I want to clarify the core issue here: this isn’t about whether gay content is “popular” or “unpopular.” It’s about the principle of separating orientation tags from fetish/controversial content.
Grouping a core identity like “gay” with tags such as guro, incest, or extreme fetishes sends the wrong message. Those other tags are niche, potentially offensive, or explicitly adult; orientation tags represent who creators and users are, not what sexual acts they enjoy.
Treating identity tags the same way as fringe fetishes is misleading and exclusionary. I actually think your previous idea about having tag groups for orientation would solve this issue, and avoid making ‘gay’ seem like a bad/unpopular thing.
I would simply allow for a #gender-indifferent tag in the group personally. Would be rare, but afaik edge cases are important to consider with mandatory tagging
I don’t think we were confused about this. I just don’t see the need to separate them. I guess I could include a disclaimer about us acknowledging the optics but separating them defeats the goal of “simple/fast opt out” option. Joining two groups instead of one adds friction and reduces the user experience ( which is why the unpopular group includes the controversial tags to begin with )
In the cost to benefit ratio between making opting out of certain content and the optics of what tags are beside what in a group, I don’t think it’s worth the change.
Edit: I hope this comes across as I think it does:
I’m unsure how realistic the implementation is, but since you cant see scripts until you make an account, maybe you can have orientation as part of the onboarding. that way theres no need to include gay in unpopular as it would be sorted in the onboarding process. or an orientation based opt out system? i get why for simplicity in implemtation that you put gay in unpopular but at the moment it clearly does rub people the wrong way (myself partially included. it isnt upfront and in your face so i didnt even know it existed, but knowing of its existence does put a sour taste in my mouth)
If onboarding is updated to let users select their orientation preferences upfront, including “gay” in the unpopular group becomes unnecessary. Separating orientation tags from controversial/fetish tags has a small cost in friction, but the positive impact on inclusivity, visibility, and accurate representation outweighs it. This could be implemented cleanly during onboarding without adding another text wall to read, and would be pretty straight forward for new users. (And it wouldn’t feel like empty pandering.)
Most adult content platforms already separate orientation options (gay, straight, bi, etc.) from kink or fetish categories, allowing users to filter by identity without affecting other content. I’m not a big coder or anything, so I’m not sure how complicated it would be to implement here, but I definitely think a ‘straight’ tag is a step in the right direction.
I personally think the tagging system at e621.net is a great example of how to do it right. It avoids labels like gay and straight entirely and instead tags purely the content in the video. For example, they use tags like male, female, intersex, and ambiguous_gender. Multi-character posts are tagged with combinations like male/female or male_penetrating_male, and penetrations are tagged like anal_penetration, vaginal_penetration, etc.
I admit changing the entire system like that seems impossible, but we could take a few notes, maybe?
This is where I disagree.
impact on inclusivity: no one would be included or excluded. Nothing would fundamentally change besides the way people feel about it, and now it would be more effort to filter your tags the way you want.
Right now: The goal is to make it easier for users to opt out of content they don’t want to see.
Separating them adds friction and makes this less usable.
When onboarding is optimized: We can remove those tags entirely and everyone is happy.
My position is I’m not going to make the site worse to use, just for the sake of “I don’t want to sit beside that guy”
There seems to be a disconnect in how people use this word. No one is being excluded. No one is being descriminated against. All our trans/gay/lesbian peers are welcome here. What’s being called to question is whether gay and guro or other taboo tags should be included together under the title “unpopular”
Again, no one is being excluded. Inclusivity is the wrong word here.
Okay so semantically we are incorrect, its not about “inclusivity”. But from a utilitarian perspective, how many people coming to an IOT sex toys forum really care about the fact that muting the unpopular tags does or doesn’t mute the gay tag (ill admit im not a forum admin so it could have massive impact, i would just want to see that with tangible evidence). and from an ethics perspective, there are tons of issues with including gay in the unpopular category. that is to say that the people going to mute the unpopular tags wont care if gay is in there are not. I think a big community win would be removing it from the unpopular category, or at least hosting a vote for that purpose.
I think a temporary solution could be just changing the name from unpopular to less commonly viewed or something of the like. since this seems to mainly be a semantics argument anyways
In my opinion you’re correct in that we should remove those tags from the unpopular tags. But right now it serves a real purpose, and until that purpose has been replaced by something more effective I believe it should remain purely from a utilitarian perspective.
Ethically I see this as neutral.
If I make the proposed change I view that as making the user experience worse for most users.
You have to remember, if the goal post changes to “what is optically better” I’m not splitting this into 2 groups. This splits into potentially more groups based on “who wants to sit beside who”.
Adding more work to users and mods is not something I want to do, especially when we have a known good solution decided that we just need to work towards.
Like i said, I don’t know how changes like that would effect the back-end management. I wasn’t even thinking about mods and their preferences over tags and such. I am glad however that the solution has been agreed upon and is being actively worked towards.
