Slashdot Mirror
The NSFW HTML Attribute
phaln writes "Over at The Frosty Mug Revolution, PJ Doland makes a compelling case for a new HTML attribute in the spirit of the highly-regarded 'nofollow' attribute promoted by Google — the NSFW attribute (rel='nsfw'). His original idea has been refined and expanded by positive comments from readers, resulting in a semantic solution to the issue he raises in the original post. From the article: 'Content creators can apply the attribute to paragraph tags, div tags, or any other block-level element. Doing so will indicate that the enclosed content is not safe for work. Visitors will be able to configure their browsers to block display of just the content enclosed by the flagged block-level element. This isn't about censorship. It is about making us all less likely to accidentally click on a goatse.cx link when our boss is standing behind us. It is also about making us feel more comfortable posting possibly objectionable content by giving visitors a means of easily filtering that content.'"
It sounds like a good idea to me, like the spolier tags you get on forums and stuff.
Do you reallt think the goatse trolls will bother using these tags if they're going to decrease their chances of getting people to follow the links?
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The guys at goatse.cx will be the ones willingly NOT including the NTSF tag in their design, because they want you to see the goatse when in front of your boss.
In order for this to work, it should be included in third party descriptions of the site. And then, you can rely on standard content filters for that.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
I see two problems with this right of the bat.
First, what's "not safe for work" varies from place to place. Not only from country to country (there are government sponsored pro-breast feeding billboards all over the place where I am that I'm sure would be considered "not safe for work" back home) but from employer to employer as well. Two jobs back (in the states) people would occasionally have risque material showing on their monitors and nothing much was said, while one co-worker got a serious dressing-down for shopping on-line for a competitors product.
And probably more importantly, in many cases no one is looking over your shoulder but IT is still logging your web traffic (e.g. at the proxy). And it often isn't just (or even mostly) boobies they're worried about. I've seen more flags raised over warz, drug-related material (don't search for "how to beat drug tests" from your desk), stock trading concerns, cracking tools, and so forth.
It's a cute idea, but I don't think it's going to go too far.
--MarkusQ
The "NSFW" thing has always been a courtesy on the part of the poster, and in those cases it works because you can read the warning about the link before clicking.
Do we really want to just start trusting links and clicking whatever because the invisible tags will surely protect us from doing something we shouldn't at work?
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Remember back when there were no ratings for video games? The pro-ratings argument said that going to a voluntary system would prevent mandatory censorship by the government, that it would just make it easier for the customer to choose appropriate titles, nothing more.
Well, it hasn't worked out quite like they said it would, has it? Illinois did pass a law anyway, fortunately it was shot down by the courts - but guys like Jack Thompson are still out there just looking to befriend any politician that needs a little censor-happy rabble-rousing to get himself re-elected.
Meanwhile Wal-mart now refuses to carry any games with too extreme of a rating, effectively brow-beating the game authors into self-censorship if they want to have any hope of enough sales to recoup their investment.
It isn't too hard to see something like this proposed standard turning into the online equivalent of that sort of thing -- unless your website is certified by an ESRB-like agency as 'properly' using this NSFW flag, you'll be black-listed by all the big net-nanny commercial filters - thus putting yet another unnecessary burden on a website's author to comply or be left out of the corporately accessible world.
Under such a regime, most discussion sites would end up filtered because it would be impossible to enforce an NSFW tagging requirement. If you value being able to read slashdot at work, you don't want to support this proposal.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
For crying out loud people, stop modding everyone up who says, "But mean people won't use the tag and you'll be fooled! It's a failure!" It isn't *meant* for malicious or even apathetic posters, it's mean for the people who today voluntarily tell you that a link they're posting is NSFW out of common courtesy.
The people who post links so that you'll get embarrassed or even in trouble at work don't even enter into it, they have absolutely nothing at all to do with why this idea is proposed.
That being said I still think it's a niche idea with positive intentions that would never get widespread adoption, I don't think every potential problem should be solved with technology, some things still need human interpretation.
Why not use PICS/ICRA stuff? It's already built into internet explorer and proxy products. Now, PICS is meta data on the page level, but wouldn't a page with several blocks missing just be confusing? If you need block level meta data, perhaps you should just include RDF tags, with the proper namespace, in your XHTML. Whichever route you choose, you still need browser makers to go along with it.
While, that's pretty funny, you do have a point. The NSFW tag is not precise or measureable. If something like this is going to work it has to be discrete and objective. NSFW has got a value assessment with it.
A NP (Nude Photos) or PF (Profanity) tag would be functional. Neither of those tags propose any sort of value judgement but when used properly could perfectly describe the content.
Even a MOSA (May Offend Some Audiences) tag would be more useful than NSFW. And given the tags describe the content, it can be used in search engines for people who are interested in that material.
But, I'd go a step further and say, why have this tag on html elements at all? You could just as easily include it in the meta data descriptors and be done with it. All that has to be done then is to set a standard. Hell, if google decided tomorrow that it would single out all "MOSA" sites with a gold star, middle finger icon or whatever that would be incentive enough to get people interested in following the standard.
Star Pirates
This isn't an attribute (REL is the attribute); it's an attribute value. REL is already declared as CDATA, meaning it can have any value you want, so what Mr Doland is really looking for is browser recognition of the string NSFW, not any change to HTML.
I wish him good luck: this seems like a sensible solution. A pity that the proposal has been approached in such a manner.
///Peter
Because 99% of the time, there's a perfectly good attribute that already exists for the purpose. In this case, it's class. No extension to HTML is necessary.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Hello slippery slope, pleased to meetcha.
Please submit a single example of a government mandated HTML tag. HTML is always opt in/opt out. You think the porn sites are going to jump on the NSFW tag?
Nice troll though. Looks like you snagged a few moderators.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Exactly what part of the United States government being run by religious fundamentalists do you not understand?
According to MPAA v. 2600, the government mandates using the <a> tag along with the href attribute and a link to a website with the DeCSS code subjects you to civil liability. Not exactly opt in.
Porn sites are not going to use the proposed tag, exactly as your question suggests. And that is why the government will try to mandate it. You call it a slippery slope. I call it a likely outcome.
Nice troll though. Looks like you snagged a few moderators.
Not trollish by any means. I wish there were a Godwin for comments like yours. Since only one moderation occurred at the time of your post, I assume you are just trying to fill in space with this?
What's safe for work varies across the world.
I'm guessing that NSFW in my San Francisco office is different from NSFW in rural Alabama, or Germany, or Saudi Arabia, or China...
The germ of a good idea, but completely unworkable.