To elaborate on Annie's post - if the details you ferret out aren't fit for posting here (which they probably won't be), please PM them to me or you can use feed back at the ODP for me, and I'll post them internally. Please be specific - I'll need webpage address and quotes. If any other editors are willing to accept these types of PMs or emails - please post it. If you do not see an editor posting their willingness to receive this information - please don't send it to them. Thank you.
Annie, Your efforts thus far are to be applauded. However, we have been told for YEARS that the inclusion, removal or editing listings is at the SOLE discretion of the editors. It sounds as though there is a double standard at DMOZ. Why the caution about the removal of these listings? ~VegasMack
Well done to all involved so far ~ shame about the usual innane comments from the odd member who has fuck all to say but seems desperate to say it just the same. I find that quite offensive. Anyway... Like Minstrel has emphasised, I hope this is just a beginning, I'm kinda shocked it took this long (Yeah, even though we are talking about DMOZ), but at least the ball is rolling.
Guideline is just bunch of words that is already causing confusion and discussion and it is an excuse that such sites can be listed and hidden after "Affirmative view" category has disappeared and such sites are listed among other sites in the pedophilia category. Why not chose a guideline like the example below instead? "Due to illegal and immoral nature of pedophilia and in a light of the danger that pro pedophilia sites present to our children, DMOZ only lists reputable sites that discuss pedophilia as a subject of discussion in fields of medicine, psychology and law. Law enforcement agencies and support groups for victims of pedophilia also will be listed. No web site that endorses or tries to portray pedophilia as harmless will be listed."
gworld, work is in progress. May be you should have posted your proposal before the new guideline got logged. BTW numbers in the affirmative cat are going further down. 4 listings left.
There is nothing new in the new guideline, except that have taken the line ( appeals to prurient interests) from US supreme court decision that I posted almost in the beginning of this thread and added that to the guideline. May be the number of listings are going down just now but wait until "affirmative view" category has disappeared and every body is forgotten about this and the same kind of sites will be added to pedophilia section. Don't take my word for it, read what one of the admin posted about this.
While the new policy seems to be rather unclear at first glance (as I have said internally on ODP forums), I think it will get the job done that we need it to do. Instead of allowing or banning types of sites in broad strokes, it gives guidelines to be applied to each site individually. We are in the process of doing this, and a number of sites have already been removed as they are out of compliance with the new policy. For example, all of the sites that were in the former category "Chats and Forums" have been re-reviewed and none of them were listable according to the new policy - so the policy is doing the job that we hoped it would do. The process of cleaning out these categories will likely last for a while longer. More sites will be removed and most likely the entire structure of the subcategories will be changed. The new policy may not be perfect, it might not be worded exactly like we want, and it might have taken longer than we wanted to get it - but it's here now and it's working so far, so let's wait and see what we have after the dust settles before passing judgement on it.
Also, feel free to PM me as well if you find a listed site that breaks this new policy. Please provide the specifics - not just "this site is teh devil!!".
Since I don't have direct access to internal DMOZ proceedings, I'll have to hope that this is indeed moving in the right direction. I won't deny that I am cynical about the situation and inclined to believe this will turn out to be just a "rename and hide" tactic by certain Adult editors, as gworld implies. However, I honestly would love to be wrong about this.
I wouldn't hold that against you. It is however easy to see the progress - just keep an eye on the number of listings (and which sites are listed if you want). The number should keep dropping for a while. Check back on the category in a month or a year - make sure the sites aren't back. It will be pretty easy for you to make sure these sites stay gone. And even easier for me and other editors who are interested.
We'll have to keep a watch on other adult categories as well to make sure they aren't being slipped in the back door.
If one was worried about it, the easiest thing would be to make a list of the sites and then periodically search dmoz for the URL... [added] http://web.archive.org/web/20041121...exuality/Activities_and_Practices/Pedophilia/ is a bit old, but the category has hardly changed in the past couple of years. It would be an easy way to have access to all of the URLs that were listed before this topic came up a month ago...
And - if one of these site owners buys an already listed site and changes the content to anything like what was on these sites and you happen to find it - please alert one of us immediately.
For an up to date copy of the category before changes see google(dot)com/Top/Adult/Society/Sexuality/Activities_and_Practices/Pedophilia/ This includes the removed chats_and_forums and directories categories.
We're still working on it. The most important thing is to keep the campaign alive. The culprits who put those sites there in the first place are by now desperately hoping the negative attention will go away so they can get back to making money from child rape websites Please note: This is NOT an attack on DMOZ editors in general (that's another thread coming soon to a theatre near you ) - just on the sleaze-balls who listed those sites in the first place.
I still don't understand, some of the sites descriptions even within the regular adult stuff is so disgusting that it all should go, not just the kiddie porn stuff. AOL needs to be looked at real close on this, they are selling porn filters as an ISP to parents and at the same time promoting this crap in the search indexes! I see a major class action lawsuit coming up here, because selling filters to filter out filth that you are producing is against the law! Parents that pay AOL Millions of dollars for value added porn filtering services should receive refunds on every dollar spent, I also see massive damage awards in the lawsuits that should come!
Civil lawsuits and class action lawsuits are the only thing that will move AOL, I am sure that they will face 100's of lawsuits from parents that pay them for filtering services soon! AOL should simply fire those at the top of DMOZ as I have suggested for over a year!