An idea on Brony media classification..

[That One Pone 584]

Hey all,

 

As a director of a Brony Animation myself, I was recently tasked with figuring out what would be suitable for most audiences and what should be cut in one of our projects. This caused me to think about the different classifications of Brony media in general, such as images, video and fanfiction.

 

There has been evidence in the past that parents have complained about the content of some of our works as a community because a child or younger member of our fandom has stumbled upon it on Google or another place that has shown works that may be unsuitable. Some of us bronies do not wish to see unsuitable content or at least have an idea of what should be expected before going into reading/watching this piece of content.

 

So my proposal is the following: A group of bronies, led by myself and other people wishing to stand up for people who wish to be cautious while enjoying our works, form the BBMC, the Brony Board of Media Classification. It would work exclusively on fandom works and give a straight to the point and detailed explanation as to what the media contains and recommended ages it would be suited to.

 

Of course, the system would not be widespread until many people have adopted the classification system. The main reason for this being here is to not give a mean for concern or limit people as to what they can see, but give guidelines to the uneducated and make sure that such complaints do not occur.

 

The system for getting a classifcation is as follows:

1. The content Director will submit a web based form to us detailing the project and any known suitability issues
2. We will review the content and point out any extra issues not found.
3. The Director may implement changes recommended on their own judgement - this is optional.
4. The works will receive a certificate with a recommended viewing age, a short description of questionable content and an identification number.

The author/director does not have to obey what we say or listen to our advice - we would merely advise the public of what may be deemed unsuitable for younger/sensitive audiences.

 

Should there be a complaint about a piece of media, this is what would happen:

 

1. The viewer identifies a part of a project they are unhappy with and wants to file a complaint.
2. They will fill in a web based form stating the identification number and what they are unhappy with.
3. We will review it and follow up with the viewer to make sure any worries are resolved.
4. If the issue is a valid point that should be dealt with we would contact the author/director with the issue.

This is important as sometimes the author may not be willing to manage complaints on their content. If there is an issue the viewer will have an easy and obvious method to get information.

 

 

My question to you guys: Do you believe members of the fandom and general public would appreciate being advised on the content of some of the fandom media and have a central place to report worries without bothering the author?

 

 

[Abia 258]

I think this sounds like a great idea, but I have doubts about how successfully it could be implemented.

Something you might want to take a look at is the RPG Rating System. Creators of content choose their own ratings based on detailed descriptions of content. Maturity rating is described using three fields: language, sexual content, and graphic violence.

I think it'd be better to have creators submit an application while choosing what they think is best. They can put a generated rating image (or they can type it out, whatever) stating their reading of the content based on the set rules, but the media would not be publicly listed under the database until approved by a staff member.

 

Whatever you decide to do, good luck with it. There's a lot of stuff this fandom does a bad job censoring.

[Shanks 10,811]

If this gets less people complaining about "mature" content and how bronies that make it "make us look" bad and is able to effectively address the concerns of parents than I am all for it. In my experience most of the less than child friendly material I have seen has given proper warning to what is in it however more adult oriented material ending up on Google safe search and youtube is something I could understand concerning to some people. Much of it is because safe search is far from perfect on google and Youtube's flagging system is woefully inadequate and needs to be scrapped and replaced with something entirely new. 

 

With how large the fandom has gotten and how much material is out there I can understand how it can be a daunting task for parents and even for some newer bronies that may not want to see certain things but are unaware of alot of the tips and tricks there are out there to make it less likely to run into those sort of things.

[That One Pone 584]

I think this sounds like a great idea, but I have doubts about how successfully it could be implemented.

Something you might want to take a look at is the RPG Rating System. Creators of content choose their own ratings based on detailed descriptions of content. Maturity rating is described using three fields: language, sexual content, and graphic violence.

I think it'd be better to have creators submit an application while choosing what they think is best. They can put a generated rating image (or they can type it out, whatever) stating their reading of the content based on the set rules, but the media would not be publicly listed under the database until approved by a staff member.

 

Whatever you decide to do, good luck with it. There's a lot of stuff this fandom does a bad job censoring.

This is a good idea - I will look into this as a self-rating system that can autoupdate when a staff member has approved.

 

 

If this gets less people complaining about "mature" content and how bronies that make it "make us look" bad and is able to effectively address the concerns of parents than I am all for it. In my experience most of the less than child friendly material I have seen has given proper warning to what is in it however more adult oriented material ending up on Google safe search and youtube is something I could understand concerning to some people. Much of it is because safe search is far from perfect on google and Youtube's flagging system is woefully inadequate and needs to be scrapped and replaced with something entirely new. 

 

With how large the fandom has gotten and how much material is out there I can understand how it can be a daunting task for parents and even for some newer bronies that may not want to see certain things but are unaware of alot of the tips and tricks there are out there to make it less likely to run into those sort of things.

 

This is the exact goal of the project. Thank you for the support!