Note to Mods: I did not see a forum for server feedback, please relocate if necessary. Thanks!
Server Version#: 1.19.4.2935-79e214ead
Player Version#: n/a
Short Explanation: Just some feedback that restriction profile ratings for “younger kids” is not realistic
Long Explanation:
So i recently switched from “custom” restrictions to profile restrictions and set them logically to how old my kids are. For example my 3, 4, and 6 year olds are set to young kids, and 10 and 12 year olds are set to older kids. Well to my wife’s dismay, she was thrown into the lions den when trying to start “Trolls” or “Frozen 2” recently because they were not showing. After some time I realized that both of those were PG rated and “Younger Kids” only permits G rated movies. So I switched them to “Older Kids” but then they were able to watch Jaws smh which is PG because I guess blood and death shouldn’t be a stranger to children lol. No big deal, I changed the rating on those since I felt PG-13 was a better age for that anyway.
So in a nutshell I realized that while “Younger Kids” is probably reasonable to limit to G movies, but as Jaws showed us “PG” isn’t what it used to be. I think it’s too easy for a G movie to get bumped to PG nowadays. I know some folks wouldn’t t think “Older Kids” should watch PG-13 (even though they bought GTA V for their 12 year old), so that’s probably an acceptable option to exclude from “Older Kids” which I think is reasonable although there broadened scope of TV ratings probably has some more options for “Older Kids” but I do think “Younger Kids” should include “PG”. It took me forever to realize that was why my wife couldn’t see the movie and for good reason. Jaws is a better movie to say parental guidance is necessary than Frozen, so it’s quite a culture shock to see them in the same rating category haha.
yes and perhaps better to restrict viewing, than accidentally allow more risque content through?
Kind of contradictory isn’t it ?
Well you could return to the ‘custom’ restrictions as you had before, which allow more customization and flexibility, as well as ADULT decision making.
truth, and all the more reason for more active parental involvement into what they let their children watch without supervision.
You could always go through some of the pg movies and manually re-rate them as G if you want to allow your kids to watch.
Okay so the entire point of providing the feedback is to highlight the nature of the “unnatural” user experience. Young kids, is not common terminology that a parent would use to reference kids under age of 3. At that age you practically still call them “babies”. Judging by your response, I’d have to call myself surprised if you had kids.
My point was that movies released in probably the past 20 years that are rated PG are largely targeted at an audience probably closer to ages 3 to 10. Considering PG-13 didn’t even get introduced to the ratings system until the 80s, it’s probably safe to say that Jaws would have been given an original rating of PG-13 had it been in use. I think one could probably even argue that “PG” is a useless rating and apparently I’m not alone in that (link), especially given the fact that it was given that rating because of “mild action and rude humor” yet Hunchback of Notre Dame was given a ‘G’ rating despite that some felt Esmeralda’s appearance was somewhat sexualized and the use of the word “damn” is actually used in both the theatrical and home releases of the movie. The f word was dropped a few times in Philomena (PG-13), and there’s no way in hell I’m permitting my 10 year old to watch a movie that drops that word a few times.
Now, to underline the point, the descriptor “young kids” is not something you can effectively use to describe movies that exclude PG. The movie rating guidelines for decision making are often inconsistent and often don’t align with cultural values even the values of that time period. But more often then not, the exception tend to be PG-13 and R movies, not G and PG movies. Adjusting the inclusion of “Young Kids” to include PG movies just coincides more with what’s realistic.
The restrictions are pretty clearly stated by Plex.
Younger Kid allows TV-Y, G, TV-G and equivalent; Older Kid allows TV-PG, PG and equivalent; Teen allows TV-13, PG-13 and equivalent. Pick None to choose your own ratings and manage other Media Server permissions.
It is your responsibility as a server owner to check what the ratings are for the respective films. At the end of the day thetvdb and themoviedb are community projects so it could be that the rating there is wrong or that there is no rating at all. That might also slip through.
The other issue is that you might not agree with the rating which is something you have to take of yourself anyway.
So what is your feedback/request to Plex in the end? I don’t really get what Plex can do differently.
If you have Plex Pass you can be more specific about which ratings are restricted instead of using the generic profiles in restrictions for that user. While you cannot set a restriction based on Genre, you can also set a custom label to things which fall outside of the ratings restrictions.
In this example I added the label “family friendly” to the movie The Princess Bride which is a PG rated movie. It is set up so this account can only view movies that are rated G and ones I have added the family friendly label to. If I only wanted to not allow R rated I could have added the R rating to the exclude ratings field for that users restrictions settings.
as mentioned above you can also change the content rating of any movie in your server library. If I wanted to make Jaws rated NC-17 I could just edit it’s metadata.
