[Foundation-l] Personal Image Filter results announced

[Risker]

On 7 September 2011 17:18, John Vandenberg <jayvdb at gmail.com> wrote:

>  On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 12:55 AM, Risker <risker.wp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 7 September 2011 10:48, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> <snip>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >> The closest we could come to a neutral filtering system is an easily
> >> accessible on/off switch for images.
> >>
> >>
> > Interestingly, this proposal has come up many times completely separate
> to
> > the issue of image filtering.  Many users, particularly those on dial-up
> > systems or those whose billing is related to the amount of data accessed
> > have asked for this ability for some time. For them it is a
> performance/cost
> > issue, and has nothing to do with filtering. Given some of the arguments
> > that have been made in opposition to filtering, particularly those that
> seem
> > to focus on "the content should be displayed in the way the authors
> > intended", I'm concerned there would be equally significant opposition to
> > even this simple matter.
>
> Turning off images should be, and can be, done by the user-agent.
> We have a help page describing how to do this.
>
>
That would be the page with the great big "this page is out of date" notice
at the top, giving instructions that are not valid for the most common user
agents (Firefox 2?). And it spends a great deal of time talking about
altering people's personal userspace.  Like David said....a nice simple
switch to turn them on and off without having to log in: that's what people
have asked for. Mucking about with their user agent is beyond the technical
comfort level of most internet users, and in some cases is not possible.
(Example - many publicly accessible computers are set up so that no programs
can be added or modified without sysadmin permissions.)

Risker/Anne