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How do you rate?

Using PICS to increase the value of your Web site

SunWorld
August  1997
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Abstract
In this second of two columns on the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS), we show you how to get your site rated on the SafeSurf or Recreational Software Advisory Council systems and explain why you'd want to do it. (1,600 words)


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Last month, we began investigating PICS, the Platform for Internet Content Selection. PICS provides a mechanism that allows Web authors to define a rating system, create ratings within that system, and attach those ratings to their documents. Users of the Web can then use the ratings to decide if those documents are worth viewing.

When you start talking about rating systems, people immediately begin thinking about pornography. Indeed, a driving force behind rating systems like PICS is to provide a neutral way to create and assign ratings to pages whose content is not suitable for all audiences. In the absence of something like PICS, government bodies feel compelled to step in and regulate content, to the detriment of the entire Internet.

As we learned last month, PICS does not define a rating system, rate pages, or decide what should or should not be made available on the Web. PICS is a tool that supports all of these activities. At its heart, PICS is nothing more than a language that describes rating systems and ratings within those systems. The rating systems and the ratings themselves are created by other organizations; the ratings are used by the individuals browsing the Web.

Our previous discussion centered around the mechanics of rating systems and ratings. It is important to know how PICS works so that you, as a document author, can read and understand rating systems. The reality, though, is that you will probably never create your own rating system. Instead, you will use predefined rating systems to create your pages, and you may even rely on a third party to rate your pages from an objective standpoint.

The reasons for this are obvious: Ratings only work when everyone agrees on the rating system being used. If you define your own system, but no one else elects to use it, your ratings are worthless to the average user stumbling across your Web site. Like any language, a rating system works best when it is used consistently by a large community. Ratings have the highest value when they are applied consistently across a wide range of pages.

This month, then, let's look at the semantics of ratings: existing rating systems, rating services, and how rating systems can be used to enhance the value of your pages.

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RSAC: From games to pages
As the desire for rating systems grows, it is expected that a number of rating systems will be developed for use on the Web. Currently, two systems are defined and available for general use on the Web. These systems are from the Recreational Software Advisory Council (RSAC) and SafeSurf.

The function of RSAC is neatly summed up by its mission statement: to be an independent, non-profit organization that empowers the public, especially parents, to make informed decisions about electronic media by means of an open, objective content advisory system. RSAC was formed by the Software Publishers Association as a response to the controversy surrounding Mortal Kombat, a particularly violent video game whose content was deemed unacceptable by some parents and child advocacy groups. Facing government regulation of video games, the SPA created RSAC to oversee and administer video game ratings using a system developed by Dr. Donald Roberts, Chairman of the Communications Department of Stanford University. Dr. Roberts has extensive experience in evaluating the affect of violence on children and devised a detailed questionnaire that allowed the RSAC to determine how a particular video game should be rated. These ratings are then displayed on the product packaging for use by potential consumers.

When concerns over Internet content were subsequently raised, the RSAC rating system was adapted to address the problem of rating Internet content. The resulting system was dubbed "RSACi" and was immediately supported by a broad range of vendors and content suppliers, including Microsoft, Netscape, CompuServe, and the leading vendor of software blocking technology, CyberPatrol. Today the RSAC has provided ratings for over 33,000 Web sites.

The RSACi rating system is relatively simple, providing ratings in four categories: violence, language, nudity, and sex. Within each of these categories, there are four values indicating the severity of the content. For example, the nudity category ranges from a rating of "1" (revealing attire) to "4" (provocative frontal nudity). Although not stated in the system, it is assumed that a rating of "0" indicates that no nudity is contained in the document.

You could assign an RSACi rating to your pages on your own, but that would not allow you to display an icon indicating that your site carries an RSACi rating. To claim a valid rating, you must go through the RSACi rating process, registering your site and answering a few simple questions about your content. In a matter of minutes, you will be presented with a PICS-compliant tag to place in your documents that defines your rating.

I went through this process for my HTML Guru site (which contains no sex, language, violence, or nudity) and received this rating tag: 

<META http-equiv="PICS-Label" 
      content='(PICS-1.1 "http://www.rsac.org/ratingsv01.html" l gen true 
      comment "RSACi North America Server" 
      by "cmusciano@aol.com" 
      for "http://members.aol.com/htmlguru/" 
      on "1997.06.29T13:53-0500" 
      r (n 0 s 0 v 0 l 0))'>

Of course, your rating is only as accurate as your answers to the questions. The RSAC conducts audits of registered sites to ensure that the rating corresponds to the content.

SafeSurf: defining parental control
The SafeSurf rating system was designed to meet the needs of parents desiring to control the content available to their children. According to SafeSurf, it is "dedicated to both advancing the process of classifying information on the Internet and enabling us, as a community, to gain the benefits that it will bring." Like RSAC, SafeSurf defines a system that categorizes documents according to a number of sexually-oriented categories, including:

Based upon a site's content, the SafeSurf system derives a single rating number for each of these categories. Again, I rated by HTML Guru site with SafeSurf and acquired this rating: 

<META http-equiv="PICS-Label"
      content='(PICS-1.1 "http://www.classify.org/safesurf/" l 
      by "cmuciano@aol.com" 
      r (SS~~000 1))'>

That little bit at the end ("SS~~000 1") is my rating in category zero, meaning that my site is safe for all ages. If I had content in any of the other categories, values for other categories would appear in my rating.

Is SafeSurf better than RSACi? That's hard to say. SafeSurf certainly categorizes a site in more detail, but both systems will help you decide if a site's content is suitable for viewing by yourself or your children. To some extent, these systems are in competition, vying to be the premier rating service on the Internet. RSACi has a slight advantage in that it is the default rating system used by Internet Explorer, but SafeSurf makes available the appropriate configuration files that let Internet Explorer use its rating system as well. Netscape has not committed to either system at this time.

For the time being, I'd suggest using both systems. I was able to obtain ratings in a matter of minutes for my site from both services. You should do the same, affixing the rating and its associated icon to your pages to promote the overall concept of content rating systems. Adding this extra content to your pages is not difficult, and the overall benefit to the Web could be considerable. Further, it ensures that people with content blocking enabled on their browser will be able to visit your site, since some users will block access to any unrated site.

Beyond pornography
It is regrettable that most people associate rating systems with controlling access to "undesirable" content on the Internet. In fact, rating systems can be an invaluable tool in managing access to information on the Internet.

Consider the problem of searching the Internet for information about a specific topic. Most search engines offer up thousands of hits to even the most obscure query, making it impossible to quickly find what you are looking for. If pages were augmented by ratings that could be incorporated into the search engines, your search might be far more fruitful.

As an example, suppose you are a breeder of dogs, specifically Basset Hounds. You know that there are plenty of Web sites devoted to the sport of dogs, and searches for pages specific to Basset Hounds turn up hundreds of hits, most of them spurious. When it comes time to find a page on some specific Basset topic, you could tear your hair out looking for the right site.

Ratings could change all of this. If a dog-related rating system was defined that allowed content providers to rate their pages in terms of dog-related content, and search engines allowed you to use this rating system in conjunction with your searches, you could quickly target pages that meet your needs. Rating categories that define groups and breeds of dogs, the kind of dog information presented, and similar criteria could make categorizing pages trivially easy. Most importantly, you could tell the search engine to ignore pages without any dog-related ratings, assuming that most people who are not interested in dogs would not bother to place a "dog rating" on their pages.

Since there is no limit to the number of ratings that can be associated with a single document, you could rate your pages using any number of systems. There might be a rating system for pages devoted to genealogy services, or investing, or any other topic you can think of. The only requirement is that some interested group get together and define the rating system so that others with similar interests can take advantage of it. The possibilities are endless; the potential benefit to the Web is enormous.

How do you rate?
Now that I've whetted your interest, I'd suggest getting your site rated and becoming part of the rated Internet community. Grass-roots adoption is what will fuel the general acceptance of rating systems and will pave the way for topic-specific rating systems that will make finding information on the Web easier for everyone.

Chuck Musciano has been running various Web sites, including the HTML Guru Home Page, since early 1994, serving up HTML tips and tricks to hundreds of thousands of visitors each month. He's been a beta-tester and contributor to the NCSA httpd project and speaks regularly on the Internet, World Wide Web, and related topics.

The new edition of his book, HTML: The Definitive Guide is now available from O'Reilly & Associates. The second edition is revised and updated, covering Internet Explorer 3.0 and Netscape 4.0 extensions to HTML, along with all the standard elements of HTML 3.2. It features 140 pages of new material covering layers, document layout, Cascading Style Sheets, and JavaScript Style Sheets. Reach Chuck at chuck.musciano@sunworld.com.

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About the author
Chuck Musciano has been running various Web sites, including the HTML Guru Home Page, since early 1994, serving up HTML tips and tricks to hundreds of thousands of visitors each month. He's been a beta-tester and contributor to the NCSA httpd project and speaks regularly on the Internet, World Wide Web, and related topics.

What did you think of this article?
-Very worth reading
-Worth reading
-Not worth reading
 -Too long
-Just right
-Too short
 -Too technical
-Just right
-Not technical enough
 
 
 
    

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