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Understanding the Rating System
In the paragraphs below, you will learn how to evaluate each of these factors, to accurately determine what is being reported, and if it is indeed a cause for concern.
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Below is a sample of an Accountability Report with quite a few high scoring sites listed. We will examine some of them to demonstrate the meaning: | |
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As you can see to the right, although there are several high scoring sites, none of the URL (website) names stand out as particularly disturbing. The ratings range from C (Use with Caution) to HQ (Highly Questionable). They definitely require further investigation, but certainly nothing conclusive. |
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As we scroll further down in the report, we can start to see some more details about these sites. |
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The well known site "YouTube" (owned by Google) is a video site, containing many "benign" videos together with many which may not be appropriate for all ages (or at all). Hence, it was flagged for review. Upon examination, we can see that the videos viewed were about David Blaine (a magician/illusionist) and a bike ride - nothing alarming for most audiences. The rating was a "C" - also not too alarming. We can move on. |
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The highest ratings were from "Shutterstock" (a photo, graphics and footage resource site) and "Vimeo" (another video sharing site). They received ratings of Q which is quite high, but far from conclusive. The words in the URL on the right seem to indicate that nothing inappropriate was being viewed. Since this is still not conclusive, we can click on "View Logs" next to the site name, to see exactly which pages were viewed. |
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On the Detailed Log, we can see that there are several "URLs" for Vimeo. Only one of them is high rated - highlighted in red. The specific page for the high rated entry ends in "terms". An educated guess would be that a word found in the Terms of Use for this site was flagged inappropriate (perhaps in the description of the types of videos that are not allowed). |
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The next site is a newspaper site (The Forward). It was flagged as high scoring because of the name of an image (note the suffix ".jpg") that accompanied the article. This in itself may not indicate anything alarming. Here again a perusal of the detailed logs will tell us exactly which article was viewed. |
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This site on the right was flagged because it allows anonymous searches. (This is explained on the note directly on the report.) This site is blocked by the filter, and is highly suspicious. If the person were to click on a site or image that was found through this site, it would be logged, but the search results themselves are not. Unless there is a specific reason that the person is using this search engine, it is highly questionable and should be discussed. |
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- "Visits" ("hits") can be misleading, because many sites, including some of the larger sites, may appear as one page on your screen, but actually are made up of many URLs, each of which counts as a "hit." A Yahoo site may have 30 "hits" on one screen.
- Some sites are mature, but not necessarily objectionable for the user. For instance, a particular medical site may not be what you want your eight year old child to view, but may be exactly the information you need. Or a women's lingerie site may be fine for a wife, but problematic for the husband. So sites such as medical or lingerie sites tend to be considered "mature."
- URL may contain indicators, such as banners, ads, pop-ups, images, etc., revealing what may have appeared.
- Time and date of each website hit.
- Emails containing pictures (images) cause your computer to connect to a website to see the images. Many email programs are set by default to block images from displaying until the user manually unblocks them. As long as the images remain blocked, no access to any websites has occurred and nothing will appear on the Accountability Report.
- Viewing patterns: A high rating may have been a pop-up or an accident. Look for a pattern of usage. Don’t jump to any conclusions.
With these thoughts taken into consideration, if you believe that a particular website has been rated inappropriately, you can submit a rating change request by clicking here.
If after all the above is taken into account, you feel that the user is visiting questionable sites, consult a competent Rav who will guide you on the next step.