Regarding religion - I have felt for a long time that it is best to have a hands-off approach, and let the child decide over time what the best "path" is for him to follow - regardless of the parents religion.
I agree 100% with this philosophy, and this is probably how I will raise my child in this respects. I am not remotely religious myself, but I believe spiritual awareness can certainly be a good thing, and I would never try to discourage that development.
However, I still respect the decisions of other parents, and would never wish to impose my own ideals or methods of approaching religion by forcing parents to be up front and objective about the subject.
I would rather not see legal guidelines at all for any of this. I would rather see parents make logical (rather than biased) decisions for their children on their own, as well as take input on decisions from their children.
I completely agree, but this is not an ideal world. Everybody has their biases, some very strong. You can't make the assumption that parents are going to be fair, impartial, objective and unbiased when parenting their child, and to force that ideal onto them is just plain wrong.
The difference here is that rather than denying the activity to the child, the parent takes an interest in the activity
The difference here is the style of parenting.
I agree that this is the most ideal of ways a parent can be involved with their kid. Firstly, not all parents are like this (in fact, I'd say only a very small percentage are). Secondly, a ton of variables crop up. A parent can otherwise be an excellent parent, but what if this time he's in the middle of doing taxes? What if he doesn't have time to do what you suggest? There are all sorts of reasons why the kid might want to go off experimenting on his own (including, say, an overly large amount of self-confidence after recently doing something similar with a parent earlier). What if the father had instead said, "If you wait until this weekend, I'll show you how you can build some really cool fireworks," and the child had been unsatisfied with that response, or satisfied until his friend had talked him into messing around some more, what then?
Bottom line: Kids are not automatically mature and responsible, regardless of the parenting. Every child reaches a level of maturity at a different age than other children, and realistically, only the parent can make that determination.
I simply feel that libraries (at the community level) should be permitted to filter/screen online content exactly as they do printed content. I would also like to see libraries giving parents the ability to bypass this filtering for themselves or their children should they desire.
Still, I still am not thrilled with the possibility of my kid sitting next to some older guy browsing bestiality porn, so there may not be an optimum solution at all, and certainly not one solution that will work for all public libraries (hence my stress that this be a local decision).
Another poster mentioned earlier a very interesting point -- the/his library *has* a filtering mechanism in place by making the computer labs very public and very accessible. You generally don't look at porn or pipe-bomb-construction web pages with others around you that are certainly watching out of the corner of their eye. He mentioned that since it started operation, only a small handful of people had been asked to stop browsing where they were browsing.
I think that's perfectly effective and doesn't require any software at all.
But I still think this should be a decision your local library or library board should make, without any level of government interference (requiring or forbidding it).
Life here on earth doesn't tend to evolve something unless there's an evolutionary push for it to evolve so.
That gives us reason to think that if this bacteria evolved protection that would enable it to survive in space, there was likely a reason for it to do so, and one possible reason, it is theorized, is that the bacteria was forced to survive in extraterrestrial conditions.
Perhaps a large impact spewed it into space, killing all strains of bacteria except those that were able to survive the decreasing temperature and increasing radiation. Finally it makes its way to another (or **the same**) planetary body and is re-introduced as a new strain.
Or maybe, just maybe, it evolved this way for totally unrelated reasons, with something else about the mutation giving the bacteria an edge over other strains, and as a side effect, it also seems quite capable of surviving outside of our atmosphere.
It is logical to suggest that a bacteria evolved something because it was *forced* to evolve it, but that isn't necessarily the only explanation. Let the good scientists do their work, and take the media's coverage with a grain of salt and an eye for skepticism.
For a parent to deny a child access to material that the child is interested in, based on his desires and/or biases, is blatently wrong.
Parent: Satan spawn! Put that mouse down lest the devil infest ye with his wiley ways!
Amusing, but all you're basically saying is that you seem to know how to parent my children better than I do. What if my religious beliefs run contrary to certain texts? What if I don't want my kids reading about that sort of thing until they're X years old (10? 12? whenever I feel they're mature?)? What right do YOU have to force me to parent my child the way you think he should be parented?
Again, I'm not advocating total filtering. The parents should be able to give their child permission to view things children normally aren't permitted to view. I fail to see where the "censorship" is if the parents end up having full control.
Conversely:
Child: Hey dad, Billy said it's not that hard to make fireworks.
Parent: Son, don't dabble in that sort of thing. Fireworks are unpredictible and could really hurt you.
Child: Aww, I guess. OK.
...
Billy: Look what I pulled off of the Internet at the library when I was looking for pictures of fireworks displays! The instructions say it's safe to do, too!
Child: Wow, cool, that's all my dad was worried about, let's do it!
We can go back and forth with hypotheticals here that cause harm in either direction.
You seem to want legal guidelines to be created with respects to how parents raise their children and what things they're allowed to tell and share with their kids. I'm of the opinion that the government should be working at a local level to help parents make educated decisions and be allowed to exercise those decisions.
Stop trying to force our libraries to buy content and bandwidth that the community has decided they don't want in their libraries. That's all this is about. Let the local library boards determine what they want in their local libraries. If you disagree, LET YOURSELF BE HEARD in your community. Don't force legislation down the throats of parents because you feel your parental decisions are better than theirs.
In short, the library ends up buying a pig in a poke -- they have no idea as to what exactly is being filtered.
This is the part where you actually GO to these meetings and TELL people exactly what they're getting. Explain to them the problems with filtering software and give them alternatives (if you can).
It basically comes down to this: Is the loss worth the gain? Only your local community can decide that. Help them.
I'm not disagreeing here. I don't think the idea of federal legislation is something we want, but I still think local communities and library boards should still have the option to do this if they feel it's necessary.
This way, if you don't like their filtering methods, you can go straight to your library board and actually get something done.
I'm going to let you into a little secret... If your children require 100% supervision you are failing as a parent. The idea is to instill your child with your values.
Wow, that's a great idea. So you plan on planting these values into your children before their first library trip? At what age would you wait then? 8? 10? 12? You're really going to sit there and tell me your kid, at that age, will just "know" certain "advanced" topics are bad/unproductive and they won't be interested in pulling them off of the library shelves?
What about their friends? Do you think your child at this age wouldn't be interested in goofing off with friends, getting ahold of things in the library they probably shouldn't be?
I have never in my life met such a child (and remember, I went through elementary school too). I really am of the opinion that you have no children at all, or if you do, you are extremely naive and obviously don't remember your own childhood (or maybe you just think you can do a whole lot better than your own parents did).
I refuse to accept censorship simply because some right-wing nutball is afraid that his children will run amok the moment they are unchaperoned.
1. I'm far from a "right-wing nutball", and I resent the name-calling.
2. Nobody said you had to accept DICK. The ONLY thing I've ever advocated in these messages to Slashdot is NO FEDERAL INTERVENTION to local communities that DO wish to filter the content that flows into their public libraries. No requirements that they do so, and no legislation forbidding them from doing so. Let them filter online content EXACTLY as they filter printed materials. If you don't like their specific filtering policies, TALK TO YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY BOARD.
Further, I would like to see libraries set up means to distinguish between adult and child patrons and limit their access accordingly. It would be nice if parents could also indicate their desire to give their child full/adult access to library resources.
Why in the world is this a bad thing? The only people that lose out are kids whose parents don't want them to see stuff their parents don't think they're ready to handle.
Stop turning this around into an argument about how I don't want to parent my own kids so I'll let the library do it for me. Libraries have always been places where kids of all ages could stop in unattended and unsupervised. You seem to want to change that. My God, why? This will do nothing but discourage parents from letting their kids go to the library. How in the world can this be a good thing?
My parenting skills extend beyond that of a chaperone. I'm not worried.
I'm really getting sick of this type of attitude. If you honestly have children, and you can honestly say you supervise your child 100% of the day, then you must be super-human. Seriously, man, they need to put you on the news and let doctors poke and prod at you to figure out how you do it, because I simply cannot imagine us mere mortals being capable of it. Heaven forbid you have TWO children. 100% supervision there is something I flat out can't believe.
Libraries have been traditionally places where kids could visit independently. I think it's fantastic that my kid would want to run by the library and pick up a few books on his way home from school. 90% of the posts I'm seeing in this thread seem to want to change that environment entirely. You seem to want to turn libraries into places where kids shouldn't be allowed to roam freely, where parents would be required to look over their shoulder for every book and web site they investigate. Why do you wish to do this? Do you realize that it will very nearly kill the public library system in this country?
Give libraries the ability to filter what information is made available to kids. Don't force them to filter, and don't force them not to. Let it be decided in a local, community library board (as it is today with printed materials), and give parents the option to give this material to their children when the parents think it's OK, not you.
What's to stop Johnny from borrowing Jimmy's unlimited access card?
This isn't my problem; it would depend entirely on the implementation, which is something I'm not going to remotely step into. Presumably there would be checks, and Jimmy's parents would hopefully be watching his card's usage enough to notice.
If you are telling your gay 17 year old it is not ok to be gay then yes. If you are telling your 12 year old that it is not ok to learn about sex then yes. Kids do have a *right* to learn about these things regardless of what the parent says period.
NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT. You have NO RIGHTS AT ALL whatsoever to force me to teach my child X material by Y age, if at all.
Sexual education is presently a part of school programs (depending on the area) at various grade levels. I myself had my 6th grade class touch on it. At ALL times parents had the option to preview material and choose NOT to have their child participate. Some parents exercised that option, most did not.
This has nothing at all to do with telling my kid it's not OK to be gay. That's just wrong and hurtful. What if my child is mentally handicapped? At 12, he may not be ready to handle things like human sexuality. I most certainly do not want my child subject to YOUR ideas of how he/she should be parented. I can make that decision myself, thank you very much. I am the best judge of my own child's maturity and level of responsibility.
DO NOT take away my abilities to parent my child because YOU think you can and should do it better, ESPECIALLY when it comes to questionable material such as what would be filtered by stock filter software.
Point is - your child should not be running around a public library at all without you by his side at all times. You have more to worry about than simple how-to bomb making manuals and porn.
And I believe this is where the real heart of the problem is. Some people (mainly those that don't have kids of their own) feel parents should be supervising their child's every move and every outing, even in public, supposedly "kid-safe" environments (like the public library). Others feel that there needs to be certain areas where children are encouraged to visit and explore on their own.
Public libraries have always been a place where you could bring your kid and LET them run around exploring and reading. Kids could stop by these libraries on their way home from school, whatever. Up until this whole Internet in public libraries mess, this was how things were. Generally unsuitable things weren't made available to kids in public libraries. Either these areas were kept off limits in separate rooms or were filtered from the library entirely (depending on decisions made by the local library boards).
What you people seem to want NOW is total, free, 100% access to all information in public libraries, regardless of age or maturity, and I do not agree with that at all.
It is not humanly possible for a parent to be at a child's side, supervising their behavior, 100% of the time. If you really had kids I would find it hard to believe that you actually felt this way. Places like our public libraries have been traditionally places where we could let our kids explore on their own.
Give libraries the ability to filter local online content exactly as they can printed content, should they so desire. Don't require them to filter, but don't forbid them from doing so either.
As I stated earlier, I'd really rather separate "adult" library resources from those resources suitable for children (again, based on local community decisions). Give out separate adult/child library cards and let the *parents* decide what their kids should be permitted to see in our public libraries. Don't take that ability away from parents, and don't turn our libraries into places where our kids now require full-time supervision to take advantage of. All I'm advocating is the extension of printed policy to online policy.
Also, even assuming your local public library did carry this sort of thing, selection and filtering of printed material is done on a community level, with the local library board determining what gets stocked and what gets filtered. The result is that your local public library will probably differ in its selection from mine. If your community feels Playboy is something they want in their public library, that's fine, but it's a decision YOUR community has made.
College libraries are not "public libraries" in this context. College libraries carry quite a lot more than you'll find at a public library. You are unlikely to find lots of children using a college library without supervision.
What your son does is your problem. I censor very little from my children.
So basically because you don't keep information from your children, you feel that other parents shouldn't have the ability to do so?
Kind of silly that you're advocating parental involvement versus government involvement but you don't want to give other parents the ability to shield their child from (what they might consider) harmful information. Just because you parent your children the way you do doesn't it's the correct or only way children should be raised.
I refuse to allow the "community" to determine how my children will be raised. They are mine.
One of the major points I was trying to push (which either didn't get made in the post you're responding to or you didn't notice it) was that I'm NOT against total filtering of content. Ideally, I would like to see a separation of availability. In a simple form, a "child" versus "adult" library card, with a child card having filtering options when using online resources and restrictions as far as what they can/can't check out. A parent could override these items should they so desire, or request that their child be given an adult card if they feel their kid is responsible enough for one.
THAT, in my opinion, would be the most ideal of solutions, but if that won't happen, I'd prefer my library have the ability to filter online content EXACTLY as they filter printed content. If I want my kids to have access to unfiltered Internet material, I can always sit them down in front of my PC at home and supervise them myself (or not). By forcing all libraries to carry all online material, you're taking my abilities to parent my children away from me, unless I accompany my kids to the library every time they want to go, which totally changes the very nature of public libraries, in my opinion.
You're a parent, it is your right and responsibility to raise your child without the government telling you how to do so.
Yet you seem to wish for the government to ban outright the use of filtering software? Why not let these policies fall to the *local* communities? The ones who actually go to these libraries? Let them decide for themselves what they wish to put in their libraries and how they wish to make Internet access available.
Note that I've been trying not to advocate total filtering here. I would very much like to distinguish between adult and child access in libraries, with the parent having the option of giving their child more access to materials they wouldn't ordinarily have access to. This should include material available online.
Do you find this evil as well?
Go with your kid to the library - be an active parent. There are far too few these days...
So what, you think that 50 years ago everyone's parents went along with them whenever they wanted to go to the library? Get real -- the library has *always* been meant as a place where anyone -- young *or* old -- could browse its contents in peace and without needing a parent's supervision to do so. The books in our libraries were either deemed safe for the ages of children that would be in there, or the librarians were there to keep an eye on what the kids were up to.
And now we have the Internet, and want to take away a library's right to monitor and filter the content it makes available to its patrons? Something like this might go over fine where you're from, but don't force all libraries in all towns in the country to be prohibited from making that decision on their own.
I seriously doubt that your kids would be able to get their hands on the materials needed to build a pipe bomb.
I found this information online (well, on a BBS) inside of 5 minutes when I was 12 years old. Don't tell me stuff like this is hard to find.
As far as unpopular political opinion, just teach your kids what's wrong and what's right.
I agree with this totally. The problem is that you can't just teach a child this bit of information overnight. You can't just say one day, "Hmm, let's go to the public library," and then proceed to teach your kid morality and responsibility the next day. It takes time for kids to learn this, and I would really like them to have access to public library resources (without requiring my supervision) between the time they're old enough to go outside on their own and the time I'm confident they've matured to the point where they can responsibly handle the information made available to them. Without the help of libraries in shielding my kids from stuff I don't necessarily want them seeing just yet, the library itself becomes almost useless to me during this phase of my child's development.
Libraries are stocked and filtered based on guidelines set by local library boards. Your library will not have the same things my library has.
This is good and how it should be, as it gives maximum control to the local community (the people *using* the library) as to what should be in it and how their library funds should be spent.
I know exactly what's in my library, and, if I had kids, I would feel relatively safe letting them browse freely. I'm not saying libraries are 100% safe and free from anything you might consider questionable, but they don't have a "porn" section and they don't have a "how to make bombs" section, so I feel relatively comfortable.
Without these filtering policies of the library board, I don't know if I'd be comfortable sending my kids there.
why should the community have a right to say what people look at on the internet???
Are you then in favor of allowing printed porn and graphic violence in sections of our public libraries accessible to children?
The community should have a right when it's community areas that are affected. Do you think you can walk up and down downtown pasting up posters with graphic sexual depictions? The community has decided it doesn't want these things in public places.
There is absolutely nothing stopping you from getting a 'Net connection at home and giving your kid a bunch of porn bookmarks. The community isn't saying you can't do this.
if the kids are to be protected for unsuitable material, do it without constraining adult users.
This is essentially the point I was trying (badly, it seems) to make. We have two sides we have to appease here, the parents that don't want their kids having access to stuff they don't want them to have access to, and the adults, that want unrestricted access to everything.
The solution: Do both. Either use a library card tailored to filtering preferences of the user (and under the control of the parent in a child's case), or if nothing else, give out "adult" vs "child" library cards. If a parent thinks their kid is mature enough, they can request that they be given an adult card. Problem solved.
Perhaps we're thinking of different court cases, but the supreme court *has* ruled that porn and smut are not constitutionally protected. There's no "free speech" violation by censoring porn, so libraries should never be required to carry it.
My point, though, is that what a library carries and makes available should be a community decision, and should respect an adult's requirement for information in addition to a parent's right to parent their child.
That's fine with me. My problem is with people who want to control what my kids (when I have them) are able to see. Who are you to decide what my kids should and should not see? Who are you to decide what I should and should not see?
I agree, parents need the ability to parent their child and make decisions as to what materials they are mature enough to handle and what materials they are not. That means we need some mechanism in place (filtering software) to allow the parents to exercise those decisions.
A visit to the library should not have to be a supervised thing. My kids should be able to visit the library whenever they like, but until they're mature or responsible enough to handle the availability of content I don't want them to see, I don't want them to have access to it.
At the same time (and this does run counter to proposed filtering legislation/guidelines), I want the ability to GIVE my child access to materials he wouldn't ordinarily be allowed to see. Think of it as an "adult" library card. Another poster mentioned a card carrying filtering preferences. All good ideas.
I do agree with you that a requirement for filtering software is a bad thing. This should CERTAINLY be a local community decision, not a state one, and not a national one.
So what, you think my 8-year-old son should be allowed to go to the library with his other 8-year-old friends and proceed to goof off and start pulling up pictures of old women eating feces from some guy? What about instructions on building a pipe bomb? Do you think your kids at that age are honestly mature enough to handle that type of information? Do you think your parenting is better than everyone else's, that your child is responsible and would never do anything bad or against your wishes?
That's pretty naive, for somebody that claims to have kids of his own.
You're absolutely right, though, my job is to prepare my child for the real world. That means giving me the ability to PARENT my child and decide MYSELF what materials and information he should and should not have access to. As my child becomes mature enough to handle more questionable topics, I will allow him to explore those topics. What you don't seem to realize is that every child is different in the ways and the time he takes to mature psychologically. Some kids are able to handle the beauty of the human body at an early age. Some can't handle it until they're considerably older. Making a child "prepared" for the real world does not magically happen the year before his class starts making trips to the library.
Do not force my local public library to carry materials in an unrestrictive fashion that I do not wish my child to have access to. Filtering software should be an option at the community level, with the community giving input on what should and should not be filtered for what age groups (acting quite conservatively).
Without the ability to selectively determine what my child sees when he's at the library on his own, I will be forced to simply forbid him access to the library until such a time as he is mature enough to handle all of the content, or at least until he's responsible enough to understand what's crap and what's not. This is a fundamental shift in the ideas behind having a public library in the first place.
So why are you letting your children Wander around the internet unattended?
Libraries presently do not tend to carry porn or bomb-making instructions. These are things deliberately filtered out of their selection for printed materials. Thus, I feel safe letting my kids go to the public library (as I should) by themselves.
If these materials were suddenly required to be present, I would not give my kids permission to visit the library.
If my kids are at home browsing the 'Net, you can bet they're supervised in some form. If I feel my child is mature enough to handle certain types of online materials, I have no problem with letting him/her explore those topics.
In other words, let me have the option to parent my own children. A trip to the public library should NOT have to be a supervised one. The whole point behind a public library is that so anyone -- young or old -- can browse its contents without having people looking over your shoulder. This is the way public libraries have been for countless years, because it's worked, and it's put the parent's wishes ahead of the child's (as it should be).
If I feel my kids are mature enough to handle questionable material, I should also be able to allow them to have access to it (preferably via the public library, in the form of an "adult" library card, for example). If nothing else, they can come home and use my personal 'Net connection to do their surfing for what the libraries forbid them to view.
Give local communities the abilities to set their own standards as to what belongs in their public libraries and what doesn't. This is currently how things work as far as printed materials go. Why must we force online material to be totally free and unrestricted?
If my local library were prevented from exercising restrictive policies as far as what age groups get access to what materials, I have doubts that I would ever send my child to the public library anymore (at least not without me with them). That truly saddens me. All in the name of "free speech."
I'm taking this to mean "Why not try and be a better parent for your kids?" This is precisely why filtering software IS needed. A trip to the library should not have to be a supervised thing. I send my kids to the library because I know the printed material isn't going to have smut in it.
GIVE ME THE OPTION TO PARENT MY OWN CHILDREN. I should be able to make the determination ON MY OWN as to whether or not my kids are mature enough to have access to sexually explicit material (among other things). Do not take away my abilities to parent just because YOU think EVERYONE is mature enough to handle that type of material in our public libraries.
Additionally (and perhaps counter to some people's filtering recommendations), I WANT the ability to be able to say, "My child is mature enough to have access to these materials," and be able to disable filtering for them. Unfortunately this seems a bit difficult to handle logistically, so I'm content with letting my kids use my own dialup connection for that sort of thing.
The idea that all information should be required to be made equally available to all people of all ages is not good. By forcing me to accept that, you are taking away my ability to parent my own child, and that is unacceptable. I will give my kids permission to have access to this kind of material when *I* feel they are mature enough to handle it. You have no right to make that determination for me.
Setting minimum common rights for children comparable to adults is just plain silly. You're totally right -- teenagers today vary wildly in their own individual maturity rates. Some can handle things better than others. Personally, I never had a curfew. I was offered alcohol at my parent's parties when I was 16. Were they being crappy parents? Not at all. I rarely accepted, and I was rarely inconsiderate when I came home late. That does NOT remotely mean we should just drop the bar to accomodate those age groups in their entirety.
What we SHOULD be doing is allowing the PARENT to decide what to expose their child to and how they should learn these values. Give the parent the option to parent. If we give children *rights* of all things, how are they going to be able to do that? It would become against the law, against the civil rights of the child, to forbid them from doing something the parent doesn't want them to do. How can this be a good thing? Do you think you know how to parent my child better than I? Does the government?
With respects to the heart of this particular issue, censorware in public libraries, I thought McCain's quote hit it close enough:
"Every school and library should be required to buy filters...to keep out materials that are not suitable for children the same way in which the library board filters printed materials for the library."
While I don't think schools should be required to buy censorware, I think it should be permitted for them to screen out online material in EXACTLY the same fashion they screen out printed material. Libraries don't tend to carry back-issues of Playboy and Hustler. Is this censorship? If you have a problem with how your local library is restricting access to information, TAKE IT UP WITH YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY BOARD, for they should be the ultimate authority as to what's allowed in their libraries and what isn't. This should be as much a community decision as possible. (That also means I'm pretty much against using off-the-shelf filtering software as it exists today.)
Counter to what people are proposing, I *do* believe items being blocked should be listed somehow. In addition, I would like the parent to be able to say, "My child is mature enough to be allowed access to these materials," similar to "child" versus "adult" library cards.
Further, even if these suggestions aren't adopted, you're still quite capable of getting a cheap-ass Internet connection at home and allowing your kid to browse porn all day and all night if you wanted. If you think your child is mature enough (or that's just the way you want to parent them), that's your perogative, but I most certainly do not want my kids having access to overly sexual material (or whatever else that's questionable in my eyes) in a public library without my explicit consent.
And they will have that consent, when I feel they're mature enough to handle it.
Slashdot Mirror
Think: A key chain sound effect thingy with this sound.
It would be hillarious if he did an episode and eliminated all 10-12 of them at once. :)
Regarding religion - I have felt for a long time that it is best to have a hands-off approach, and let the child decide over time what the best "path" is for him to follow - regardless of the parents religion.
I agree 100% with this philosophy, and this is probably how I will raise my child in this respects. I am not remotely religious myself, but I believe spiritual awareness can certainly be a good thing, and I would never try to discourage that development.
However, I still respect the decisions of other parents, and would never wish to impose my own ideals or methods of approaching religion by forcing parents to be up front and objective about the subject.
I would rather not see legal guidelines at all for any of this. I would rather see parents make logical (rather than biased) decisions for their children on their own, as well as take input on decisions from their children.
I completely agree, but this is not an ideal world. Everybody has their biases, some very strong. You can't make the assumption that parents are going to be fair, impartial, objective and unbiased when parenting their child, and to force that ideal onto them is just plain wrong.
The difference here is that rather than denying the activity to the child, the parent takes an interest in the activity
The difference here is the style of parenting.
I agree that this is the most ideal of ways a parent can be involved with their kid. Firstly, not all parents are like this (in fact, I'd say only a very small percentage are). Secondly, a ton of variables crop up. A parent can otherwise be an excellent parent, but what if this time he's in the middle of doing taxes? What if he doesn't have time to do what you suggest? There are all sorts of reasons why the kid might want to go off experimenting on his own (including, say, an overly large amount of self-confidence after recently doing something similar with a parent earlier). What if the father had instead said, "If you wait until this weekend, I'll show you how you can build some really cool fireworks," and the child had been unsatisfied with that response, or satisfied until his friend had talked him into messing around some more, what then?
Bottom line: Kids are not automatically mature and responsible, regardless of the parenting. Every child reaches a level of maturity at a different age than other children, and realistically, only the parent can make that determination.
I simply feel that libraries (at the community level) should be permitted to filter/screen online content exactly as they do printed content. I would also like to see libraries giving parents the ability to bypass this filtering for themselves or their children should they desire.
Still, I still am not thrilled with the possibility of my kid sitting next to some older guy browsing bestiality porn, so there may not be an optimum solution at all, and certainly not one solution that will work for all public libraries (hence my stress that this be a local decision).
Another poster mentioned earlier a very interesting point -- the/his library *has* a filtering mechanism in place by making the computer labs very public and very accessible. You generally don't look at porn or pipe-bomb-construction web pages with others around you that are certainly watching out of the corner of their eye. He mentioned that since it started operation, only a small handful of people had been asked to stop browsing where they were browsing.
I think that's perfectly effective and doesn't require any software at all.
But I still think this should be a decision your local library or library board should make, without any level of government interference (requiring or forbidding it).
Life here on earth doesn't tend to evolve something unless there's an evolutionary push for it to evolve so.
That gives us reason to think that if this bacteria evolved protection that would enable it to survive in space, there was likely a reason for it to do so, and one possible reason, it is theorized, is that the bacteria was forced to survive in extraterrestrial conditions.
Perhaps a large impact spewed it into space, killing all strains of bacteria except those that were able to survive the decreasing temperature and increasing radiation. Finally it makes its way to another (or **the same**) planetary body and is re-introduced as a new strain.
Or maybe, just maybe, it evolved this way for totally unrelated reasons, with something else about the mutation giving the bacteria an edge over other strains, and as a side effect, it also seems quite capable of surviving outside of our atmosphere.
It is logical to suggest that a bacteria evolved something because it was *forced* to evolve it, but that isn't necessarily the only explanation. Let the good scientists do their work, and take the media's coverage with a grain of salt and an eye for skepticism.
For a parent to deny a child access to material that the child is interested in, based on his desires and/or biases, is blatently wrong.
Parent: Satan spawn! Put that mouse down lest the devil infest ye with his wiley ways!
Amusing, but all you're basically saying is that you seem to know how to parent my children better than I do. What if my religious beliefs run contrary to certain texts? What if I don't want my kids reading about that sort of thing until they're X years old (10? 12? whenever I feel they're mature?)? What right do YOU have to force me to parent my child the way you think he should be parented?
Again, I'm not advocating total filtering. The parents should be able to give their child permission to view things children normally aren't permitted to view. I fail to see where the "censorship" is if the parents end up having full control.
Conversely:
Child: Hey dad, Billy said it's not that hard to make fireworks.
Parent: Son, don't dabble in that sort of thing. Fireworks are unpredictible and could really hurt you.
Child: Aww, I guess. OK.
...
Billy: Look what I pulled off of the Internet at the library when I was looking for pictures of fireworks displays! The instructions say it's safe to do, too!
Child: Wow, cool, that's all my dad was worried about, let's do it!
We can go back and forth with hypotheticals here that cause harm in either direction.
You seem to want legal guidelines to be created with respects to how parents raise their children and what things they're allowed to tell and share with their kids. I'm of the opinion that the government should be working at a local level to help parents make educated decisions and be allowed to exercise those decisions.
Stop trying to force our libraries to buy content and bandwidth that the community has decided they don't want in their libraries. That's all this is about. Let the local library boards determine what they want in their local libraries. If you disagree, LET YOURSELF BE HEARD in your community. Don't force legislation down the throats of parents because you feel your parental decisions are better than theirs.
In short, the library ends up buying a pig in a poke -- they have no idea as to what exactly is being filtered.
This is the part where you actually GO to these meetings and TELL people exactly what they're getting. Explain to them the problems with filtering software and give them alternatives (if you can).
It basically comes down to this: Is the loss worth the gain? Only your local community can decide that. Help them.
I'm not disagreeing here. I don't think the idea of federal legislation is something we want, but I still think local communities and library boards should still have the option to do this if they feel it's necessary.
This way, if you don't like their filtering methods, you can go straight to your library board and actually get something done.
I'm going to let you into a little secret... If your children require 100% supervision you are failing as a parent. The idea is to instill your child with your values.
Wow, that's a great idea. So you plan on planting these values into your children before their first library trip? At what age would you wait then? 8? 10? 12? You're really going to sit there and tell me your kid, at that age, will just "know" certain "advanced" topics are bad/unproductive and they won't be interested in pulling them off of the library shelves?
What about their friends? Do you think your child at this age wouldn't be interested in goofing off with friends, getting ahold of things in the library they probably shouldn't be?
I have never in my life met such a child (and remember, I went through elementary school too). I really am of the opinion that you have no children at all, or if you do, you are extremely naive and obviously don't remember your own childhood (or maybe you just think you can do a whole lot better than your own parents did).
I refuse to accept censorship simply because some right-wing nutball is afraid that his children will run amok the moment they are unchaperoned.
1. I'm far from a "right-wing nutball", and I resent the name-calling.
2. Nobody said you had to accept DICK. The ONLY thing I've ever advocated in these messages to Slashdot is NO FEDERAL INTERVENTION to local communities that DO wish to filter the content that flows into their public libraries. No requirements that they do so, and no legislation forbidding them from doing so. Let them filter online content EXACTLY as they filter printed materials. If you don't like their specific filtering policies, TALK TO YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY BOARD.
Further, I would like to see libraries set up means to distinguish between adult and child patrons and limit their access accordingly. It would be nice if parents could also indicate their desire to give their child full/adult access to library resources.
Why in the world is this a bad thing? The only people that lose out are kids whose parents don't want them to see stuff their parents don't think they're ready to handle.
Stop turning this around into an argument about how I don't want to parent my own kids so I'll let the library do it for me. Libraries have always been places where kids of all ages could stop in unattended and unsupervised. You seem to want to change that. My God, why? This will do nothing but discourage parents from letting their kids go to the library. How in the world can this be a good thing?
My parenting skills extend beyond that of a chaperone. I'm not worried.
I'm really getting sick of this type of attitude. If you honestly have children, and you can honestly say you supervise your child 100% of the day, then you must be super-human. Seriously, man, they need to put you on the news and let doctors poke and prod at you to figure out how you do it, because I simply cannot imagine us mere mortals being capable of it. Heaven forbid you have TWO children. 100% supervision there is something I flat out can't believe.
Libraries have been traditionally places where kids could visit independently. I think it's fantastic that my kid would want to run by the library and pick up a few books on his way home from school. 90% of the posts I'm seeing in this thread seem to want to change that environment entirely. You seem to want to turn libraries into places where kids shouldn't be allowed to roam freely, where parents would be required to look over their shoulder for every book and web site they investigate. Why do you wish to do this? Do you realize that it will very nearly kill the public library system in this country?
Give libraries the ability to filter what information is made available to kids. Don't force them to filter, and don't force them not to. Let it be decided in a local, community library board (as it is today with printed materials), and give parents the option to give this material to their children when the parents think it's OK, not you.
What's to stop Johnny from borrowing Jimmy's unlimited access card?
This isn't my problem; it would depend entirely on the implementation, which is something I'm not going to remotely step into. Presumably there would be checks, and Jimmy's parents would hopefully be watching his card's usage enough to notice.
If you are telling your gay 17 year old it is not ok to be gay then yes. If you are telling your 12 year old that it is not ok to learn about sex then yes. Kids do have a *right* to learn about these things regardless of what the parent says period.
NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT. You have NO RIGHTS AT ALL whatsoever to force me to teach my child X material by Y age, if at all.
Sexual education is presently a part of school programs (depending on the area) at various grade levels. I myself had my 6th grade class touch on it. At ALL times parents had the option to preview material and choose NOT to have their child participate. Some parents exercised that option, most did not.
This has nothing at all to do with telling my kid it's not OK to be gay. That's just wrong and hurtful. What if my child is mentally handicapped? At 12, he may not be ready to handle things like human sexuality. I most certainly do not want my child subject to YOUR ideas of how he/she should be parented. I can make that decision myself, thank you very much. I am the best judge of my own child's maturity and level of responsibility.
DO NOT take away my abilities to parent my child because YOU think you can and should do it better, ESPECIALLY when it comes to questionable material such as what would be filtered by stock filter software.
Point is - your child should not be running around a public library at all without you by his side at all times. You have more to worry about than simple how-to bomb making manuals and porn.
And I believe this is where the real heart of the problem is. Some people (mainly those that don't have kids of their own) feel parents should be supervising their child's every move and every outing, even in public, supposedly "kid-safe" environments (like the public library). Others feel that there needs to be certain areas where children are encouraged to visit and explore on their own.
Public libraries have always been a place where you could bring your kid and LET them run around exploring and reading. Kids could stop by these libraries on their way home from school, whatever. Up until this whole Internet in public libraries mess, this was how things were. Generally unsuitable things weren't made available to kids in public libraries. Either these areas were kept off limits in separate rooms or were filtered from the library entirely (depending on decisions made by the local library boards).
What you people seem to want NOW is total, free, 100% access to all information in public libraries, regardless of age or maturity, and I do not agree with that at all.
It is not humanly possible for a parent to be at a child's side, supervising their behavior, 100% of the time. If you really had kids I would find it hard to believe that you actually felt this way. Places like our public libraries have been traditionally places where we could let our kids explore on their own.
Give libraries the ability to filter local online content exactly as they can printed content, should they so desire. Don't require them to filter, but don't forbid them from doing so either.
As I stated earlier, I'd really rather separate "adult" library resources from those resources suitable for children (again, based on local community decisions). Give out separate adult/child library cards and let the *parents* decide what their kids should be permitted to see in our public libraries. Don't take that ability away from parents, and don't turn our libraries into places where our kids now require full-time supervision to take advantage of. All I'm advocating is the extension of printed policy to online policy.
Also, even assuming your local public library did carry this sort of thing, selection and filtering of printed material is done on a community level, with the local library board determining what gets stocked and what gets filtered. The result is that your local public library will probably differ in its selection from mine. If your community feels Playboy is something they want in their public library, that's fine, but it's a decision YOUR community has made.
College libraries are not "public libraries" in this context. College libraries carry quite a lot more than you'll find at a public library. You are unlikely to find lots of children using a college library without supervision.
What your son does is your problem. I censor very little from my children.
So basically because you don't keep information from your children, you feel that other parents shouldn't have the ability to do so?
Kind of silly that you're advocating parental involvement versus government involvement but you don't want to give other parents the ability to shield their child from (what they might consider) harmful information. Just because you parent your children the way you do doesn't it's the correct or only way children should be raised.
I refuse to allow the "community" to determine how my children will be raised. They are mine.
One of the major points I was trying to push (which either didn't get made in the post you're responding to or you didn't notice it) was that I'm NOT against total filtering of content. Ideally, I would like to see a separation of availability. In a simple form, a "child" versus "adult" library card, with a child card having filtering options when using online resources and restrictions as far as what they can/can't check out. A parent could override these items should they so desire, or request that their child be given an adult card if they feel their kid is responsible enough for one.
THAT, in my opinion, would be the most ideal of solutions, but if that won't happen, I'd prefer my library have the ability to filter online content EXACTLY as they filter printed content. If I want my kids to have access to unfiltered Internet material, I can always sit them down in front of my PC at home and supervise them myself (or not). By forcing all libraries to carry all online material, you're taking my abilities to parent my children away from me, unless I accompany my kids to the library every time they want to go, which totally changes the very nature of public libraries, in my opinion.
You're a parent, it is your right and responsibility to raise your child without the government telling you how to do so.
Yet you seem to wish for the government to ban outright the use of filtering software? Why not let these policies fall to the *local* communities? The ones who actually go to these libraries? Let them decide for themselves what they wish to put in their libraries and how they wish to make Internet access available.
Note that I've been trying not to advocate total filtering here. I would very much like to distinguish between adult and child access in libraries, with the parent having the option of giving their child more access to materials they wouldn't ordinarily have access to. This should include material available online.
Do you find this evil as well?
Go with your kid to the library - be an active parent. There are far too few these days...
So what, you think that 50 years ago everyone's parents went along with them whenever they wanted to go to the library? Get real -- the library has *always* been meant as a place where anyone -- young *or* old -- could browse its contents in peace and without needing a parent's supervision to do so. The books in our libraries were either deemed safe for the ages of children that would be in there, or the librarians were there to keep an eye on what the kids were up to.
And now we have the Internet, and want to take away a library's right to monitor and filter the content it makes available to its patrons? Something like this might go over fine where you're from, but don't force all libraries in all towns in the country to be prohibited from making that decision on their own.
I seriously doubt that your kids would be able to get their hands on the materials needed to build a pipe bomb.
I found this information online (well, on a BBS) inside of 5 minutes when I was 12 years old. Don't tell me stuff like this is hard to find.
As far as unpopular political opinion, just teach your kids what's wrong and what's right.
I agree with this totally. The problem is that you can't just teach a child this bit of information overnight. You can't just say one day, "Hmm, let's go to the public library," and then proceed to teach your kid morality and responsibility the next day. It takes time for kids to learn this, and I would really like them to have access to public library resources (without requiring my supervision) between the time they're old enough to go outside on their own and the time I'm confident they've matured to the point where they can responsibly handle the information made available to them. Without the help of libraries in shielding my kids from stuff I don't necessarily want them seeing just yet, the library itself becomes almost useless to me during this phase of my child's development.
Libraries are stocked and filtered based on guidelines set by local library boards. Your library will not have the same things my library has.
This is good and how it should be, as it gives maximum control to the local community (the people *using* the library) as to what should be in it and how their library funds should be spent.
I know exactly what's in my library, and, if I had kids, I would feel relatively safe letting them browse freely. I'm not saying libraries are 100% safe and free from anything you might consider questionable, but they don't have a "porn" section and they don't have a "how to make bombs" section, so I feel relatively comfortable.
Without these filtering policies of the library board, I don't know if I'd be comfortable sending my kids there.
why should the community have a right to say what people look at on the internet???
Are you then in favor of allowing printed porn and graphic violence in sections of our public libraries accessible to children?
The community should have a right when it's community areas that are affected. Do you think you can walk up and down downtown pasting up posters with graphic sexual depictions? The community has decided it doesn't want these things in public places.
There is absolutely nothing stopping you from getting a 'Net connection at home and giving your kid a bunch of porn bookmarks. The community isn't saying you can't do this.
if the kids are to be protected for unsuitable material, do it without constraining adult users.
This is essentially the point I was trying (badly, it seems) to make. We have two sides we have to appease here, the parents that don't want their kids having access to stuff they don't want them to have access to, and the adults, that want unrestricted access to everything.
The solution: Do both. Either use a library card tailored to filtering preferences of the user (and under the control of the parent in a child's case), or if nothing else, give out "adult" vs "child" library cards. If a parent thinks their kid is mature enough, they can request that they be given an adult card. Problem solved.
Perhaps we're thinking of different court cases, but the supreme court *has* ruled that porn and smut are not constitutionally protected. There's no "free speech" violation by censoring porn, so libraries should never be required to carry it.
My point, though, is that what a library carries and makes available should be a community decision, and should respect an adult's requirement for information in addition to a parent's right to parent their child.
That's fine with me. My problem is with people who want to control what my kids (when I have them) are able to see. Who are you to decide what my kids should and should not see? Who are you to decide what I should and should not see?
I agree, parents need the ability to parent their child and make decisions as to what materials they are mature enough to handle and what materials they are not. That means we need some mechanism in place (filtering software) to allow the parents to exercise those decisions.
A visit to the library should not have to be a supervised thing. My kids should be able to visit the library whenever they like, but until they're mature or responsible enough to handle the availability of content I don't want them to see, I don't want them to have access to it.
At the same time (and this does run counter to proposed filtering legislation/guidelines), I want the ability to GIVE my child access to materials he wouldn't ordinarily be allowed to see. Think of it as an "adult" library card. Another poster mentioned a card carrying filtering preferences. All good ideas.
I do agree with you that a requirement for filtering software is a bad thing. This should CERTAINLY be a local community decision, not a state one, and not a national one.
So what, you think my 8-year-old son should be allowed to go to the library with his other 8-year-old friends and proceed to goof off and start pulling up pictures of old women eating feces from some guy? What about instructions on building a pipe bomb? Do you think your kids at that age are honestly mature enough to handle that type of information? Do you think your parenting is better than everyone else's, that your child is responsible and would never do anything bad or against your wishes?
That's pretty naive, for somebody that claims to have kids of his own.
You're absolutely right, though, my job is to prepare my child for the real world. That means giving me the ability to PARENT my child and decide MYSELF what materials and information he should and should not have access to. As my child becomes mature enough to handle more questionable topics, I will allow him to explore those topics. What you don't seem to realize is that every child is different in the ways and the time he takes to mature psychologically. Some kids are able to handle the beauty of the human body at an early age. Some can't handle it until they're considerably older. Making a child "prepared" for the real world does not magically happen the year before his class starts making trips to the library.
Do not force my local public library to carry materials in an unrestrictive fashion that I do not wish my child to have access to. Filtering software should be an option at the community level, with the community giving input on what should and should not be filtered for what age groups (acting quite conservatively).
Without the ability to selectively determine what my child sees when he's at the library on his own, I will be forced to simply forbid him access to the library until such a time as he is mature enough to handle all of the content, or at least until he's responsible enough to understand what's crap and what's not. This is a fundamental shift in the ideas behind having a public library in the first place.
So why are you letting your children Wander around the internet unattended?
Libraries presently do not tend to carry porn or bomb-making instructions. These are things deliberately filtered out of their selection for printed materials. Thus, I feel safe letting my kids go to the public library (as I should) by themselves.
If these materials were suddenly required to be present, I would not give my kids permission to visit the library.
If my kids are at home browsing the 'Net, you can bet they're supervised in some form. If I feel my child is mature enough to handle certain types of online materials, I have no problem with letting him/her explore those topics.
In other words, let me have the option to parent my own children. A trip to the public library should NOT have to be a supervised one. The whole point behind a public library is that so anyone -- young or old -- can browse its contents without having people looking over your shoulder. This is the way public libraries have been for countless years, because it's worked, and it's put the parent's wishes ahead of the child's (as it should be).
If I feel my kids are mature enough to handle questionable material, I should also be able to allow them to have access to it (preferably via the public library, in the form of an "adult" library card, for example). If nothing else, they can come home and use my personal 'Net connection to do their surfing for what the libraries forbid them to view.
Give local communities the abilities to set their own standards as to what belongs in their public libraries and what doesn't. This is currently how things work as far as printed materials go. Why must we force online material to be totally free and unrestricted?
If my local library were prevented from exercising restrictive policies as far as what age groups get access to what materials, I have doubts that I would ever send my child to the public library anymore (at least not without me with them). That truly saddens me. All in the name of "free speech."
Why not watch over your kids for a change?
I'm taking this to mean "Why not try and be a better parent for your kids?" This is precisely why filtering software IS needed. A trip to the library should not have to be a supervised thing. I send my kids to the library because I know the printed material isn't going to have smut in it.
GIVE ME THE OPTION TO PARENT MY OWN CHILDREN. I should be able to make the determination ON MY OWN as to whether or not my kids are mature enough to have access to sexually explicit material (among other things). Do not take away my abilities to parent just because YOU think EVERYONE is mature enough to handle that type of material in our public libraries.
Additionally (and perhaps counter to some people's filtering recommendations), I WANT the ability to be able to say, "My child is mature enough to have access to these materials," and be able to disable filtering for them. Unfortunately this seems a bit difficult to handle logistically, so I'm content with letting my kids use my own dialup connection for that sort of thing.
The idea that all information should be required to be made equally available to all people of all ages is not good. By forcing me to accept that, you are taking away my ability to parent my own child, and that is unacceptable. I will give my kids permission to have access to this kind of material when *I* feel they are mature enough to handle it. You have no right to make that determination for me.
What we SHOULD be doing is allowing the PARENT to decide what to expose their child to and how they should learn these values. Give the parent the option to parent. If we give children *rights* of all things, how are they going to be able to do that? It would become against the law, against the civil rights of the child, to forbid them from doing something the parent doesn't want them to do. How can this be a good thing? Do you think you know how to parent my child better than I? Does the government?
With respects to the heart of this particular issue, censorware in public libraries, I thought McCain's quote hit it close enough:While I don't think schools should be required to buy censorware, I think it should be permitted for them to screen out online material in EXACTLY the same fashion they screen out printed material. Libraries don't tend to carry back-issues of Playboy and Hustler. Is this censorship? If you have a problem with how your local library is restricting access to information, TAKE IT UP WITH YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY BOARD, for they should be the ultimate authority as to what's allowed in their libraries and what isn't. This should be as much a community decision as possible. (That also means I'm pretty much against using off-the-shelf filtering software as it exists today.)
Counter to what people are proposing, I *do* believe items being blocked should be listed somehow. In addition, I would like the parent to be able to say, "My child is mature enough to be allowed access to these materials," similar to "child" versus "adult" library cards.
Further, even if these suggestions aren't adopted, you're still quite capable of getting a cheap-ass Internet connection at home and allowing your kid to browse porn all day and all night if you wanted. If you think your child is mature enough (or that's just the way you want to parent them), that's your perogative, but I most certainly do not want my kids having access to overly sexual material (or whatever else that's questionable in my eyes) in a public library without my explicit consent.
And they will have that consent, when I feel they're mature enough to handle it.