The Story
Jeff's Site Full o' Crap had been a member of the Internet Link Exchange for over a year and a half. In December 1996,
I submitted the following banner, which was accepted:
I decided the design left a lot to be desired (I'm a crapmeister, dammit, not a graphic designer), so I submitted this banner in mid-August, 1997:
As a result, I received the following form letter from LE:
Thank you for submitting your banner to the LinkExchange network.
Although your web site is acceptable, we are not able to accept
your banner into our network at this time (please be aware that
full membership in the LinkExchange network is contingent upon banner
submission and approval).
Our members' banners are displayed on a network of over 100,000 different
web sites. In order to insure that each banner advertised is acceptable
to that audience, we insist that all banners are generally acceptable to
the vast majority of our network members.
For example, the banner which you wish to advertise over the LinkExchange
network must not contain curse words or inflammatory content.
In addition, unacceptable language or unacceptable imagery such as
nudity; sexual imagery or graphic depictions of gruesome or sanguinary
content will be cause for banner rejection, regardless of context.
We would like to complete your application for membership as soon as
possible. Could you please redesign your banner and submit it to us
again, so that we can begin advertising your web site?
If you are already an active member of the LinkExchange network, your
old banner will continue to be advertised until a new one is processed.
If you have any questions or comments, please use the feedback form
located at:
http://www.linkexchange.com/help.html
Thank you,
LinkExchange Quality Assurance Team |
My response:
Dear Administrator,
If you look closely, you will see that my banner carries the same message as
the previous one, which was accepted, merely with a different layout.
My banner does not meet any of the above exclusion criteria, since "crap" is
not a curse word (at least, not if you consider that you can hear it on
network TV about 20 times a day).
Please also note that I have clearly indicated my site as a category 3
(PG-13), which gives your other members more than an ample chance to not
display my banner should they so choose.
I would appreciate it if you could respond to this mail and let me know your
decision.
Regards,
Jeff Zalkind |
Well, it looks like I really opened up a can of worms with that one... check out the response I got:
Hi Jeff,
We have reveiwed your banner again and have decided that it will not be
allowed into the LinkExchange network. We understand that we approved a
very similar banner once before, and we apologize for what seems an
irrational change in policy. Given more time for thought, however, we
believe the banner may be offensive to certain members and should be
redone if it is to be shown on other members' pages.
While reviewing your banner, we also noticed this link on your site:
http://www.sexia.com/~hotisex/hotisex.htm
As you know, we have a policy against allowing members to have material on
their sites that might be considered offensive, including but not limited
to adult material or links to adult material. As such, we regretfully
will not be able to advertise your site for you.
We realize that this may seem like an unreasonably harsh policy, but
our policy was formed based on whether a significant portion of our
members would feel unhappy or offended by the contents of a site or
advertisement.
Thank you for your understanding our position. If you decide to change the
material on your site, please let us know.
Anna
|
So how about that, folks? First my banner message was OK, then it wasn't. Then my site was OK, then it wasn't.
Calling Dogbert: The LE has been taken over by pointy-haired bosses!
I feel like I wrote to the IRS to complain that they disallowed a deduction, and they wrote back saying they were going to disallow all my other deductions, too. I guess you don't screw with the IRS, and you don't screw with Anna at LE.
For those of you still following this riveting tale of injustice, here's my final mail to Anna at the Link Exchange:
Dear Anna,
Sorry to inform you this, but your policy is extremely irrational and more than a little schizophrenic.
>While reviewing your banner, we also noticed this link on your site:
>
> http://www.sexia.com/~hotisex/hotisex.htm
Nothing new, it's been there for over a year, ever since I got an award from them for my "Learn how to swear in German" page.
>As you know, we have a policy against allowing members to have material on
>their sites that might be considered offensive, including but not limited
>to adult material or links to adult material. As such, we regretfully
>will not be able to advertise your site for you.
Follow the link, dear, and you'll see that its actually a parody of all sex sites and an homage to all the tricks (mostly involving keywords) people use to lure "excess" traffic to their sites.
Still, now that I've pointed out my "Learn how to swear in German" page, I'm sure that I'll be disqualified on the grounds of excess profanity as well. After all, have to protect those poor, defenseless kiddies who are surfing the net, even if it means censoring the other 99.5% of the population...
>We realize that this may seem like an unreasonably harsh policy, but
>our policy was formed based on whether a significant portion of our
>members would feel unhappy or offended by the contents of a site or
>advertisement.
Why have the PG-13 rating if you're going to impose Disney standards on your members anyway? Did you guys get taken over by the Southern Methodists while I wasn't looking, or what?
Here's an idea - why don't you take a survey of your members asking them what they'd consider to be offensive. Or even better: you've got site classification, how about banner classification:
- Girls in bikinis
- Get rich quick schemes
- PG-rated words and phrases like "crap", "pee", "ass", "bitch", "bite me" that we hear on commercial TV every night.
>Thank you for your understanding our position. If you decide to change the
>material on your site, please let us know.
I don't understand your position at all. I can only guess that you're having trouble attracting paying sponsors due to the nature of some of the "black sheep" in the LE. So now, whenever one of you "content advisers" comes across anything that 1% of the population could conceivably perceive as offensive, you just press a button and - voila! No more black sheep!
Consider the LE banners removed from my site.
Jeff Zalkind
|
And that, dear friends, is the story of how Jeff's Site Full o' Crap was ignominiously booted out of the Link Exchange, formerly an organization for which I had nothing but the upmost respect, but now is just another Microsoft-owned Web lackey.
Like my crap? Hate it? Or just have something up your ass?
Mail the CrapMeister at crap
zalkind
net
Please be advised that I may tell you to blow it out your ass.
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This collection and all original work: copyright by Jeff Zalkind © 1995-2008. All rights reserved.
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