[uf-discuss] rel-xxx proposal

[Charles Iliya Krempeaux]

Hello,

On 10/26/05, Dr. Ernie Prabhakar <drernie at opendarwin.org> wrote:
> I think this is a special case of the general problem of ratings,
> isn't it?
>
> We already ran into this issue in the media-metadata case.  I suspect
> we should leverage that research. Though I suspect we could find
> volunteers to research this...

Yes, it certainly is.

I've already looked into this a bit, and I've found that the latest
iteration of Media RSS has the most flexible framework for ratings. 
(At least from I've seen so far.)  Previously, Media RSS only had the
<media:adult> element which told you if content was NOT meant for
children or not.  (It would be a cultural/family/personal/etc decision
as to what constitutes being adult-only or not.)  So you'd have:

    <media:adult>yes</media:adult>

or:

    <media:adult>no</media:adult>


But the <media:adult> element was deprecated in favor of the new and
more flexible <media:rating> element.  Here's some examples of it's
use:

    <media:rating scheme="urn:simple">adult</media:rating>
    <media:rating scheme="urn:icra">r (cz 1 lz 1 nz 1 oz 1 vz 1)</media:rating>
    <media:rating scheme="urn:mpaa">pg</media:rating>
    <media:rating scheme="urn:v-chip">tv-y7-fv</media:rating>

Note you can use different schemes for specifying ratings.  Not just
PICS.  (You can use pre-existing ones.  Or create your own.)

This is good in that a person can choose any scheme they like so that
they can rate things according to their own cultural, personal, and
family values and practices.

However, with all these different rating schemes, how do I (the user
or developer) tell if something is pornographic?

(Correct me if I am wrong but) I think that the concept of
"pornographic" is something that is common to all cultures.  (Just
like the concept of "adult" and "child".)  Where you draw the lines
changes from person to person, culture to culture, and family to
family.  But the concept still exists.

So,... I guess what I am saying is that a "rating" Microformat is
good.  But we need something simpler for marking something as being
pornographic.


See ya

--
     Charles Iliya Krempeaux, B.Sc.

     charles @ reptile.ca
     supercanadian @ gmail.com

     developer weblog: http://ChangeLog.ca/
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