Book Ratings

[Josie]

This is jumping off of the Pink thread where @Slartibartfast suggested that books be rated like movie ratings to determine what is age appropriate for kids. What do you all think?

 

[Slartibartfast]

I like the idea.

 

[zincwarrior]

I thought they already were. Goodreads does something like that, and when you look for books they are in different sections.

 

[Slartibartfast]

I thought they already were. Goodreads does something like that, and when you look for books they are in different sections.

Admittedly, I stole the concept from GoodReads.

 

[The Stars Tremble]

This is jumping off of the Pink thread where @Slartibartfast suggested that books be rated like movie ratings to determine what is age appropriate for kids. What do you all think?

Sure, why not? It's unreasonable to expect parents to read every book before giving it to their children to read.

Not every book should require a rating before being published. My main concern here is the volume of books, and the expense of employing government regulators to verify publisher's ratings. But the books which are rated, should be reliably so. That is, a government agent should have read them and given them the rating.

 

[zincwarrior]

hat is, a government agent should have read them and given them the rating.

You had me until this. Movie and other ratings in the US do not come from the government.

 

[Bok Tuklo]

I would oppose that.

 

[Slartibartfast]

Sure, why not? It's unreasonable to expect parents to read every book before giving it to their children to read.

Not every book should require a rating before being published. My main concern here is the volume of books, and the expense of employing government regulators to verify publisher's ratings. But the books which are rated, should be reliably so. That is, a government agent should have read them and given them the rating.

a trained and supervised LLM or NLP system could rip through these pretty quickly. At least the ones in digital form.

However, I would want a STRONG oversight body had represents a DIVERSE group of stakeholders.

Alternatively, Amazon could run their AI versus's GoodRead's AI, etc and let society figure out which ones they like best.

This is probably a tokenization, text classification, and entity recognition workload.

 

[The Stars Tremble]

You had me until this. Movie and other ratings in the US do not come from the government.

And that's a problem. The standard of violence and "adult themes" is continually being ratcheted down, by distributors seeking the widest possible market.

There is no reason that censorship services must come at "government prices." There are plenty of professionals who were going to read the book anyway, just to stay abreast of the junior literature market (and it's obvious potential for much more lucrative cartoon or movie adaptations.) They would co-operate with government rating schemes, for very little money.

I think we need another rating below G. We need infant ratings, 5-7 ratings, and so on. Parents have a legitimate grievance if their kid watches Nemo and refuses to eat fish!

 

[zincwarrior]

And that's a problem. The standard of violence and "adult themes" is continually being ratcheted down, by distributors seeking the widest possible market.

There is no reason that censorship services must come at "government prices." There are plenty of professionals who were going to read the book anyway, just to stay abreast of the junior literature market (and it's obvious potential for much more lucrative cartoon or movie adaptations.) They would co-operate with government rating schemes, for very little money.

I think we need another rating below G. We need infant ratings, 5-7 ratings, and so on. Parents have a legitimate grievance if their kid watches Nemo and refuses to eat fish!

It immediately violates the First Amendment.

 

[The Stars Tremble]

a trained and supervised LLM or NLP system could rip through these pretty quickly. At least the ones in digital form.

Indeed. Pretty much every manuscript is submitted in digital form.

I'm still thinking of ratings as being a premium feature, which publishers would willingly attach to the book. To make it more attractive to parents. If many publishers agreed on the same (algorithmic) standard, it would have credibility and not require government regulation.

 

[The Stars Tremble]

It immediately violates the First Amendment.

Yet movies are rated. Does that "immediately violate" the First Amendment?

 

[Moon]

This is jumping off of the Pink thread where @Slartibartfast suggested that books be rated like movie ratings to determine what is age appropriate for kids. What do you all think?

Seems like a reasonable idea.

 

[Slartibartfast]

Indeed. Pretty much every manuscript is submitted in digital form.

I'm still thinking of ratings as being a premium feature, which publishers would willingly attach to the book. To make it more attractive to parents. If many publishers agreed on the same (algorithmic) standard, it would have credibility and not require government regulation.

I would agree. The technical piece of doing this is pretty well known at this point.

The oversight piece ... that's the doozy.

 

[Josie]

Seems like a reasonable idea.

That's what I said!

 

[zincwarrior]

Yet movies are rated. Does that "immediately violate" the First Amendment?

They are privately rated.

 

[americanwoman]

Sure, why not? It's unreasonable to expect parents to read every book before giving it to their children to read.

Not every book should require a rating before being published. My main concern here is the volume of books, and the expense of employing government regulators to verify publisher's ratings. But the books which are rated, should be reliably so. That is, a government agent should have read them and given them the rating.

That's pretty much my standpoint except maybe not a government agency but something different.

I like to use "common sense media" as a guide. Read what other people and even kids have to say about it. Movies are nice because there are ratings, I know anything over R rated I need to see why it received that rating and if it's appropriate or not for my kid to consume.

It's just weird we could all agree something like the movie 'House of 1000 corpses' shouldn't be shown to a fourth grader but then some people will be like but if it's a book version it should totally be available for anyone.

 

[Moon]

Yet movies are rated. Does that "immediately violate" the First Amendment?

Movies are rated by the MPAA, which is a private organization, not the government.

 

[Josie]

That's pretty much my standpoint except maybe not a government agency but something different.

I like to use "common sense media" as a guide. Read what other people and even kids have to say about it. Movies are nice because there are ratings, I know anything over R rated I need to see why it received that rating and if it's appropriate or not for my kid to consume.

It's just weird we could all agree something like the movie 'House of 1000 corpses' shouldn't be shown to a fourth grader but then some people will be like but if it's a book version it should totally be available for anyone.

Yes. And we all agree that 12 year old Billy shouldn't be watching a porn video at school, but don't you dare take away a book with the exact same level of sexual content. Because words are different, I guess?

 

[The Stars Tremble]

I would agree. The technical piece of doing this is pretty well known at this point.

The oversight piece ... that's the doozy.

So you're OK with publishers charging a huge overhead on publishing books (due to their control of the supply chain, rather than any value add like proof reading) but when I suggest some of general revenue going to an independent rating of a few percent of books, to keep the publisher's ratings fair ... that's a "doozy"?

Let's just leave it to the free market shall we? Publishers won't under-rate books to seek the widest possible market, because they're good guys. Oh, right.

As I might have mentioned, I think publisher-side rating could still work. IF they agree on a common standard, giving up competition for market share. But still this must be judiciable: government should be able to intervene early and correct their ratings. The alternative is leaving it to civil courts, which will bump up the cost of children's books far worse.

 

[The Stars Tremble]

Movies are rated by the MPAA, which is a private organization, not the government.

The film industry was smart enough to self-regulate. The alternative was being censored by LOCAL governments, which like most things local government does, was ridiculously underfunded and mangled their movies so badly that it cost them customers.

I expect there were people like you, whining about the infringement of First Amendment rights. But unlike you, they probably wanted free access to porn.

 

[Nomad4Ever]

I like to use "common sense media" as a guide. Read what other people and even kids have to say about it. Movies are nice because there are ratings, I know anything over R rated I need to see why it received that rating and if it's appropriate or not for my kid to consume.

I like them too, but I don't think we need anything more than what they already offer?

It's just weird we could all agree something like the movie 'House of 1000 corpses' shouldn't be shown to a fourth grader but then some people will be like but if it's a book version it should totally be available for anyone.

But house of 1000 corpses IS totally available for everyone, it is only theaters that impose their own rules around access. Books and DVDs are both often obtained in the same way.

So outside of some label going on the outside of books, what would this even accomplish? Or is that the final goal that you would want but not changing how they can be accessed in any way?

I've personally never liked the ratings system because it artists often arbitrarily contort their work to fit into a certain category to meet a rating.

 

[americanwoman]

I like them too, but I don't think we need anything more than what they already offer?


But house of 1000 corpses IS totally available for everyone, it is only theaters that impose their own rules around access. Books and DVDs are both often obtained in the same way.

So outside of some label going on the outside of books, what would this even accomplish? Or is that the final goal that you would want but not changing how they can be accessed in any way?

I've personally never liked the ratings system because it artists often arbitrarily contort their work to fit into a certain category to meet a rating.

Personally speaking as someone who looked very young and was carded for a lot of R rated movies - I couldn't go just by myself to watch an R rated movie in a theater, buy the DVD in a store, or even borrow the DVD from the library without an ID but when it comes to books there is no carding involved so they are not always obtained the same way.

Nobody is obliged to meet a rating, they are free to do whatever they want but and I don't think rating systems are a bad thing.

 

[Slartibartfast]

So you're OK with publishers charging a huge overhead on publishing books (due to their control of the supply chain, rather than any value add like proof reading) but when I suggest some of general revenue going to an independent rating of a few percent of books, to keep the publisher's ratings fair ... that's a "doozy"?

Let's just leave it to the free market shall we? Publishers won't under-rate books to seek the widest possible market, because they're good guys. Oh, right.

As I might have mentioned, I think publisher-side rating could still work. IF they agree on a common standard, giving up competition for market share. But still this must be judiciable: government should be able to intervene early and correct their ratings. The alternative is leaving it to civil courts, which will bump up the cost of children's books far worse.

That is certainly a detail to work out. I would prefer it taking a more democratized form.

 

[Moon]

The film industry was smart enough to self-regulate. The alternative was being censored by LOCAL governments, which like most things local government does, was ridiculously underfunded and mangled their movies so badly that it cost them customers.

I expect there were people like you, whining about the infringement of First Amendment rights. But unlike you, they probably wanted free access to porn.

“Whining” about constitutionally protected rights. Kind of a stupid comment, but I’ll support our rights every day and let people like you line for the authoritarian government you seem to crave.