Schneider Letter to Meeks and Berry (fwd)

[Filtering Facts]

At 12:24 PM 8/23/97 , SHERYL DWINELL wrote:
>Again, I ask, where is your own body of research on filters?  Karen 
>should get credit for at least taking on such a massive project, as 
>unscientific as it may be.  Besides complaining about ALA , ACLU and 
>anti-filtering librarians, what sort of practical work are you doing on 
>this issue, Mr. Burt?  Are you actively involved in working with 
>librarians and vendors to produce useful, easy to maintain filters that 
>the libraries who want filters can use?

David Burt responds:
Actually, a number of vendors have contacted me to ask my opinion on
improving their products and marketing them to libraries, which I've given.
Cybersitter wasn't one of them.  One of the vendors bemoaned the lack of
objective, third-party information about what filters do (this person also
expressed puzzled amusement at the TIFAP "study", and its highly inaccurate
results).   I'm currently evaluating filters, and the ones that meet my
minimum criteria will be discussed and linked to on the FF page, under the
heading "Filters which meet our minimum standards".  Any systematic,
scientific study I undertook would be highly suspect, considering my bias,
so I'll leave the studies to real researchers.

>
>As someone who tested Cybersitter 97, where you cannot turn off keyword 
>blocking and know of libraries that are using it, your claims that no 
>library uses filtering software where keyword blocking cannot be turned 
>off is wrong. Cybersitter also blocked an article by Declan McCullough in 
>a recent issue of Time online that made a mildly disparaging remark about 
>CS. This wasn't second hand information from an anti-filterer. It 
>occurred on my own PC with CS enabled.  I can't be absolutely sure why it 
>was blocked, but it seems a bit odd.  Amongst the usual assortment of 
>naughty words, it also blocks the words "pleasure" and "hotlinks" on web 
>pages.  Clearly software that doesn't belong in libraries, right? But 
>it's there.  

DB:
We had this discussion before.  As far as you knew, only one public library
was using CS, and they were using the old version where you could turn off
the keywords.  One library where it is uncertain if the keyword blocking is
on or not does not a terribly devasting rebutal make.

SD:
>
>Further, with keyword blocking turned off on filters, their ability to 
>block offensive material diminishes to various degrees.  I think this 
>sort of information is important for libraries who install filters.
>

Absolutely!  But you weren't testing how effective they were at blocking out
porn, were you?  It seemed about 95% of the questions were geared toward
showing if they blocked inappropriate things. 


>I think what Karen is trying to do is provide some information that 
>librarians can use as ONE aid in making decisions about filters. 
>Ultimately, it will be left to the library and their community to decide. 
>

Again, if the study produces irreproducible, highly inaccurate results, why
is it useful for making decisions?  That's a question you guys really need
to answer. 

David

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David Burt, Filtering Facts, HTTP://WWW.FILTERINGFACTS.ORG
David_Burt at filteringfacts.org