Announcement

[hso_mods]

Here is what the list of requested trigger warnings is:
A guide to assist you in not hurting your fellow participants in the HSO.
That post is not a list of rules, it is information.

It is not in any way appropriate for you to decide what other people can or cannot be triggered by. You do not get to decide that, and we will brook no argument on that topic. Furthermore, there is no hard and fast rule for triggers, because they do not follow a logical structure. There is no line we can point to, saying 'ten years is a significant age difference, but nine years is not.' Asking us for those numbers does not constitute asking us for clarification.

Practically speaking, a good rule of thumb is to consider whether the potential trigger is a significant theme in the work. When in doubt, warn and specify.
And finally, nobody is getting points taken away if they forget to add trigger warnings. Nobody is getting disqualified, nobody is getting punished in any way. We have spent the past week reworking the schedule so that we have enough time to read through the entries and add trigger warnings where necessary before posting them to the main HSO comm. We know you are going to miss stuff. We are going to miss stuff ourselves.
Nevertheless, we are committed to providing trigger warnings for all of the main round entries, and we have no intention of giving up on that commitment.
If you do not feel that you can agree with this mission in word and in spirit, the HSO may not be the right event for you.

Because of the reactions to the trigger warnings post, we are postponing the bonus round 0 for 24 hours (until May 20 11:59PM EDT) so that we can be sure everyone here is on the same page before we open the main comm to content creation that might potentially endanger HSO participants.

Edit: comments have now been unscreened.
Please be advised that there is a flashing gif about halfway down the page.

Comments

[almonetta]

wait who even tries to argue about people's triggers like no??? that's not a thing you can do??????? if it hurts someone it hurts someone!!
ugh. :\

[polariity]

No one's arguing that. People are trying to have a discussion and raise legitimate questions, only to be shut down by the mods. See here.

However, it is quite clear that the mods themselves have no idea what to do concerning triggers and are basically making fuck ups.

I would say it is especially clear considering some of the things submitted by people as 'triggers' are trolling attempts, something the mods have *also* not considered.

[palepersephone]

saying "I am offended at the idea that someone could be triggered by this" is not trying to have a legitimate discussion.

the mods said repeatedly that their list of warnings is comprised of things people specifically asked for. "trolling" or not, the HSO's formal stance is that all of these requests should be honored.

[polariity]

Yes, let us ignore the highly unprofessional reaction of the mod. Let's do that.

If someone specifically asked for a trigger against 'swearing', well, I really don't think they're in the right fandom.

There's also the fact that a lot of people don't know what the good god damn hell a trigger really is. They think that anything that "squicks" them is a trigger. Anything that makes them a "little uncomfortable". By throwing any old mundane thing onto the list (like fucking couch cushions), they're trivializing the whole matter, and making things worse for people who are legitimately thrown into panic attacks by triggers. They're making the word mean less and less.

This is a delicate subject, and as someone who more than one of those triggers could apply to? This is offensive to me, and I know a hell lot of other people.

[palepersephone]

yes, quark responded unprofessionally, but the mods are people too! they are not perfect.

and you're right, a lot of people requested to be warned for things that are not common or expected triggers. but you have no idea what those people have gone through. i'm not the couch cushion person but i can imagine several scenarios in which that might come to be a trigger for someone.

i acknowledge that i'm coming from a privileged position where my only 'triggers' are minor or extremely uncommon, but i don't understand how being requested to warn in fanworks for a variety of things is offensive to people with "legitimate triggers".

[arctickayla]

That's how I feel. I might be a little uncomfortable with things like body horror, but I'm not going to have a full fledged panic attack. One thing that really struck me was that about third of the list was included in the actual comic. I legitimately wonder how they read through the comic, as Hussie sure doesn't tag anything.

Many things, I wasn't even sure how to approach: I have French in my actual team name, and I can't tag the team name. Do I tag the couch cushions in a header image? I don't consider Alpha!Dave and Alpha!Rose to be related, but should I still tag it as incest? Thinking about what fics and drawings my team will produce, it would actually be easier to include the tags that wouldn't be seen.

[portaling]

Setting aside the difference between warning and trigger (because that is an entirely different issue), one reason I can think of for wanting to be warned for profanity, as well as other things in the comic, is that some people might be looking to read the submissions in a place where such a thing might not be acceptable. For example, someone who works in a conservative workplace might not want their co-workers to see a Karkat fanfic with the word 'fuck' iterated about twenty times, or someone in a library might wish for nudity to be clarified in the OOC comments so that they don't accidentally get themselves kicked out for indecency. People might have read the comic when they weren't somewhere like this, but for some reason or another may not get enough time during the day to read the submissions in a private place.

[aedra]

Thank you so much for this comment. People are conflating 'squick' with 'trigger', and seeing this mistake defended is offensive.

[endless_aegis]

I think what's actually happening is a bit in between. While I do believe those questions were asked in good faith, I'd imagine it's pretty tough for those who submitted their triggers to see them pulled out and dissected like that. Nothing against the people who asked, but in my opinion freezing comments was the better decision.

(And even if they are trolling attempts, which I don't believe, there's no way to tell, so it's better to let someone have the amusement than risk hurting someone like that. It's not like adding a tag, or having a tag added, is a huge inconvenience of some sort.)

[polariity]

In my opinion, the mod should have shut their mouth before making an ass of themselves because only after they were called out was the thread frozen. But maybe that's just me.

In my personal opinion, I think the mods are honestly in a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' situation, but they definitely could have handled this a lot better, starting with not writing such a condescending post on how they're not here to teach Triggers 101, or how they're the only ones who know what a trigger is (which is the impression I got). They also could have just kept things listed to a general set of things that need to have a content warning for (gore, rape, etc) and then asked if there was anything else that needed to be added, with a possible reason why.

For example, I would like to know *why* a warning is needed for things like swearing and reality bending when those are core staples of the whole bloody canon and have been obvious from the beginning. (For the curious, the first swear, 'smartass', appears in the very second 'page' of Homestuck. 'Fuck' is on John's desktop.) You say they don't believe they're trolling attempts, and those are the reasons why I believe that's not true.

[minna]

I'd rather take someone's request seriously when they're trolling than assume they're trolling and have it turn out to be a legitimate request. Way I figure it, that saves me from being a douche in either situation. And if comes out later that they are trolling, I come off fine and they come off like jerks.

HSO is a very specific space, too. Expecting tumblr at large to tag really unusual phobias is unreasonable, for instance, but asking that your friends do it isn't. The HSO mods have decided that they want this space to be a certain level of safe, and this is something that falls pretty easily under 'their contest, their rules', I'd think.