Honestly I really wish the colors were reduced on warnings - I ended up coding my warnings mainly to give eyes a small place to rest since the warning background colors are so bright (a problem that all themes have imo but is especially bad on "Pink Velvet Snake")... those colors are fine as accents on things such as buttons and links but NOT entire swathes of the screen. I also admittedly coded mine in a way to be a bit more compact/aesthetically pleasing to me - at least on desktop - but I agree that warnings do get abused more than they should w/ putting content that should not be there. It's a complex issue and I won't pretend to know how to fix all of this (especially since I'm rather new to coding), but I'd like for there to be some way to keep very simple coding but nix stuff that has multiple tabs/disable images/gifs from being able to appear on them.
I think one of the main reasons why warnings get misused like they currently are is because you can literally put anything there, including HTML coding, which encouraged coders to create complex "warning codes", often featuring a "byf" section or a "dni" one. There are also people putting unnecessary clutter in them such as aesthetic images, or even worse, seizure-inducing gifs. All of this can make warning inaccessible at best (notably for people who use screen readers or who have a slow/limited internet), or dangerous at worst.
That's why I think warnings should get restricted to plain text only; no HTML, no BBcode, just a short text explaining what the warning is about. I know this won't magically fix all the issues there are with warnings as you can't prevent people from writing "do not steal my characters", but removing the possibility to fully customize this pop-up can discourage people from putting too much unnecessary stuff, or at least getting too long with it.
More warning-related suggestions I've found, if you want to boost them (or if an admin comes by and wants an overview of the userbase's suggestions regarding warnings):
- Rules for account-wide content warnings
- [suggestion] report profiles not properly warned
- report tickets for profile warnings
- Suggest: Warnings for folders
- World page content warnings/settings
- Ability to submit warnings on character submitter?
- Rework Page Warning System - Checkboxes?
- [S] Word Limit/Tags in Profile Warnings
+1
And also agree with what Grinalbi said. Right now, the warnings are all a saturated red, which can hurt peoples' eyes.
I 100% just close warnings without reading them because half the time they're not actually warnings, just flashy aesthetic stuff with a super generic "dont steal my characters" message, or a DNI that is six paragraphs long and made up almost entirely of abbreviations I've never heard of.
Yeah, plaintext at the very least--but I like Kazetatsu's suggestion even more--just have checkboxes. Perhaps there can be a custom checkbox too, but it needs to have an austere character limit to prevent misuse. Checkboxes are much more useful, since they'll allow users to specify things they do and don't need to be warned about.
+1 !!!!! +100000 !!!!!!!!!
The current warning system is an accessibility nightmare with people not using it for it's actual intended purpose and being nigh unreadable.
The TH themes as a whole have a big issue with not complying with WCAG guidelines, and an overhaul of all the themes to make them more accessible would be great—but an easier bandaid fix for warnings would simply be to change from:
User Content Warning
Yada yada yada yada
To
User Content Warning
Yada yada yada yada
But as well as this, I'm greatly in favour of it being made plain text or checkboxes only. The misuse of content warnings as a BYF list rather than it's intended purpose (content warnings of potentially triggering content) makes it unusable for people who sincerely need them to avoid being triggered, and has lead to more than one person I know who needs these TWs having disabled warnings entirely due to the heavy misuse and eyestrain of the current system.
Even just changing to plain text would increase the usability of the system, as the misuse as a BYF would be less of an issue if people weren't adding flashing gifs and doing bizarre things like adding tabs(??). A content warning system does not need anything more than plain text formatting.
+1
I personally have warnings disabled since the very beginning and I don't care about them. However I definitely see the issue with them. And people putting a lot of stuff in it is very unneeded. But I also understand if they use codes to make it less eyebleeding. Something as simple as a different colored box with text, nothing else. Also +1 on rethemeing the whole thing. Warnings should look like warnings but the red colors they choose are terrible. Especially to those with sensitive eyes.
However plain text is not going to stop people from putting in "none warnings". Like it was suggested before, I also support checkboxes instead of being able to write. this is literally the only way to stop people from putting in other shit. Even if they had a small line available they would still put in "don't steal".
since you're collecting threads about the warning system: here's another one
anyway support for BOTH:
+ no way to code warnings at all in any way, not even italics, no css, nothing
+ removing the bright red background
warnings are impossible to read even if left in their default state right now. not that i ever see them because i have them globally turned off because no-one uses them properly.