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Originally Posted by tompe
This is better but I think even this is too simple. If it then can be shown that children or YA books containing "death" will sell less then authors will take this into consideration. Also for example "death" can be handled in many ways so it is unclear what a simple description like "depicts death" will give.
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Sure... but the point is, if you know it's there, you can review it (or ask someone who has) and make an intelligent decision. Authors will have to decide for themselves whether or not they want to rewrite their material to avoid upsetting potential readers.
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Originally Posted by tompe
But if you describe the content you should also have things like "contains peudo-science", "contains atheism", "contains description positive to religion", and so on.
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Originally Posted by Jellby
"This books contains religious fanaticism", "this book considers evolution as a fact", "this book includes black characters", "this book quotes lyrics by the Beatles"... Where to stop?
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It's one thing to read something you don't necessarily agree with... we don't need content descriptions for that. It's another thing to read something that deeply offends you, or that you would not want your children to read... you do need descriptors for that.
For most people, such descriptors will do the job as they are intended. If you are so far outside the norm that such descriptors mean nothing to you ("I see that this depicts adult language, but what about carnivorism?"), you have no choice but to review it for yourself. Either way, descriptors don't hurt. They simply provide a research-free way of determining what's in the book.