I will add a tagging system and hide nsfw posts from non-logged-in non-opted-in users this weekend.

Serious question: Is my browser blocking image content or something?

Or is there general consensus that plain body-font sized text is also an NSFW concern?

I didn’t see any non-text content, but I didn’t spend that much time looking.

NSFW text is a thing, there are porn sites that house explicit text for zoophilia, pedophilia, incest, rape, etc. I’m not saying this site has anything extreme or out there, but there are likely laws governing what text can be shown, it’s simpler to just require login, since that will also help protect you against COPPA and other restrictions for minors that are non NSFW related.

I’m all for free speech, but there are laws governing how certain text is handled

> there are laws governing how certain text is handled

Is that true?? In the US?

My instinctive metric[0] for NSFW is: Could a casual passerby see something that falls into a class of designated offensivenesses (e.g. sex of any kind, but not violence unless it's also sexual)?

Text in a giant font could certainly qualify. But I would not think that ordinary-sized body text would be problematic -- if the passerby has to pause and snoop, they are breaking other equally-important protocols to ascertain SFW or lack thereof.

0: I have not run this by an HR department, and I've worked from a home office for more than twenty years, so I may know nothing of which I speak!

A better metric might be “could a casual network filtering program pick up something that would be forbidden at work”.

Good point. I have never suffered such indignity, but I forget my privilege.

This is 100% the correct answer. It’s unfortunate nsfw was framed as a political question.

Wouldn't such a network filter also trigger on random (in the sense of unpredictable to the reader) pages here on HN though? Or Reddit, etc?

I've never lived under such a regime, but all of the trigger words I can imagine at OP's site are also present in generally-SFW discussion forums.

Yeah but the IT bod looking into it would see the rest of the site as context

If they check on a site and it's heavy on the NSFW maybe things get looked into with a bit more of a "... is this person browsing porn at work?" attitude

It's probably hard to reach a consensus when every workplace is different. However, sexually explicit text would be inappropriate at most places I've worked.

There are image links to NSFW content

Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN. We've had to ask you this more than once before.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Answering to a person who calls topics related to trans people not safe for children is now regarded as starting a flamewar (whatever this means), nice.

No, "Minors can't learn of trans people? What other people should they be warned of, Jews?" is starting a flamewar. This is not a borderline call.

I think it's pretty clear what "the flamewar style" means to anyone who's been around internet forums for a little while, but if you want a definition, it could be somewhere in the neighborhood of: conversation that's focused on aggressive/snarky/indignant expression for the purpose of venting and/or defeating opponents, as opposed to curious, respectful conversation for the purpose of learning from each other. These two are mutually exclusive, and on this site we want the latter, not the former. Your GP comment was the former, as for that matter was your reply to me here.

Respectful conversation involves sarcasm and satire. I hope we are not in church to avoid using those. I wasn't using aggression against the person I was replying to and my comment was pretty calm, was it? What is really flamewary and pretty rude to say is stating that trans people need an NSFW tag. If you so much want to avoid flamewars, whatever this means, you probably should have replied to that person in the first place.

It's hard to discern whether you're misreading this whole thread on purpose or not. Nobody is claiming that trans content in general is NSFW, but that a certain subset of content therein, displayed openly on the site is -- which OP evidently agrees with. If you think OP is anti-trans, I don't know who you think is pro-.

> Respectful conversation involves sarcasm and satire

It can in some contexts! For example with friends or close colleagues, or a small group of familiars. But the context is the dominant variable. In a context like HN (a large, public, optionally anonymous internet forum), sarcasm and satire and snark are far more likely to come across as cheap attacks. That likelihood is so high that such messages should either be avoided or disambiguated enough that the median reader—someone who doesn't know you or anything about you—can still detect that you're conversing respectfully.

This sucks a bit, because it means we're all subject to a certain blandness here. But the alternative is the war of all against all, followed by scorched earth, and there isn't much of a choice.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Trans people aren’t NSFW, please reread what I said.

I said the NSFW text content. Not trans people.

I’m talking about NSFW posts, not a blanket statement about trans people.

I would urge you to reread my post.

All you need to sidestep those laws is a little prompt that asks you if you're 18, you don't need to require a login. Unless you're talking about recent US laws.