ComicSpace - Read Bulletin

Home / carsonfire / Bulletins / Read Bulletin

Befriend carsonfire

« Back

Posted by:

carsonfire

Date:

July 29th, 2007 12:00 PM

Header:

Altaira Alert updated, expanded

Bulletin:

The Altaira Alert is a system (well, a few buttons, anyway) that rates various states of dress and undress, offered to webcomic webmasters as a tool to inform readers of content issues before they actually hit that content.

Readers at school and work, especially, can get into legitimate trouble for landing on unexpected content that you posted on your website! This can engender reader hostility over the long run (and I speak from experience).

I think the best way to use this is to put it at the top, but off to the side, so that it doesn't appear to be part of the content of the site, but appears early enough to be a useful guide to the content below and within. It could be used on particular comic pages (if you can work that out technically) or used as an overall site rating.

At the same time, this button is unnecessary if your site is self-explanatory in some other way. If there's a naked babe in your logo, that's probably enough information right there. You should only use this button if you think that either some surprise nudity might be a problem for some of your regular readers, or if you want to post a low-alert button as an assurance that there will be no big surprises (Dagwood answering the telephone wrapped in a towel wouldn't be a "big surprise", for instance; Blondie taking part in a "breasts not bombs" rally would be). Or, of course, use one of these buttons if you just can't find enough geegaws to fill your webpage. You can never have too many buttons!

Anyway, the "mild nudity" button can be seen in use on my new site, dedicated to revising the old Elf Life series, and I will be adding the "normal" button to my political comic strip, which is worksafe.

« Back

Befriend carsonfire