ipernity workshop: content rating and filtering system / Discussions

From what has been discussed so far, it seems there is a consensus that what people find 'offensive' depends - to a large degree - on their cultural background. And: that it is difficult for content authors to anticipate the cultural backgrounds of all people that might view their docs.

In the right column of every photo page, there is a link 'You consider this doc as offensive or illegal?'
What if a click on that link opened a mail to the content author with a pre-configured subject line like 'I would really like you to flag this ... as restricted because ...'.
That way, a viewer could tell the author in a few short sentences, why she/he found this doc offensive.
Content rating would be, as a first step, a 'participatory' affair between authors and viewers.

Then after a certain time (perhaps 2 weeks or so), when the content author has not changed the setting or replied to the mail, site management could get a notification that there is potential 'dissent' about this doc and they can then decide whether they want to do something about it.
I think site management might actually be able to handle that, because most content authors I know would probably do one of the two things mentioned above.
It would probably not be too difficult to find out those authors who just don't care what their viewers feel.

Finally, here's a little anecdote I read in 'The tao of photography' (by P. L. Gross & S. I. Shapiro):

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Toulouse-Lautrec once exhibited a painting of a man in an overcoat and hat standing in a room with a half-dressed woman. A grande dame took one look and cried, "Obscenity! A woman undressing in front of a stranger!" Whereupon the artist replied, "Ma-da-me, the woman in my picture is not undressing, she is dressing, and the man is not a stranger, he is her husband. Obscenity is in the eye of the beholder, and I'll thank you to stop looking at my painting!"
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