New Filtering Survey

[Filtering Facts]

Will Drew wrote:
>I can see that such a survey is probably useless.  Imagine the following
>scenario, 15 year old boy trying to find sites related to gays and
>sexuality.  He can't get any thing on the internet because of filtering
>software.  Will he complain to a librarian or staff member?  I think not. 
>I seriously distrust any survey or poll released by any group or person
>that has a particular axe to grind.
>

1)  It's true I have a strong bias toward filters.  This could have affected
the results in two ways: a) I could have "massaged" the results, and b) I
could have excluded libraries who gave me results I didn't like.  

As to a), the data table at www.filteringfacts.org/survtab.htm shows the
names of the libraries *and* the names of the people I contacted.  Anyone
with a long distance operator and an afternoon to kill could check the results.

As to b), I included every library I could come up with.  Two asked not to
be included, one out of fear of the ACLU, the other "wanted to check with
the boss".  I said fine, you're exclued. If you come up with more libraries,
I would be happy to add them.  In fact, I'd love it, since my sample is
small, and I'm eager to expand it.

2)    It's true that many people will not report problems, especially if
they think it will cause them embarassment.  I am currently looking for
library studies about how likely people are to ask for help, or for
embarassing material.  I will include this in the final version of my paper.

It's also true that simply raising the suggestion that people aren't
reporting accurately, without any supporting evidence to back up your claim,
isn't a terribly damning counter-argument.  I once heard a bigfoot
enthusiast argue that since people are embarassed to report bigfoot
sightings, that he estimated there were 10 times as many bigfoot sightings
as are reported, and that this was compelling evidence of bigfoot's existance.

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