Mandatory Voluntary Self-Ratings

[Joseph M. Reagle Jr.]

>Date: Wed, 08 May 1996 19:34:50 -0400
>To: tcmay at got.net (Timothy C. May)
>From: "Joseph M. Reagle Jr." <reagle at mit.edu>
>Subject: Re: Mandatory Voluntary Self-Ratings
>
>At 09:58 AM 5/8/96 -0700, you wrote:
>>At 9:31 PM 5/7/96, Joseph M. Reagle Jr. wrote:
>
>>Should "voluntary self-criticism" become widespread, I expect to rate all
>>of my posts as suitable for children of all ages, suitable for
>>hypersensitive feminists, suitable for Jews and Gentiles alike, and so on.
>>Regardless of whether I'm advocating post-birth abortions or forced
>>encheferation of Muslim girls.
>
>        I've figured out where my differences between myself and others
lay. The _only_ system and service that I am aware of that is distributing
PICS labels is RSAC. (http://www.rsac.org) They are what one could call an
objective and non-arbitrary content rating system rather than an
"appropriateness" system. "Appropriateness" systems will be valuable 3rd
party systems when the vigilantes and fundamentalists wish to create label
bureaus. For self labeling, if many people (main stream people) are going to
use that system within their browser, it will have to have mind share. If
it's going to have mind share, I think it would be advantegeous to it to be
a descriptive label rather than "appropriate." Hence, much of the concerns
I'm hearing aren't so worrisome to me.
>
> I'll have more on that when a case study I'm working on with some
colleagues for a Sloan on ecommerce course at MIT is finished.. (in about a
week, and I should then be making that and my thesis available.)
>
>>I say it's a waste of our time to even be thinking or worrying about how to
>>implement an infrastructure for ratings. In fact, building such an
>>infrastructure could make later imposition of "mandatory voluntary ratings"
>>(Orwell would be unsurprised) a greater likelihood.
>
>        Maybe, maybe not, hard to say... This or the -L18, both are easy
for an ignornant legislator to approve.
>
_______________________
Regards,       Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues,
               and can moderate their desires more than their words. -Spinoza
Joseph  Reagle      http://farnsworth.mit.edu/~reagle/home.html
reagle at mit.edu      E0 D5 B2 05 B6 12 DA 65  BE 4D E3 C1 6A 66 25 4E