I meant that the the *ratings* would not be very useful for my purposes (at least, not the ratings as I've heard proposed so far.) I probably wouldn't have the same values or concerns of those who feel the need to apply them; I wouldn't judge the material by the same standards (raters are looking principally to create a means to censor material, and I myself am not concerned about passive text&graphics.

one point about the ratings systems is that they are not simply for rejecting or approving pages. they might be used to point out "neat places". now, have you ever gone through a list of "cool links" anywhere in cyberspace? I suspect such lists are very likely going to be kept on rating servers in the not-to-distant future. PICS is a very flexible architecture and I hope it will be used in many ingenious ways not previously foreseen. also, keep in mind that in the short term, ratings refer to web pages, but in the long term future, I can see them rating all kinds of other things in cyberspace and the real world. again, PICS supports this right off the bat. it is not constrained to web pages.

The more automated that filtering becomes, so that the viewer (be it an adult or a child) requires less and less personal involvement in evaluating what is appropriate (or even interesting) for themselves, the more weak & piddly (ignorant & psychologically dependent) those people could become, falling into the habit of having others - or an automatic robocop - do their content-filtering for them.

but in a sense, this is what you do whenever you read a book or a newspaper. you are reading information screened by someone else. not so much with books that are unique, but you can see how this applies with like a collection of essays for example. but I agree with your implications. ratings are not a substitute for personal judgement. they are meant to be a method to aid thinking, not to replace it, imho.