American Mensa PICS Controversy
and some thoughts on software design...
Historical revisionism. In a Letter to the Editor published in
the Mensa Bulletin of January 2005, John Keker wondered why members'
websites are no longer available to the public... "Is this because we
are protecting our members' privacy from the general public, or are
we protecting the general public from our member's Web sites?" The Editor replied:
"The links are a service to our members. By restricting access
to them to other Mensans, we are trying to protect our members'
privacy." Is the Editor ignorant, forgetful, or a liar?
It's over! In April 2001, after two years of deliberation,
the AMC and its lawcritters finally reached my conclusions. I love
to say I told them so! I guess the battle ends now, but I'll
keep this material online. For historical reasons, and because I'm
sure they'll come up with something equally stupid and controversial
soon, and these pages may be a useful reference. And because I'm
still angered that they wasted so much of my time. The situation now
is precisely what it was pre-PICS, except that legal threats are of
less concern because Mensa finally got around to limiting access to
members only. If they'd done that two years ago, this mess could
have been avoided. (Of course, a related issue was that some people
wanted the links accessible to everyone, as a showcase for Mensa
and Mensans. But once password protection was added, that was no
longer an option.) The two primary choices back then were password
protection or picsware. (Well, there was a third... the webmistress
wanted to eliminate member links; an odd position for a webmistress,
but... well, 'nuff said.) The AMC solution was to take the most
illogical and difficult route for all concerned: require PICS ratings
on member pages, make us all change our pages, check all linked pages
(and re-check periodically) to make sure they comply, argue for two
years, lose most of the links, finally get around to adding password
protection, and then realize that PICS was both unnecessary and
ineffective. One would expect better from Mensans, but egos get in
the way.
Many people have misunderstood my position. I have nothing against
censorware as such, I have nothing against parental censorship used
to protect children from inappropriate material, and I even have
nothing against imposed censorship in cases where it's needed (though
determination of where it's needed is a big question in itself,
highly subjective, and probably the greatest argument against imposed
censorship). My objection is that the AML PICS requirement forces all
member sites, even the innocent, to add value to
flawed software,
most of which is offered by commercial software vendors; and that the
AML was providing free advertisement and recommendation for some of those
commercial products. And, of course, the AML didn't bother to ask for
input from those who would suffer the requirement.
On 8 August 1997, the Mensa link to my homepage was established. On 28
December 1998, I received my PICS Letter, in which
the Webmaster demanded that I add a PICS rating to my homepage within
thirty days, or be delinked upon failure to comply. If not for my
subscription to the Webheads list, I would have known nothing of this
decision until receipt of the letter.
I objected to the PICS requirement on the following grounds...
- This decision was made in secret,
with no input from those whose pages had already been linked. Not only was
the decision made in secret, but the
fact that it was even under consideration was
withheld from the members of this
organization.
- Censorware cannot function without
information provided by the webpages being examined. Commercial
censorware is useless without this
information. By adding PICS information to one's page, one is adding value
to these commercial products. By forcing us to provide a PICS rating,
Mensa is forcing us to add value to commercial
censorware
without choice or payment.
- Mensa has displayed links to commercial
censorware vendors at the top of
the index of member pages, thus advertising and endorsing commercial
software.
My suggested solution for this problem was to use an alternate
entrance to my site for the link from Mensa. After all, a website
can be entered from any page on the site, no? And the PICS information
was only required to be on the entrance page. So, by using an alternate
entrance for the link from Mensa, I could satisfy the PICS requirement
while minimizing my involuntary and unrewarded contribution to the
success of those commercial
censorware vendors. I sent a
message describing this plan to the CyberSpace Committee on 31 December
1998 and received a reply from the chairman a few days later, but I
don't think he really understood my proposal. And he apparently didn't
know that by this time I had already submitted my Mensa entrance page
and had been told that it would be linked, and that another member of
the Cyberspace Committee had stated on m-pics his guarantee that another
member's page, a special page for AML linking, outlining that member's
opinion of PICS and containing the required tag, would be linked. (And
eventually it was all sorted out and acknowledged that my course of
action was acceptable. The American Mensa Website would link to a
member's page, any page, as long as it contains a valid PICS rating tag
for the directory.)
Fastforward to April 2001. By this time American Mensa had its own
server and a password-protected member resource area. After some
prodding and delay they agreed to lift the PICS requirement. I think
there still may be a problem, though. Some Mensans are young, and
material which isn't appropriate for non-Mensan youngsters probably
isn't appropriate for Mensan youngsters either, or, at least, that's
what their parents will think. Does password protection really solve
this problem completely? I wouldn't think so. My feeling is that the
folks who stated that the PICS requirement would be lifted after
password protection was implemented hadn't really thought the matter
through.
And in truth, I'm not certain that the PICS ratings are a bad thing.
I was never opposed to the idea itself; I understand the desire of
parents to protect their children. I am a parent. I was opposed to the
poor methodology of PICS, a decision made
essentially in private without input from the membership and announced
as fait accompli, and Mensa's endorsement
and advertising of commercial products (the one battle that I did win:
they removed the links to commercial picsware vendors.).
Oh, well, enough is enough.
Related links...
8 Januaro 2005 modifita, de Ailanto verkita.