[WEB4LIB] Re: Blocking web-based chat

[Bob Duncan]

At 07:47 AM 11/24/99 -0800, Bob Duncan wrote:
>>  Some of the hosts on the blacklist at
>><http://www.84.com/blacklist.htm> provide content separate from the links
>>to chat---just because there's no wholesale blocking by type of content
>>doesn't mean censorship is not at work.

And Dan Lester replied:
>Nope.  Human error, not censorship.  Or change in what the site has on 
>it.  I changed one of those last month when one of our own patrons 
>requested it.

This will be *my* last post on this topic.

My original message was merely a response to (not a judgement of) Dan's
assertion that censorship was not at work because sites were blocked based
on function.  I have no problem with blocking certain functions, but the
list of sites Dan so graciously shares with us contains sites which offer
content beyond the blocked functions.  I will not argue the semantics of
the C word either (especially since my interpretation was a rather loose
one which did not include intent), and hereby retract my use of it in a
previous message.  I will, however, stick to the assertion that for many of
these sites content is being blocked, and that anyone who takes Dan's list
and blindly plugs it into whatever blocking mechanism s/he chooses will
also be blocking content.  (Of course I had neglected to realize that we're
all too smart to do that kind of thing.)

I understand that the gaffes in the list are due to human error, not a
deliberate or willful attempt to "censor" specific types of content;  in
fact, I never thought otherwise.  If I gave that impression, my apologies
to Dan.  The only problem that I saw was that Dan's strong assertion that
only functionality was being blocked seemed to be an implicit guarantee
that it was free of such errors.

I do appreciate Dan's contribution to this vexing problem and I have no
doubt he will continue to improve the list.

Bob Duncan

~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`
  Robert E. Duncan
  Systems Librarian
  David Bishop Skillman Library
  Lafayette College
  Easton, PA 18042
  610-330-5156
  duncanr at lafayette.edu
  http://www.library.lafayette.edu/