keni_muses (![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
keni_muses) wrote2012-07-30 06:30 pm
keni_muses) wrote2012-07-30 06:30 pm
Renovations
I'm making some renovations on this blog. In the mean time, all reviews are unavailable until further notice.
Apologies for the inconvenience.
Further Explanation:
After a rather violent incident on another review site, I have decided I need to make sure it's certain that my reviews support reason over emotion, and I want to raise the readability level of my reviews.
This means I am going to be removing:
1. all unnecessary swearing. I want my readers to feel comfortable, and there's other ways to get my point across without resorting to strong language.
2. all font that would give someone with a visual disability troubles. This includes unnecessary colors, bold font, italics, underlining, strike-through font, all-caps, and small font.
3. at least half of all the times I've mentioned my own personal history (or put it under 'spoilers' or even just post it somewhere else and link to it where I feel it would be fine in the review).
Additionally, I plan to:
1. tone down the mood.
2. present the facts as level-headed and methodical as possible.
3. try to be fair to the writer and the characters, instead of putting myself in a position where I might jump to my own conclusions based outside of the realm of fiction.
4. simmer down on ableist slur words and relax my language policies.
The reason for my decision to change my policy on terms that might pass as ableist is as follows:
A person's feelings about one word might be different from another. If I start down the path where I react over and ban any term referring to mental illness or disability that has ever been used as an insult or slur, it will eventually be impossible to talk about mental illness, ableism, or disability at all. This is what happened to other sites who have taken a such a strong stance on language.
I want my site to educate people about mental illnesses, disabilities, and ableism, and I'm not going to be able to do that if I put myself in a position where I have no choice but to shut people down just for saying something that could be offensive depending on who reads the comment in question.
So from now on, everyone must govern their own speech. If you don't feel comfortable with a term, don't use it. However, don't demand that other people should feel the same way. In my reviews, I will give the history and definition of any words that have been used as slurs and insults directed at minorities, especially the disabled. People can decide for themselves whether or not they want to use those words afterwards.
My renovations will also effect the media on this blog. It is possible that I will go as far as to remove all images. At the very least, I think I should experiment with putting the scans under spoilers (on LJ) or using simple links. Either way, I will do my best to describe what is going on in them, since it isn't entirely impossible that some visitors may rely on Screen Readers and won't be able to see the scans at all.
I have already changed the theme of the blog to something that feels a little softer than the white blocks over black background I had originally. However, since I don't have a visual disability, it might not be as big an improvement as I hope it is. There aren't many themes on dreamwidth to choose from.
So far, I have gotten rid of my icon and have decided against using mood themes. I will eventually get a replacement icon that isn't so busy. For now, not using an icon at all is fine.
Apologies for the inconvenience.
Further Explanation:
After a rather violent incident on another review site, I have decided I need to make sure it's certain that my reviews support reason over emotion, and I want to raise the readability level of my reviews.
This means I am going to be removing:
1. all unnecessary swearing. I want my readers to feel comfortable, and there's other ways to get my point across without resorting to strong language.
2. all font that would give someone with a visual disability troubles. This includes unnecessary colors, bold font, italics, underlining, strike-through font, all-caps, and small font.
3. at least half of all the times I've mentioned my own personal history (or put it under 'spoilers' or even just post it somewhere else and link to it where I feel it would be fine in the review).
Additionally, I plan to:
1. tone down the mood.
2. present the facts as level-headed and methodical as possible.
3. try to be fair to the writer and the characters, instead of putting myself in a position where I might jump to my own conclusions based outside of the realm of fiction.
4. simmer down on ableist slur words and relax my language policies.
The reason for my decision to change my policy on terms that might pass as ableist is as follows:
A person's feelings about one word might be different from another. If I start down the path where I react over and ban any term referring to mental illness or disability that has ever been used as an insult or slur, it will eventually be impossible to talk about mental illness, ableism, or disability at all. This is what happened to other sites who have taken a such a strong stance on language.
I want my site to educate people about mental illnesses, disabilities, and ableism, and I'm not going to be able to do that if I put myself in a position where I have no choice but to shut people down just for saying something that could be offensive depending on who reads the comment in question.
So from now on, everyone must govern their own speech. If you don't feel comfortable with a term, don't use it. However, don't demand that other people should feel the same way. In my reviews, I will give the history and definition of any words that have been used as slurs and insults directed at minorities, especially the disabled. People can decide for themselves whether or not they want to use those words afterwards.
My renovations will also effect the media on this blog. It is possible that I will go as far as to remove all images. At the very least, I think I should experiment with putting the scans under spoilers (on LJ) or using simple links. Either way, I will do my best to describe what is going on in them, since it isn't entirely impossible that some visitors may rely on Screen Readers and won't be able to see the scans at all.
I have already changed the theme of the blog to something that feels a little softer than the white blocks over black background I had originally. However, since I don't have a visual disability, it might not be as big an improvement as I hope it is. There aren't many themes on dreamwidth to choose from.
So far, I have gotten rid of my icon and have decided against using mood themes. I will eventually get a replacement icon that isn't so busy. For now, not using an icon at all is fine.