itch.io

That would be the context I mentioned. In one case it does not matter, since everyone sees the same. In the other case, it would be the same as a shadow ban, except for the cause and intention. That is similar to the change in wording when talking about protective custody vs. imprisonment.

Only in this discussion here, there is no alternative term used that means the same but implies different cause and intention. For the sake of argument let us use "whitelisted".

So, if your own games are whitelisted, that would have different side effects. Also, how would that look with the adult filter? All 20000 adult games get filtered away, but your 2 will not? This sound not much like a solution, but it inspired me to another approach:

Search has four different kinds of results to my knowledge.

1 Tags in the suggested list. That is only shown, if there are results.

2 Exact names of titles.

3 Exact names of developers.

4 Other matches of title, developer, short description

2-4 are lumped together by relevance.

Results are capped at about 60.

Changing regular search, so it would show a 5th category  between 1 and 2 might be doable and benefitial for all users. The 5th result would be results among the users library, including collections and public published projects. Many people wish for a search option for your own collections.

If the adult setting is set to not show, the search could still display them in 5 as "hidden due to your current settings", or show them anyway with a disclaimer. There could also only be a counter like Steam does it. If you search items but some are filtered away, it tells so.

And as I explained in our previous conversation, that you completely misrepresented here: people already make lots of forum posts to complain about being "shadow banned" simply because their projects haven't been indexed yet. In other words when there's no punishment, and no intention of punishing anyone, and in fact everyone sees the same results. Imagine if it was discovered one day that itch.io shows different results to different people.

Edit: in fact people also make lots of forum posts to complain about the same problem you have, and it turns out they don't even remember marking their game as NSFW. They simply saw the checkbox on the metadata tab, ticked it for... some reason, then forgot about it. If itch.io worked the way you're requesting, to them it would look like their project, that they can find through the site just fine, is mysteriously hidden from most other people for no apparent reason. Cue even more complaints.