I suppose I'm not really surprised. Another highly desirable category for a "best of the web" directory to include. Supplementary questions: Is there a category for crack or heroin? OK, that would be illegal... What about pro-glue-sniffing listings?
All right, I am french but I think I was clear enough. I will try to explain it again for the slow people. I said pornography (the act of having sex alone or with others) is legal when it's between adults. I hate it because spamers invade my forums with their porn. I also disagree to have them listed on DMOZ but they are legal so you can't do anything about it. I also said that child nudity is not forbidden, I am sure you already saw small kids naked on the beach without having the parents arrested. I didn't see the site you are talking about but what I was saying is either the people you saw were adults, then it's legal, either they were just naked with no sex activity then it's legal too. If the site had real child porn not only you are advertising for them for free but doing nothing than waiting for others to report them. This is a crime that can be punished. This is off topic and thousands of people read it including some chilporn adepts. Are you proud of that? Legal or not this topic doesn't belong here and if it was in one of my site it would have been deleted.
Which is understandable for someone in your profession, seeing the results of this kind of behaviour. DMOZ doesn't claim to be a social and moral monitor and I don't think it wants to be seen in that light either. Except where a universal line is overstepped as in the case of child porn and pedophile advocacy for example. Any more than the major search engines. Only the K&T section of DMOZ makes any claims to being child safe. Perhaps there is a demand for directories and search engines that are completely safe - there is a commercial opportunity for someone there. And probably causes more deaths than any other single self-inflicted activity. And the reasons for the growing bans all over the world on smoking in enclosed public spaces is down to innocent victims too. I speak as a smoker myself. Cigarettes are still sold though. Still advertised one way or another even if not overtly. But they have health warnings. And I don't think that this is something DMOZ would reject out of hand as a concept - inserting health warnings on certain categories as an alternative to banning the sites.
I'm not asking DMOZ to be a social and moral monitor of anyone except itself, its own organization and editors. What I'm asking is that DMOZ behave in a socially and morally responsible manner and stop promoting sites whose sole or primary purpose is to endorse and promote practices which are injurious to our vulnerable youth and to vulnerable adults.
Yes, and I oppose it. In fact I got seriously flamed here about a month ago for saying I won't work in that category for personal reasons.
No-one seriously thinks DMOZ will get rid of its legal porn listings. That is not an issue for this thread. No-one is suggesting such sites are child porn. When such photos are included in a site designed to appeal to pedophiles then they become child porn. Surely that is not a difficult concept to comprehend regardless of nationality. Not if the site is located in a country with a more relaxed age limit than the US. As I said before child porn in Portugal allows models aged 14 but under the laws of most countries this would be jailable child porn. This is not something that can be dealt with solely on legal considerations. It belongs here as a legitimate discussion of DMOZ listing policies. It might be an uncomfortable topic and (IMO) some posters have gone too far by including links to illustrate their points, but that is no reason to delete it or suppress discussion. The only people that would benefit by suppression would be the advocates of child porn and pedophile forums who are quite happy for their (perhaps legal where they are located) sites to be ignored and continue to get link credits by virtue of a DMOZ listing. And it had died off before you bumped it and restarted interest. Given your views that is a bit hypocritical of you. What is the point of bumping a dormant thread just to object to it being there?
Where did you get that information? I know many portuguese and people going there on holidays and never heared about 14 year old prostitutes. Portugal is a member of the European Union and laws like this would not be accepted. The topic died in this forum but it is still receiving visitors from search engines. I am one of them and found it after a search for an opponents site's reciprocal links. I am sure more found it by typing childporn. There was links sending to these sites, that is not acceptable and other pedophile webmasters might use the same method in other forums to advertise their site for a few days seeing the success this topic created. did you think about that?
Good! That's exactly what the intent was - to create publicity and draw attention to irresponsible and/or illegal sites listed in the directory.
I understand what you are saying and why, and have some sympathy for your reasoning. Personally this would mean I would not personally have listed such sites myself, and neither would the vast majority of editors. In much the same way as Annie would not list tobacco sites (and neither would I have done despite being a smoker as I don't want to encourage others to make the same mistake of starting that I did), editors are not obliged to list sites they personally object to. But the fact remains that these sites are legal, they have not been legislated against and shut down. As such they don't fit into the same class as the child porn and pedophile sites which clearly are illegal or promote/enable illegality of the worst possible kind. The difference is in setting a standard for dealing with sites at least on the edge of illegality with a moral and social dimension, and dealing with sites where legality does not enter the equation (at present). Where does this start and where does it end. Sex before marriage - morally injurous to youths? What about rock music? The occult? Horoscopes? Whenever you start down route of censorship on social and moral grounds where do you stop. Last week some people in the UK were campaigning to ban bigger Big Macs introduced for a 5 week period to cover the FIFA World Cup as they were being socially irresponsible by encouraging youth obesity which some deem to be damaging children's health. Fried foods, chocolate, candy, and soft drinks are being banned from schools on the same grounds. So does DMOZ remove whole tracts of burger recipes and listings for Coke and its competitors? One day someone is going to make that argument if the ground starts shifting. I don't think bans are the answer. I do think there is a case for providing some kind of health warnings. I don't like the sites you are referring to one little bit - they appall me but whilst society at large tolerates them then I can't see it is for DMOZ to override that.
Check the Interpol website section where it gives the child porn laws for different countries. This is something which has no EU uniformity. If you had read this thread before jumping in you might have found that information out for yourself. I agree. The discussion could have been held without the links being published. Can't say this would never happen, it might. Hence I agreed with you about the links. But that is no reason to suppress the discussion entirely.
If someone has the ability to delete the links I agree with you, would have been better than deleting the topic but this has not been done. Any reason why? People going to DMOZ are going there to find information specific to the categories they search, people going here are from all ages and all culture. Talking about child porn is OK not good in this place but I accept it. My problem is the links to the sites, not the talk.
I suggest you ask the owner of the forum. The issue of the links has been raised before so no doubt there is an answer. Note - after a limited amount of time posters cannot edit or delete their posts on this forum - it has to be done by a moderator.
You misunderstand me, brizzie. I am not talking about websites which may be MORALLY injurious. I am talking about websites which are demonstrably phsyically and psychologically injurious to vulnerable people, especially vulnerable young people. As much as I abhor the sound and violent misogynous themes of RAP "music", I don't try to stop my children from listening to it and I'm not asking anyone to censor it. Eating disorders kill people, a lot of them young people, every year. Self-injury phsyically and psychologically scars people, a lot of them young people, every day. I cannot for the life of me understand the interest any socially responsible organization would have in endorsing such sites. I do not see it as any different from the inclusion of pro-pedophilia sites. The result is the same: physical and psychological injury to vulnerable youth.
Why don't you concentrate on editing the nasty links out of DMOZ, orlady? My suspicion is that the only reason you are chiming in here is because the thread is an embarrassment to DMOZ, not because you give a damn about the potential victims. If you actually did give a damn, you'd go into those pro-ana and pro-cutting sites and do something about that abominable and irresponsible blight on the part of the web that is DMOZ.
And I think that is the crux - DMOZ does not see itself as having a role connected to social responsibility where that does not coincide with some legal basis. And a listing isn't an endorsement other than to say the site meets general listing guidelines and is on the topic indicated by the category title and description. But some would argue that a DMOZ listing does in practice confer some legitimacy on a site since DMOZ is about "quality". There are two possible answers to this - intepretation of the new "trustworthyness" requirement for listings (not sure how far you would get on that but it's a possibility if the right arguments were made); or health warnings - "Listing does not mean in any way that DMOZ endorses or otherwise approves of the content of the sites below. You are strongly urged to seek professional guidance from a counsellor, doctor, or psychiatrist if the concepts within the listed sites in any way appeal to you." or similar. Forgot... and I don't think DMOZ has any interest in listing these sites, they are a tiny tiny part of the directory that I doubt any more than 1 or 2 editors have ever even thought about before. I didn't know DMOZ listed them before you mentioned them and I would bet 99.99% of editors were equally ignorant.
I would most definitely argue that. It's one of the guiding principles for me on my mental health sites - people WILL assume endorsement whether I intend it or not, and therefore I have to conduct myself in a way which ensures that i am not unintentionally endorsing sites that may be harmful. This is one of the implications of the HONcode endorsement for health sites. I think DMOZ ought to be taking the high ground and doing the same thing. As you go on to say, it is also similar to the position Google takes on TrustRank. Such a disclaimer would be an improvement, as long as it is not taken as a license to then shirk social responsibility. In other words, it's not good enough to post a disclaimer saying "we don't agree with this" and then list child pornography or pro-pedohilia sites. I can fully accept that. Until a couple of years ago, I had no idea that DMOZ listed such sites either. But now that we know, and DMOZ knows, I would hope to see DMOZ accept some responsibility for that.