Ratings on your DW entries

[mekare]

Just out of interest, how do you handle ratings on your journals? Everybody has a basic access rating (like, discretion advised or 18+) but do you rate individual entries for their content? Which rating system do you use? I came across a journal today that had no rating tags for entries (which I almost always use) and it seemed strange to me. But maybe I am overtagging since my whole journal is already set to 18+. Mmmh.

Comments

[mekare]

I understand what you’re saying. My reasoning is just that "the general public" includes kids with parents who are too clueless about new technologies to curate their kids’ internet experience. That shouldn’t be my problem but it is something I take into consideration.

[megpie71]

I tend to take the (rather cavalier, I suppose) position that kids have been getting into stuff their parents would rather they didn't see since the invention of childhood. It's happened with every single format of informational technology known historically (scrolls, books, radio, television, video games, movies, etc), and I have no doubt there were also problems with stone sculptures, cave paintings and so on. It will happen regardless of whether the parents are vigilant, hyper-vigilant, or as careless as all hell. So at that point, any action I take to try and prevent it is probably useless.

Also, given my journal is incredibly text-rich, and very image-low, I can't imagine there exists any kid who is both simultaneously a) young enough for the text there to be developmentally inappropriate; AND b) advanced enough at reading to be interested in a very dense field of text in the first place. (Okay, I lie, I may have been such a child, since I apparently taught myself how to read at around the age of two). If they do, hopefully their parents are getting very used to having interesting discussions with them long before they get as far into such obscure corners of the internet as my Dreamwidth blog.

(I also have the Strong View-With-A-Capital-Vee that the internet, as a thing originally designed in university computer laboratories, using funding from the US military; and the world wide web, the base protocols of which were created by a scientist working in a nuclear research facility in Europe, should NOT be regarded as a place which is Suitable For Children in the first place. It's called the Information SuperHighway, for crying out loud - this should be an indication that sending your kid toddling down the metaphorical median strip is a Bad Idea).