NSFW: How and when to warn your readers about adult content
Live nude girls are great, don’t get me wrong. But before you go wild and start posting naked images all over your blog – or even one image – you need to stop and consider your audience. Most people, including your friends, parents, neighbors and little sister, might get in trouble for opening a website at work or at school that contains images of nudity. This also goes for images of body modifications, lewd words in large print, and sexual drawings.
This doesn’t mean you can’t post that stuff. It just means you need to give people a little warning before they are presented with double-D breasts on a monitor that faces their boss’s desk.
One option is to create a homepage that acts as a screen. When people enter the site, they’ll see a message warning them that they’re about to view adult content. Many sites force you to click a button saying you’re 18 or older – this not only satisfies legal requirements, it also makes people pay attention to the warning. However, if you’re just posting an image now and then, this solution is probably overkill.
Thumbnails can be a good way to present images to those who are interested without screaming “BOOBS!” to the world at large. People in secure environments can click the thumbnails to see this piercing you’re talking about and get a larger image. Those who are at work can make a mental note to view them at home.
If you’re just posting links to adult content, the accepted warning is NSFW, Not Suitable For Work. You can make it clearer with a warning in the sentence preceding the link.
Remember, no matter how awesome your content is, and no matter how laid back your own job is, and no matter how lame you find these corporate crackdowns on perfectly acceptable stuff, it doesn’t matter. This is about not getting your faithful readers in trouble. Give them a chance to choose when and where they’ll read your links and view your pictures, and they’ll thank you for it by remaining fans of your blog. But if you continue to overwhelm them with a firehose of unannounced porn, they’ll definitely take their reading eyes elsewhere.
Written by Kris Larson from CarthagePosted on February 7th, 2008 and filed under Writing
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2 Responses to “NSFW: How and when to warn your readers about adult content”
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A ‘read more’ link could help with some blogs but it isn’t a great solution (ie. you could warn them about the content and tell them to only click if they are fine with the type of content).
If it is just the one picture you are posting then i think a thumbnail is the best solution. You can make the thumbnail say something like ‘Warning : Adult content’ and the full image is displayed when the banner is clicked.
I think all of this is only relevant if you are posting something which is different from the norm. I mean, humour sites and adult sites which post things like this on a regular basis wouldn’t need to bother with all of it.
NSFW is really the way to go. I feel the over 18 warnings are a little dramatic and NSFW just provides a simple heads up.