Posted by Kim on December 4, 2022, 9:00am
It's Day 2 of The Festival of Being Excellent to Each Other, and while the kudos are flying, I have a reflection on one very small, very easy way to be an excellent human year-round.You've probably heard of flash warnings before, but just in case -- Around 1 in 100 people has epilepsy, a condition which causes seizures. Of these people, around 3% have "photosensitive" epilepsy. This is when seizures are triggered by flashing, flickering, or blinking lights, or in some cases, even by seeing a repeating pattern with highly contrasting colors -- especially if the pattern is animated.
If you've ever scrolled through TikTok and seen someone dancing while the screen flashed different colors, you can imagine how easy it would be to accidentally stumble on something online that could cause a photosensitive epileptic to immediately have a seizure. Or, imagine stepping outside of your home only to begin to seize, because your neighbor set up a Halloween display that included a strobe light, forgetting that doing so might make the entire neighborhood literally unsafe for you and any visiting trick or treaters, late night delivery drivers, etc. who might also happen to have this condition. Yikes!
But you can at least help to make the RPR a safe space with just a click of a button -- adding a "flash warning" to animated gifs that you upload to character galleries that include flickering or blinking of more than 3 times per second. And, by being thoughtful about which gifs you use in open chats. Simple, easy, and measurably improves the quality of life of those around you!I knew a little bit about flash warnings previously, but I JUST learned about severe eye strain a few weeks ago. I was actually clued in better to both these topics in a users' post in our Living Library event. I had a moment of "Oh no, I've definitely accidentally caused someone distress in the past without even knowing!" quickly followed by, "How cool, now that I know it will be SO EASY to make life better and safer for some of the people around me!" So I'm excited to pass on this knowledge to you as well.
Did you know that certain bright, neon colors can trigger migraines and other difficulties in certain people? I didn't!
Usually little splashes of bright colors like cyan, highly saturated red or highly saturated yellow are just fine, but when a whole image is done in bright and extremely saturated colors can be very painful for some folks to even glance at.
Some examples of potentially painful images
Once I learned about this, I made it one of the easy-add warning buttons for gallery images uploaded to the RPR. Not because we have any rule that would get someone in trouble for not adding a warning in front of such an image, but because I think we're the kind of community that always wants to do better when we know better. I think many users will take pleasure and pride in being mindful to help their fellow users, perhaps users they will never speak to directly, by remembering this.
Every five kudos you write this week will earn you a special winter candle accolade to display proudly on your profile, available only during FOBETEO.
Remember, to be eligible, a kudos needs to contain a clear "why" explaining what makes your friend so special! Don't just say "He's awesome!", tell the world what makes your friend so awesome. Click here for the complete kudos guidelines.
Post tags: FOBETEO FOBETEO 2022
LuscinioideDecember 4, 2022
10:39am
most people justify it by saying 'well it's like .05% of the population, what's the chances that someone is on THIS particular site with it?', but let me reassure you that we do exist, we just don't make a habit of announcing it because people troll us by sending us potential triggers on purpose