4 ms·

I don't really see religious/conservative populations going out of their way to abridge a book that includes scenes that they need need "whited out". There are

by sfotm 7y ago

I don't really see religious/conservative populations going out of their way to abridge a book that includes scenes that they need need "whited out". There are plenty of other books to read, and they'd probably prefer not to support works they disapprove of, anyway. That's even assuming that the books make sense with the sex and violence torn out; if you were to read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with everything a puritan found objectionable torn out of it, there wouldn't be a very sensible story left.

umvi 7y ago
> if you were to read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with everything a puritan found objectionable torn out of it, there wouldn't be a very sensible story left. I think you misunderstand what religious people really want. Most people with "puritanical" objections to media content are just wanting it to be less explicit (i.e. left to the imagination) - not completely whitewashed from the story. After all, most religious texts themselves are rife with sex and murder; the acts themselves are usually not explicitly described in great detail, however. "Lysanderoth's sword tore into Archibald's neck, spraying blood and chunks of windpipe across the battlefield and leaving him loudly gurgling as he slumped to the ground" vs. "Lysanderoth slew Archibald with the sword" You can easily retain the story while eliminating the explicit aspect of the prose. For example, I edited the entirety of the "A Song of Fire and Ice" series, and you may be interested to learn that eliminating every instance of explicit violence, sex, and profanity altered slightly less than 1% of the total word count of each book.
- komali2 7y ago
  I completely understand why an author would reject anybody attempting to change the prose as you have suggested here. Whiting out in a book, or in your own ebook copy, is one thing. Sharing, then, those edits would be like releasing a fan-cut of a movie. Doing so wholesale (the entire movie) isn't ok - sharing timestamp swaps that you can plug into VLC is a different story.
  - umvi 7y ago
    > sharing timestamp swaps that you can plug into VLC is a different story. That is precisely what I am suggesting sharing - page numbers, paragraph numbers, length, and other metadata needed to filter the book (essentially "timestamps" for books). This metadata would tell the software where to excise sections from the ebook. People would need to own their own copy of the book, and the ewhiteout software just alters it according to the metadata input.

by sfotm 7y ago

umvi 7y ago

> if you were to read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with everything a puritan found objectionable torn out of it, there wouldn't be a very sensible story left. I think you misunderstand what religious people really want. Most people with "puritanical" objections to media content are just wanting it to be less explicit (i.e. left to the imagination) - not completely whitewashed from the story. After all, most religious texts themselves are rife with sex and murder; the acts themselves are usually not explicitly described in great detail, however. "Lysanderoth's sword tore into Archibald's neck, spraying blood and chunks of windpipe across the battlefield and leaving him loudly gurgling as he slumped to the ground" vs. "Lysanderoth slew Archibald with the sword" You can easily retain the story while eliminating the explicit aspect of the prose. For example, I edited the entirety of the "A Song of Fire and Ice" series, and you may be interested to learn that eliminating every instance of explicit violence, sex, and profanity altered slightly less than 1% of the total word count of each book.

komali2 7y ago
I completely understand why an author would reject anybody attempting to change the prose as you have suggested here. Whiting out in a book, or in your own ebook copy, is one thing. Sharing, then, those edits would be like releasing a fan-cut of a movie. Doing so wholesale (the entire movie) isn't ok - sharing timestamp swaps that you can plug into VLC is a different story.
- umvi 7y ago
  > sharing timestamp swaps that you can plug into VLC is a different story. That is precisely what I am suggesting sharing - page numbers, paragraph numbers, length, and other metadata needed to filter the book (essentially "timestamps" for books). This metadata would tell the software where to excise sections from the ebook. People would need to own their own copy of the book, and the ewhiteout software just alters it according to the metadata input.