It’s a strange world when I’m discussing [for work] with my boss [who’s female] whether or not a particular picture buried in the obscure world of UF’s webspace is pornography or not. Whether or not that thing at the bottom is a nipple or a shadow, and whether or not we have to treat the complaint seriously.
One of the less enjoyable, though still entertaining, aspects of my job involves responding to complaints against all sorts of things about the university on the web. Email, webpages, we receive the complaints. In an interesting twist, while I’m fairly conservative myself, I get really fed up with people who write to complain. Phrases like. “EXTREMELY offensive,” and “how can the university endorse such filth?!” often show up in righteous emails against things that are often less offensive than the popups that appear while randomly surfing.
What I really long to say, I can’t. Not unless I decide it’s the fastest way to quit my job one day. I’d love to say: grow up. Go away, and if it offends you, don’t look at it. There’s all sorts of things on the web that offend me, so if I find one, I don’t go back. I’m not sure what’s so difficult about that. I would understand if the situation were for something along the lines of child porn, or some illegal activities, but when we receive complaints for people swearing or just being ‘not nice’ to other people, that’s a little much. Get over it people. If you don’t like it, don’t go back. Welcome to the wonderful world of online freedom.
These are the same people that sue over every disagreement and generally make this country crappier than it should be. They should all be bitch-slapped by Larry Flynt… that’d teach them to be useless.
So, was it a nipple or a shadow?
Left by John on August 7th, 2003
Definitely a nipple, or the top half of one at least. Boss was smoking crack.
Left by Jordan on August 7th, 2003
So a partial nipple is considered pornography by the University of Florida?
Left by John on August 7th, 2003
Neither one of us felt like we should be the people who decided that, so the issue was sent on to more administrative folks to deal with. Ironically, even if it is, there doesn’t technically look like a violation of the AUP since our AUP is strangely (or not so) silent on the subject of student webpages. Email is pretty heavily restricted. If you’re sending something TO someone you have to play nice. If you’re running your own little spot on the web, you can do just about anything except break laws and profit from university resources. Of course, students are the only ones permitted such personal webspaces at this point, but anyway… long story short, no, I doubt anything will come of it.
Left by Jordan on August 7th, 2003
no doubt the same people that tried to get d&d banned because it’s devil worshipping and hate on harry potter because it promotes witchcraft and more devil worshipping.
Left by Eric on August 7th, 2003
That poses another interesting question. What’s worse? Worshipping The Devil or not believing in God and The Devil altogether.
Left by Eric on August 7th, 2003
An interesting, totally off-topic question
Left by John on August 7th, 2003
Can we not get a link to the page, to decide for ourselves? lol
Left by TheMole on August 7th, 2003