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silwritersguildAbout two years ago, we decided that we were no longer comfortable having het and slash on the warnings list on the archive. We discussed it as a group, and the membership of SWG chose to replace the current het and slash warnings with a separate text field for pairing information. This required us to alter our archive software behind the scenes, and we clearly have not been successful so far, considering that the pairing field has not manifested and the outdated het and slash warning labels persist.
We have not given up on the pairing field and will continue to work on it. However, we continue to believe that het and slash have no place on the warnings list, and so we'll be making changes to the warnings list in order to remove these labels. This will change somewhat how stories containing same-sex and opposite-sex pairings will work on the archive.
Currently, as described in our ratings guidelines, stories rated Teen or Adult require warnings to clarify why the author has rated them as such. It has always been our strong belief that readers on our archive should be able to make informed choices about the content they choose to read. Because of this, authors have often felt pressured to put a "het" or "slash" warning label on a story, even if they didn't consider their story as such, because it contained same- or opposite-sex pairings, even if they weren't central to the story.
However, it is also our strong belief that a character's sexuality is not something that deserves a warning. Given this, we've moved het and slash from the warnings field to the genre field. Therefore, authors are no longer required to label a story as het or slash. If you feel that your story fits one of these genres, and you'd like readers to be able to find your story listed under that particular genre, you are welcome to select Het or Slash/Femslash from the genre menu. If your story contains same- or opposite-sex pairings, but you feel your story fits best as General, Drama, or any of the many genres we have listed, you can choose those instead. Please remember that you can select as many genres as you want for your story (hold down the CTRL key to select more than one item from the list), so you are not limited to choosing between one or the other. The genres you select are up to your discretion only.
The Het and Slash/Femslash genre labels are now available on the archive. If you have stories with the het and slash warnings on them, you are welcome to change your own stories to remove the warnings or add the genres, if you would like. If you'd like particular changes made to your stories containing het and slash warning labels but don't have time or desire to do it for yourself at this time, please do feel free to contact us, and we will make the changes for you. Over the next few weeks, the other mods and I will be removing het and slash warning labels from all stories and adding the genres instead. Once all stories are moved to the new system, we will delete the het and slash warnings. We will individually contact any authors whose stories we edit so that they have the option of removing the genre labels, if they wish, or providing more detailed instructions to us about how they'd like their stories to be listed in the archive.
As always, if you have any questions, please comment here or email us at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org.
We have not given up on the pairing field and will continue to work on it. However, we continue to believe that het and slash have no place on the warnings list, and so we'll be making changes to the warnings list in order to remove these labels. This will change somewhat how stories containing same-sex and opposite-sex pairings will work on the archive.
Currently, as described in our ratings guidelines, stories rated Teen or Adult require warnings to clarify why the author has rated them as such. It has always been our strong belief that readers on our archive should be able to make informed choices about the content they choose to read. Because of this, authors have often felt pressured to put a "het" or "slash" warning label on a story, even if they didn't consider their story as such, because it contained same- or opposite-sex pairings, even if they weren't central to the story.
However, it is also our strong belief that a character's sexuality is not something that deserves a warning. Given this, we've moved het and slash from the warnings field to the genre field. Therefore, authors are no longer required to label a story as het or slash. If you feel that your story fits one of these genres, and you'd like readers to be able to find your story listed under that particular genre, you are welcome to select Het or Slash/Femslash from the genre menu. If your story contains same- or opposite-sex pairings, but you feel your story fits best as General, Drama, or any of the many genres we have listed, you can choose those instead. Please remember that you can select as many genres as you want for your story (hold down the CTRL key to select more than one item from the list), so you are not limited to choosing between one or the other. The genres you select are up to your discretion only.
The Het and Slash/Femslash genre labels are now available on the archive. If you have stories with the het and slash warnings on them, you are welcome to change your own stories to remove the warnings or add the genres, if you would like. If you'd like particular changes made to your stories containing het and slash warning labels but don't have time or desire to do it for yourself at this time, please do feel free to contact us, and we will make the changes for you. Over the next few weeks, the other mods and I will be removing het and slash warning labels from all stories and adding the genres instead. Once all stories are moved to the new system, we will delete the het and slash warnings. We will individually contact any authors whose stories we edit so that they have the option of removing the genre labels, if they wish, or providing more detailed instructions to us about how they'd like their stories to be listed in the archive.
As always, if you have any questions, please comment here or email us at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org.
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no subject
Date: 2010-11-05 05:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-05 06:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-07 02:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-16 01:59 am (UTC)It's a given for me to avoid sites with a "no slash" policy, but another thing that irks me is the use of slash "warnings" or "alerts." I can understand wanting, as you say, to indicate there is a same-sex relationship present for people who want to find stories, but seeing it couched as a warning has always made me feel a little sick.
Anyway, I'm glad to see these kinds of changes being discussed and put in place, even at a site I didn't realize had ever used warning labels in the first place.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-16 02:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-16 01:52 pm (UTC)Putting up the het and slash warnings was one of the many decisions we made when opening the archive that, upon later reconsideration, didn't really communicate what we wanted it to. We wanted people to be able to find and avoid stories with content they liked/didn't like; we didn't want anyone to be able to have an excuse to snark at authors for the "indignity" of having read a chapter only to discover it belonged to a "slash" story. (Or a het story, since there are rabid anti-het readers too.) I'm just sorry it took us as long as it did to get around to carrying out our intentions.
I'm with you on the "no slash" archives. While I recognize the right of archive owners to allow whatever they want, I also recognize my right to avoid sites that treat the relationships of dear friends and family as aberrations unworthy of exploring in literature.