Add a Photosensitivity Disability Awareness Badge

[Ryn-Fox]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

In the last year, I've developed moderate to severe photosensitivity with associated painful migraines. I'm finding that I'm having to constantly communicate this to everybody I meet and wishing there was a more glanceable way for others to know.

Describe the solution you'd like

I'd like a photosensitivity symbol added to the list of Disability Awareness badges that are available through the Resonite bot.

One major benefit to this approach is that users can quickly glance at the session list and see if there are self-reported photosensitive users present. Obviously it's still good practice to play it safe and always ask before doing potentially disruptive actions, but every bit of awareness helps.

Here's an example I like of an icon that comes up when searching "photosensitivity symbol". https://www.freepik.com/icon/photophobia_10258354

Describe alternatives you've considered

I can implement my own badge and warnings, but I like the idea of an official one because it shows up in session lists and isn't disabled by turning off custom name badges.

Additional Context

No response

Requesters

Resonite: Ryn Fluff Discord: RynFluff

[epicEaston197]

As much as i support this I am really afraid that this might be used for abuse for users who want to purposely induce epileptic episodes

[Ryn-Fox]

That kind of user would likely perform that kind of abusive behavior regardless of badge and is likely short-sighted and short-lived enough on the platform to not even know what the badges mean.

I think the benefits far outweigh that specific risk.

[jae1911]

I think this badge would be a good idea (as someone who displays those in-game to ask people to be careful https://wiki.resonite.com/Epilepsy_Warning_Badges).

Since accessibility badges are opt-in, users that think they could be targeted can just not add the badge.

[Ryn-Fox]

I think this badge would be a good idea (as someone who displays those in-game to ask people to be careful https://wiki.resonite.com/Epilepsy_Warning_Badges).

Since accessibility badges are opt-in, users that think they could be targeted can just not add the badge.

I'm not as much of a fan of that one since it's language-dependent and the symbolism isn't as clear.

You make a good point about the opt-in though.

[Frooxius]

This is one of the badges where we're a bit careful on how we want to approach it, because it does pose a risk of the user being targeted in the future.

While I don't think this risk would materialize with our current community, one of the things we do consider with things is how this might change as the community grows, expands and there are more malicious factors.

Photo-sensitivity response can differ, from the mild headaches to some people having severe seizures. Particularly the latter can be quite dangerous if the user ends up being targeted as a result of having the badge.

There are other ways to approach photo-sensitivity - e.g. introducing a set of components that allow selectively and locally de-rendering content that might trigger it - that way it won't be shown to users at all. This might be more "silent" way of helping the users.

That said, I can see us potentially doing both (and perhaps the badge first) and leaving it to the discretion of the users if they want to display it or not, perhaps give them a warning.

Though I'd probably want to see some more discussion on it before making a firm decision on how exactly we approach this.

[shiftyscales]

@epicEaston197 - Relaying my comment from #3023:

After thinking on it a while, I think in general even if a badge could be "abused" to target users- the benefit of having it still probably outweighs that possible risk.

Short of us eventually having proper and full accessibility options on the platform itself for users to better curate their experience / minimize exposure to content that causes them issues- having badges can still help communicate these conditions to other users, which could ideally prevent issues from occurring in the first place. E.g. a user taking note of a badge and not spawning an object that could cause issues to that user.

As that goes- if a user were being targeted and harassed for their disability- that presents a pretty clear cut case to moderation, and would likely result in severe account restrictions to the user targeting those with a disability.

Where possible I'd still prefer we have accessibility options as well- but in the interim, I do not see a problem with adding additional badges.

[shiftyscales]

As far as options for addressing photo-sensitivity and epilepsy issues on-platform, we also have #554 which @ProbablePrime has been working on as a relatively low-engineering cost option for the shorter term.