Change content rating of the app

[sivaraam]

It was brought up via a user feedback that the app should be rated as 18+ as it bring up adult media [ref]. This is indeed true as the app doesn't do anything to restrict the such images in Explore / search. So, it makes sense to bump the content rating of our play store listing.

OTOH, it would be great if we have some way to filter such content so that users have the flexibility to choose what kind of content they're shown. That would also help us to bump down out content rating so that the app is accessible to wide age range of users.

[sivaraam]

BTW, while I checked the Play console, we do seem to mention the target audience as 18+

The play store listing seem to mention the app as 12+, though.

Any idea on this @nicolas-raoul ?

[nicolas-raoul]

Maybe homogeneize to 18?

[pigsonthewing]

some way to filter such content so that users have the flexibility to choose what kind of content they're show

Given that Commons is in international project, what criteria will be used?

[nicolas-raoul]

I agree with @pigsonthewing, this is a huge can of worm if we start policing what is safe or not. And even if we can establish such a policy, there will always occasional uncategorized unsafe uploads which will prevent us from bumping down out content rating. We are a post-moderated platform for anonymous people to upload pictures, this is intrinsically unsafe.

But if the Wikimedia Commons website ever implements such a system, I am happy to follow.

[sivaraam]

Maybe homogeneize to 18?

Makes sense. I filled up the Content rating questionarre and this is where we are now:

Old rating for reference


We got 18+ in most cases but we seem to have bumped down to "All ages" for Brazil (used to be 14+) and 12+ for Germany (used to be 18+). Not sure the reason behind this. I've submitted the change for review. Let's see how it goes.

[sivaraam]

I agree with @pigsonthewing, this is a huge can of worm if we start policing what is safe or not. And even if we can establish such a policy, there will always occasional uncategorized unsafe uploads which will prevent us from bumping down out content rating. We are a post-moderated platform for anonymous people to upload pictures, this is intrinsically unsafe.

But if the Wikimedia Commons website ever implements such a system, I am happy to follow.

Most certainly. I too didn't have an idea wherein the app would enable such filtering to enable lower content rating. That cannot scale. A system that's adopted by Wikimedia Commons is what would be ideal for us too 🙂

There seem to have been discussion about this [ ref 1 ] [ ref 2 ]. There doesn't seem any commonly adopted policy, though.

[sivaraam]

We got 18+ in most cases but we seem to have bumped down to "All ages" for Brazil (used to be 14+) and 12+ for Germany (used to be 18+). Not sure the reason behind this. I've submitted the change for review. Let's see how it goes.

The rating seems live now in Play store:

Let me know if we could correct the rating for Germany and Brazil (or) kindly mention if they are appropriate ratings for those countries.

[deryckchan]

I'm not sure 18+ is the correct rating to go for, even if out of precaution. The Wikipedia app is rated 3+ / all ages, and the same supposedly sensitive content from Commons would be available on the Wikipedia app too.

[nicolas-raoul]

Thanks Deryck for pointing this out! I suggest we leave 18+ until we are confident enough to lower it to what we believe is the most appropriate value. I guess the Wikipedia app developers have documented their rationale somewhere? Finding this document would help us a lot.

[deryckchan]

I've sent an email to the official Wikipedia app helpline to see if I can get in touch with the maintainers on their side.

[sivaraam]

The Wikipedia app is rated 3+ / all ages, and the same supposedly sensitive content from Commons would be available on the Wikipedia app too.

That is indeed a curious observation. It would certainly be helpful to know how they have such a content rating.

I've sent an email to the official Wikipedia app helpline to see if I can get in touch with the maintainers on their side.

Thank you for this! Let's hope we get a helpful response from them. Feel free to let us know if you don't seem to receive a proper response from them. We'll explore other ways of reaching out to them.