Smart Groups Adult Re-Classification

[neil carter]

If like many other Clubs you are running a FreeServe/Smart Groups discussion group to keep in touch with Club Members, you may not be aware of a none too subtle change in SG Web/Home Page entry. I have just logged onto the Southern Region SG Web Page, and was greeted with the following "Welcome"

"Adult restricted entry
?
You have requested to view a Group which is likely to contain content of a sexual nature, which may be inappropriate for children and offensive to some adults. Please read the following and either click 'No' to return to the SmartGroups homepage or 'Yes' for access to the Group you have chosen to view:
?
I confirm that I am over 18 years of age and that I understand that the material is of a sexual/explicit nature.
I agree not to provide access to any material in these web pages to any person under 18 years of age. "

Unfortunately, although I confirmed myself as being over 18, I couldn't actually find any of this new "content of a sexual nature", unless there were some photos of latex clad young & nubile divers in the SG Album section which I missed.

To make a serious point, there has been some considerable traffic on the Smart Group Manager's Forum about this problem, and apparently once the search bots have found words or indications of a sleazy or suggestive nature we now have to opt out of the Adult Classification, rather than opt in. (Not sure what they must have found on the SR site mind ;~}} )

If it's any comfort, on finding out about the SR re-classification, I thought I'd better check our own SG Club site, only to find we'd been re-classified as well, so I suppose we must all be at it!!! Joking aside, we really do not want or need BSAC Club SG Home Pages to be giving out this message.

Apparently, an e-mail to SG support is all that's required, although why we have to be pro-active in removing an unwarranted Adult classification is beyond me. However as we don't really want to attract new members under false pretences, Smart Groups really do need a severe kick where the sun doesn't shine.

Just my 2p's

Neil Carter

DO ISIS Divers

[Keith Lawrence(BSAC)]

Thank you to Neil for highlighting this, I advise all group managers of BSAC related SmartGroups to check their classification.

I have also emailed and posted to the SmartGroups Managers Forum a request on behalf of all BSAC groups that this problem be sorted out!

Keith L

[neil carter]

It's amazing what a little concerted pressure, (aka extremely forceful e-mails) can achieve. The excerpts from a Smart Groups e-mail which are reproduced below at least illustrate that the BSAC part of the problem should have been resolved by now.

"The problem began when we had a number of Groups finding themselves unable to change their policy settings. We released a patch to allow us to debug that error, and then did some testing and tracked down the problem. When the fix was released it changed some groups to adult - in reality, the figure really is not as high as the Manager's Forum is portraying it to be. As soon as I was aware that this had happened -about 15 minutes after I'd been made aware that the fix had been released - I asked for a rollback. However, on closer investigation it
was found that out of the groups which had been changed only a small
number were not adult in content. In effect, the majority of groups that were affected contained adult content and were either marked as such, or re-marked as such.

I can only apologise for the inconvenience - this seems to have hit the
BSAC pretty hard, so I've just taken the time this afternoon to go
through every single group with "ISIS" and "BSAC" in either the group's
name or email. It's a very time-consuming process, as several aspects of
a group have to be checked, and - for obvious reasons - only certain
people here are allowed to check. But, since it's clearly not helpful
for a group such as the BSAC to be marked as being adult, I think it was
a couple of hours well spent. If I have missed any, please feel free to
get back to me and I'll change them as soon as I can."

To put this in perspective, a quick search had revealed that out of the eighteen BSAC listings which showed up, eight were listed as having Adult content, including of course my own Club SG. So what have we been doing for the last three or four weeks in that nobody, myself included, had spotted the problem?? Let's hope that not too many familes or juveniles had tried to find our Clubs through a Smart groups listing!!!

If you do find that your Smart Group IS still listed as being of Adult Content, please e-mail Smart Group Support directly here
<a href="mailto:sg.grouppolicy@freeserve.com">sg.grouppolicy@freeserve.com</a>
and the re re-classification should take place almost immediately.

Internet, don'cha just love it??!!!

Neil Carter

ISIS Divers
Oxford

[iain paul]

I identified the problem with North Scotland on the 5th when I went to introduce a group of ITS course participants to the group! Embarassing ! WE had it sorted the following day though.

Didnt realise it was so general. Sorry for not giving a general alert.

Iain