Back in 2011 I wrote a post titled “Since when did young adult fiction become the cure for cancer?” It was a response to all the YASaves hysteria. The main point of my amazing post (grin) was that the people complaining about some YA content wanted not to ban books, but to simply have a way to more easily evaluate if they wanted to buy a particular book in the first place.
They want to avoid purchasing what they thought was a box of Marshmallow Mateys only to open it and find a bunch of bicycle sprockets.
Last year I decided to work on a solution. I have some ideas. But before I get ahead of myself and build something, I want to really understand if it’s a problem worth solving. I want to chat with others who do care about content to see what aspects of this are important to them and what they’re doing now to find this information.
So, if you wish books had ratings for sex, violence, and language, then I want to talk to you. It will take about 20 minutes. If you’re open to chatting, leave a comment, or click Contact above and fill in the form.
Because I live up in the middle of nowhere, we’ll have to chat via a web meeting. But never fear: I’ll host that. All you’ll have to do is show up and answer my questions 🙂
I’m happy to report that GUN RUNNER, the science fiction, action adventure novel that Larry Correia and I wrote, is a finalist for this year’s Dragon Award for Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel.
The award is part of Dragon Con, the massive multimedia convention held annually in Atlanta, Georgia. The winners will be announced at the con which takes place over Labor Day weekend.
So I lived for almost two years in the Netherlands and Belgium and learned the Dutch language, which is full of delights. Today’s delight is billenkoek.
Now koek means cake. A koekje (small cake) is a cookie. Boterkoek is butter cake, this delicious sweet, to-die-for Dutch version of shortbread.
So what does billen mean?
Back in the day when I’d visit various Dutchies (the people, not political territories), they’d always ask if I was thirsty. And very frequently when I’d ask for water, someone would say, “Water? The frogs wash their billen in that.”
Billen means bum as in behind, butt, buttocks. Bil is singular, one half of the full billen, if you will.
So what do you think a billenkoek is?
No, not that.
It’s a spanking.
“Honey, you’ll clean the dishes, or you’re going to get a little bum cake. What will it be?”
I wish I could talk to a publisher about this. I should talk to a Barnes & Noble corporate book buyer. But since I don’t have one handy, I’ll discuss it with you folks. Maybe I’m up in the night? You tell me.
Here’s the deal. My wife is 7th and 8th grade language arts teacher. My wife is also a mom who loves books and wants her girls to read until their eyes bong out of their heads.
So we go to find books for her students and for our girls and, jeez, wouldn’t you know it, but this YA book features masturbation and that one features lots of fine words like F*** and S*** and this one is about giving the guys a blow job (tee, hee, hee).
Yeah, I know about YA saves. This isn’t about banning this or that content.
It’s about the fact that I’m a parent. And, geez, I have a certain way I want to raise my kids. My wife is a teacher who needs to provide books to her students that aren’t going to piss some parent off. Why? Because she’s providing a service to that parent. Because she wants to keep her job. And because it’s her job to help parents improve their kid’s reading ability not tell them how to raise a family.
So why in the Sam Hill can’t publishers rate their books?
There are millions of their customers who would find this useful.
Well, here’s one answer I was given by a writer friend I respect.
Everyone in the industry is really pushing back against the idea of a rating system. Let me see if I can explain why.
A friend of mine, ZZ [name removed], is the nicest person in the world. Volunteered for years at a prison to help people learn to express themselves by writing. Her older brother was a closeted homosexual for years, contracted AIDS, died too young. She wrote a book recently called [title removed], about a family in the restaurant business (as hers was) who have a “late” baby and the problems it causes for the older teens, one of whom is coming out as gay. It’s a soft, quite, sad, moving book. And it would be part of the “rating” system and banned from a bunch of schools. ZZ also wrote a book a few years ago about teenage pregnancy. Also beautifully written, kind, compassionate. But it would get tagged by schools as “inappropriate.” ZZ feels strongly that there are kids out there who need books, kids in your wife’s school system who need to be told they are not alone.
I don’t see any way to have a system that distinguishes between books that I see as anchors to kids who need help and those books which I see as genuinely offensive and encouraging bad teen behavior by glorifying it. The only system I know is me recommending the best books I see. And I’d much rather see librarians and school teachers go through books on a case by case basis, deciding whether they personally think it fits the values in their community than to have someone else not attached to the community do the same thing.
Uh huh.
If this is accurate, it shows the industry’s stunning lack of creativity AND arrogance. Because if publishers really were listening to parents, they could come up with a solution.
No, really. They could.
Why, there’s already one out there. They don’t even have to expend even one creative molecule to find it.
Look at the Kids-in-Mind rating system: http://www.kidsinmind.com/. It rates movies 1-10 on sex, violence, and profanity (SVP).
There’s no age stipulation in their ratings.
Unlike other rating systems, there’s no “children under 13 not admitted.” No “appropriate for teens.” No recommended range for this or that group or this book is good and that one’s bad.
It just rates the content and gives it a number. You, as the user, determine what level you’re comfortable with and then find the movies that fit.
I’m a 4-10-4 on sex, violence, and profanity. You might be a 5-2-9. That’s not good or bad. It’s just what it is. More importantly, the rating allows me as a consumer to EASILY FIND AND PURCHASE THE PRODUCT I WANT.
I know some folks have never heard of it, but consumer choice is a really cool thing.
And if I hear about a movie that’s amazingly good, but I see it doesn’t match my normal levels, then I can make an informed choice to watch or not watch. The King’s Speech, for example, is a bit above my normal profanity setting. But this didn’t prevent me from watching the film (it was a fabulous movie, btw). SVP just gave me a couple of pieces of simple data I find useful as I make my choices. Data I’m already looking for.
If publishers were to use a similar rating system, every librarian could peg the levels they wanted in their school and be done with it. As well as consider special cases. Teachers could peg the level for their classroom. Parents could search and find and buy. And they could guide their kids in their purchases as well.
Make it easy for them to go case-by-case. And don’t imagine librarians and teachers and parents are going to read every YA book published to find those that fit with their values. They don’t, can’t, do that now. They won’t in some utopian future. If you give them SVP ratings, it will help them spend their time, case-by-case, on books that they’re likely to buy. Which probably means they’ll buy more.
Write about homosexuality, rape, whatever. But make it easy on the consumer to see if it’s the kind of product they want to buy.
Some might say, but themes of homosexuality and rape and child abuse etc. etc. are important and would be automatically excluded!
No, they won’t.
You can write a story about those themes that scores low on SVP. You can write about those themes and score high. Themes are outside the SVP scale.
Some parents, librarians, and teachers may want to avoid some themes. Others would seek them out.
So, good golly, here’s an idea only a rocket scientist could come up with. OR someone who took the issue a tiny bit seriously and wanted to serve their customer. How about a little box under the SVP rating that contained “sensitive” themes.
They don’t have to do what Scholastic does with its school catalogs and label them “mature” themes, which might suggest “mature audiences only.” They’re not “mature” themes. They’re not “bad” themes. They’re not “good” themes. They’re just sensitive themes.
SVP and Sensitive Themes: four little pieces of data consumers would find oh so incredibly helpful.
But no. The industry can’t be bothered with that. And, consequently, reveals its arrogance and total lack of respect for a HUGE portion of their customers.
I guess they think librarians are mindless idiots. Never in a million years, if a librarian is tuned into the needs of her community and thinks a book on homosexuality would be important, would she search on that sensitive theme and her SVP ratings. And parents would never do that for sure (do you know how many gun-clinging troglodyte parents there are out there!?)
I guess the industry thinks because it sits in an office in NY City that it knows everything about raising kids. It knows so much it must dictate to parents how to do it right.
Yeah.
Or maybe what this really shows is that the publishers have got a book they want to sell. They want to make a buck. And, dang it, this might hurt sales. Because then people wouldn’t buy things they didn’t want.
They really don’t seem to care about what many of their customers want. Because if they did, and they realio trulio cared about these sensitive topics and saving the world, then they’d publish books high on the SVP because they’re just sooooo goooood, but they’d also publish books on those topics that are equally as goooood with SVP ratings that the majority of parents and school districts would be comfortable with.
And they’d let the customer choose what they wanted to purchase.
Customer choice. Customer service.
Wow, what revolutionary concepts.
They even might find that if you delight the customer, they’ll come back for more.
I know, I know. I’m living in fantasy land; delighted customers coming back for more . . . as if.
Question is: will the publishers listen?
We’ll see. I truly hope I’m wrong about their arrogance and disregard towards huge swaths of their customer base. In the meantime, you might want to think about talking to the manager of your favorite book store about this. Strangely enough, books stores have a lot of pull with publishers.
You also might want to look at Kids-in-Mind. It seems to make a lot in advertising. Looks like there’s money to be made in a review site like that for YA books. I know a lot of people who have said they wished they could just read books for a living. Anyone feeling entrepreneurial? Anyone?
EDIT
Two more points.
First, what’s sensitive for one person may not be for another. But that’s the beauty of this. This only identifies subjects that would be sensitive for reasonable sections of the market. For someone with your reading tastes, you’d say, eh, homosexuality, big deal. That’s not a sensitive subject. For others, they’d say, hum, have to think about it.
It’s just giving data. A respect and recognition of different tastes. Not a prescription of what someone’s taste should be. Or what people should or shouldn’t feel is sensitive subject matter.
For this reason, I don’t think publishers would want to use the word “controversial” because that implies controversy. Just sensitive (or some other similar label). Or even “Potentially Sensitive Themes.” This is just giving data about content areas SOME parents might want to know about.
Second, the SVP is not going to be 100% perfect. But something is much better than nothing. And having some clear standard for rating, whatever it is, pegs things so you can figure out where you are. As long as the raters are fairly consistent, then you can tell if something is close to the type of product you’re interested in. There will be goofs. No doubt about it. Huge goofs would be probably very infrequent because a ten-point scale allows you to make gradual distinctions. But I’ll take some goofs now and again over nothing at all.
Furthermore, because it’s NOT age-based like the MPAA and prescriptive in the target audience, it’s not telling parents what to do. There is no “good for your kids” and “bad for your kids” rating. Just the level you’re comfortable with.
Finally, some people object to ratings because “how can you boil a book down to a few numbers?” I don’t think this boils a book down. It’s only a couple of pieces of data about a book. Data parents are already looking for. The cover, recommendations, word-of-mouth, flap, description, buzz–these are all pieces of data as well.
In fact, you and I exclude many books based on genre labels alone. And yet we don’t worry about a genre labels much. They’re useful pieces of information. Are they always perfect? No. But they’re by-and-large very useful. I don’t see that this is much different. Just another piece of data to help consumers find what they want.
Habits are one of the most powerful forces in our lives. If
we could consciously harness them, there’s no telling what we can do.
The problem is that we keep going about it all wrong.
We keep trying to motivate ourselves into behavior change.
Sometimes motivation works, but motivation is fickle. And more often than not
it leaves us hanging just when we need it the most.
So are we doomed?
No.
Because motivation is just one of four parts of creating
habits. And it’s not even the most important one.
What are these other parts? How do you harness them?
Well, that’s the subject of Atomic Habits by James Clear.
And one of the neat things is that Clear reveals that tiny
changes can lead to remarkable results. No Herculean efforts. No getting
yourself amped up. Something else that’s much easier to do and much more
effective.
The book’s been a New York Times bestseller.
An Amazon bestseller.
It’s been on the USA Today bestseller list for twenty-two
weeks.
If you want to build some good habits, if you want to stop
some bad ones, if you want to make any behavior in yourself or others more
likely, let me recommend you find out what Clear has discovered in his research
and give it a try. I think you’ll be happy you did.
*
Chris Christie,
the two-term governor of New Jersey, is an interesting figure.
He was a federal prosecutor who cleaned up a ton of
government corruption in New Jersey.
And then he became governor. He might have come and gone
like hundreds of governors, but a video went viral, showing his direct, in-your-face
politics.
Many begged him to run in the 2012 presidential election,
including a whole bunch of billionaires.
He turned them down. Said he wasn’t ready. You’ve got to
admire someone who does that.
Then he did run in the 2016 election, but failed to get the
attention and votes he might have because Trump was sucking all the media out
of the room. And that might have ended it. But Christie dropped out of the race
and was the first to endorse Trump, who’d been a long-time friend.
Trump almost picked him for vice president. The choice ended
up being between Christie and Pence. Ultimately, he chose Pence and asked Christie
to create the transition plan.
Christie spent six months with a whole team of people
creating that plan. It was a plan that would have helped Trump avoid so many
disasters in appointments and policy during his first two hundred days. But
when it was finished, the Trump team decided to throw it away.
Why? What was going on?
Christie is unlike Trump in many, many ways. Why would he
support him?
Christie reveals all and much more in Let Me Finish: Trump, the
Kushners, Bannon, New Jersey, and the Power of In-Your-Face Politics.
In the book he sets the record straight about his tenure as
a corruption-fighting prosecutor and a Republican running a Democratic state,
as well as what really happened on the 2016 campaign trail and inside Trump
Tower. It’s a fascinating book that gives insights into the Trump team, Trump
himself, and Christ Christie who I think would have made a terrific president.
If you’re interested in politics, larger-than-life figures,
and a view from the inside, I think you’ll love this book.
*
In less than three minutes, you can amaze your friends, cut
through a lot of political blather, and clearly assess what’s being proposed
over the next eighteen months as the presidential campaign heats up.
How?
By understanding the simple taxonomy below.
Every day folks in the media make accusations and claims
about socialism, Sweden, Venezuela, capitalism, and the United States. Unfortunately,
a lot of the time it’s clear they’re a bit muddled. So let’s cut through the
confusion.
Whether you’re an independent, Democrat, or Republican,
you’ll want to know these three terms.
SOCIALISM
The state owns and directs huge portions of the economy. The
government in these schemes is the old-fashioned Soviet, Mao, and Nazi style
dictatorships.
These types of socialists did so much good in the 20th
century. No other scheme was better at piling up dead bodies. Millions and
millions of them.
An interesting tidbit. Did you know that “Nazi” is the abbreviation
in German of “Nationalsozialistische”? That word means
“National Socialist”. It comes from the name of Hitler’s political party, the “National
Socialist German Workers’ Party” or “Nationalsozialistische der Deutsche
Arbeiters Partei.”
Nobody running for president today is advocating for this
type of government.
DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
The state owns and directs huge portions of the economy. The
government in these schemes is supposed to be democratic, which means you
should be able to vote the bums out and put other bums in. Venezuela supposedly
uses this model, although some wonder if it is a true democracy or a sham one.
For those who like socialism, this is supposed to be the
good way of doing it as opposed to the bad way of the old fashioned
authoritarians. I will let you determine whether the “good” scheme actually
leads to any better economic outcomes than the “bad” one.
SOCIAL DEMOCRACY
You rely on lots and lots and lots of capitalism (private
ownership and direction of companies in a free market) to fund government
social programs. The funding is done via high tax rates. You have elections and
can vote the bums out and put other bums in. This is Sweden.
A lot of people in the current presidential race are
advocating for this type of government. Although, if they say that any system
that allows billionaires to exist is immoral, you will need to scrutinize that
candidate carefully because Sweden’s system allows billionaires. It may be that
candidate actually wants some form of democratic socialism.
One last point. If you think about it, the United States and
Sweden are similar types of governments. They’re on the same continuum. The difference
is that the United States is simply much less of a welfare state than Sweden
is.
There you have it. Three terms you are going to hear a
million times over the next eighteen months.
Amaze your friends by actually knowing what they mean.
Larry and I went on the Blasters and Blades podcast to talk about fantasy, science fiction, and working together on Gun Runner. I also shared my weirdest experience on a book tour (hint: Reptoids from the Hollow Earth). It was a fun show.
Well, from what people have been posting, he seemed like the devil. But I know how the internet can be. Mitt Romney at one time was the devil. Now, I think he’s been degraded in those quarters to janitor of the hot place. Yeah, that one Romney who is out raising tons of money to help fix blindness among the poorest of the poor, that evil son-of-a-gun.
So when I saw there was a new head honcho in town, I decided to see what he was all about.
I did try reading various posts on the internet, but after a dozen or so of those, I realized it would just be easier to go to the source. And so I went to Vox Day’s website and clicked the contact link, which popped up an email.
I asked Day if he’d mind answering a few questions.
He agreed.
What you will read below is our conversation, arranged for easy reading.
Why am I doing this?
Well, who doesn’t want to scoop the devil? But beyond that, I agree with George R. R. Martin: internet conversations that are not moderated to maintain a tone of respectful disagreement are a bane upon us all. Actually, Martin said they were part of the devil’s alimentary canal, but I didn’t want to confuse the topic.
So I’d read a number of posts that Day had made and others folks had made about Day and saw all the bad juju going back and forth. And I wanted to know what this guy actually believed. Once I understood that, if I disagreed, then I could disagree in a way that I think is actually productive.
We talked about some of his views on two subjects—race and women. Are his ideas provocative? Well, you need to know what they are before you decide.
Conversation
Brown
Vox,
I’m following the conversation about the Hugos. Many of the conversations claim you are a racist and misogynist. Knowing how labels and slurs can magically become fact, I wanted to go to the source and understand what it is you truly believe. I’ve done some reading on your site. I’ve seen attack pieces such as this http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Theodore_Beale#cite_note-real-ass-13.
But it’s all so scattershot and snippets out of context. I’m wondering if you might answer some questions. If so, my first questions are about your views on race.
Do you believe Black Africans have, in general, less genetic potential for intelligence than White Europeans?
Do you believe the same for the darker Asians like those from India or Indonesia?
Which genetic group has the highest genetic potential for intelligence at this time?
My response to those who claim I am racist or misogynist is simple: why do you reject science, history, and logic? It is not hateful to be scientifically literate, historically aware, and logically correct.
Pure Homo sapiens sapiens lack Homo neanderthalus and Homo denisova genes which appear to have modestly increased the base genetic potential for intelligence. These genetic differences may explain the observed IQ gap between various human population groups as well as various differences in average brain weights and skull sizes.
Yes, East Asians have been observed to have considerably higher IQs than Southeast Asians.
The Chinese. Their average IQ is higher than the Ashkenazi Jews, who are genetically a refined group of Semitic-Italian crosses. To be more specific, the highest average IQ is found in Singapore.
No, the genetic groups are the Homo sapiens sapiens/Homo neanderthalus crosses, the Homo sapiens sapiens/Homo neanderthalus/Homo denisova crosses, and the pure Homo sapiens sapiens. These broadly align with Europe, Asia, and Africa, but not exactly.
Let me see if I’ve captured your overall approach. You feel it’s important to examine and conduct science without regard to political correctness. For example, if Vanhanen and Lynn say IQ is genetic, you feel the most appropriate thing to do is not attack them for being racists, but simply examine their data and conclusions dispassionately. It’s important to question it. Argue with it. Try to falsify, as we do with any other scientific claim. But not dismiss it simply on the basis that it doesn’t agree with our what we feel is morally right. Correct?
Day
Yes. Science and history and logic exist regardless of whether we are happy about them or not. We have to take them into account.
Brown
It appears the Lynn & Vanhanen book suggests the genetic IQ differences were caused, not by Homo crosses, but by natural selection operating in colder climates over long periods of time. Can you provide another reference that discusses the DNA tracing and IQ correlation of the various crosses?
Day
There are many articles on the Internet about DNA and IQ, I suggest you simply search them out and read a few. The data is conclusive, the rationale explaining the data is not.
Brown
I’m not sure I understand what you mean when you said the rationale explaining the data is not conclusive. What do you mean by that?
Day
Regarding rationale, the data is beyond dispute. But we cannot explain why the data is the way that it is, we can only construct various explanatory hypotheses. Historical explanations are, for the most part, scientific fairy tales, literal science fiction.
Brown
I read your comment to Jemisin about African exposure to Greco-Roman culture. It seems you’re suggesting societies can’t make large change their culture (values and beliefs) over a few generations, or within one generation. Is that what you’re claiming? It doesn’t seem like you’re making a genetic-intelligence argument since 1,000-2,000 years seems too short for any type of significant evolution. Of course, if it’s a cultural argument, then I don’t see how it’s possible to say it’s impossible for a bunch of Jemisons to accomplish this since she was raised with the Western culture. Confused on your base point here.
Day
Yes, I am claiming that societies are incapable of moving from full primitivism to full civilization within the time frame that primitive African societies have been in contact with what we consider to be civilization. It is a genetic argument. It takes that long to kill off or otherwise suppress the breeding of the excessively violent and short-time preferenced. African-American men are 500 times more likely to possess a gene variant that is linked to violence and aggression than white American men.
Brown
Two more questions. It doesn’t sound like you’re against immigration per se. You just think that if a society wants to continue, they need to breed. Right?
Day
I am against large-scale immigration, particularly population-replacement immigration. Limited immigration, no problem.
Brown
I suspect someone is going to wonder if your ideas on race and IQ and violence mean you favor some type of eugenics program. So let me ask you: do you believe in selective breeding or sterilization? If so, would that be to promote the Homo crosses you think are better? Or just any trait from any group you think is superior?
Day
No, I am not a eugenicist. I oppose forced selective breeding and sterilization. However, I also oppose dysgenic and dyscivic social policies, which is presently what we have across most of the West.
Brown
As much as I want to ask more about what you consider dysgenic and dyscivic policies, I think it would just lead to another topic, which would lead to another. Let’s talk about your views on women. Here are my initial questions.
Do you believe a country is better off when women cannot vote?
Do you believe a country is better off when women are not afforded equal education opportunities as men?
What are the top topics of education do you think would be beneficial for women?
I’ve read this post http://voxday.blogspot.ca/2012/06/scientist-beats-up-pz.html. It sounds like you think the main objective of a country or culture with regards to women should be to reduce female promiscuity (not necessarily male promiscuity) and increase the number of children each female bears. Is that correct?
Referring to that same post, are you saying that genital mutilation and acid burnings are legitimate ways to treat women? Or are you saying that they are bad things, but that the societies that do such things have lower female promiscuity rates and higher fertility rates, and so it’s a small price to pay?
Day
Yes, in a representative democracy. However, note that I favor universal direct democracy and the jury is out there.
It depends. It increasingly appears that a society is improved by widespread female education through high school, and harmed by it beyond that level. If you look at the demographics, a society that sends its women to college stops breeding. How this is supposed to benefit a society, I do not understand.
Again, it depends. If a society is demographically dying, then yes, it had better do something to get its birth rate up or it will cease to exist. This isn’t rocket science. If a society is stable or growing demographically, it has no need to concern itself with such policies.
You appear to have misread the post. PZ Myers claimed that there was no rational case to be made for the Taliban’s activities. I responded by demonstrating that the Taliban’s behavior is entirely rational, it is merely the consequence of different objectives and ruthlessness in pursuing them. But the mere fact that I am capable of observing a logical syllogism does not mean I share the assumptions involved or advocate the conclusion. Considering that the Taliban defeated the Soviets and appear to have outlasted NATO, I think it is remarkably stupid to dismiss them as irrational simply because they are willing to defend their way of life.
Brown
Even though it appears I misread the exchange with PZ Myers, your answers to 2 and 3 suggest you prioritize fertility rates as the main goal a society should have towards women. As long as the population is stable or growing, you feel a society can examine other goals or objectives. But only if those goals or policies do not negatively impact the population rate. Correct?
Day
Yes. The NATIVE population rate. Immigration is used to cover up demographic decline, but it changes the nation.
Brown
Okay, what’s the reason you feel women shouldn’t vote in a representative democracy? And do you think only certain types of males should vote?
Day
The reason women shouldn’t vote in a representative democracy is they are significantly inclined to vote for whomever they would rather f***. Hence the studies about height and hair being relevant to US presidential politics. That’s why women’s suffrage was pushed by the Communists and why it is the first plank of the Fascist Manifesto.
In a representative system, yes, only certain types of males should vote. And before you leap to any silly conclusions, please keep in mind that I have lived most of my life in political systems where I am not allowed to vote. Voting does not equal maximizing freedom and liberty.
Brown
First, what types of males do you think should vote in a representative government and what’s the main reason why?
Second, do you believe large numbers of males will vote based on sexual attractiveness as well when females are running for office?
Day
Men who demonstrate sufficient long-term orientation and a willingness to put the national interest above self-interest.
No, men aren’t wired the same way.
Brown
How would you identify the types of men you mention? Military or law enforcement service? How would you determine who had a long-term view of things?
Day
I have never given any thought to how such men would be identified. Every method is bound to fail in time.
Personally, I’d like to see direct democracy tried. We now have the technology, and it would be MUCH harder to corrupt than representative democracy. At least we don’t know exactly HOW it would fail.
Brown
Vox,
This has been really helpful to me. I think it would be helpful to others wanting to understand you. Agreeing, of course, is a different matter. But that’s a different subject. Would you be okay with me posting this conversation on my site?
Day
Sure, do as you see fit. The usual suspects will have their own hissy fits, but that’s of no concern to me. I find it amusing when people tell me they disagree with some of these things. Do they not understand that it is not me with whom they are disagreeing, but reality? Why people can understand that if pandas don’t breed, they will go extinct, but fail to grasp the same thing is true of nations is beyond me.
Comments
You will notice I wasn’t trying to challenge his ideas. Does that mean I agree with them lock, stock, and barrel?
No. I’m very skeptical about a lot of them.
But as I stated above, before I agree or disagree with someone, I need to understand them. And the best way to understand someone is to ask questions, listen, and verify I’ve understood accurately. The worst way to understand is to start with an attack.
In this stage, the goal is not to trick someone. It’s not to convince them that they’ve contradicted themselves. It’s not to prove any point.
It’s to hear them out. And if there are things that don’t make sense, to ask questions of clarification.
But what do I think about his ideas?
Well, let’s look at them.
Scientific Inquiry
I have to agree with his idea that we should try to look at science dispassionately. I think it’s dumb to reject someone’s science simply because the results offend our sensibilities.
We reject science because there are issues with the data, or the experiments, or conclusions. We reject it because it doesn’t fit with the observations. Or because we can’t replicate the results, or because it fails to predict as it claimed it could. But we only hurt ourselves when we reject it because it doesn’t fit our current political beliefs.
Okay, fine. But what about his views on race and women?
The Rhetoric of Offense
Well, they’re bound to rile feathers. And Day sometimes seems to go out of his way to state them in a way he knows is offensive. I didn’t feel he did that with me. But if you read the links above, you can see he does employ it with others.
Here’s my take on this. The rhetoric of offense is different than the rhetoric of explication. The latter is meant to explain. The former’s goal is to cause injury. It has no interest in sharing ideas. It only has interest in injuring someone, either to try to gain relief from an attack or to beat someone into submission, or because seeing folks get all riled up provides amusement.
A good portion of Day’s posts that I’ve read, admitting it’s nowhere near exhaustive, seem to contain a lot of the rhetoric of offense. And I think this dramatically undermines his ability to get others to consider his ideas, let alone believe them.
Sure, the attacks might bring like-minded folks to his side. But, for the most part, it does not provide the ground in which insight grows. Offense closes both parties off to challenges, biases, and ideas. It closes them off to new information. And new information is such an integral part of learning.
Some people say that tone shouldn’t matter. For example, you may lace the fact that the earth revolves around the sun with expletives, or say it to me sweetly, but the fact remains that the earth revolves around the sun. So asking for a more respectful tone is an ad hominine attack, a logical fallacy. It has nothing to do with the argument.
But here’s where I believe the anti-tone folks go wrong. Offense changes the message. When you call me a jackass, you’ve selected to promote one message over another. It doesn’t matter if you’ve couched your attack in a well-reasoned point because you have decided to no longer communicate your point. You’ve decided to communicate the offense instead.
Can’t we do both?
Not really. It’s like playing a country western tune of reason softly in the background while shoving a 110 decibel speaker blasting an annoying alarm in my face.
It’s like taking the statement “the cow jumped over the moon” and saying “the the the the the the the the the the the the the the” followed by a barely audible statement of the rest. All the receiver hears is “the”. And that’s what they respond to.
This means there’s no fallacy at play because there is no argument being communicated. Instead, you’ve communicated an attack. And invited a response to precisely the same.
If the speaker wants someone to consider his ideas, then he needs to speak in a way that invites consideration. I know, you can do that, and the receiver may still go into what sometimes feels like “a hissy fit.” We see this all the time, don’t we? Communication is indeed a two-way street. However, if the guy who was trying to explain decides to switch and respond with an attack, that’s his choice. But don’t call it explication or reason or conversation.
Day was perfectly polite to me. And I know it’s incredibly difficult sometimes to not attack when being attacked. I know his ideas, even when stated reasonably, will rile some folks. But it’s also true that he sometimes loads his communications with things he knows will offend. Things meant to injure and ridicule. Things which show little regard for others. I find it counterproductive. I think it’s wrong. But I also condemn the same tactic from the other side. And, yes, there is probably a time to use the rhetoric of offense, but that’s for another post.
Okay, but what about his beliefs, John?
Votes for Women
Do you agree it would be better for our nation if women didn’t vote?
No.
I’m not convinced men aren’t affected by charisma. What? When males get in a group, all are equally popular? Or popular only because of their ideas, not their looks, money, power, physical prowess, etc? Nor am I convinced that women can’t be long-term thinkers. I haven’t seen any science that supports that idea. And my personal experience has been just the opposite. The women I know think a lot about the future. Furthermore, when I include women in councils, we usually come up with much better ideas.
Now Day might suggest there’s science to look at. That’s his prerogative. I’m incredibly skeptical. But I think the most productive thing to do in reaction to his claim is to gauge whether you think it merits serious consideration. If it does, or if you’re curious, examine the evidence and report your results. If it doesn’t, just say you haven’t seen anything to suggest its worth looking into further.
Education for Women
What about his idea that the most important thing for a society is to maintain the population, which means the most important thing for a woman is to have babies, and that education undermines this and therefore should be avoided?
In one way, he’s right. If you want to maintain a certain population, you do indeed have to breed.
But if that’s your goal, I don’t see education in general as the determining factor. Mormon women have, as a group, much more education than the average female in the United States AND they have more babies. Lots more. I don’t think it’s education per se. I think it’s the values and beliefs some education fosters.
There are some groups that are taller on average than others, some that are shorter. On the face of it, I don’t see why some groups might not have a genetic disposition to more of one kind of intelligence and other groups less. I haven’t looked into this much. I don’t know anything about Homo sapiens sapiens, Homo neanderthalus, Homo denisova, and the various crosses.
However, I do question if IQ isn’t more about nutrition and early learning. I wonder if IQ tests really measure intelligence or just one type of problem solving. And I’m skeptical that it’s really that big of a difference. Maybe it is. I admit my ignorance and curiosity on this topic openly.
Race and National Success
What about his claim that Homo sapiens sapiens, which he claims are what we find in Sub-Saharan Africa ancestry, have more genes for violence than we do up north and so can’t at the present time build as successful a society?
This one makes no sense to me. I don’t see a difference in violence levels. Like the Romans weren’t violent? Or the Germanic tribes? Hitler and all those that followed him didn’t do violence? Napoleon and his armies? I don’t see how we selected against violence and short-term thinking. I’m incredibly skeptical of these claims.
Now, it could be he needed more space to lay them out. After all, I wasn’t asking for evidence or a full treatise. Only what he believed. But as it stands right now, I’m betting the types of violence he’s looking at are driven more by culture than anything else. And I don’t believe people are genetically predisposed against democracy.
Frankly, the ideas laid out in Guns, Germs, and Steel seem more predictive to me about what makes peoples successful than Homo crosses. But of course I’m always open to new information. However, even if this claim is true, it’s a fallacy to peg each member of a group to the average. People lie along a bell curve for all sorts of things, and it might be that any one person or community or even nation might actually have less of this than another from a different group.
Bottom line
Vox Day wasn’t the devil, dang it.
He is someone who espouses a couple of ideas that I agree with and a number that seem flat out wrong to me. He appears to be someone who enjoys the rhetoric of offense. I may investigate some of his claims. I may not. I am new to the topic of genetics, and am curious. Whatever I do, I found it useful to try to see for myself what the man believes. One thing that he and I agree on is how we should react to claims made with the purpose, not to offend and injure, but to expand our knowledge.
Now, I have no idea what types of comments this post will bring. Please note that I did not ask Day for his sources, or to lay out all the evidence he feels backs up these beliefs. That’s much too big for this post. You can certainly share your ideas and the science you find compelling. But this is my site, and by golly I request that if you post and want to express disagreement, that you disagree respectfully. Name calling, high-octane expletives, etc. will not fly here. Any post that fails to avoid this will be deleted. You can certainly try again, but if any prove unwilling to abide by this rule, I’ll simply block you to save myself some time.
I am much more interested in a discussion here than attack and offense.
19 Comments
Doesn’t the question of whether it is “a problem worth solving” depend critically on how many people would actually derive a benefit?
You could interview dozens of people who say that they would like book ratings, but that is just a drop in the bucket to the hundreds of millions of people who read books.
Do you have an idea of what percentage of book readers say they would like to see books with ratings?
Also, even if some people say they would like to see books with ratings, how useful are the ratings really? Sure, parents could avoid buying books for their children based on the ratings. But will that really stop children from reading certain books? Wouldn’t a large number of children actually want to read a book more if it appears to be forbidden fruit? Couldn’t such children go to the library or the bookstore themselves to read such books? Or borrow them from friends? Or download them from the Internet?
Good questions all, John. They’re all part of what customer discovery is meant to find out. I have my hypotheses; the customer discovery process helps me validate and test them.
As far as how useful ratings are to folks, my hypothesis is that they’d be as useful as they are to folks who see movies. And a heck of a lot of people use movie ratings of one kind or another.
How will interviewing a few people who self-select to say they “wish books had ratings for sex, violence, and language” help you find out what percentage of book readers want book ratings?
It seems to me the only reasonable way to answer that question is to survey a statistically significant number of book readers, in as broad and unbiased a sample as possible.
For answering the question of what percentage of book readers want a rating system, your sample would be useless since you have asked them to self-select for wanting a rating system.
I doubt your hypothesis that book ratings would be as useful as movie ratings. The difference is that movie theaters and many movie sellers will not allow underage people to view movies not rated for them. But I find it very unlikely that libraries, and unlikely that most bookstores, would be willing or able to prevent certain people from reading books based on ratings.
Also, if I understand you correctly, the book ratings would be more complicated than movie ratings. Restricted movies are basically R rated movies, or PG-13 parents strongly cautioned. The R-rating is simple for movie theaters to enforce — check ID and if under 17 then no go.
But with a book rating not just based on age of reader, it would be nearly impossible for libraries or booksellers to enforce. So children would have a much easier time getting books that there parents don’t want them to get as compared to getting into a movie theater to watch an R-rated movie.
It seems to me that book ratings could possibly have the opposite of the intended effect. If parents try to prevent their children from reading books with certain ratings, then those books will become more desirable to many children, and children will seek those books out specifically. And since such books will be easily available from the library, booksellers, friends, or the Internet, then those books rated for racy sex, extreme violence, or banned language may be read by even more children than if there were no ratings to steer the children towards the thrilling “forbidden” books.
By the way, most of my doubts are in regards to using such a rating system for “young adult” books, since I am assuming that such a rating system would be used by parents in an attempt to prevent their children from reading certain books.
However, if we are talking about people making decisions for their own reading, then it seems to me that the rating system makes more sense. I know some adults do not want to read books that use certain words they do not like, or which describe sex or sexuality in a straightforward or explicit manner. Such people could make their own reading decisions based on book ratings.
In such a case, I can see your survey providing useful information. For people deciding whether they want to read a book, what information would they like that is not currently provided by cover blurbs or amazon reviews? That would be the area that book ratings might be helpful for some people.
John,
Interviews are only one part of a larger customer discovery or development process. I’ll be doing other things to assess market size. In this part of the process I’m looking to talk to early adopters, folks who have a large problem they want to fix.
As for parents and ratings, you’re making an assumption about the goal of this that’s incorrect. I’m not seeking to provide a solution to a rating enforcement need. This isn’t a policing solution. It’s a customer information solution. What customers do with it is beyond the scope.
And it would be for all books, but YA book readers and purchasers are probably a key market segment. Also, it’s incorrect to assume that YA is read only by youths. A very large portion of YA is read by adults–30% or 60%. I can’t remember the number, but it was large. Many adults read YA because it used to be a “safe” genre. And because it moves more quickly.
A rating system may be useful, but I’ve found that by going to websites like Amazon and reading the customer reviews I can get a pretty good feel for a book’s content. Could this be a problem that is already solving itself?
I’m one of those adults that like to read YA because it is ‘safe’. My children are a little too young right now to read heavily (mt oldest is 9), but I’m already encouraging them to find out what others have said about a book before reading it.
I’m not entirely sure where you’re going with this, but I’ve got a few questions/thoughts on the matter.
1) This is the digital age. Five minutes with Amazon, Good Reads, Wikipedia, or Google is about all you need to find out every plot detail of most novels, let alone if it contains graphic content.
2) Most people pick up books upon referral, usually given by people who have similar tastes in fiction. We’ve all had people who have different tastes refer us to books that weren’t to our individual liking. With these people common sense tells you after one such experience to not read books they tell you about.
3) Presentation is more important in written fiction than in any other medium. You can present the exact same action sequence, featuring the exact same dialog and actions three different times, and depending on presentation they can all have completely different tones. One presentation you might find offensive, another you’re completely okay with. A rating system, V for violence, does little to distinguish between the two.
With all that being said, I think a rating system would be redundant. We’ve been trained for decades to check movie or even video game ratings, and if it wasn’t for that those rating systems would be just as redundant.
On a side note, I somehow doubt that most of the adults who read YA do so because it’s safe. I would be if there was a poll, most of these readers would list pace as the primary reason for reading YA, maybe even the lack of political fluff as the second reason.
Pete,
It might be. This is, in part, why I’m conducting interviews. I want to see how people for whom this is an issue are currently resolving the issue. So far, some have mentioned reading the reviews on Amazon but a surprising number are simply reading into the books and getting annoyed.
James,
My response to your points.
1) You’re making an assumption about what people do. That’s your hypothesis. The question is: is it valid? Specifically, is it valid for lots of folks who are looking to vet books for sex, violence, and language? I’m making assumptions as well. And the validation for those assumptions are going to be found by talking to folks. If I talk to lots of folks who have this issue but solve it in two seconds with internet searches, then there’s no need to proceed and develop the solution. If not, then it suggests I make a wider search.
2) Sometimes. You’re making another assumption that would need to be validated. I just talked to a fellow whose friend usually recommends great stuff. He recommended a book. The fellow I talked to found nothing objectionable in the first chapters and so put the audio in the car with the kids. 1/3rd the way into the book, a character started to drop the f-bomb all over the place. In this case, the fellow I talked to was annoyed because he had just wasted time and money on a book he was going to return. But he wasn’t going to immediately discount everything his friend would recommend in the future either. And what if he does stop listening to that friend’s recommendations? That still doesn’t prevent him from having the same experience in the future.
Getting out and talking to people is helping me see if my assumptions are correct.
3) A rating as you suggest doesn’t make much distinction. But I haven’t suggested any solution yet. I’m still in problem validation mode.
As for redundancy, this is yet another hypothesis. Rating systems might be redundant for a lot of people. They might not be for a lot of people. My question at this point is whether there are enough people with this issue to warrant further investigation.
As for your side note, I didn’t say “most” 🙂 I said “many.” But that too is an assumption that needs to be validated.
When doing product development, the first thing we need to do is validate as many of the key assumptions as possible. That’s what I’m currently in the midst of. And the best way to do that is to form my hypotheses and then talk to people who have this issue, not speculate about what they might or might not do 🙂
Does it make better sense now?
I really don’t hate the idea of some sort of content label for books; especially if it was something along the lines of “Contains Mild Profanity, Violence, and Sexual Content.” As the parent of a two and a half year old, I pretty much put blind faith into the idea that her pop-up books won’t broach any topics I don’t think she is ready for. Once her books start having chapters, I’d rather not have to read them to know what’s in them.
I don’t have the delusion that I can completely prevent her from seeing content I think is too adult, but this would be a convenience for what will no doubt be an uphill battle.
John
My points weren’t criticisms but just general thoughts I had while reading your post and a few of the questions you will hear from potential customers. Also, after thinking about it for a few minutes, I’d have to retract my guess of pacing being the number one reason for adults reading YA and put nostalgia in its place followed by pacing.
James,
I didn’t take them as criticisms 🙂 But they did come across as statements of fact. What I was trying to clarify is that I think they’re actually assumptions, hypotheses. When developing a new product, the key thing is to ID key assumptions and then validate them.
As for why so many adults read YA, I think your first assumption about pacing is probably more accurate. My wife and I read a lot of YA, and we don’t do it for nostalgic reasons. But that’s my assumption. I could be wrong. When trying to develop a product, I think it’s important to label such things as assumptions until we have data that validates them.
I work in a school library (grade 7-12) and while we have a separate section for senior fiction and in a few cases some books are labeled 11-12 only. While I like to think myself as well read, there is only so much time in a day to research content on books we are ordering for the library. I think something simple as content warning regarding violence, sex and language would be useful as despite what people think not all reviews single out these items. It could be something as simple as a sticker on the book, or more information on the publisher’s website.
As for enforcement, it is easy here as we can limit what the students are allowed to read without written consent from their parents.
Depending when the round table chat is going to take place, I may or may not be available as I will be on vacation soon (all 14 days of it).
Cheers,
David
Thanks, David. I’ve sent you an email. These are all one-on-one chats.
Jennifer B. told me about your quest and asked if I’d be willing to contact you and help out with your survey. I am an avid “filter” user for both books and movies (and everything else)and would be willing to chat if it would helpful. I’m an avid reader and am mother to many readers (one of whom is a voracious reader). There are numerous blogs and sites already devoted to this issue (which I applaud) but the more the merrier. =)
I think a rating system for books would be very useful! When I browse through a selection of movies to rent I can glance at the back cover and instantly have an idea of whether it has content I’d be uncomfortable with, but when browsing through a bookstore or library I have to look up every book and read several reviews (which isn’t even possible to do on my phone–yes it’s the digital age but not everyone has a smartphone), or else read the back cover and decipher whether it hints at any mature content by using words like “raunchy.” For a long time I’ve been wishing there was something simple stamped on books so it could save me the time, especially since I’ve been in the situation more than once in which I’d already gotten the book home and put hours into it just to come across a very explicit scene I didn’t want to read.
I agree with many that we shouldn’t be trying to ban books, and I would hypothesize that a rating system may actually help steer people away from that as a solution. With the current system of books being either available or banned, and access of information being either extensive research or reading through all of it yourself, anything people find objectionable they feel must be banned so others will know it has that content before they read it unknowingly. Moving to a system that gives a clear idea of what kind of content is in books right away could give at least a framework to organize the chaos and offer a saner alternative to banning. School library staff would save countless hours of research to make sure they carried literature that was appropriate. My eighth grade science teacher probably wouldn’t have gotten away with including in his curriculum for several years his own novel, which contained an alien rape scene–perhaps school administrators with the apathy not to read through the book may have at least referred to its rating.
Although it wouldn’t be made for the purpose of censorship through laws, a rating system could mean a guideline for parents as well—as another comment said, it’s sure to be an uphill battle for parents guiding their children toward wholesome media. Yes, some kids would jump at the opportunity to seek directly after “forbidden fruit,” but don’t you think those kids find ways of doing that already? Is that reason enough to limit information on texts that are available to the public in order to hope kids don’t come across something inappropriate on their own? As well as benefiting adults in their reading selection, that prior information about a book could mean the difference for a lot of the kids who are honestly just looking for a good story. Personal responsibility needs to be adopted at some point, and making the decision not to choose a movie (or book) because it has a certain rating can be much easier than getting halfway through it and disciplining oneself not to continue.
I had no idea I had this much to say about the idea, and I’m sure I would be even less eloquent about my argument in person (that’s probly why I wrote all that down), but I would be open to an interview. =)
I was sent over to your site by Rachel on Goodreads. I have considered the idea of book ratings before, but find it pretty problematic. All the same, I would be interested in an online chat or phone call about this, if it helps you in your research.
I usually do a lot of research into books my kids will have a chance to read, and then I use that research to decide if I am going to read it to approve it for them. This represents a lot of steps and effort for each and every book, which gets tiring after awhile. Half the books I read a year are for my kids, and I read about fifty books a year. I sometimes would like a simpler method of screening for content. For me this does not represent censorship in that I don’t debate the existence of certain books, only whether or not I want to give a large amount of my time and energy to reading them. And may I say, this is one of those reasons why I look forward to my kids growing up and making their own choices. 🙂
Here are a few of my initial ideas:
pro:
Fewer surprises when finding good lit for my kids, and for myself. I have done extensive research on a certain book and risked not reading it, only for my daughter to encounter multiple adult scenes in what was supposed to be YA historical fiction.
con:
even the movie ratings that have been with us for so long can not be trusted. Their standards have shifted over the years. They are not specific enough- but then how can they be?
The same scene done differently in a classic novel as opposed to a modern novel could end up looking the same as per rating, but feel very differently to the reader.
How would a rating system offset the expansion of the definition of YA to include everyone from early 20s to the preteen?
Would it be able to be controlled to prevent the slide along the continuum of standards? In other words, looking at movie ratings, what was an R movie in the 60s is now a PG-13, or even a ‘hard’ PG.
Would a rating system be able to keep up with the many books that come out each year? There are more books than movies, by far, aren’t there?
Some of the things my very particular daughter wishes to avoid would be very difficult for a rating system to capture. The result for me would be reading everything anyway. To be honest, it comes down to this: I wish there would be a thorough and trustworthy system, but nothing will ever replace my own work. I just can’t see how a rating system could replace the running lists and perceptions I have in my head. In some cases, it could help a little. But would it really simplify things for me, or just set me up?
I would be curious to see how a rating system affects school and public libraries. There’s a political pit for you to be stepping into!
Finally, I am glad to see a discussion on this. If books for children weren’t being changed so quickly, we might not even need to discuss the issue.
I would love to see some kind of rating on books, as this can be very hard to find out without skimming the book or reading reviews which frequently give away important plot points.
An easy implementation could be something along the lines of low, medium & high for the categories of language, violence, & sexual content. It might look something like this for an age 11 book:
L:low
V:med
S:low
Or for an adult sci-fi book that I may want to avoid:
L:high
V:high
S:med
They wouldn’t have to be colored green or red to indicate “bad” or “good”, as this varies by individual, but could still give someone an idea before they get 1/4 of the way into a book and have to put it down in disappointment.
Back in 2011 I wrote a post titled “Since when did young adult fiction become the cure for cancer?” It was a response to all the YASaves hysteria. The main point of my amazing post (grin) was that the people complaining about some YA content wanted not to ban books, but to simply have a way to more easily evaluate if they wanted to buy a particular book in the first place.
So I lived for almost two years in the Netherlands and Belgium and learned the Dutch language, which is full of delights. Today’s delight is billenkoek.
Doesn’t the question of whether it is “a problem worth solving” depend critically on how many people would actually derive a benefit?
You could interview dozens of people who say that they would like book ratings, but that is just a drop in the bucket to the hundreds of millions of people who read books.
Do you have an idea of what percentage of book readers say they would like to see books with ratings?
Also, even if some people say they would like to see books with ratings, how useful are the ratings really? Sure, parents could avoid buying books for their children based on the ratings. But will that really stop children from reading certain books? Wouldn’t a large number of children actually want to read a book more if it appears to be forbidden fruit? Couldn’t such children go to the library or the bookstore themselves to read such books? Or borrow them from friends? Or download them from the Internet?
Good questions all, John. They’re all part of what customer discovery is meant to find out. I have my hypotheses; the customer discovery process helps me validate and test them.
As far as how useful ratings are to folks, my hypothesis is that they’d be as useful as they are to folks who see movies. And a heck of a lot of people use movie ratings of one kind or another.
How will interviewing a few people who self-select to say they “wish books had ratings for sex, violence, and language” help you find out what percentage of book readers want book ratings?
It seems to me the only reasonable way to answer that question is to survey a statistically significant number of book readers, in as broad and unbiased a sample as possible.
For answering the question of what percentage of book readers want a rating system, your sample would be useless since you have asked them to self-select for wanting a rating system.
I doubt your hypothesis that book ratings would be as useful as movie ratings. The difference is that movie theaters and many movie sellers will not allow underage people to view movies not rated for them. But I find it very unlikely that libraries, and unlikely that most bookstores, would be willing or able to prevent certain people from reading books based on ratings.
Also, if I understand you correctly, the book ratings would be more complicated than movie ratings. Restricted movies are basically R rated movies, or PG-13 parents strongly cautioned. The R-rating is simple for movie theaters to enforce — check ID and if under 17 then no go.
But with a book rating not just based on age of reader, it would be nearly impossible for libraries or booksellers to enforce. So children would have a much easier time getting books that there parents don’t want them to get as compared to getting into a movie theater to watch an R-rated movie.
It seems to me that book ratings could possibly have the opposite of the intended effect. If parents try to prevent their children from reading books with certain ratings, then those books will become more desirable to many children, and children will seek those books out specifically. And since such books will be easily available from the library, booksellers, friends, or the Internet, then those books rated for racy sex, extreme violence, or banned language may be read by even more children than if there were no ratings to steer the children towards the thrilling “forbidden” books.
By the way, most of my doubts are in regards to using such a rating system for “young adult” books, since I am assuming that such a rating system would be used by parents in an attempt to prevent their children from reading certain books.
However, if we are talking about people making decisions for their own reading, then it seems to me that the rating system makes more sense. I know some adults do not want to read books that use certain words they do not like, or which describe sex or sexuality in a straightforward or explicit manner. Such people could make their own reading decisions based on book ratings.
In such a case, I can see your survey providing useful information. For people deciding whether they want to read a book, what information would they like that is not currently provided by cover blurbs or amazon reviews? That would be the area that book ratings might be helpful for some people.
John,
Interviews are only one part of a larger customer discovery or development process. I’ll be doing other things to assess market size. In this part of the process I’m looking to talk to early adopters, folks who have a large problem they want to fix.
As for parents and ratings, you’re making an assumption about the goal of this that’s incorrect. I’m not seeking to provide a solution to a rating enforcement need. This isn’t a policing solution. It’s a customer information solution. What customers do with it is beyond the scope.
And it would be for all books, but YA book readers and purchasers are probably a key market segment. Also, it’s incorrect to assume that YA is read only by youths. A very large portion of YA is read by adults–30% or 60%. I can’t remember the number, but it was large. Many adults read YA because it used to be a “safe” genre. And because it moves more quickly.
A rating system may be useful, but I’ve found that by going to websites like Amazon and reading the customer reviews I can get a pretty good feel for a book’s content. Could this be a problem that is already solving itself?
I’m one of those adults that like to read YA because it is ‘safe’. My children are a little too young right now to read heavily (mt oldest is 9), but I’m already encouraging them to find out what others have said about a book before reading it.
I’m not entirely sure where you’re going with this, but I’ve got a few questions/thoughts on the matter.
1) This is the digital age. Five minutes with Amazon, Good Reads, Wikipedia, or Google is about all you need to find out every plot detail of most novels, let alone if it contains graphic content.
2) Most people pick up books upon referral, usually given by people who have similar tastes in fiction. We’ve all had people who have different tastes refer us to books that weren’t to our individual liking. With these people common sense tells you after one such experience to not read books they tell you about.
3) Presentation is more important in written fiction than in any other medium. You can present the exact same action sequence, featuring the exact same dialog and actions three different times, and depending on presentation they can all have completely different tones. One presentation you might find offensive, another you’re completely okay with. A rating system, V for violence, does little to distinguish between the two.
With all that being said, I think a rating system would be redundant. We’ve been trained for decades to check movie or even video game ratings, and if it wasn’t for that those rating systems would be just as redundant.
On a side note, I somehow doubt that most of the adults who read YA do so because it’s safe. I would be if there was a poll, most of these readers would list pace as the primary reason for reading YA, maybe even the lack of political fluff as the second reason.
Pete,
It might be. This is, in part, why I’m conducting interviews. I want to see how people for whom this is an issue are currently resolving the issue. So far, some have mentioned reading the reviews on Amazon but a surprising number are simply reading into the books and getting annoyed.
James,
My response to your points.
1) You’re making an assumption about what people do. That’s your hypothesis. The question is: is it valid? Specifically, is it valid for lots of folks who are looking to vet books for sex, violence, and language? I’m making assumptions as well. And the validation for those assumptions are going to be found by talking to folks. If I talk to lots of folks who have this issue but solve it in two seconds with internet searches, then there’s no need to proceed and develop the solution. If not, then it suggests I make a wider search.
2) Sometimes. You’re making another assumption that would need to be validated. I just talked to a fellow whose friend usually recommends great stuff. He recommended a book. The fellow I talked to found nothing objectionable in the first chapters and so put the audio in the car with the kids. 1/3rd the way into the book, a character started to drop the f-bomb all over the place. In this case, the fellow I talked to was annoyed because he had just wasted time and money on a book he was going to return. But he wasn’t going to immediately discount everything his friend would recommend in the future either. And what if he does stop listening to that friend’s recommendations? That still doesn’t prevent him from having the same experience in the future.
Getting out and talking to people is helping me see if my assumptions are correct.
3) A rating as you suggest doesn’t make much distinction. But I haven’t suggested any solution yet. I’m still in problem validation mode.
As for redundancy, this is yet another hypothesis. Rating systems might be redundant for a lot of people. They might not be for a lot of people. My question at this point is whether there are enough people with this issue to warrant further investigation.
As for your side note, I didn’t say “most” 🙂 I said “many.” But that too is an assumption that needs to be validated.
When doing product development, the first thing we need to do is validate as many of the key assumptions as possible. That’s what I’m currently in the midst of. And the best way to do that is to form my hypotheses and then talk to people who have this issue, not speculate about what they might or might not do 🙂
Does it make better sense now?
I really don’t hate the idea of some sort of content label for books; especially if it was something along the lines of “Contains Mild Profanity, Violence, and Sexual Content.” As the parent of a two and a half year old, I pretty much put blind faith into the idea that her pop-up books won’t broach any topics I don’t think she is ready for. Once her books start having chapters, I’d rather not have to read them to know what’s in them.
I don’t have the delusion that I can completely prevent her from seeing content I think is too adult, but this would be a convenience for what will no doubt be an uphill battle.
John
My points weren’t criticisms but just general thoughts I had while reading your post and a few of the questions you will hear from potential customers. Also, after thinking about it for a few minutes, I’d have to retract my guess of pacing being the number one reason for adults reading YA and put nostalgia in its place followed by pacing.
James,
I didn’t take them as criticisms 🙂 But they did come across as statements of fact. What I was trying to clarify is that I think they’re actually assumptions, hypotheses. When developing a new product, the key thing is to ID key assumptions and then validate them.
As for why so many adults read YA, I think your first assumption about pacing is probably more accurate. My wife and I read a lot of YA, and we don’t do it for nostalgic reasons. But that’s my assumption. I could be wrong. When trying to develop a product, I think it’s important to label such things as assumptions until we have data that validates them.
I work in a school library (grade 7-12) and while we have a separate section for senior fiction and in a few cases some books are labeled 11-12 only. While I like to think myself as well read, there is only so much time in a day to research content on books we are ordering for the library. I think something simple as content warning regarding violence, sex and language would be useful as despite what people think not all reviews single out these items. It could be something as simple as a sticker on the book, or more information on the publisher’s website.
As for enforcement, it is easy here as we can limit what the students are allowed to read without written consent from their parents.
Depending when the round table chat is going to take place, I may or may not be available as I will be on vacation soon (all 14 days of it).
Cheers,
David
Thanks, David. I’ve sent you an email. These are all one-on-one chats.
Jennifer B. told me about your quest and asked if I’d be willing to contact you and help out with your survey. I am an avid “filter” user for both books and movies (and everything else)and would be willing to chat if it would helpful. I’m an avid reader and am mother to many readers (one of whom is a voracious reader). There are numerous blogs and sites already devoted to this issue (which I applaud) but the more the merrier. =)
I think a rating system for books would be very useful! When I browse through a selection of movies to rent I can glance at the back cover and instantly have an idea of whether it has content I’d be uncomfortable with, but when browsing through a bookstore or library I have to look up every book and read several reviews (which isn’t even possible to do on my phone–yes it’s the digital age but not everyone has a smartphone), or else read the back cover and decipher whether it hints at any mature content by using words like “raunchy.” For a long time I’ve been wishing there was something simple stamped on books so it could save me the time, especially since I’ve been in the situation more than once in which I’d already gotten the book home and put hours into it just to come across a very explicit scene I didn’t want to read.
I agree with many that we shouldn’t be trying to ban books, and I would hypothesize that a rating system may actually help steer people away from that as a solution. With the current system of books being either available or banned, and access of information being either extensive research or reading through all of it yourself, anything people find objectionable they feel must be banned so others will know it has that content before they read it unknowingly. Moving to a system that gives a clear idea of what kind of content is in books right away could give at least a framework to organize the chaos and offer a saner alternative to banning. School library staff would save countless hours of research to make sure they carried literature that was appropriate. My eighth grade science teacher probably wouldn’t have gotten away with including in his curriculum for several years his own novel, which contained an alien rape scene–perhaps school administrators with the apathy not to read through the book may have at least referred to its rating.
Although it wouldn’t be made for the purpose of censorship through laws, a rating system could mean a guideline for parents as well—as another comment said, it’s sure to be an uphill battle for parents guiding their children toward wholesome media. Yes, some kids would jump at the opportunity to seek directly after “forbidden fruit,” but don’t you think those kids find ways of doing that already? Is that reason enough to limit information on texts that are available to the public in order to hope kids don’t come across something inappropriate on their own? As well as benefiting adults in their reading selection, that prior information about a book could mean the difference for a lot of the kids who are honestly just looking for a good story. Personal responsibility needs to be adopted at some point, and making the decision not to choose a movie (or book) because it has a certain rating can be much easier than getting halfway through it and disciplining oneself not to continue.
I had no idea I had this much to say about the idea, and I’m sure I would be even less eloquent about my argument in person (that’s probly why I wrote all that down), but I would be open to an interview. =)
I was sent over to your site by Rachel on Goodreads. I have considered the idea of book ratings before, but find it pretty problematic. All the same, I would be interested in an online chat or phone call about this, if it helps you in your research.
I usually do a lot of research into books my kids will have a chance to read, and then I use that research to decide if I am going to read it to approve it for them. This represents a lot of steps and effort for each and every book, which gets tiring after awhile. Half the books I read a year are for my kids, and I read about fifty books a year. I sometimes would like a simpler method of screening for content. For me this does not represent censorship in that I don’t debate the existence of certain books, only whether or not I want to give a large amount of my time and energy to reading them. And may I say, this is one of those reasons why I look forward to my kids growing up and making their own choices. 🙂
Here are a few of my initial ideas:
pro:
Fewer surprises when finding good lit for my kids, and for myself. I have done extensive research on a certain book and risked not reading it, only for my daughter to encounter multiple adult scenes in what was supposed to be YA historical fiction.
con:
even the movie ratings that have been with us for so long can not be trusted. Their standards have shifted over the years. They are not specific enough- but then how can they be?
The same scene done differently in a classic novel as opposed to a modern novel could end up looking the same as per rating, but feel very differently to the reader.
How would a rating system offset the expansion of the definition of YA to include everyone from early 20s to the preteen?
Would it be able to be controlled to prevent the slide along the continuum of standards? In other words, looking at movie ratings, what was an R movie in the 60s is now a PG-13, or even a ‘hard’ PG.
Would a rating system be able to keep up with the many books that come out each year? There are more books than movies, by far, aren’t there?
Some of the things my very particular daughter wishes to avoid would be very difficult for a rating system to capture. The result for me would be reading everything anyway. To be honest, it comes down to this: I wish there would be a thorough and trustworthy system, but nothing will ever replace my own work. I just can’t see how a rating system could replace the running lists and perceptions I have in my head. In some cases, it could help a little. But would it really simplify things for me, or just set me up?
I would be curious to see how a rating system affects school and public libraries. There’s a political pit for you to be stepping into!
Finally, I am glad to see a discussion on this. If books for children weren’t being changed so quickly, we might not even need to discuss the issue.
I would love to see some kind of rating on books, as this can be very hard to find out without skimming the book or reading reviews which frequently give away important plot points.
An easy implementation could be something along the lines of low, medium & high for the categories of language, violence, & sexual content. It might look something like this for an age 11 book:
L:low
V:med
S:low
Or for an adult sci-fi book that I may want to avoid:
L:high
V:high
S:med
They wouldn’t have to be colored green or red to indicate “bad” or “good”, as this varies by individual, but could still give someone an idea before they get 1/4 of the way into a book and have to put it down in disappointment.
Thanks, Collin 🙂