anthony, would you mind putting a tad bit more effort into your post so that I could understand the point you are trying to make? This thread is full of one liners (yes, I'm aware of the irony of this post contributing to that tally) and it really gets things nowhere. If you have a point to make, perhaps you could use the standard Point - Example - Comment format?
anthony, please. i can answer your question if you like, but I think if you actually wanted to make a point with that post, you should have seized the opportunity to, rather than be so vague and shifty. One liners really are a terrible way to make any progress whatsoever in a debate. Going back to that directory, my apologies but I'm not going to go through the links one by one. I am in my university's public library. Going by the descriptions of each site, I cannot say I would delist any. Could you please suggest which ones ought to be delisted? If your point was that pornography photographed outdoors is so morally reprehensible that it shouldn't be listed in DMOZ, perhaps you should have just said so. And to answer that, no I don't think it is morally reprehensible. I will take this chance to reiterate a point I've made in this thread and/or others, i personally think we should save ourself the hassle and not have an adult section at all - because the adult section is prone to attract bad editors and bad press, and because, wherever people might want to draw the line (i notice by the way you declined my invitation to suggest how DMOZ ought to draw the line?) it probably lies in Adult somewhere - so would it really be a problem to get rid of the whole thing, no matter how perfectly acceptable vast parts of it may be?
That is the only way to keep lawsuits from hitting AOL, the whole adult section should go Bradley, I am sure it will, it seems to me that a lot of listings have been removed already, since when navigating around the adult section many pages have no listings at all on them!
bradley, you asked for a show of hands.. well, I don't think that's going to be meaningful because nobody identifiable would actually dare to go against the DP groupthink on this one. Here's my two cents worth. In Adult/Society/Sexuality/Activities_and_Practices/Pedophilia/Affirmative_Views/ there are 10 sites listed at present. Two of those are academic papers. One is an article in Salon.com One is a newspaper interview with a convicted pedophile. Four are advocacy sites (but not pornography sites) One is a poetry site One is some sort of logo site So, from an academic point of view, the category has some merit and does not seem prurient. Down from that is a category called "Directories". That contains 5 listings for directories containing further information. I must say that I do not like the look of those from the descriptions, and perhaps they should be removed and re-reviewed. There's is also a category called Adult/Computers/Internet/Chats_and_Forums/Activities_and_Practices/Pedophilia/Affirmative_Views/ which contains 5 listings. Of these, four are described as general discussion or support groups. These are not pornography sites. They should perhaps be removed and re-reviewed. There's also a site described as "Real-time chat server for minor-attracted adults considering suicide" which if it is as described would certainly be a valid resource to be listed. Adult/Society/Sexuality/Activities_and_Practices/Pedophilia/Affirmative_Views/Organizations/ is a single entry of interest: "Dutch support group for people "with the ability to fall in love with children." Practical tips on living with these feelings without breaking the law. Also has links to academic texts on pedophilia." That seems like a valid resource too. So, are any of these sites illegal? You could certainly highlight some that might need looking at, but then there are some resources there which should definitely be listed. Academic papers, mainstream newspaper articles and support groups to help people cope with their feelings without acting on them certainly seem like valid resources to me. Directories and chat rooms are questionable, but nothing appears to be a pornography site.
Interesting if true. Perhaps you could use archive.org and compare the current listings with the old ones.
Bradley; I think the question of these type of site can be divided in 2 parts. 1- Is it socially acceptable and morally justifiable to support pedophilia and provide them with resources to organize and plan to molest children or not? I don't think so and I am sure the majority in this forum or in the society independent of the country will agree me. If there are any DMOZ editors that think otherwise, I would like to hear their opinion and explanation on why organizing pedophiles is in line with DMOZ social policy. 2- Are such sites legal or illegal? I have provided sources and explained that in my opinion such sites are illegal in accordance with rulings from US supreme court. If there is any editor that disagrees and thinks that pedophilia is not illegal and courts will support such organization then I would like to know on what laws are they basing their legal opinion and not just a non sense repetition about free speech and we are against censor. So far none of "AFFIRMATIVE VIEW" editors have even tried to give an explanation to the above questions and they just repeat that they don't want to delete it.
First off we don't hate you guys (well I may hate a few enemies on the forum circuit) in any way and are kind of pissed off that some of these descriptions are in DMOZ in the first place! Second we do think that someone within DMOZ is making money from these listings and is affiliated with a lot of these operators in some way! It is not up to us to determine policy, but we can put two and two together and see conflict of interest when it hits us in the face! If you guys keep crap like this in DMOZ you can expect to be attacked by the community of webmasters!
Anthony; please don't give DMOZ editors the excuse to fill this thread with nonsense. This is a tactic that we all know from WPW. fill a thread with so many stupid posts that real issues gets lost. Let's give them a chance to explain how supporting pedophilia is socially/ morally acceptable or how is it legal.
Deobfuscator you have proved to be full of it from the moment you came on this forum, I know DMOZ editors and hold them in high regard, you don't know what you are talking about! Don't start with the fraud and false accusations dude!
Sorry, the only evidence I have to go on are your paranoid postings, full of bizarre and ridiculous accusations. Perhaps you are a nicer person in real life. I somehow doubt it though.
You are just upset because your porn empire is going to get busted up when AOL takes it down man! Get a life, OK
With all due respect Deob, this debate would be very easily resolved if it was merely about illegal sites being listed - so asking 'are any of these sites illegal' really gets us nowhere. Whether these are pornographic or not is not the question either. The debate here arises around whether or not the sites listed in this cat are too close to inciting activity considered illegal by the vast majority of countries around the world. I agree with you that the sites listed are not inviting the sort of actions we normally associate with paedophilia - notably non-consentual sex with a minor. Their use of terms like 'boy love' and 'girl love' seems to be an attempt to make the distinction. However, a large part of the reason paedophilia is globally outlawed even in consentual circumstances is that children aren't considered mature enough to get involved in sexual relationships. Sites setting out why it shouldn't be illegal are advocating illegal activity - something considered in itself illegal in my country, and probably yours too. It therefore seems somewhat silly to be pointing to them, and not worth the hassle. Even so, it's my opinion advocacy alone (of anything) shouldn't be made illegal. Advocacy of the American Civil Rights movement should never for example be proclaimed to be illegal. It's conservatism par excellence - if you can't argue why something shouldn't be illegal, society always stays as it always has been, only ever bringing laws into existence, never questioning or dispelling bad ones. Though in the short term it may seem like folly to allow extremists to peddle views which i consider extremely hateful, idiotic, prejudiced or harmful, I think the long term health of society has always been best ensured by principles that initially motivated the US Constitution's First Amendment. That however is just my personal political philosophy. In this debate I'm arguing that DMOZ should be to a certain extent wary of the current legal (and moral) standpoints in the countries of its users and not bother with this category, or even with the adult section at all. It's just not worth it. If anything, let it split off and sail the Internet oceans alone. A category is more prone to corruption if editors in the everyday section are too afraid of it to look into it from time to time. It makes me sorry to be taking such a realistic/pragmatic approach but it's simple cost/benefit analysis, and I'm surprised AOL didn't immediately take that line either. Corporations typically have far less trouble abandoning principles like freedom of speech for the sake of convenience than I do. (inevitably, two or three idiots will quote that last line to say AOL must be protecting the adult section becoz it i$ krupt - please, at least first consider more likely reasons, like mere inertia)
This issue is much larger than just DMOZ as you all know, the government is coming down on all the search engines using porn as the excuse to spy on Americans! You would think that AOL executives would simply remove the entire Adult component of the directory to protect their shareholders against civil lawsuits, potential criminal charges and resulting fines!
You see, I really don't think linking to a site should in any way be something you can get prosecuted for; anyways, that's not really relevant to this debate.
If you don't think so you are missing the big picture, Google and AOL sure are thinking about it, Google owns 5% of AOL