional themes I'd like to suggest, they seem to cover most sensitive areas.
How, whether and how many of them will be chosen for Mangadex is up to the devs to decide. Also whether they want to close this thread now, never, or give it another couple of days. This thread did seem to settle a little now.

I actually wonder whether this thread would have exploded as much if the wording had been "content warning"... eh. probably. Anyway, again, I want to thank the devs for properly discussing this topic with us, and keeping it mostly under wraps. You guys are awesome. (Sorry though for creating such a troublesome thread!)

 

[Teasday]

_{@Yautja posted:}

Then this thread should have been locked or recreated since the idea was rejected. As I agree, this has morphed into an entirely new suggestion and all the previous and entirely now unrelated baggage completely muddies the new request.

That did cross my mind but I figured it wouldn't be necessary

I might do it tomorrow when I'm less tired

 

[Yautja]

@Teasday

Spoiler

 

[Probably_wont_log_in_again]

Use mangaupdates if youre that sensitive. No one has the obligation to baby a stranger, but person in question can infantilize themselves to his-hers hearts content if they wish to, because tools for that already exist and are extremely easy to access. If you cant be bothered to spend the effort of following one additional link from series card, you probably deserve to be your inner abusers abusee.

There, solved.

Not that I have any stakes in the game, but if I did, I would have had been seriously skeptical about additional trigger tags ability to solve anything. Theres enough archived threads from last year of people crying and claiming they were "made" to read yaoi, because "synopses were vague" or "they didnt notice tags".

If youre stupid or lazy nothing will help, and making unjustified entitlement claims just makes you look dumber.

 

[BestBoy]

@Vofuro I mentioned pet death pretty early on as an example of the helpfulness of one-off Content Warnings, but that's off the table now so I don't know why people keep mentioning it. I don't think there are any manga that have pet death as a theme so I'm not really worried about including it as a Content Tag. I do think it's a bit gross to downplay the importance of pets in people's lives, though. You can find my comment on page two right before Zeph locked the post.

@Yautja I actually read all of it. It's really only like 24-25 pages long. I even looked up the authors to see their credentials. I pm'd you to keep this post from getting locked.

@DANDAN_THE_DANDAN Autism isn't a mental illness. So a mental illness tag would be fine outside of other problems not yet found.

 

[Yautja]

@BestBoy
This topic should be locked. The comment above yours shows that considering how off topic this post it. Anyways.

I'm not interested. I've had this argument 3 different times, and reading that message, and comparing it to your original message, you did indeed have no idea what you're talking about and completely misrepresented the study. Especially if that was enough for you to question the validity of the study. And it seems ironically you are the one who does not know what a trigger warning is. They're psychologists, I'm pretty sure they know what the term, rooted and originating in psychology, means. The other two studies listed define it and it's usage the same way. And if you had been reading my comments up until know, you'd know why.

I'm tired of people on the internet going "I don't believe this study from a well reputed source that has largely gone uncriticized for over a year since its publishing, not even by people on opposing ideological straights or people who would have something to gain in proving it wrong or by news sites that either cover such studies or news sites that oppose the somewhat social and political nature of the topic." and acting as if that and not linking any sort of counter argument by other reputable sources is at all an acceptable or equal response. I've cumulatively listed a dozen different articles and studies now from all multiple different websites of multiple different leanings, and I'm at the point where I'm going to start telling people to fuck off because I'm tired of repeating myself. Especially to people who are being dishonest.

 

[BestBoy]

@Yautja TWs originated in the feminist blogosphere, not psychology, as a way to discuss difficult topics without subjecting fellow members to those discussions if they didn't want to be.

@Vofuro I think your list looks pretty good. Even if this post gets locked a new one can be made to discuss your idea in greater detail.

 

[Yautja]

@BestBoy
Thank you for proving my point, they're derived from PTSD and were popularized and adopted by PC culture, particularly feminist blog-spheres.
Here's another link for good measure

 

[Oeconomist]

@Yautja—

As the cited dictionary entry rather plainly states, the term “trigger warning” (which is not the same term as “trigger”) was not first found in the literature of PTSD, and was from its outset used in reference to a broader concept of upsetting things.

Please stop this terrible, tangential lawyering.

 

[Yautja]

@Oeconomist
I said: "They're psychologists, I'm pretty sure they know what the term, rooted and originating in psychology, means."

Trigger warnings arose out of the psychological concept of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder “triggers” - experiences or events that cause a trauma survivor to re-experience an incident, go into avoidance mode, or “numb out.” While the theory evolved in the wake of the Vietnam War, the use of “trigger warnings” is very much a result of the feminist Internet, and the atmosphere of the 21st-century political climate.

The idea of trigger warnings originates in the psychiatric literature on post-traumatic reactions, where triggering had the same connotations.

So yes, trigger warnings are a psychologically based term. Thanks for playing, try again.

How bout you stop spouting shit you have no intention of actually supporting, doubly so when you're wrong?

 

[Oeconomist]

@Yautja—

You're still trying to lawyer your way past the point that the term “trigger warning” is not taken from psychology, and in the context of that term “trigger” refers to a broad concept of upsetting things. The support for the claim is in the very dictionary entry that you cited.

 

[Yautja]

@Oeconomist
Jesus Christ. You are so impressively dense. At this point, you're either a troll, or trying to start a fight.

If you're going to make a claim. Source it. I have listed two links which explicitly state that Trigger Warning arose from PTSD. I'm not "lawyering" shit, I literally provided a definition and you claimed it said the exact opposite of what it does. The quotes that literally say the exact opposite of what you're claiming are right there. You may have less of an idea of what you're talking about than anyone I've ever met.

Trigger warnings arose out of the psychological concept of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder “triggers”—experiences or events that cause a trauma survivor to re-experience an incident, go into avoidance mode, or “numb out.” While the theory evolved in the wake of the Vietnam War, the use of “trigger warnings” is very much a result of the feminist Internet, and the atmosphere of the 21st-century political climate.
— Sarah Seltzer, Flavorwire, 27 May 2015

The idea of trigger warnings originates in the psychiatric literature on post-traumatic reactions, where triggering had the same connotations. The primary features of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) include so-called “re-experiencing symptoms”, like intrusive thoughts and flashbacks.
-NICK HASLAM, PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE

 

[Oeconomist]

@Yautja—

Elsewhere, you lectured Lioslin about the problem of insisting that a two-word term could be interpretted in terms of the original senses of each of the two words. Here; you ignore that same point. The fact that there is a line of descent from how psychological literature used “trigger” to how feminists came to use it doesn't mean that they were using in in the same sense; when a feminist introduced the term “trigger warning”, she was writing of “triggers” with a broader sense. As I earlier noted, the very entry that you cited makes that plain:

‘While the theory evolved in the wake of the Vietnam War, the use of “trigger warnings” is very much a result of the feminist Internet, and the atmosphere of the 21st-century political climate.’

Lawyering and fulminating that people are dishonest or dense or write shit or haven't provided citations, and declaring victory aren't going to change any of this.

 

[Yautja]

@Oeconomist
Wow, a stalker. And a fallacious one at that.

No, here I link the definition of the word and sources which detail the origin of the word. I do exactly what I said in that quote and you're doing exactly what the person I lectured was doing. That's literally the exact opposite of what I was arguing.

Me in my very next comment:

Yea, a compound of two words doesn't necessarily mean the exact same thing as the two original words.

Still waiting for you to magically make those quotes which literally say what the origin of trigger warnings are disappear or find something that contradicts them.

Here's what I've said.
1. Trigger warnings are a term rooted and originating in psychology.
2. Trigger warnings are derived from PTSD and were popularized and adopted by PC culture, particularly feminist blog-spheres.

And what do those quotes and links say? Exactly that.

Trigger warnings arose out of the psychological concept of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder “triggers”—experiences or events that cause a trauma survivor to re-experience an incident, go into avoidance mode, or “numb out.” While the theory evolved in the wake of the Vietnam War, the use of “trigger warnings” is very much a result of the feminist Internet, and the atmosphere of the 21st-century political climate.
— Sarah Seltzer, Flavorwire, 27 May 2015

Wow. Good job literally taking a quote right above you out of context. You are a hypocrite to the highest degree.

Trigger warnings and safe spaces aren’t a way to avoid disagreement or debate. The clinical version first appeared back in the the early 1900s when psychologists were working to classify “war neurosis,” or the trauma of serving in the military. That led to the more modern discovery of PTSD and what “triggers” those painful memories of war.

Trigger warnings as we know them today gained steam from blogging platforms that emerged with the digital age, Buzzfeed News reported. They were created as a way to protect users from harmful content that may contribute to pre-existing mental health issues (i.e. sharing photos about an eating disorder that might “trigger” or, worse, “inspire” someone who is currently dealing with anorexia). The debate over using warnings filtered into college classrooms in the past few years.
-Lindsay Holmes, HuffPost US