[Warning: This video contains content that some viewers may find offensive. Use your own discretion in choosing whether to view it or not.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVkETGsh0-U

Another national strike here today. No school for my daughter so she has taken the opportunity to invite round 4 friends from class for the day. Oh the joy!!!

Preparing the house (i.e. moving all fragile items to the back room - probably including me).

Playing Metal Gear Solid and eating ships.

Well, more like watching MGS, right now. But you get the idea.

(November 6, 2013 at 2:35 am)apophenia Wrote:

[Warning: This video contains content that some viewers may find offensive. Use your own discretion in choosing whether to view it or not.]

That warning is less than vague.
How can I use my discretion?
I might find it offensive.
Is someone killing a sea turtle?
Perhaps they're eating with their mouth open?
They're not cuddling a cat are they?

Still working my contacts and fighting for a job. I had a gig in Manchester, but it hasn't panned out.

Well kids, don't drop from official education and don't do drugs (and I mean real drugs, not pansy-ass weed). It all comes to bite you in the ass sometime later on.

I have an hour and a half before the kids get up, and I'm spending it fucking around with the Catholics on their forum board, seeing how far I can go without getting banned. I just told them I don't speak Yoda. I predict: not very far.

I'm studying, and it feels great! My goal for the next 6 months is to get the obligatory classes done, so that I can do my vocational training next spring. At the moment I'm super motivated

(November 6, 2013 at 6:58 am)Marvin Wrote:

(November 6, 2013 at 2:35 am)apophenia Wrote:

[Warning: This video contains content that some viewers may find offensive. Use your own discretion in choosing whether to view it or not.]

That warning is less than vague.
How can I use my discretion?
I might find it offensive.
Is someone killing a sea turtle?
Perhaps they're eating with their mouth open?
They're not cuddling a cat are they?

Thank you for your criticism of the way I presented the video. Your criticism is particularly valued by me, as it is my belief that you have a good head on your shoulders, and I'm likely to benefit from having your input. And I went, perhaps more vague than I should have. I am currently facing some life challenges which are making composing an appropriate warning more difficult than usual, so I probably erred by leaving it "too open." Perhaps a different thread or a different time would have worked better, or even simply not posting it until it can be done right.

Yes, it was vague. It was vague to be overly inclusive in suggesting people who might not find it palatable. Not watching it when you would have watched, is not as serious a problem as a user who will be offended watching it by accident, because the more specific warning didn't give them sufficient reason or understanding of the thing they might want to avoid. I could cast a wide and non-specific net, and successfully warn but inevitably catching too many in the "don't watch" category, or, narrow it to fit, and have some that might be missed by the net be ones who will get upset by watching it excluded by the narrower net. Another aspect is the diffuse and multiple types of potentially offensive materials; I started to specify, but in order to be fairly accurate, it was quickly becoming long -- and a long description is much less likely to be read and more likely to be misunderstood.

But in the main, it was vague, perhaps too much so. Your criticism has merit. I think you might be ignoring this other side though. A warning needs to be overly broad more than it needs to be specific; every word you add to it making it specific adds to the likelihood of it not being paid attention to when it could have been (KISS), and as in law, the goal is to prevent irreversible harm, at the expense of reversible harm (watching and getting offended versus not-watching even though you would not have gotten offended).

Like this reply itself, the more info I try to provide in justification for the choice here, the less likely you are to read and understand it all. I am not suggesting that you don't criticize -- constructive member criticism of member or forum staff actions can usually only help. This was an assessment of how best to warn given the unique challenges that presents itself given the specifics of the video, and the goal was not to maximize the number of people watching it, but to maximize the number of users who might be offended by it actually making the decision to refrain from watching it.

That being said, my choices were probably not ideal (they never are), and your taking the time to highlight where it faltered, can only help me do better in future situations of a similar nature. Please continue if you have more about the warning, or if you disagree with my philosophy and justification here, or if you think I should be doing something really significantly differently.

Thank you for the input, but I still think my "overly vague" warning was ultimately more effective at reaching my goal (preventing users who would be offended from watching it by mistake, rather than getting as many people to watch it as possible to watch it, inevitably including people who get offended by it because the tighter focus was too tightly focused). So, for now, let's just say this was a judgement call, and maybe I could have done it better. But as always, better safe, than sorry. I'm still learning things, so I'll simply try to include your suggestions into similar warnings or content in the future, or present the video or other objectionable material in a different way which better serves both class of user - those that might get offended, and those who would not.. (As an aside, there are quite a few potential offendors and quite a range of ways this video could offend; heck, in Germany or other country where anti-holocaust denial laws are in effect, it could be seen as serving to ridicule and belittle the suffering of people in WWII. There are a lot of different potential offendors there; including them all would not have been as effective [and some are hard to describe in words].) Ultimately, if achieving my goal of protecting users resulted in a warning that was ineffective due to over vagueness, then perhaps the whole thing should have been scrapped, or I should have taken more time to craft a more effective warning.

I value your input, Marvin; you've got sharp eyes and good insight. I may have simply erred some, and no doubt did. However I think you may be missing the point that, imho, being overly broad in warning people away, is a better sin to commit than being overly narrow. It was a judgement call, which is not perfect. I tried for a number of minutes to add the specific types of offensive material, but each time I did, I realized I was ending up with a description that was "tl;dr", inaccurate, and in unavoidable ways, misleading, and therefore likely not effective due to those challenges being beyond my skills and ability to ably meet the challenge of providing info about the content that was likely to be read and understood properly.

I guess the final analysis is: in trying to avoid Scylla, I scraped the hull alongside Charybdis. I should have either taken more time with it, or chosen not to post it.

Thank you again, Marvin.

Loud, incessant hiccuping. Fuck my life.