That's, in theory, what Choose Not to Warn means on AO3.

That's how I take it.

That's how I take it.

Seconded. Also, doesn't AO3 default to chooses not to warn if you don't pick something else?

From time not to time, I've seen "chooses not to warn" AND "graphic violence" used on a fic. How do you all interpret that? My first assumption would be that it's shorthand for "this story is dark, dark, dark, and things like death are definitely on the table but you'll have to read to find out for sure."

Seconded. Also, doesn't AO3 default to chooses not to warn if you don't pick something else?

Yes. It's checked by default

From time not to time, I've seen "chooses not to warn" AND "graphic violence" used on a fic. How do you all interpret that? My first assumption would be that it's shorthand for "this story is dark, dark, dark, and things like death are definitely on the table but you'll have to read to find out for sure."

I tend to read it as "I forgot to uncheck the first box when I checked the second"

I'd go with "someone you like is going to die, but I don't want to put in Major Character Death." Or they're going to bring the torture porn. I might read, but I'd be cautious.

I tend to read it as "I forgot to uncheck the first box when I checked the second"

That has happened to a few of my stories. I go back later to edit that one typo that I just found, and end up having to fix that as well.

The first time I chose not to warn, I had nothing to warn about. So that's what I assumed it meant for a very long time.

I've used the chooses not to warn option a few times. Then put "deathfic" or something in the tags. It was when I first started posting on AO3, so I think I didn't have a good handle on the protocol for all the options.

One fic I chose to not warn for I did because it would have given away a major plot point. It was a ghost story and the end twist wouldn't have worked if I'd warned for major character death. Instead, I put a comment at the beginning of the story that if people were concerned about the choose not to warn, there was an explanation in the end notes. It's one of my most popular fics.

Warnings frustrate me. I would like readers to be able to avoid anything triggery, but on the other hand, if I warn for everything that happens in the fic, you've essentially already read it. And someone's likely going to be triggered by something I didn't warn for, regardless. Choose not to warn is much less head-twisty for me.

if I warn for everything that happens in the fic, you've essentially already read it.

I trust you're a better writer than that. "Essentially" having read it means nothing in the face of good prose.

I was serious when I "chose not to warn" because there was nothing triggery that I could conceive of in the few fics I posted to AO3. How does someone who triggers tells that from "there is triggery stuff in here but we're in a vicious cycle, sorry"?

My personal opinion, which is obviously ignoring some people's comfort zones is best faith attempts. I keep remembering my sister's trypophobia and how horrible I was to her (admittedly she didn't realise how bad it was until that very moment either, and she didn't know it was "real") about it--ignorance helped me be a bitch there, but if there are things I can anticipate, I'd like to help out, since the idea of triggering someone by saying nothing is more upsetting to me than by not saying enough.

Also, Debet, I hold you entirely responsible for the lack of power of tag wranglers. I only want to be one if I can wield an iron fist (top and bottom!Cas is a dumb tag--not least of all because of bottom and top!Cas--switch!Cas). But I've been working in document management since I was 23. It would be silly to say tagging isn't emotionally important to me. It's silly that it is, probably, just not silly to say it.

NB: This is all disclaimered with ALL ABOUT ME and isn't intended as a judgement on how other people treat the subject.

I do get angry with people who say that because "fandom" (IO9 has messed up that word for me forever now--so few fans there are in "fandom") is supposed to be a safe place, places with fans are supposed to be safe spaces. I think most fans who get to control a space try and perpetuate the habit, but you still have to look both ways before you cross the road.

When IO9's natter section got dinged for being unsafe for women by someone who wanted a poster piled onto for being an idiot it just drove home how little we can expect (the guy was an idiot, but if she'd met him two years ago, while we (uh, i) were still piling on heavily she'd have run screaming further and louder. And most of what he was doing was being an idiot and disagreeing with perfectly obvious and sane things, rather than abusing or retelling same.

"Safe space" is about to be meaningless, unless it already is.

Safe space has always been meaningless once you get past small groups with very specific purposes. Top-down safe spaces are a joke.

That may be overly-cynical.

But I went to a lovey-dovey liberal arts school which was all about such things, and they didn't seem to work.