Short Version:  Sandusky comic site gets "bad" rating for child safety by Web of Trust service.

Long Version:

Today I was downloading and trying out some of the recommended (by Mozilla) plugins for Firefox.  One of the plugins is for the Web of Trust service, which rates websites for Trustworthiness, Vendor, Privacy, and Child Safety.

Well, for some reason this site gave sandusky.comicgenesis.com a bad rating in Child Safety.  I went ahead and checked their ratings for other webcomics, and the ratings seemed pretty reliable.  Then, I figured it out:  any comic hosted by Comicgenesis automatically gets a bad mark.

Well, I don't know how important this is to you, but I thought I'd let you know.

Thanks, Yuoo.  I thought it might have been because of Sandusky using the word "poop" a few strips back.

This is one example why filtering programs still can't even begin to replace supervision and enlightened parenting when it comes to net use. I doubt most parents would object to Sandusky, but if they blindly trust whatever they are told they can be lead badly astray. At most they should be used as an aid.

(Not to mention in the past many filtering programs have been found to be politically and ideologically biased to boot.)

Well, for a time I honestly suspected that it was your answer to the "What do you do for a living?" question on the FAQ.  But no, I'm pretty sure it's by server association.  ComicGenesis has its share of R and N-17 comics.  

--Last edited by yuoofox on 2008-07-10 09:35:59 --

Quote :

Well, for a time I honestly suspected that it was your answer to the "What do you do for a living?" question on the FAQ.

That one was actually a quote from an episode of Scrubs.  I wonder if the NBC website was flagged, as well.

I agree that it's most likely from the large collection of not family friendly ComicGenesis comics.  While I don't really consider Sandusky to be rated G, I would consider it to be PG (along the lines of Shrek and Ice Age).

Quote :

While I don't really consider Sandusky to be rated G, I would consider it to be PG (along the lines of Shrek and Ice Age).

Yeah.  Other than the whole ComicGenesis server thing, their ratings seem to be pretty sensible.  For instance, I went* to various comic strip and art gallery sites I know of.  Generally speaking, the sites with very explicit content got a red mark, the sites with South Park-ish content got a yellow mark, and everyone else got a Green mark (either that or a not-yet-rated mark).

* Well, I didn't actually enter the explicit sites.  I just searched for them in Google and did a "mouse-over" on the url.

Quote :

That one was actually a quote from an episode of Scrubs.

Come to think of it, I've never actually seen Scrubs before.  (Thus saith the fox who watcheth not television.)

About the same time I started this thread, I also wrote the administrators of ComicGenesis about this concern.  Here's their reply:

Quote :

That's the unfortunate side-effect of having 10,000 webcomics on the same IP address, and having no editors to hold the artists and authors back. It's nothing I can do, although you may want to check into how WoT is rating the sites -- I know we still have [title of comic] around which is so kid unsafe even ad providers won't touch it.  Same IP address, of course, so if it's limiting it to IP addresses, it may be shooting itself in the foot.

 

--Last edited by yuoofox on 2008-07-14 18:10:45 --

yuoofox : Could you tell me name of the said horrendous comic, via PM since you apparently don't want to reveal it here? You piqued my curiousity, and now I can't stop wondering what kind of comic could be that child unsafe.

The comic is called "Sabercat Goes to the Dentist:  the horrific tale of what happens when a dentist tries to perform a root canal on a saber tooth tiger and forgets to medicate him first"

Very unsuitable for children.