Content warnings, however, are something different. They were implemented as a theoretically value-neutral way to provide information about the contents of something to allow people to decide if they wanted to engage with it. While they can also serve as trigger warnings, they don’t necessarily have to, and they’re not always about trauma, though they may be about larger societal issues that cause individual harm.
For example, content warnings might discuss the fact that a book is about racism, or includes violence against animals. People of color who are exhausted by racism might decide not to read that book, not necessarily because it would cause a physiological response, but because they get enough of that in the real world. People who would prefer not to read about violence against animals, likewise, could choose not to read a book that warns them about that kind of content — or might skip the content they find unsettling if it’s not central to the plot.
In practice, this game requires that a tag of -CW- be attached to the front of the Topic Title if there is anything within that even MIGHT require it. I would rather see this “over used” than not used enough. There will be more about Topic Titles later in this document.
Credit: SE SMITH
The following is a suggested (but by no means exhaustive) list of potential content warnings:
(Thank you to Jill Helding for putting this resource together.)