Hey wikiHowians! I’m thinking that it may be a good idea to make a template for articles so at the beginning gives a warning if the article if the article contains a sensitive topic. Tell me what you think?
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What do you mean by “sensitive topic”? What’s sensitive could be a bit subjective, so I’d like to hear where this would be used.
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This actually looks like a good idea, but I’m not sure how you would use it. wikiHow already has a discussion page template for (almost) the same thing, and most anons(vandals) can’t edit controversial/sensitive pages anyways, as they are protected.
Such a template already exists and is put on talk pages of articles. Template:Controversial - wikiHow
Also, we have lots of articles on sensitive topics (like politics), there is no need to put a disclaimer on every article.
My two-cents:
Depends on your definition of sensitive, but some sensitive articles have warnings in the intro along the lines of “this article contains information about ____”. Aasim mentioned the controversial template, but I have to disagree there and say that from my understanding of what you may mean, there is a difference between controversial and sensitive. However, if you’re referring to topics such as politics, that would fall under the controversial category.
As mentioned, most articles on what I’d consider sensitive topics usually have a warning in the intro if there is a chance it could harm a viewer in any way (unless it’s obvious that the article is about that topic by the title alone; in that case, I don’t think a warning is very necessary because anyone who clicked on the article would probably know what they’re in for, but even then. some do have warnings nonetheless as an extra precaution).
I don’t see much of a need for this unless someone would be interested in copy/pasting all those intro warnings onto a template, especially without a definitive answer of what is considered sensitive, but if that could be clarified, we could vote for consensus.
I am thinking of things mentioning su c
de, death, and things like that (which can be a sensitive topic to some people).
I think that contacting the content team about this idea is a good idea since it appears that this is more than a template and, it’s a change to the articles themselves. So I’ll ping @JayneG
to ask about it.
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Yeah, those were the kinds of topics I thought you may be referring to. Most of the time the title will give away any mentions of those, and there’s typically a warning in the intro also, but we could discuss changing that to a template.
I mean… if someone’s on an article about suicide or death, it stands to reason they’re probably dealing with it in some way. I was going through the articles on coping with a pet’s death after one of my cats died a few years ago, and we get a lot of people who are struggling with suicidal thoughts on Avoid Committing Suicide and Cope With Suicidal Thoughts. I agree we should aim for sensitivity in the articles, but I don’t know how hiding the words or saying “this is a sensitive topic” would help - not everything that talks about death needs a link to suicide hotlines, and if I’d seen warnings that the article was “sensitive” when I was at a low point, I would have found it rather condescending at best, because struggling with a death or suicidal thoughts is far
more sensitive than just the mere mention of them. (Heck, it’s actually considered best to not dance around the topic of suicide or avoid acknowledging a death, because not acknowledging either can actually make the problem worse.) I’d worry that by tagging it as sensitive, we could put off some users and turn them away, and thus not help them.
I don’t know, I feel like a template may be a bit more noticeable.
Yeah, I don’t mean like not showing the article, I mean putting a template that just says “This article contains sensitive information”, “this topic may be unsettling to some”, “this article is about a sensitive topic”, etc.
And things like dealing with a pet’s death is probably fine. Things like “deal with the suicide of your child” or something like that is kind of what I was thinking.I don’t really know, it’s just an idea.
But if it’s a sensitive topic to them, why would they click it in the first place? It’s not like an article on, say, sex or LGBT+ identity, where people will go to it just to vote it Not Helpful on the basis of trolling or intolerance - it regards death and mental health, which affects everyone regardless of their personal views. If it’s going to negatively affect their own mental health, they’re probably not going to click it, even to troll.
And I’m not really sure what the distinction is when it comes to articles that should be templated with this. Coping with the death of a pet and coping with the suicide of a child still involves coping with a death - different ways and species, yes, but death is still death, and it’s always going to induce grief and potentially some degree of trauma. If you’re in the situation of having to cope with any kind of death, you’re dealing with a lot more than having to consider the possibility of it happening - you’re living it, so a warning could come off as kind of rude or condescending, or like the reader is being seen as overly fragile, even if the intent is good.
