I agree this smacks of censorship. The internet is like the phone, if you have people with too much time on their hands they will misuse both. How about keeping the City Employees and City Officials busy doing their jobs, so they won't have time to visit inappropriate web sites or call sex phone numbers? I will guarantee you that the people who are wasting their time on the internet, will find other ways to waste their time without the internet. The way to prevent inappropriate use is through excellent management and inspired leadership. Do you think that is possible?
First, any kind of workplace internet monitoring, to me, is a sign of lazy management. If internet use (or anything else) is detracting from job performance and productivity, it's management's responsibility to discipline and even terminate that employee -- not because they're using the internet inappropriately, but because they're not doing the job they're being paid to do.
Second, I've long been troubled by the notion of "who decides" what's reasonable or not. For that reason, I always incline towards openness, allowing everything. Another thing is that monitoring systems/people add cost, money that really should be spent adding value for the citizens of the city. (For a similar reason, I don't want any filtering software in public libraries -- spending money to reduce the amount of information available, absurd!)
Last, there are always non-obvious exceptions. A councilman researching the advisability of bringing gambling to the city might want to visit one of those gambling sites for example. (In my workplace, I was once looking up restaurants to take a client to when it hit against one of the filters, yet I could read Brian's blog all day, go figure ...)
My site made this banned list only recently. I was talking with one of my city Hall contacts, and he told me that my site no longer comes up. Should I be flattered or offended. Looks like I'm on the same page as Griffin and Livingston.
I just wrote an article about how local, banned bloggers should, once a week, send a copy of a blog entry to all at city hall. This is easy, really. Just paste the following addresses into you email client, and then copy a blog entry into the body. Click send.
alicia.reece@cincinnati-oh.gov, laketa.cole@cincinnati-oh.gov, sam.malone@cincinnati-oh.gov, christopher.smitherman@cincinnati-oh.gov, david.pepper@cincinnati-oh.gov, david.crowley@cincinnati-oh.gov, james.tarbell@cincinnati-oh.gov, john.cranley@cincinnati-oh.gov, chris.monzel@cincinnati-oh.gov, charlie.luken@cincinnati-oh.gov, citymanager@cincinnati-oh.gov.
Wow! The Dean plugging his own site! who would believe it? Call Ripley's!
Ripleys....they closed a long time ago. Now it's Mexican McDonalds.
Yossarian: I did not even link to my site. If you think the City Hall behavior is reprehensible, then you can participate in my plan. Participation is not an endorsement, and it does not mean you like me. Just copy and paste the addresses, and send them all blog articles you think they need to read. Choose yourself. Don't ever send them anything from my site. Just get the information to them. Let's see if they will rethink this stupid policy after dealing with their in-boxes.
As people writing perspectives on the City, we should be heard. And if you think I'm an exception -- that's fine. Let the others be heard. This is a plan to do that.
"who determines what is tasteless," Brian
Websense determines what is tasteless.
From their website:
"Websense utilizes a combination of proprietary classification software and human inspection, both for initial categorization and in its program of quality review."
So they harvest the websites based off of what people who own their product are surfing. They run it through a program that catagorizes it based on the language used. Maybe a human might look at it. If you find something is not catagorized or miscatagorized, Websense has a form you can fill out to suggest a catagory. These are most likely viewed by a human.
Their definitions:
"Tasteless: Sites with content that is gratuitously offensive or shocking, but not violent or frightening. Includes sites devoted in part or whole to scatology and similar topics or to improper language, humor, or behavior.
"Alternative Journals -- Online equivalents to supermarket tabloids and other fringe publications."
"Message Boards and Clubs -- Sites for online personal and business clubs, discussion groups, message boards, and list servers; includes 'blogs' and 'mail magazines.'"
Blogs fall under this catagory. Including everything under blogspot.com Nick's Blog isn't included since his base website is a political campaign.
You can find all of Websense's catagories & definitions here: http://ww2.websense.com/global/en/
ProductsServices/MasterDatabase/URLCategories.php
Oh, & unless a given website is really miscatagorized, you can forget about complaining to them. They just provide the tool, People decide how to use it.
Neither IndyMedia or the Independent Eye was not catagorized as Alternative Media. I am not sure why. But GoXRay was listed as Alternative Media.
I wish I were important enough to get banned! I can't even find the time to write my own site (and yes, I am plugging my own site--I'll buy Brian a beer on Tuesday if that helps). Of course, um, I'm reading this site instead of working (on a Sunday, but still).
Brian, congrats on getting banned! It's better than not being noticed, in my opinion.
Hamilton County utilizes RCC for some services, but it appears that this site still comes up there. If Heimlich or DeWine find out they are being discussed negatively, they may decide to try to find a way to censor it. However, they'd first have to spent $1 million over one year on a consultant to conclude how to block it. So, I'm guessing the site will be open to the County for a while.
City government is quickly deteriorating...perhaps they should ban all online newspapers next...maybe cut the phone lines to city hall and close all meetings to the public? we wouldn't want people expressing their opinions and most definitley don't want opinions heard. Wait here's a better idea for city hall to try, this year and this year only, no elections! That will make the city run better, it would be much more efficient.
Look at it this way. Do you think your tax dollars are well spent at city hall? Do you feel like for every dollar you pay in taxes you receive service of commensurate value? Do you really think the most productive use of the time of every public servant is to surf the net? The city employs more than 6000 employees. Most care about doing a good job and are dedicated to public service. But few are completely immune to the distractions offered by the internet. I don't see what is so appalling about restricting access to non-work related items during work hours, i.e. during hours when you and all taxpaying citizens are paying for services, not workers' entertainment. The article and this discussion seem to imply that it is the high level decision makers and policy makers who are being shut out of the blogs. Believe me the "officials" have the ability to access whatever they wish on the web. Your average joe city employee .... like ME... is free to access about everything we want after hours, from home computers and internet service paid for with our own funds, not taxpayers' hard earned money. oh yeah, I pay taxes too
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