This link contains sex, drugs, and violence. Parental Guidance is Suggested.

December 2, 2005 5:48 AM

The "a" in '[a href=' is for ADVISORY. Given that the social conservatives are eager to spend their waning mandate (and to be fair, hyper-PC liberals too) and extend out the nannystate to Cable TV, satellite, (which isn't entirely a bad thing) and videogames, is it too soon to work about the implications for the internet, and possible requirements and censorship? Blogger Sean Gleason suggests pictorial icons rating each link as to it's content. And of course, you could always make your own.
posted by rzklkng (23 comments total)

Is the Offensicon Project really suggesting we turn the entire personal web into Fark, with boobie icons running riot across blogs everywhere?

Can't see a problem with that.
posted by NinjaPirate at 5:55 AM on December 2, 2005

Actually, if we're talking about offensive links, wouldn't the “a” in “<a href=” stand for “’anker”
posted by NinjaPirate at 5:58 AM on December 2, 2005

I used (or used: Curse you FFx 1.5!) a browser extension called TargetAlert which does this based on target content, mostly to avoid PDF-induced paralysis. Rather cool actually.

Also, back when I was 13, I would have found this a very useful feature.
posted by bonehead at 6:06 AM on December 2, 2005

The icons are not legible enough at the smaller size
posted by 13twelve at 6:07 AM on December 2, 2005

I actually like the idea of the offensicons.

Though web designers being what they are, no one would ever agree on one set to describe everything. Still. If I was programming a CMS or a messageboard, I'd think about including them.

In fact, if you run a phpbulletin board, it would be a really simple thing to download the ones he did and use them as 'smilies'
posted by empath at 6:19 AM on December 2, 2005

Wonderful idea and cute, too.
posted by Captaintripps at 6:29 AM on December 2, 2005

Yeah, those don't scale worth a damn. Even if they did, it'd be insanely annoying to see every link followed by one of these chintzy images in the markup. Meh.

bonehead: that extension is a nice idea, thanks for the link.
posted by prostyle at 6:31 AM on December 2, 2005

I've always thought that one of the great things about the 'net is never knowing what's coming on the next click. Must just be me though.
posted by hupp at 6:34 AM on December 2, 2005

I love how the sex icons appear to be drawn by a virgin.

Problem is, I don't trust other people as individuals to appropriately tag content. I do, however, trust the aggregate wisdom of the crowd. Is there a Firefox plugin that looks up all the links of the current page on del.icio.us and displays the most popular tags by the links? That would be neat by itself, and accomplish the goal here more effectively.
posted by scottreynen at 6:36 AM on December 2, 2005

Those icons are absolute crap.
posted by fire&wings at 6:40 AM on December 2, 2005

He wasn't suggesting tagging EVERY link with an icon describing it's content.

He was suggesting that instead of typing in NSFW (which is somewhat uninformative) you just slap a couple of icons on there describing why it's NSFW.
posted by empath at 6:47 AM on December 2, 2005

zigactly
posted by Captaintripps at 6:54 AM on December 2, 2005

Where is a silly icon I can use to rate this idea?
posted by caddis at 7:03 AM on December 2, 2005

You should just be able to specify your own icons based on the meta tag in the HTML rather than trying to standardise on a set. His icons are shit, by the way.

I think there should also be icons for 'froth-mouthed right wing asshole site', 'arseclenchingly embarassing left wing nutjob', 'tedious tin-foil hat conspiracy', 'geek overload', 'enjoyable but ultimately empty entertainment', and so on.
posted by unSane at 7:04 AM on December 2, 2005

So... this will make it easier to find porn?

Sounds like a fine idea.
posted by cedar at 7:08 AM on December 2, 2005

posted by MaxVonCretin at 7:10 AM on December 2, 2005

So, to extend the idea a bit, why not export tags into the header and produce link icons based on the tags? Sure, it would require read-ahead, but "internet accelerators" do that already anyway, right? Who wants to design a batshitinsane icon?
posted by bonehead at 7:15 AM on December 2, 2005

irony
posted by NinjaPirate at 7:20 AM on December 2, 2005

bonehead: "Sure, it would require read-ahead, but "internet accelerators" do that already anyway, right?"

Yeah, and viruses delete your important files, but that doesn't mean I want my browser doing it automatically.
posted by Plutor at 7:20 AM on December 2, 2005

The animal rights link on that site is pretty shocky.
posted by snoktruix at 7:59 AM on December 2, 2005

bonehead: you may be interested in the results of this thread.
posted by safetyfork at 9:14 AM on December 2, 2005

safetyfork beat me to it
posted by matildaben at 9:47 AM on December 2, 2005

Speaking of "batshit insane" and links, "Utah County high-tech tycoon" (and sometime SCO associate) Ralph Yarro is trying to get a law limiting Web porn to other than port 80.
posted by jam_pony at 12:50 PM on December 2, 2005