Sender: Arun Mehta <•••@••.•••> > I know there are wide differences of opinion on this list about > ratings. As has been often pointed out, the librarians have already enunciated a very sensible policy on the matter, they are opposed, and they explain why. Their note has been posted twice here already, but if people have missed it, maybe Andy can fish it out again? The only kind of rating that I would like to see is the kind that people use in research: to find out how great a paper in a technical journal is, it is possible to check which other papers cited it. That gives one a fair idea of what others thought of it. Likewise, it would be nice to find out, when trying to evaluate the info on a web page, which other web pages point to it. Arun Mehta, B-69 Lajpat Nagar-I, New Delhi-24, India. Phone 6841172,6849103 "I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any."--Gandhi @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Sender: •••@••.••• (Kurt Guntheroth) Subject: ratings and censorship > The next wave of Internet and Web standards will include ways for > organizations to rate public sites, and for people to install > filters that restrict the sites that can be downloaded. Long > before Senator Exon's crusade, people have recommended ratings as > ways to separate the really good sites from the time-wasters > (something akin to book reviews). But now ratings are emerging as > form of censorship too. Ratings are valuable. They are a service, an index that allows consumers to pass by information that they don't want. There should be companies which rate content. Ratings companies should be free to rate content according to whatever criteria they choose. They should be permitted to publish or keep secret their criteria. They should be as free-minded or as xenophobic as they choose. And they should be voluntary. Censorship occurs when one person tells another person what the rating on their material must be. Censorship is when there is only one label and the author has no choice but to wear it. Making authors rate their own work (assuming they are liable for the rating) just passes the buck for censorship. It lets people pretend there is no censorship, when in fact authors are forced to censor themselves to achieve circulation of their work. Why is it that we revolt when one person labels another "n--r", "k-ke", or "g--k", but we smile when one person labels another's ideas and expression as "obscene", "immoral", or "indecent". We've already surrendered to self-censorship of motion pictures. Recorded music is teetering on the edge of self-censorship, as is the video-game industry. Books have escaped. Perhaps we've learned over bitter years that it's too dangerous to mess with this medium. Perhaps we are more prudish than we once were (hard to imagine). (Moderator's note: I cleaned up Kurt's language, not out of fear of censorship, but because I have often heard that people find the words so offensive they get upset to see them, even when the context is meant to criticize the use of the words.--Andy) ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ Posted by Andrew Oram - •••@••.••• - Moderator: CYBER-RIGHTS (CPSR) You are encouraged to forward and cross-post messages for non-commercial use, pursuant to any redistribution restrictions included in individual messages. ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
