After some discussion, I have decided there is a worthy compromise that can us what we need without putting too much work on the site admins. Instead of separating the tags, Knighty can instead implement a [Clop] tag, and either change "Show Mature" to "Show Clop," or add a "Show Clop" button.
Authors! Readers! All those who enjoy fiction that should be rightfully rated M for mature.
We have a problem.
The problem is that mature stories of all types are being bundled together! Stories which are mature sexually cannot be differentiated from those that are mature otherwise without first reading them. This is a problem.
Dark writers don't want their mature stories, which often feature explicit descriptions of gore and wounds, to be mistaken for clop just because there's a small amount of sexual themes in them. If your story has mature gore and teen sex, then there's no way to show that to the readers at a glance. Worse still, many readers turn off "Show Mature" because they want to avoid clop, but this also blocks them from seeing other mature stories, usually those with darker tones and more serious themes that don't contain the content they're trying to avoid. This is fiercely annoying.
Clop writers, though I can't speak for them, probably don't appreciate this either. What if your clop has a little bit of blood in it or something and deserves a teen gore tag? There's no way to explain that it's not mature gore, so your innocent clop is mistaken for a much darker rape or gorefic.
It's hard enough for writers of these genres as it is, with their work forced to carry the extra weight of the common expectation of the mature tag. Mature gore and mature sex both have their own stereotypes, but the current system forces all writers to contend with the common opinion of both kinds together.
There's an easy fix to this mess. A simple one.
Allow stories to have separate maturity tags for sex and gore, and turn "Show Mature" into "Show Mature Gore" and "Show Mature Sex." This will solve all of our problems.
Join this group to show your support for the cause. Maybe one day, the change we want will come. Until then, use the folders above to identify where your story really belongs.
Doesn't Derpibooru have tags for Safe, Mature, and Explicit?
I'm happy this exists
Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaai! Dis group is awesooooooooome.
It seems like Knighty has a wierd agenda. I dont know what he's currently working on, either because I am le stoopiid, or I just dont see his posts.
Could we also have a separate "Hide Gore" button, for those of us who don't mind clop in their fics but avoid darkfics like the plague?
Clop option would be nice. It would be nice if people browsing my favorites list would see only things they were interested in.
As it stands if they are brave enough to have mature checked, then they will see mature content. Even if they don't like clop.
347206 A source for what? A new tagging system, or tags that are more specific for stories?
I've had it confirmed to me that there's a new tagging system in the works. I have a meta story that was removed for being, well, meta, however after that recent poll about meta stories, one of the submission mods confirmed that such stories would be allowed as soon as the new tag system was implemented.
Sorry if I got your hopes up, but I've heard absolutely nothing about whether this updated tagging system might better differentiate between clopfics and stories that mention sex in passing. I've actually heard nothing about this tagging system other than that it's in the works, it's more specific than the one we use now, and that one admission mod said meta stories will be allowed as soon as it's implemented.
347205
Do you happen to have a source on-hand? I swear that I've heard this too, but when I dived back through old Knighty posts, I couldn't find explicit mention of it.
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The proposed system sounds pretty simple to me, and would cover the most glaring issue. I personally wouldn't mind having more granularity though, akin to derpibooru. Those style of tags would theoretically let me search for (or hide!) a particular -verse, or a particular weird fetish, or stories that actually ship Pony X with Pony Y (as opposed to a Romance story involving Ponies W X Y and Z and hoping maybe this is relevant).
EDIT: Another suggestion I've seen floated around is adding an additional tier. Using US movie ratings as an analogy, Everyone is G/PG, Teen is PG-13, Mature gets repurposed as R, and a new Extreme rating is your NC-17 analogue. Clopfics go in Extreme (NC-17), whereas you can still have sex/gore themes in Teen/Mature (PG-13/R) which are acceptable to some audiences without being straight-up porn.
347198 Well, FiMfic already has a new tagging system in the works. I suppose a clarification between the physical act and just the mere mention of it would be included.
347195
How bout a clop tag for a change.
And then Slight Suggestive tag
I'm all for the distinction. My story doesn't have any sex, but does involve a bit of lewd humor. Unfortunately, my options are to use "Mature - Sex", and piss off a bunch of cloppers when there is no clop, or leave off the Sex tag and piss off readers who might not very well enjoy the sexualization of ponies.
How about a tag for, "This Fic Contains Adult Themes, Including Sex, Because It Assumes The Readers Are Mature Adults Who Can Handle Mature Themes Like Violence And Sexual References, Without There Necessarily Being Either Violence or Sex".
I, personally, just settled for rating the fic 'mature' and ignoring the sex/gore tags.
347184 Oh, I mean in the new millennium without the separate tagging features...I still say there needs to be a clop tag, as well.
347175
There is, I think. Try just not clicking the [sex] and [gore] tags while having [mature] on.
Yes I would actually like to be able to block out the clop WITHOUT missing out on other good stories for once.
You know. there should be a regular mature tag for those stories without sex or gore in the story, but still contains mature themes!
Gods damn it! Two of my best known fics are both gore and sex, fail
I honestly was not expecting this much support so soon.
If we can get a few more people to join soon guys, we'll get on the trending list! Fight the good fight, fellow activists!
This. I approve and support this.
I want my Red Lantern Big Mac!
It's under gore mature.
Yeah! Fight the power!