I was going to report a member who was linking to a site containing pornography in his/her profile, when I realized this is not explicitly stated as a no-no in the forum rules. This seems like a grave oversight, not because I'm particularly against pornography, but because this is a public forum with a significant contingency of minors.

Now, I'm not naive enough to believe minors are particularly innocent anymore, but I think there's something to be said for WHT not being the gateway to this type of material and this being a stated rule.

We have a general rule on IWDN that prohibits linking to any page containing pornography. This was in direct response to a member who was linking to an image upload site he ran, which relied on banners of a questionable nature for funding. We worked out an arrangement whereby he could link to his site, but he had to provide a gateway page warning people they could be exposed to adult materials. See, we don't want to be Internet police - adult sites aren't (usually) illegal and we respect people's rights to view them, it was just prudent to the community that we come to this compromise.

I understand WHT has rules about the appropriateness of links in posts, but nothing to cover profiles. I think WHT should consider an addition to the rules that covers all links more directly.

I think it should be banned also.

While not stated in the rules, it is covered by the iNet ToS which is linked to.

Originally posted by JTY
While not stated in the rules, it is covered by the iNet ToS which is linked to. That's good, but I don't think it's good enough. First of all, the TOS is contained in an iframe with no <iframe> alternative, meaning there may very well be WHT visitors who have never had access to iNet TOS at any time and are entirely prevented from seeing it. It's not likely this is a large group, but still it exists, and this in-and-of itself is enough to make this not enough (I had to disable my localhost proxy to view it myself; when I first went to that page all I saw was a little sign that said [ ad ]).

Second, the TOS mention a bunch of categories, but in doing so are a bit vague. Pornography is often not defined as vulgar or obscene, and they'd have to prove harm to uphold the line that talks about linking to content that could harm minors. Mind you, I only scanned through it all, but still...

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but it seems to far removed from the source to be as effective as it should be. But if reporting objectionable content based on iNet TOS is appropriate, then I guess that answers my original post.

I agree. Some of those ToS items really should be clearly listed on the rules as well.

I do agree, That shouldnt be allowed at all, I also see alot of offensive that should be cut down on too, in my opinion.
-Naz

Excellent post the_pm:

I also wholly agree that while we obviously do not support this practice, and our ToS covers this, the forum rules should specifically state this very clearly as well. I will talk with the moderators to make sure I am not going off on a limb or missing something. If not, you can reasonably expect the rules to be updated in the very near future.

Actually, Gabe. We were just finishing the wording. :P

Awesome :)

"Well it seems everything's wrapped up in a nice little package". :homer:

Oh good! I'm glad this worked out :) Now, I'll go see if that offensive profile link is still around and in need of reporting.

Originally posted by the_pm
Oh good! I'm glad this worked out :) Now, I'll go see if that offensive profile link is still around and in need of reporting.

Great work the_pm :D I agree that it needs to be updated. Glad to see something happen about this. Thanks mods :D