For your entertainment - Ratings!

[Salmastryon]

So, from what I understand from the discussion so far a rating system is basically figuring what offends the least amount of people and can be understood by the greats amount without being useless. It largely sounds that much like trying to design something by commitee that their won't ever be on great solution just a not so bad one.

[kanshu]

As you all probably know by now, ffnet has changed its rating system. The cause for this is that the MPAA is going after websites who use their rating without permission.

Now, the issue has made it to a huge newspaper:

Please Don't Call It a G-Rated Dispute
By PAMELA LICALZI O'CONNELL

Published: April 18, 2005


he Motion Picture Association of America's ratings code - G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17 - is so familiar that the initials are used in everyday conversation about subjects that have nothing to do with movies. But that doesn't mean that the association wants just anybody to use them.

Recently the association sent e-mail messages and letters to people who write online fan fiction, demanding that they stop tagging stories with the ratings. Fan fiction, which uses characters from popular TV shows, movies and novels in original stories, has used movie ratings for years as a way to help adults find stories with mature content and to steer children away from it. Too many children looking for Harry Potter stories were stumbling onto new and unexpected uses for wands.

"We have a right to go after people who use our trademarks without permission, big or small, whenever we find out about them," said John Feehery, executive vice president for the association. "Our ratings are not supposed to be ripped off."

Wendy Seltzer, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, argues that the association would have a point only if the fiction sites had claimed that association reviewers had rated the works. Using the ratings as a rough comparison is not a trademark infringement, she said: "It's like saying a beverage tastes like Coke."

Heidi Tandy, a lawyer who is also president of fictionalley.org, an archive of Harry Potter fiction, added that ratings such as PG and R are not exclusive to the association, since they are used by some foreign film boards. Movie ratings are also used online to tag jokes and photos, so the association may have a difficult time stripping its ratings from the cultural vocabulary.

Nevertheless, the association's cease-and-desist letters have had a ripple effect, with many fan fiction sites switching to new ratings schemes. One fan fiction writer archly suggested a simple visual code: one bunny picture means no smut, two bunnies means smut ahead.

Source= www.nytimes.com/2005/04/18/business/media/18ratings.html?ex=1271476800&en=fff4a420930c890c&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Personally, I can understand the reasoning of the MPAA - money talks. However, I think that they could have handled the issue much better.

[Salmastryon]

Interesting...

Personally I think the more the rating systems are simular the less confusion. I still find it annoying that there are so many different rating systems used and I got to figure out what each one actually means.

So what do peole think of FFnet's new rating system?

[kanshu]

Personally, I think they are okay. Not any better or worse than the old ones.

For anyone who hasn't checked out the ratings, here's the complete, compressed version:

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Rating: B
Age: 1+
Intended for preschool level and younger children between the ages of 1 and 4. Content should be free of any coarse language, violence, adult themes, and ideas very young children cannot comprehend.

Rating: K
Age: 5+
Intended for general audience 5 years and older. Content should be free of any coarse language, violence, and adult themes.

Rating: K+
Age: 9+
Suitable for more mature childen, 9 years and older, with minor action violence without serious injury. May contain mild coarse language. Should not contain any adult themes.

Rating: T
Age: 13+
Suitable for teens, 13 years and older, with some violence, minor coarse language, and minor suggestive adult themes.

Rating: M
Age: 16+
Not suitable for children or teens below the age of 16 with possible strong but non-explicit adult themes, references to violence, and strong coarse language.

Rating: MA
Age: 18+
Content is only suitable for mature adults. May contain explicit language and adult themes.

For more details, check out:
www.fictionratings.com/guide.php

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Fanfiction uses the codes of K to M (though I'm certain that they aren't worried about 'B' ;-P). This efficiently lowers the age limit for mature stuff from 17+ to 16+.

I think it's a good thing that the new rating system doesn't focus on sex content, but also on violence. It's much clearer in this way than the MPAA rating system.

One big advantage of the new rating system is that it's free to use. This makes it perfect for all fanfiction archives. It's also clearly stated on the banners that the rating wasn't verified by fictionratings.com, which I think is a good way to handle things.

However, you have to register your site with fictionratings.com (process described on their page). I'm not certain if that will cause problems in the future, should they decide to put up a 'verfied' version of their rating system.

[OptiMoose too lazy to log in]

Ahhh... I think that fictionrating.com might be connected somehow to ffnet, seeing as to how they say in their FAQ that fictionpress and ffnet are the only ones who are deploying the ratings at the moment. I wonder if they went through with things and really trademarked their own rating system. *snickers*