January 28, 1997

CYBERsitter Correspondence Round 1

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The MoJo Wire:

To: bmilburn@solidoak.com
From: Eric Umansky
Subject: Why are we being blocked?
Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996

Dear Mr. Milburn-

It has come to my attention that one of your pieces of software, Cybersitter, is blocking *one* of the domain names of our site, The MoJo Wire. The domain being blocked is www.mojones.com. The MoJo Wire is the online sister publication of Mother Jones, a magazine dedicated to "investigating and reporting on the important social and political issues of our time. " While Mother Jones prides itself on engaging substantive issues, we do not host any pornographic material or material that would be inappropriate for those under 18 (your own criteria).

Please explain why a site such as ours, that has a political focus, is currently being blocked. Or, if our site was blocked unintentionally, please remove the block.

By the way, any explanation for blocking one of our urls www.mojones.com and not blocking the other www.motherjones.com?

Sincerely,

Eric Umansky
Associate Editor
The MoJo Wire
Solid Oak’s response:

From: "Brian Milburn" bmilburn@solidoak.com>
To: Eric Umansky
Organization: Solid Oak Software, Inc.
Subject: Re: Why are we being blocked?
Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996

Eric,

MoJo Wire was blocked because of our educational customer complaints (9) last year for gay/lesbian issues. I am sorry, I do not have any more detail than that.

I have reviewed both sites. My *personal* opinion of Al Franken is that while he is a comedic genius, he is one of the most illogical, shallow, and overrated dim wits given any creditability whatsoever when it it comes to politics and social issues. I would like to see him blocked until the cows come home. Just because someone is well known it doesn't mean they have the ability to reason.

However, my personal opinions are not the criteria by which a site is included in the blocking list. Upon review, you have (or now have) a magazine format that is totally acceptable (except Al Franken) and I don't believe would be considered offensive to anyone.

I will see to it that the site(s) are removed from the filter file tomorrow and that all updates will reflect the change. I apologize for any inconvenience.

Brian Milburn

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

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