[ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion

[Brian Mearns]

Pat, et al.,

Well my solution to the problem is to not use the V-chip or other such 
devices, and instead, do your best to keep track of what kids 
watch/listen to, and in case something slips through under your radar 
(it inevitably will), make sure they're set up with an understanding of 
what's real and what's not, what's appropriate and what's not. But 
that's only my PERSONAL choice, I would not try to force that on anyone, 
and I understand it may not work in all situations or for everybody. As 
I mentioned in the last round, I didn't mean to suggest that they 
SHOUDLN'T be used, only that, as you said, they're only a tool, not the 
full solution.

And you misunderstood the meaning when I mentioned parents using the 
television as a baby sitter. What you described was using the television 
for educational purpose. By all means, I think that's great! What I 
meant by "babysitter" was when parents are too tired, too lazy, or to 
incompetent to deal with or entertain their kids, so they sit them in 
front of the television instead of actually dealing with the fact that 
they're parents. At the risk of being absolute, I would classify this as 
crappy parenting under any circumstance. That's not to say kids 
shouldn't watch TV, or that they should only watch educational tv, or 
they should only watch with a parent. But when a kid is throwing a fit 
(because they're a kid, that's a big part of what they do) and their 
parent doesn't know how to deal with it, doesn't know how to discipline 
them or calm them down, or is to lazy to do so, so they just sit the kid 
in front of the TV; that parent is abdicating what is probably the 
greatest responsibility they will ever have, and *that* is crappy parenting.

Anyway, I have no problems with the proposed addition of the 
adult-content flag or whatever ends up being decided on for 
implementation. I already recanted and respecified my original objection 
and noted that other peoples' comments pointed out some use cases that I 
  can certainly see as useful. If any of those cases are useful to you, 
or any other cases you can come up with, than it might be worthwhile to 
implement it. For me, it's not. That's all.

-Brian

Pat Furrie wrote:
> Brian,
> 
> Personally, I don't have a V-chip enabled TV set at home, but I can 
> still imagine how it might be useful, even if the kids might find ways 
> to circumvent it.  Ultimately, it is a tool.  It might not work 
> perfectly every time, but it is an attempt.  If you have a better 
> solution, by all means, let's hear it.
> 
> Yes, some parents use TVs for babysittters, and in some cases, depending 
> on the situation, that constitutes crappy parenting.  Do we toss out 
> TVs?  What about the times when it works, when kids are put in front of 
> programs which can more effectively teach them than the best teacher in 
> the county?  That's how I felt when I watched the PBS series "The 
> Mechanical Universe" for the first time, and learned more calculus in a 
> half hour than I did in several hours of college calculus class.
> 
> Some kids will hear inappropriate music whether there is an adult tag or 
> not.  But others might be relieved of it.  How much good does it need to 
> be able to do before it is considered a worthy effort?
> 
> Pat
> 
> 
> 
>> From: Brian Mearns <bmearns at coe.neu.edu>
>> Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>> To: id3v2 at id3.org
>> Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>> Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2006 08:16:44 -0400
>>
>> I guess "object" wasn't quite the correct word for me to use. Looking 
>> back, my point wasn't (or at least shouldn't've been) that this 
>> shouldn't be implemented or that I would try to stop someone from 
>> implementing it, or that I would throw a fit if it is. I meant to 
>> imply that I just didn't think it's worthwhile. However, some of the 
>> other comments, about auto-playlists and what not, point out some 
>> valuable use cases, where I can see that it would be worthwhile.
>>
>> I guess more to the point I was trying to make (albeit, not very well) 
>> is that parent's should not be relying on these types of devices as a 
>> replacement for good parenting. Just because you've installed the 
>> V-chip, doesn't mean that everything your kids see on television is 
>> going to be appropriate, and even if it was, that doesn't mean that 
>> you can just sit them in front of the television and use it as a baby 
>> sitter. That's still bad parenting regardless of what's on. Same with 
>> any form of censorship that gets applied to music. Whether it's 
>> effective at stopping them from listening to it or not, it's not 
>> effective at addressing the real issue which is not the music, but 
>> their  own behavior and language. I can imagine that these types of 
>> devices could be useful tools for parents in conjunction with 
>> instilling proper behaviors and values, I just think it's important 
>> that people realize it's not the answer in itself.
>>
>> -Brian
>>
>> Pat Furrie wrote:
>>> Brian,
>>>
>>> While utilities might come into existance to disable to flag, so 
>>> what?  The lock on the front door of my house is easily foiled by 
>>> learning how to make a use a bump key from YouTube, but I still lock 
>>> the door.  Do you?  Probably.
>>>
>>> And is it censorship?  Again, so what if it is?  I don't tell the 
>>> kids what my wife and I do in the bedroom.  Censorship?  So what.  
>>> Part of being a parent is making choices about what a kid is exposed 
>>> to at a certain age.  For mine, they get differing levels of access 
>>> based on their ability to deal with it.  You can call it censorship, 
>>> I'll call it limiting.
>>>
>>> We're just looking for tools to help us set up limiting for our 
>>> kids.  I'm not going to stop trying just because some kids might try 
>>> to get around it.  Others aren't.  Even if you disagree, why would 
>>> you care if someone tried, or that the tools were made to exist in 
>>> order to make that attempt?
>>>
>>> Don't censor the effort.
>>>
>>> Pat
>>>
>>>
>>>> From: Brian Mearns <bmearns at coe.neu.edu>
>>>> Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>>>> To: id3v2 at id3.org
>>>> Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>>>> Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 23:25:35 -0400
>>>>
>>>> >Tim isn't looking for why it won't work, he's looking
>>>> > for ways to make it work.
>>>>
>>>> Spoken like a true manager.
>>>>
>>>> Personally, I have minor objections to this as a matter of 
>>>> principle; it's a minor form of censorship, though granted it's no 
>>>> worse than the V-chip and similar technologies. But sheltering your 
>>>> kids from the world isn't protecting them. Even if you prevent them 
>>>> from playing certain songs because of language of "adult-themes", 
>>>> they're still going to be exposed to it else where; on tv, in 
>>>> movies, from their friends, siblings, class-mates, &c. The important 
>>>> thing is to teach your kids the difference between what they see or 
>>>> hear, and what's appropriate for them to say or do. And no amount of 
>>>> sheltering will make up for good parenting. Now I know that sounds 
>>>> very high and mighty, and I'm not trying to accuse anyone of being a 
>>>> bad parent; I understand there's a lot of scary stuff out there and 
>>>> we want to protect our kids from it. But like I said, they're going 
>>>> to be exposed to it one way or another, and hiding it from them, not 
>>>> addressing the real issue, is only going to make it harder to cope 
>>>> with when they finally are.
>>>>
>>>> Alright, so that was less ID3 and more rant. Come down to it, like 
>>>> Tom said, you can't possibly prevent someone from editing the file 
>>>> they've downloaded. If this system really did take off, it wouldn't 
>>>> take more than a few days before download.com is filled with 
>>>> freeware apps to disable to flag, and blogs all over the web have 
>>>> instructions on how to do it in note pad.
>>>>
>>>> -Brian Mearns
>>>>
>>>> Pat Furrie wrote:
>>>>> Tom,
>>>>>
>>>>> Now, I don't know if Tim's suggestion is workable.  But he does 
>>>>> bring up a problem he's at least giving some thought to solving, 
>>>>> and I'm certain other people have had this as a problem with which 
>>>>> to deal.  It's the sort of thing that brought about the ratings 
>>>>> codes in movies (quite some time ago) and ratings on TV (more 
>>>>> recently).  I've got kids of my own who I want to have some way of 
>>>>> helping distinguish which music is appropriate.
>>>>>
>>>>> You've pointed out a couple of challenges.  Perhaps you could 
>>>>> provide some constructive analysis.  Devil's advocate is too easy; 
>>>>> anyone can do that.  But as they say, if you're not part of the 
>>>>> solution, you're part of the problem.  Tim isn't looking for why it 
>>>>> won't work, he's looking for ways to make it work.
>>>>>
>>>>> Tim: I'd like to see a set of method with more granularity than 
>>>>> just "adult" or not.  "Adult" is a bit slippery, and is defined 
>>>>> differently by different people.  However, the existance of certain 
>>>>> key words and concepts are more objective.  You might want to look 
>>>>> at how TV has done ratings, and model it after that.  This way any 
>>>>> "adult content" tag methodology could leverage the methods already 
>>>>> adopted, and be more universal across media types (meaning, not 
>>>>> just audio files).
>>>>>
>>>>> We could nay-say and do nothing, or we can get off our butts and do 
>>>>> something.  Even if something doesn't work, I'd rather have tried 
>>>>> to make it work than not.
>>>>>
>>>>> Fail fast, succeed sooner.
>>>>>
>>>>> Pat
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> From: "Tom Sorensen" <tsorensen at gmail.com>
>>>>>> Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>>>>>> To: id3v2 at id3.org
>>>>>> Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>>>>>> Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:20:40 -0400
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If you want a new Genre, just make one. There is no list of
>>>>>> pre-defined genres for ID3v2. You'd then have to modify whatever
>>>>>> player to not play any music that belonged in that genre (and see
>>>>>> below for the issues with that).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But that's not what you really want. You want a flag that a music
>>>>>> player would have to check before playing (or, since you seem
>>>>>> concerned about the title, before even displaying). Certainly
>>>>>> possible; there are other similar flags in the ID3v2 spec currently.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'll go ahead and object to it as pointless though. Since:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A) nobody implements anything like this in current players (software
>>>>>> or hardware), and it would be 3-5 years before that would change (and
>>>>>> that's being optimistic; more likely it would never be implemented.
>>>>>> ID3v2.4 is 5 years old now and still has very low uptake),
>>>>>>
>>>>>> B) it would be completely trivial to bypass and/or disable anyway
>>>>>> since you cannot prevent someone from changing the tag (or 
>>>>>> removing it
>>>>>> entirely).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Tom Sorensen
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 9/15/06, Tim Reinarts <tim_reinarts at soniqcast.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Do you have any provisions in the latest spec for adding an 
>>>>>>> "adult content"
>>>>>>> genre category?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I would propose that such a tag would allow parents to control 
>>>>>>> the content
>>>>>>> being used by their children.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Media player manufacturers can then implement a feature that 
>>>>>>> allows parents
>>>>>>> to prevent the player from accessing files with an Adult Content 
>>>>>>> genre.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It concerns me that some of the most popular content on many 
>>>>>>> sites like
>>>>>>> MTV's URGE are songs with explicit titles.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Tim Reinarts
>>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
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