Comments on: Sarah hates filters & filters hate Sarah

By: Tim

Tim — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 19:47:29 +0000

“listed as a spammer by Spam Haus, we asked them why, they told us so we fixed it.”

Seems a shame that YOU had to be the one to fix it. Not only could someone at Spam Haus simply have looked at your site and made an easy determination in the time it took to respond to you, but the idea that their perceptions of what constitutes a valid site can change the way sites are built on a mass scale is frightening.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 14:47:25 +0000

Our site (drupal too) was listed as a spammer, turned out to just be a matter of our mail server having a different name than our site. While I agree filters suck, they usually have nothing to do with content per se and are based on the best practices of server setup. Filters usually base their blacklists on various anti-spam sites, in our case, we were listed as a spammer by Spam Haus, we asked them why, they told us so we fixed it. Anyways, nice site, I really like your policy about who blogs.

By: EC

EC — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 14:32:30 +0000

FYI, We use the K9 Bluecoat system and have filtering turned on for both Spyware/Malware Sources and Spyware Effects. I just checked, and your website is NOT being blocked by K9. Of course, if you contacted them about it already, maybe it was being blocked before and the problem has been fixed already. (I haven’t had time to explore the whole site, but your front page looks great!)
http://www1.k9webprotection.com/

By: Dan Kleinman

Dan Kleinman — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 03:58:27 +0000

More dogma.

By: Andy Woodworth

Andy Woodworth — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 01:36:29 +0000

At least the feeling is mutual. I was reading a story at work about the crackdown on pedophiles in Thailand at work and to click through some filtering to get to the story. How loathsome on a news site.

By: John Klima

John Klima — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 21:21:48 +0000

I can now see your lovely, lovely website. VERY impressive. I wish I had stopped in last year when I was in San Jose.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 20:22:41 +0000

Yup, got WebSense & Barracuda reports via IM as soon as I’d posted this, and followed up with them too. This is seriously weird. I still have no clue why we’d be classed that way, and maintain that the domain hasn’t been that for *at least* two years. So perhaps these databases are working off of information and classifications for sites that are 2+ years old? That doesn’t speak highly for the accuracy of their products… Or perhaps their algorithms all have something in common that is classifying our site as “bad”? I don’t know. And we’ll never know, because why things are classified the way they are is “secret sauce” that the companies never share with clients or individuals. At any rate, I’ve filed appeals with the top 20 filtering companies now, as a preventative measure. The irony, the irony…

By: John Klima

John Klima — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 19:15:29 +0000

I see someone else mentioned Barracuda already (and I emailed you about this, too). Very curious.

By: Tweets that mention Sarah hates filters & filters hate Sarah | Librarian in Black Blog – Sarah Houghton-Jan -- Topsy.com

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 18:56:59 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Michael Sauers, David Lee King, Sarah Houghton-Jan, Christa Burns, WPL Reference Div and others. WPL Reference Div said: Sarah hates filters & filters hate Sarah: It’s no secret that I think internet filters are not only unethical an… http://bit.ly/9tPCGo [...]

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 18:45:04 +0000

Websense is also blocking your site on our computers, I let the tech people know and hopefully they will fix it. But that’s just our computers. And totally, completely agree with you on filters.