000 Rating System - Content Descriptors

Written by Wyldspace

In the spirit of full disclosure and transparency, the author hopes to help prospective readers and viewers to decide if they will enjoy the themes and content of each story. To this end, each story will begin with some metadata about the story, and each story will have a Rating tag so that desired contents can be searched. And, of course, certain stories will be marked as Not Safe for Work (NSFW) when appropriate.

This rating system consists of an initial code which only generally describes the metaphorical "maturity" level of the intended audience. The initial code is separated by a dash from the supplemental codes, which give more detail of exactly why the story earned the noted "maturity" level.

The four Initial codes are as follows:

• G is suitable for General Audiences of all maturity levels.
• PG-(age) recommends Parental Guidance to approve or disapprove viewing by children of the age listed or less.
• R requires viewers under the age of majority to be accompanied/supervised by their parent/guardian.
• X or NC-(age) requires no viewers under the listed age or the legal age of majority.

The many Supplemental codes are:

• B for "Brief" indicates any of the below content lasts for two seconds or less. (See CBS two-second rule for distant penis art. )
• D for "Suggestive Dialogue" indicates that any of the below content implied to have occurred off screen, or is verbally threatened or stated as a possible outcome but not shown.
• A for "Alcohol" indicates use of Alcohol, Tobacco, The Finest Weed in the Shire, and/or other drugs.
• G for "Gore" indicates visible portrayals of battered/dead people/animals and/or blood, (excluding those that appear no worse than unconscious).
• L for "Vulgar Language and Profanity" indicates curse and swear words are uncensored.
• N for "Nudity" indicates a visibly exposed person. (Genitals are hidden or blurred for G-N rating.)
• S for "Sexual" indicates on-screen physical sexual activity or content to arouse the viewer.
• V for "Violence" indicates visible brutality.
• F for "Frightening/Intense" indicates that the material displays intensely emotional characters or the story attempts to evoke extreme emotions in the viewer.

Examples:

Rating G-VBG The Secret of NIMH (1982): Large male villain beating a small female protagonist. Quick flashes of bloody gore during a sword-fighting scene. Onscreen deaths. (And you will never guess which characters escaped from the National Institute for Mental Health!)

Rating PG-DLANBSVGF The Goonies (1985) Just ... everything.

Rating G-DBGLNVF The Planet of the Apes (1968) Extensive scene of male astronauts skinny-dipping. (Sorry, YouTube doesn't have any clips they are willing to show.) Torture of prisoners. Brief threat of castration. Brief scenes of taxidermically stuffed human corpses.

Rating G-NGF The Andromeda Strain (1971): Like Planet of the Apes - Self-censored nudity , and blurred nudity, lots of corpses, and lab animals dying horribly while scientists watch helpless.

Rated G-BL

Incidentally, this article is self-rated by the author to be "G-BL", suitable for general audiences of any age or maturity level but with brief mild profanity due to use of the word, "penis" once... (Oops.) ...twice.

It might be of interest to content producers interested in technicalities of authoring, censorship, and marketing to an intended audience. The links at the bottom of the article under the heading "Examples" have other ratings and are clearly labeled.