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Worldbuilding sometimes gets questions about somewhat adult topics. So far, we've had questions about inbreeding, zoophilia, and possibly others that are harder to search for. Even now, I'm currently writing a question about sex toys in a Type 2 Kardashev scale (will probably be finished soon after I post this).

As far as I know, the Stack Exchange network does not have any rules against adult content (for example, Travel has questions about prostitution and Writers has questions about writing erotic scenes). However, there might still be people that visit this in an environment where NSFW content is inappropriate, like a school, a workplace,... Usually, the question title explains enough to tell you not to visit it, but sometimes, it might not be that simple.

Should we add a NSFW tag that can be added for questions where either the question is NSFW or one of the answers are?

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  • $\begingroup$ Related: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/258126/… For context, I think this was inspired by one of Nate Kerkhofs's questions on Worldbuilding about a related topic, which he later deleted. $\endgroup$
    – HDE 226868 Mod
    Jun 6, 2015 at 21:28
  • $\begingroup$ Nice idea, wrong way of going about it. If there's something people should know about your question, put it in the first few lines so it comes up in the question tooltip on the main page - we have enough meta tags as it is and we should avoid making more. $\endgroup$
    – ArtOfCode
    Jun 6, 2015 at 21:31
  • $\begingroup$ @HDE226868 Indeed, that question, this question and the question that inspired both questions are all made by me. $\endgroup$
    – Nzall
    Jun 6, 2015 at 21:35
  • $\begingroup$ I saw, yes. Glad you're taking it to discussions. $\endgroup$
    – HDE 226868 Mod
    Jun 6, 2015 at 21:36
  • $\begingroup$ @HDE226868 It's the right thing to do. Better to get such things out in the open where they can be discussed and acted upon than losing half our audience because of work filters. $\endgroup$
    – Nzall
    Jun 6, 2015 at 21:37
  • $\begingroup$ Please refer to my answer on the above linked post, meta.stackexchange.com/questions/258126/…, as it applies here as well. The work filter/Google ranking argument doesn't bear out in reality, nor is convenience a good argument in favor of censorship in the first place. $\endgroup$
    – user5083
    Jun 7, 2015 at 6:46

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No, no, no, no.

Not until you can, at the very least, say I am an expert in not-safe-for-work.

  • Why should we judge what is considered "safe for work" for someone? What would be the specific criteria for adding this tag to a question?
  • Why can't the same content be "safe for work" in some settings and "not safe for work" in others? (Think private office versus open floor plan, for example.)
  • Why is someone browsing the site at all in such a setting?
  • In what situation would someone want to find questions that are "not safe for work"? (A major use for tags is searching for questions.)
  • Who would be following such a tag? (Similar to, say, which has 9 followers, or which is followed by 2 users, or which is followed by 7 users, or the 8 users who follow .)

Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that this site has a lot of active users and a lot of visits. But when you are at work, you are supposed to be doing what you are being paid to do, not leisurely browse Stack Exchange. I can easily imagine settings where browsing Physics, Biology, Programmers, Stack Overflow, Server Fault, The Workplace, Electrical Engineering and what have you is relevant to the task you are supposed to be doing, but I am having a very hard time imagining a setting where browsing Worldbuilding is relevant to what you are being paid to do, and even more so such a situation where having a not-safe-for-work tag would add anything useful.

We get this type of suggestions repeatedly: using tags for things tags are not meant to do. Generally speaking, meta tags is something that we should avoid. I was a proponent of the science-based tag originally, which didn't pan out very well, and now we have another one (hard-science) which seems to me to quite possibly be going down a similar slope: answers taking liberties the tag is supposed to say they cannot.

Each question is limited to a maximum of five tags. In between the meta tags we already have (reality-check, science-based, hard-science; which are not uncommonly combined) that already puts serious limitations in place on the meaningful tags that can be added to a question. I tried a suggestion to rectify this somewhat, which didn't really fly with the community. It isn't at all uncommon today to see questions that are tagged plus something else. If you add a tag, you're already up to three out of five tags before you have even stated anything useful about the question's topic. That does not make the site any more approachable or make it any easier to find the content you are looking for.

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    $\begingroup$ I think I might be able to claim to be an expert on that. Don't belittle my credentials, bro! $\endgroup$
    – user5083
    Jun 6, 2015 at 21:30
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    $\begingroup$ "Who would be following such a tag?" - in the interest of being a devil's advocate, I'll timidly raise my hand. If for no other reason, because most questions on such tag are almost guaranteed to be interesting :) I do agree with the rest of the asnwer and the "no" summary, however - and this is coming from OCD tagophile who fights to defend tags on other SEs to exaustion :) $\endgroup$
    – user4239
    Jun 7, 2015 at 20:31
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    $\begingroup$ There are a number of jobs which could legitimately browse worldbuilding. Most of them would not be concerned by questions on these subjects though. $\endgroup$
    – Tim B
    Jun 9, 2015 at 19:38

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