So, I have been thinking about this Cambria Struggles in Senate Porn Hearings

[Bill]

This page talks about an interesting article about 'trustmarks', ICRA, browsers, and search engines...

http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/003204.html

---------------
From the interview:

"Do you think that the search engines will start actively looking for trustmarks? Might this impact on search results, rendering trustmarks obligatory? "

Paul's response:

"They will actively look for trustmarks. As I said earlier, browsers are falling over themselves to be the first to support content rating and quality labelling.

We’re also meeting with the leading search engines in the US this week. "
------------------

I personally don't like ICRA, but it's possible it will become more significant.

I still think a simple meta tag, that could be put on every page, that didn't require a third party, that told every browser this was adults only porn page and that redirected requests from all non adult browsers, is the best solution.

[Halfdeck]

All it takes is a few of the biggest LLs/TGPs announcing a new rule requiring ICRA/meta tags -- the rest will follow suit.

After skimming a few PICS docs, I'm not sure which part is so complicated.

((PICS-version 1.1)
(rating-system "http://www.link-o-rama.com/child-idiot-safe/")
(rating-service "http://adultrating.link-o-rama.com/")
(name "Greenguy's Rating Service")
(description "Running a professional business means we go the distance to protect kids from being accidentally exposed to porn. Copyright 2006. All Rights Reserved.")

(category (transmit-as "h") (name "Hardcore Rating")
(label
(name "Gentle kissing and caressing")
(value 0))
(label
(name "french kissing, nipple sucking, rubbing pussy")
(value 1))
(label
(name "Face slapping, choking, ass fingering")
(value 2))
(label
(name "repeated facial cumshots while fucking a roomful of strangers")
(value 3))
(label
(name "Cleo's avatar")
(value 10))

What am I missing?

[Bill]

The funny thing is, it is so fucking arcane I didn't realize you were joking til I was almost done reading, halfdeck. ;-}

Here's a real ICRA tag from one of my crappy old-as-shit domains:

<meta http-equiv="PICS-Label" content='(PICS-1.1 "&lt;http://www.rsac.org/ratingsv01.html&gt;" l gen true comment "RSACi North America Server" for "&lt;http://www.maidenheads.com&gt;" on "1999.10.05T02:09-0800" r (n 4 s 4 v 0 l 4))'>

Just look at all the junk in that tag. Does anybody see anything at all that looks like a browser command telling kids to stay off?

Why can't it be simplified to something like:

<meta http-equiv="PICS-Label" content="Adult">

Even "PICS-Label" is obtuse. It doesn't mean what it appears to mean. What ordinary person would have the vaguest idea what "PICS" means? This is stuff that was invented by the geekiest ubergeeks of the early internet, people who couldn't speak plain english if their lives depended on it.

We need a rating system that is crystal clear, obvious to even the most dimwitted parent and politician, universally understandable, ideally even to non english speakers, and quick and easy to use.

[PR_Tom]

LOL yep! Arcane as all hell.. It *SHOULD* be amazingly simple! All a filtering software needs to be able to do is get the data, and all we need to do is insert the data. Thats it! Overcoming any technical difficulties is what we should have had done years ago.

I think the hosts should be able to simply add a Reply sent back to ANY Request sent. It's fundamental to how the internet functions. We need something *that* low level IMHO. Idiotproof!

So, we need to know the most popular and common "kid-safe" browser filters on the market today, and we need a server tech to see how they function, and then install on a server the auto-reply info to test it.

I'm going to phone my server tech on monday and see what he has to say I think. It sounds so ridiculously simple..

[RawAlex]

Halfdeck, rating a site with ICRA isn't hard on a single case basis. If you own a single site, and want to register that single site and make all the pages compliant, it isn't difficult, but can be a little involved (plus it adds just a ton of crap onto the page that is not in the slightest SE friendly).

Now, let's say you produce 10 new sites each day, 100 new galleries each week, and manage hundreds of domains.

ICRA is just an added nightmare that, like cross referenced 2257 documents, wastes time and generates little return compared to simpler and more direct solutions.

<meta http-equiv="PICS-Label" content="Adult">

What could be simpler? No third parties... no junk tags... no huge multi line piece of shit tag wasting bandwidth and adding little to the solution. Why the heck use the DIFFICULT solution when an easy one is right at hand?

When you put a third party in the middle of your transactions, your business is controlled by someone else. Live free or die, right? Why the fuck let someone else get in the middle of your business?

Alex

[Halfdeck]

Originally Posted by Bill

Here's a real ICRA tag from one of my crappy old-as-shit domains:

<meta http-equiv="PICS-Label" content='(PICS-1.1 "&lt;http://www.rsac.org/ratingsv01.html&gt;" l gen true comment "RSACi North America Server" for "&lt;http://www.maidenheads.com&gt;" on "1999.10.05T02:09-0800" r (n 4 s 4 v 0 l 4))'>

Just look at all the junk in that tag.

Bill, I repeatedly see this obsolete ICRA code on websites. The current tag looks like this:

<link rel="meta" href="/labels.rdf" type="application/rdf+xml" />

which isn't much longer than:

<meta http-equiv="PICS-Label" content="Adult">

Alex, your point regarding third parties is well taken, though personally that doesn't bother me.

[Surfn]

Now as I see it this thread has turned into |skyfall|

[Bill]

Halfdeck, I'd have to be the first to admit then that my knowledge of ICRA tagging is obsolete.

I've already admitted I have a personal antipathy towards ICRA. Back then, at least, the website said you had to generate a new tag for every page of every domain. Every page had to be entered and rated.

So, perhaps you can appreciate the source of my disdain for ICRA.

Apparently now you can generate one tag per domain which can be used on every page- tho I have yet to test it.

This tag, tho:

<link rel="meta" href="/labels.rdf" type="application/rdf+xml" />

Still looks like it does and says absolutely nothing. It certainly doesn't look like a "Kids keep the fuck off this is porn and your parents will fucking kill you if they catch you looking at this page!" browser control tag.

I gather it points to a labeling file you have to upload to the server. And the labeling file contains the meaningless crap you used to have to put on your page.

Could you write a scriptlet that quickly produces a universal "THIS IS PORN" PICS tag? What would such a tag look like?

[Bill]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Oh my fucking god!

That ICRA site is ridiculous.

This is their list of "XXX" depictions, automatically selected when you click the "XXX" button...

Exposed breasts
Bare buttocks
Visible genitals
Passionate kissing
Obscured or implied sexual acts
Visible sexual touching
Explicit sexual language
Erections/explicit sexual acts
Erotica
No violence
Profanity or swearing
Mild expletives
No potentially harmful activities
User generated content may be, but is not known to be, present

That's what they rate for.

Where's the entry for...

Hardcore Fucking
Ass Slamming
Midget Anal
Gay Cumshots
Facial Cumshot

I guess all we have to check is...

Erections/explicit sexual acts

Since even broadcast TV has...

Exposed breasts
Bare buttocks
Passionate kissing
Obscured or implied sexual acts

I guess everything is XXX nowadays.

[Bill]

I guess this is the current form of the ICRA label:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<rdf:RDF
xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#"
xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
xmlns:dcterms="http://purl.org/dc/terms/"
xmlns:label="http://www.w3.org/2004/12/q/contentlabel#"
xmlns:icra="http://www.icra.org/rdfs/vocabularyv03#">

<rdfescription rdf:about="">
<dc:creator rdf:resource="http://www.icra.org" />
<dcterms:issued>2006-1-29</dcterms:issued>
<label:authorityFor>http://www.icra.org/rdfs/vocabularyv03#</label:authorityFor>
</rdfescription>

<label:Ruleset>
<label:hasHostRestrictions>
<label:Hosts>
<label:hostRestriction>hot-latina-ass.net</label:hostRestriction>
</label:Hosts>
</label:hasHostRestrictions>
<label:hasDefaultLabel rdf:resource="#label_1" />
</label:Ruleset>

<label:ContentLabel rdf:ID="label_1">
<rdfs:comment>Label for all/most of website</rdfs:comment>
<icra:na>1</icra:na>
<icra:nb>1</icra:nb>
<icra:nc>1</icra:nc>
<icra:sa>1</icra:sa>
<icra:sb>1</icra:sb>
<icra:sc>1</icra:sc>
<icra:sd>1</icra:sd>
<icra:se>1</icra:se>
<icra:sf>1</icra:sf>
<icra:vz>1</icra:vz>
<icra:lb>1</icra:lb>
<icra:lc>1</icra:lc>
<icra:oz>1</icra:oz>
<icra:cz>0</icra:cz>
<rdfs:label>Exposed breasts; Bare buttocks; Visible genitals; Passionate kissing; Obscured or implied sexual acts; Visible sexual touching; Explicit sexual language; Erections/explicit sexual acts; Erotica; No violence; Profanity or swearing; Mild expletives; No potentially harmful activities; User generated content may be, but is not known to be, present; </rdfs:label>
</label:ContentLabel>

</rdf:RDF>

[RawAlex]

Originally Posted by Halfdeck

Bill, I repeatedly see this obsolete ICRA code on websites. The current tag looks like this:

<link rel="meta" href="/labels.rdf" type="application/rdf+xml" />

which isn't much longer than:

<meta http-equiv="PICS-Label" content="Adult">

Alex, your point regarding third parties is well taken, though personally that doesn't bother me.

Halfdeck, just taking the content out of the meta tag and sticking it into a file that has to be loaded really doesn't change the workload very much. It doesn't change the amount of crap being loaded on my pages.

It is like putting style sheets into a .css file as opposed to having the code on your page. It is neater, I agree, but the amount of code is still there. As Bill has just shown, the actual content of the tag is huge and long... and really, not much of it will actually stop children from visiting the site.

I don't want to give a detailed list of everything on my site, I just want to keep the kiddies out. My site is for adults. Adults can handle creast fondling, erections, and other things, I don't feel the need or the desire to list them out on each domain.

Worse, as I build subfolder sites, I would be required to add new tags each time to handle whatever the latest new folder site contains. It would be pointless.

Alex

[Halfdeck]

Lol, Bill, no one said ICRA tag is perfect -- then again, what is? The question is what better alternative do we have in our little box of tools to keep kids off our sites?

When faced with a choice between two evils -- A. an imperfect solution that keeps X% of minors off my sites and B. Doing nothing about the problem because I don't like my options --- I'd have to go with A, the lesser of two evils.

Originally Posted by RawAlex

It is like putting style sheets into a .css file as opposed to having the code on your page. It is neater, I agree, but the amount of code is still there.

One advantage of creating a .css file is it doesn't load every time you visit a new page on the same domain. For free sites, one css file will cover multiple pages in one folder; for bigger sites, one css file will take care of an entire domain.

Originally Posted by RawAlex

Worse, as I build subfolder sites, I would be required to add new tags each time to handle whatever the latest new folder site contains.

Alex, all you need to do is generate one catch-all ICRA file/tag and install it on your domain root. There's no need to visit ICRA 200+ times to generate a unique tag for every domain / subfolder you own.

I do agree that labels.rdf file is way bigger than it has to be. I'd also like to see things like "ass slamming" in the tag instead of "Erections/explicit sexual acts", but then I'd have to tag every page on my site with a unique tag, which would be a serious pain in the ass.

[RawAlex]

Halfdeck the choices should not be between a flawed and overdone system or nothing. Supporting option A is to make half ass and burdensome third party work the gold standard. That truly would be sad.

There are other choices. Our industry could easily go back to PICS and whatnot and say, look, we want to use:

<meta http-equiv="PICS-Label" content="Adult">

Simple and short. Make sure the browser companies can handle this going forward. Put it in their next update, next release. End discussion. We can toss a simple tag in, and the children get blocked.

Supporting a flawed system means we would have to live with the flaws. That isn't a very good choice.

Alex

[Halfdeck]

Originally Posted by RawAlex

<meta http-equiv="PICS-Label" content="Adult">

Short, simple, and clean. If that tag actually worked, I'd love to use it. But from what I read regarding PICS, it requires a certain structure to work. Content='adult' seems to lie completely outside of valid PICS syntax.

As I understand it, a PICS-Label tag should declare the pics version (1.1), rating-service (where the PICS rule set and vocabulary is defined [similar to RSS files, or sitemaps where references are made to an exterior file which defines the structure of the sitemap]), and category values.

As an example, here's a tag off link-o-rama.com/ index page:

<META HTTP-EQUIV="PICS-Label" CONTENT='(PICS-1.1 "http://www.rsac.org/ratingsv01.html" l gen true comment "RSACi North America Server" for "http://www.link-o-rama.com/" on "1998.09.02T10:11-0800" r (n 4 s 4 v 0 l 3))'>

Where "(n 4 s 4 v 0 l 3)" are the category values "nudity=4, sex=4 violence=0 or 3(?)", the PIC version is 1.1 and the rule set used to be found at "http://www.rsac.org/ratingsv01.html"

For any PICS-label tag, there needs to be a file that defines the rule set, and your PICS tag uses values defined in that file to tell browsers what type of content is on that page.

In other words, if you want a "simple and short" solution, I don't see a way to do it without redefining the syntax of PICS, or as I pointed out, link off to an external file.

BTW Bill, the labels.rdf file seems to be a PICS rule set rewritten in RDF/XML -- that is why its so huge. It also refers to an XML file at "http://www.icra.org/rdfs/vocabularyv03" which defines what "na", "nb", "nc" all mean.

For example, "vj" is spelled out as "Torture ou mise à mort de personnages imaginaires (dont personnages d'animation)" in French

Modify those files, host them on your own server, and you should be able to cut out the middle man.

P.S. If all of this sound like technical mambo jumbo to you, and it is...like Walrus said, there are places besides icra.org where you can have all this code generated for you. Besides,the option not to use any tags is always there.

[Toby]

The problem with PICS is that it's trying to define multiple levels of adult content. That's overkill when the goal at this point is to simply keep kids out.

Keep it simple, or it will never get widely implemented.

[Jim]

Originally Posted by Surfn

Now as I see it this thread has turned into |skyfall|

Normally I would agree but with this law already on the books and the only thing stopping it from being enforced is a decision from a non-liberal Supreme Court, you are 100% wrong.

[Surfn]

Originally Posted by Jim

Normally I would agree but with this law already on the books and the only thing stopping it from being enforced is a decision from a non-liberal Supreme Court, you are 100% wrong.

Time will tell

[walrus]

Originally Posted by Toby

The problem with PICS is that it's trying to define multiple levels of adult content. That's overkill when the goal at this point is to simply keep kids out.

Keep it simple, or it will never get widely implemented.

I agree except what w3c tried to do was come up with a standard that not only was used to filter people away from your site but also one that could be picked up and used at the SE level to help promote your site.

[SirMoby]

Originally Posted by Toby

The problem with PICS is that it's trying to define multiple levels of adult content. That's overkill when the goal at this point is to simply keep kids out.

Keep it simple, or it will never get widely implemented.

I don't agree as I think there should be many rating levels for "Adult Content". There are many levels of sexuality, hate, religeon, violence, etc.... that all need to be addressed.

We need to make a strong front and start asking news agencies why they aren't using labels when we are. We have a chance to do something good here.

[SirMoby]

Originally Posted by Surfn

Now as I see it this thread has turned into |skyfall|

That may be the case but shouldn't we be working on a rating system any way? At the core it's a good idea so why shouldn't we make up a working proposal?

[Toby]

Originally Posted by SirMoby

I don't agree as I think there should be many rating levels for "Adult Content". There are many levels of sexuality, hate, religeon, violence, etc.... that all need to be addressed.

We need to make a strong front and start asking news agencies why they aren't using labels when we are. We have a chance to do something good here.

What purpose will a multi-level system serve if it will never get implemented widely enough to be useful. And just who is going to determine these various ratings and how they're blocked? Just way too complicated to ever be effective.

Keep it simple. One rating, "adult", to define content not suitable for minors. Adult content filtering either ON or OFF. That has a far better chance to get implemented.

[SirMoby]

Have you looked at the different levels that are already supported by browsers? You can't possibly think they're complicated.

Also with only one rating then it's real easy for an ISP under pressure from the crazies to just block all adult or for new laws to be placed that require all adult to use AVS.

By breaking out different ratings then perhaps the courts can fight over extreme hardcore material without pulling simple nudity into the mix. Without different levels showing a nipple is labled the same way as bukake.

I also think the a proposal should consider all adult material and that includes hate and violence presented by the same news agencies that want us banned.

[Toby]

Originally Posted by SirMoby

Have you looked at the different levels that are already supported by browsers? You can't possibly think they're complicated.

But do they work to block adult content? No, not very well because most sites don't include any coding and get blocked by default when it's not adult at all, so people just turn it off.

Originally Posted by SirMoby

Also with only one rating then it's real easy for an ISP under pressure from the crazies to just block all adult or for new laws to be placed that require all adult to use AVS.

By breaking out different ratings then perhaps the courts can fight over extreme hardcore material without pulling simple nudity into the mix. Without different levels showing a nipple is labled the same way as bukake.

This is a reality regardless of the rating system and is an entirely different issue.

Originally Posted by SirMoby

I also think the a proposal should consider all adult material and that includes hate and violence presented by the same news agencies that want us banned.

This is a whole other can of worms. If news sites want to use a rating="violence" tag, more power to them, but that's a different political agenda. I'm only concerned with an effective way to keep kids out of porn sites.

[walrus]

Originally Posted by Toby

Keep it simple. One rating, "adult", to define content not suitable for minors. Adult content filtering either ON or OFF. That has a far better chance to get implemented.

You have a content filtering system that is defined by w3c and implemented by IE....and it takes just little more time to go somewhere, check a couple checkbox's, get the code and then cut and paste that into your pages that you cant use it but...if it were a simplier tag that you could cut and paste into all your pages, that somehow would be easier?

[Toby]

I currently use the PICS system, because it's the best thing currently available. But like I said, if parents crank the filtering up, and a site has no rating at all, then they still get blocked even if not adult and the parent has to go in and enter the pass code over and over. Eventually filtering just gets turned off because it becomes too much of a hassle. Been there, done that, in a computer lab full of 2nd graders just trying to get to Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon.

Give me a simplified PICS tag, that I can insert into any adult content page, and then fix the filters so the parent can choose whether or not to block unrated sites.