New Rating Matching Feedback

[hurtcomfortexmod]

We've had some people let us know they weren't fond of matching on rating, and so we wanted to ask for feedback.

We have set up a Poll where you can anonymously let us know how you feel about the new matching and decide from there if we want to go forward with it.

Please vote and let us know.

Comments

[frith_in_thorns]

Hello, I can't access the poll, it keeps giving me an error message!

[hurtcomfortexmod]

It still works when I click on it, message me your vote on dreamwidth and I'll add it in?

Yes, I strongly prefer it and won't sign up without it.

Yes, but I do not feel strongly and will sign up either way.

No, but I do not feel strongly and will sign up either way.

No, I strongly dislike it and won't sign up if there's Rating Matching

[frith_in_thorns]

Oh, it's working again now! Must have got a server glitch or something :)

[(Anonymous)]

Well, I've just voted and I'll admit, I'm surprised that so many people don't seem to want the exchange matching on ratings. Considering that one of my favorite hurt/comfort scenarios is rape recovery, I was happy with the decision. But, heh. I'm clearly in the minority here.

[(Anonymous)]

But rape recovery could just as well be rated T as E, depending on where the focus lies. That's something you need to depend on freeform tags for, not the rating.

[(Anonymous)]

New person here, but I think the above commenter's point was that they really wanted something E-rated, and liked the idea of being able to match with a writer who was specifically offering to write E-rated fic. I'm in the same boat, except in my case it's that I don't want to write or read about sex at all. I'd love to be able to match specifically to someone who is actively asking for genfic. It's not looking like that's the way the poll will go, and admittedly it would be hard to enforce, so that's fine. But it makes sense that for people who really *only* want stories with sex, or *only* want stories with no sex, matching on rating seemed like a good idea.

[(Anonymous)]

Honestly it would make more sense to have a 'do you want sex prominently featured in your h/c, pick yes or no' option, not a mess of different ratings.

[(Anonymous)]

But also, this is a hurt/comfort exchange. Whether sex happens or not is not the point of this exchange, it should go in optional details, it doesn't need to be added to the matching when we've already got so many freeforms to work with and to use to specify.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

But, again, if that's what they want then they need to use the freeform tags. An E rating doesn't automatically mean sex; it could be for violence or something else.

"I'd love to be able to match specifically to someone who is actively asking for genfic."

Then only offer & relationships...? Problem solved.

[sheliak]

I voted "No, but I do not feel strongly and will sign up either way." and a moment later thought maybe I should have put "No, I strongly dislike it and won't sign up if there's Rating Matching" instead. It isn't enough by itself to make the decision for me, but it does make me less likely to sign up—it adds a layer of finickiness and stress to both signups and creation, to me.

Ratings have always seemed awfully fuzzy to me—they're not something I think about in terms of what I want in a gift, and in an assignment I'd struggle with whether something was G or T and stress out about it.

Also, ratings matching seem like something that works well for people who want to avoid any hint of sex/violence, or for people who want to focus on one or the other. It's a lot less useful for anyone whose tastes are in the middle, or who's okay with a range of things.

(As others have pointed out, tag matching is finicky too—but that's been baked into the exchange for a while! And in a trope-based exchange, I find specific scenarios a lot more useful than vague ratings categories.)