Posted by xeno

https://www.transformativeworks.org/tos-spotlight-ratings-warnings/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=265259

The Policy & Abuse committee (PAC) is responsible for enforcing the AO3 Terms of Service (TOS). To help users better understand the TOS, we’re posting a weekly spotlight series about the TOS and our policies. We’ll also be reading comments and answering questions on this and our other spotlight posts.

AO3 is a home for all fanworks and operates under the principle of maximum inclusiveness of fanwork content. We allow content of any rating, and all kinds of fictional topics, as long as the creator provides basic information about the intensity and type of content that may be present in a work.

PAC handles many different types of TOS violations, including incorrect ratings and Archive warnings. In this post, we’ll discuss the requirements for ratings and warnings as well as provide information on how to report works with incorrect ratings or warnings. We do our best to investigate every report, but incorrect ratings and warnings can take us a very long time to investigate if the report doesn’t contain enough information.

Don’t go looking for things to report.

Please do not start searching for works with incorrect ratings or warnings to report after reading this post. We know that these kinds of TOS violations are a problem on AO3. However, when people deliberately search for works to report, we end up getting a lot of duplicate tickets about works that have already been reported. Every ticket we receive is reviewed by a PAC volunteer, so we only need one report in order to investigate an issue. We know it seems like sites only respond to mass reports, but on AO3, duplicate and mass reports increase the time it takes our volunteers to investigate.

Ratings

All works on AO3 must have a rating. Creators can either select a specific rating (“General Audiences”, “Teen and Up”, “Mature”, or “Explicit”) or opt out of providing a specific rating by applying the non-specific rating “Not Rated”.

Our TOS divides ratings into two tiers: ratings that will trigger the Adult Content notification (“Mature”, “Explicit”, or “Not Rated”), and ratings that won’t (“General” or “Teen”). When you click on a work rated “Mature”, “Explicit”, or “Not Rated”, a banner will warn you that you’re about to access a work that may contain adult content. By selecting the “Yes, Continue” button on the banner, you are agreeing to access a work which may contain adult content. Registered users can disable this notification, which is enabled by default on new accounts.

Works rated “General” or “Teen” are not subject to this notification system. If a work rated “General” or “Teen” contains explicit content that you believe should trigger the Adult Content notification, you can report that work to PAC, and we will investigate whether that work needs to use one of the three higher ratings.

However, PAC doesn’t make any distinctions within these two tiers. This means that we won’t require a work rated “General Audiences” to be changed to “Teen and Up”, and we won’t require a work rated “Mature” or “Not Rated” to be changed to “Explicit”, or vice versa. We defer to the work’s creator(s) for those decisions: the only part we enforce is whether or not the work needs a rating that triggers the Adult Content notification.

Archive warnings

There are four specific Archive warnings: “Underage Sex”, “Rape/Non-Con”, “Graphic Depictions of Violence”, and “Major Character Death”. Any work on AO3 that contains content relating to one of the four specific Archive warnings must be tagged with either that warning or the non-specific “Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings” label.

Creators can always Choose Not To Warn.

The “Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings” (CNTW) label is a blanket warning. It means “Read at your own risk!” or “This work may contain any of the four specific Archive warnings.” If you don’t want to encounter content depicting underage sexual activity, rape/non-consensual sex, graphic violence, or major character death, then you should not click on works tagged with “Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings”.

When you post a work, you can use the CNTW label if you don’t want to apply a specific Archive warning. For example, if you don’t want to spoil a plot twist by adding a “Major Character Death” warning, you can instead apply “Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings” to your work. You can also apply a combination of CNTW and other Archive warnings. If your work contains rape and a major character death, and you want to warn for the former without spoiling the latter, you can label the work with both “Rape/Non-Con” and “Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings”.

If you don’t Choose Not To Warn, then you may need to add a specific warning.

As mentioned above, you can always opt out of applying Archive warnings by instead selecting “Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings”. If you do not select this label, then in the following circumstances, you must use one or more of the four specific Archive warnings:

The “Underage Sex” warning is required on works that depict or describe sexual activity involving characters under the age of eighteen (18). We don’t consider dating activities, like kissing, to be sexual content. Offscreen sexual content also doesn’t need a warning.

For characters that are underage in canon, we do not automatically assume (without evidence) that they are also underage in the fanwork. If there are no indications that a particular character is under 18, we will assume they are 18 or older. When evaluating works, we consider explicit statements of a character’s age as well as contextual clues (such as the work being clearly set in a time period where the character is underage). If you’re worried that a character in your fanwork may be misinterpreted as being younger than 18, you can always specify the character’s age in the tags, notes, or body of your work.

The “Rape/Non-Con” warning is required on works that depict onscreen rape or non-consensual sex. If the work only contains a reference to non-consensual sex, then we don’t require this warning to be applied. Additionally, there are circumstances that are not considered consensual in real life, but don’t necessarily require the “Rape/Non-Con” warning on AO3. For example, we don’t inherently require a “Rape/Non-Con” warning for adult/minor relationships (though we might require “Underage Sex” or CNTW). We also do not require a “Rape/Non-Con” warning for situations that are dubiously consensual, such as the Sex Pollen or Fuck or Die tropes. When in doubt, we defer to the creator’s judgement.

Similarly, the “Graphic Depictions of Violence” warning is only required if the work contains graphic violence that is explicitly shown “onscreen” in the work.

We require “Major Character Death” when the character is both a major presence in the fanwork and they’re dead by the end of the fanwork. We don’t take canon into consideration here – what we’re interested in is whether the character is a major presence in your fanwork. If you create a fanwork centered on a character that dies and stays dead in your work, that work should be warned for “Major Character Death” even if they only appear for one line in canon. If that same character dies before the start of your work, and dealing with the grief of their loss is a major part of the fanwork, “Major Character Death” is also required in this situation.

If your work features a character death and that character returns in a later chapter that is currently posted, then this warning is not required. However, if the character does not return to life until a sequel fanwork, the warning is still needed on the work in which they died. Archive Warnings apply to individual fanworks, not to series of works.

“No Archive Warnings Apply” may coexist with other warnings.

There is also a sixth label in this category: “No Archive Warnings Apply”. The best way to think of this Archive warning is as a placeholder. If “No Archive Warnings Apply” is the only Archive warning on a work, then it means that the work should not feature underage sex, rape/non-consensual sex, graphic violence, or major character death – or if it does contain such content, it is only a brief reference.

However, the “No Archive Warnings Apply” label can be present on a work that is also labeled with any or all of the other five Archive warnings. In that case, the other warning label always takes precedence. PAC never removes any Archive warnings already on a work. We only add the “Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings” label to the work if it’s missing a required warning.

For example, some users may apply a “Major Character Death” warning and a “No Archive Warnings Apply” warning in order to emphasize that while the work may contain Major Character Death, it doesn’t contain any of the other warnings. The presence of “No Archive Warnings Apply” does not negate the “Major Character Death” label on the work – a major character death may still occur in this work.

If both “No Archive Warnings Apply” and “Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings (CNTW)” are applied to the same work, then the CNTW warning is what takes precedence, and the work may contain content relating to any of the four specific Archive warnings. Some users may apply both the CNTW label and the “No Archive Warnings Apply” label for ambiguous situations, or to emphasize that while they don’t think the work contains something that needs a warning, it is open to interpretation. However, you should not assume anything about a creator’s intentions or the severity of content in the work – consider works warned with both CNTW and “No Archive Warnings Apply” the same way you’d consider works tagged with only CNTW or any/all of the specific Archive warnings.

We generally defer to the creator’s judgement.

For borderline cases, PAC will defer to the creator’s judgement. However, if we feel that a work depicts content clearly requiring one of the four specific Archive warnings, we’ll require the creator to either add the warning or opt out by applying the “Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings” label.

Can I use Additional tags instead of Archive warnings?

Sometimes users include warnings in the Additional tags of their work. If the content is merely a reference or offscreen, this is fine. However, for any content requiring an Archive warning, the label must also be added in the Archive warnings category. For example, while you are welcome to include an additional tag of “rape” on your work featuring a rape scene, you still need to apply the “Rape/Non-Con” Archive warning (or CNTW).

Why does AO3 have only four required Archive warnings?

AO3’s warning system is deliberately minimal. When AO3 was created, these four warnings were chosen as a balance between the most common types of content that users wanted a warning for, and what would be feasible for PAC (a small team comprised entirely of volunteers) to enforce in a consistent and fair manner. We know that there are many other kinds of content that you might not want to see, so we encourage you to check out the additional tags, summary, notes, and bookmarks of a work before opening it. However, PAC will not enforce the use of tags or warnings beyond what is required by the TOS.

It’s what’s in the work that counts.

When it comes to ratings and warnings, we evaluate what is in the body of the work. If an author says in their notes that they plan to include explicit sex eventually, but the only chapter posted is a fluffy introduction with no explicit content, then we will not require that the work be given one of the higher ratings. Similarly, if a work carries an additional tag of “X dies at the end” but nobody actually dies in the work, then we will not require a “Major Character Death” warning.

Because of this, please do not report works based on what is in their additional tags or summary. Many creators may have begun works and added additional tags or notes based on their plans for future updates, but plans change, and not all works in progress are completed. Please only report works to us when there is actual content in the work itself that necessitates a rating or warning change.

Ratings and warnings are not promises.

AO3’s warnings and ratings both mean “may contain”, not “must contain”. If you want to rate your fluffy, non-sexy slice-of-life as “Explicit”, you’re allowed to do that. A higher rating means that a work may contain explicit content, not that it must contain such content. Similarly, if you want to warn for “Major Character Death” even though nobody has died, you’re allowed; we don’t ever make someone remove a warning.

What will happen if I get reported for having an incorrect rating or missing warning on my work?

First, we’ll review your work to confirm whether or not your work’s rating and/or warnings are insufficient. If we determine that the rating or warnings need to be changed, we’ll send you an email notifying you to update your tags.

We’ll only ever contact you by email, and only after we’ve already reviewed your work and confirmed that the current rating and/or warnings are insufficient. We will never comment directly on your work or contact you through social media. Please make sure to keep your account’s email address up to date and check it regularly (including your spam folder), or else you may miss our email.

If you don’t update your tags, we’ll change them. For an incorrect rating, we’ll set the work to “Not Rated”. For a missing warning, we’ll add the “Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings” label to the work. We won’t remove any of the warnings that are already on the work.

We don’t ever delete works for having insufficient warnings or ratings. While we do require all works to have appropriate ratings and warnings (as specified in the TOS), it is very rare for us to apply any penalties to a user’s account for insufficient ratings or warnings. We would usually only penalize a user if they undo changes we made or required them to make. A user may also receive a penalty if they repeatedly mislabel their works even after being contacted about similar violations, or for the purposes of harassment.

What should I do if I encounter a work that has the wrong rating or a missing warning?

You can give the creator a heads up by politely commenting on their work and linking to the TOS FAQ or this post. Alternatively, you can report the work to us.

How do I report a work with the wrong rating or missing warnings?

Although we ask that you do not deliberately seek out incorrectly tagged works to report, if you come across a work with the wrong rating or missing warnings while browsing, you can report it using the Policy Questions & Abuse Reports form, which is linked at the bottom of every page on AO3.

Please don’t report more than one user at a time or submit multiple reports about the same user. When reporting multiple works by the same user, please submit only one report with links to each work you’re reporting, so that all information about that user is in the same place.

Please tell us exactly where in the work the content requiring the higher rating or warning is. The best way to do this is to give us a short quote from the relevant scene that we can search for in order to immediately find the content. If you are reporting multiple works by the same creator, please group all the works into one report and provide this information for each work.

If the rating or warning issue pertains to a specific character, please tell us the name of that character as used in the work. If it’s Bert who died, please tell us it’s Bert, so that we don’t spend time trying to figure out if it was Ernie (who was only badly wounded). If you are reporting a missing “Underage Sex” warning, please tell us exactly where the underage sexual content occurs and where the indication of the character’s age is. As a reminder, if there are no indications that a particular character is under 18, we will assume they are 18 or older.

Rating and warning issues can take a lot of time for us to investigate if we’re not given clear information about where the violation has happened. PAC will not act unless we’ve confirmed a policy violation ourselves. If we’re sent a report about a work that is 80,000 words long and the report only says “contains rape”, we have to confirm that there is a rape scene somewhere in those 80,000 words before requiring a “Rape/Non-Con” (or CNTW) warning. If we can’t find it easily, the most likely result is that we’ll reply to you asking you to give us more info – and if you don’t, we’ll close your report with no further action. So please make sure to include as much information as possible when submitting a report.

For example, a report of a work with an incorrect rating might look like this:

Link to the page you are reporting: https://archiveofourown.org/works/00000000

Brief summary of Terms of Service violation: Incorrect rating

Description of the content you are reporting:
This work by USERNAME is rated G but it’s entirely smut from the very first sentence.

If you are reporting additional works, please include all relevant links and other information in your report description:

Brief summary of Terms of Service violation: Incorrect ratings and warnings

Description of the content you are reporting:
This work by USERNAME is rated G but it’s entirely smut from the very first sentence.

Some of their other works also have the wrong rating or warning:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23456789 is rated T with No Archive Warnings Apply, but it has underage sex onscreen. CHARACTERNAME is 17 (in chapter 2 it says “after his seventeenth birthday party three weeks ago”) and has sex in chapter 4 (starting at “He stepped closer, leaning in…”)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/34567890 has the main character CHARACTERNAME die at the end (search for “She gasped in horror”), but the work isn’t tagged with Major Character Death or Creator Chose Not To Warn.

You can add more details if you like, but this example provides the basic information we need:

• Who posted the incorrectly tagged work(s): Tell us their username or if the work is anonymous or orphaned.
• Where we can find the work(s): Enter one URL in the “Link to the page you are reporting” field, and (if applicable) include links to any other violating works in the description of your report.
• What violates the TOS: Explain why you think the rating and/or warning(s) on each work you’re reporting are incorrect, for example by including a quote from the relevant scene(s). A brief description of the work is fine; you don’t need to be very detailed or quote an entire TOS or FAQ section.

You’ll receive an automatic email confirming that we received your report, and our volunteers will investigate when they get a chance. Please be patient and do not submit another report about the same work. While PAC investigates every report we receive, it can take several months for us to process a report, and not every report will receive a reply.

What if I have more questions about ratings and warnings?

PAC follows a strict confidentiality policy. Therefore, while you are welcome to ask general questions in the comments of this post, we will not give information on specific cases, publicly rule on a work, or update you on the status of a report you have already submitted. Comments on this post that discuss specific works or users will be removed.

If you think you’ve found a work that’s incorrectly rated or missing a warning, or if you want to know whether a particular scene requires a specific rating or Archive warning, please report the work to us as described above. For more information, you can read our TOS FAQ on ratings and Archive warnings.

If you are still uncertain, you can comment below or submit a question through the Policy Questions & Abuse Reports form.

https://www.transformativeworks.org/tos-spotlight-ratings-warnings/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=265259