[bksvol-discuss] Re: Adult rating

  • From: Guido Corona <guidoc@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 7 Jun 2004 14:19:01 -0500

I concur.  The term 'adult' is open to interpretations.  Someone may 
decide to flag the novels of Lawrence Sanders as 'adult' only because 
there is a lot of boozing in them.  Or someone may disagree with a 
particular religious view and flag another book as adult.  And what about 
the books of Stephen J. Gould on evolutionary biology?  I suspect that 
some people may want to flag those as 'adult' and limit their circulation. 
 So,  let us just be specific on what the book contains and for the rest. 
. . caveat emptor!

Not to talk about the bizarre racist thriller novels by Andrew macDonald, 
like The Turner Diaries.  Just warn the viewer and let them decide if they 
are worth reading. 

Guido


Guido D. Corona
IBM Accessibility Center,  Austin Tx.
IBM Research,
Phone:  (512) 838-9735
Email: guidoc@xxxxxxxxxxx

Visit my weekly Accessibility WebLog at:
http://www-3.ibm.com/able/weblog/corona_weblog.html





"Mary Otten" <maryotten@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
Sent by: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
06/07/2004 02:08 PM
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[bksvol-discuss] Re: Adult rating






the problem with giving things adult ratings for only minor language 
issues or whatever, is that people who have no access to the adult rated 
books will never see your long descriptions explaining why the book was 
tagged as adult. the cut off age for bookshare is 18. So some where along 
the line, we're going to do somebody a dissertvice, since by flagging 
something as adult, we cut off access to 10-year-olds and 17-year-olds 
alike. There are plenty of things I wouldn't want a child under say, 12 or 
13 reading. But by the time that same person is a junior or senior in high 
school, then why not? Language standards in particular have become a 
lot more liberal in recent years. Just look at what's allowed on regular 
tv these days.  The whole question of what is or isn't adult reading and 
at what age it becomes acceptable is a huge messy quagmire. I tend to 
prefer to allow more access with caviats as appropriate in the 
description, rather than flagging the book as adult, thereby ensuring that 
nobody under 18 can even know that its available.
Mary




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