I assume you know that the Australian Government plans legislation that will require Australian ISPs to block web pages that contain material that has been “refused classification” under our existing censorship system.

Senator Stephen Conroy seems convinced that this is something the Australian population wants, even though no-one has actually told him that. In getting this wrong, he also seems unaware of the political damage he is doing.

So far, Sen. Conroy has dismissed every cogent and sensible argument put to him that explains what a bad idea the internet filter is.

He has gone on the record conceding the following points:

• It won’t stop people obtaining RC other than via websites.
• It won’t stop children stumbling on x-rated porn or violence.
• It will be easy to avoid.
• It is censorship at a level that is contrary to Australian public standards.
• It presents security concerns.
• It relies on a blacklist principle that is easily corrupted and abused.

And yet, just the other day:

”This is a policy that will be going ahead,” Senator Conroy said. ”We are still consulting on the final details of the scheme. But this policy has been approved by 85 per cent of Australian internet service providers, who have said they would welcome the filter, including Telstra, Optus, iPrimus and iinet.”

Well, iinet has since removed itself from Conroy’s club – and since when does 85% approval by commercial internet service providers carry any weight on this issue?

The funny thing is that Sen. Conroy has fallen into one of the great traps that the web holds for those not used to its digital nature.

Any web designer will tell you that this is not like graphic design, where you create one pixel-perfect copy of your masterpiece and then make endless copies rendered in perfect imitation of the original.

A “web page” (it’s not a page at all, but whatever …) will not only appear different according to browser type and version, connection speed, video card, screen dimensions and a dozen other factors beyond the designer’s control, it is also subject to change. A snapshot assessment of whether a screenful of web content merits classification under Australia’s censorship system – a system designed for old media – is simply inadequate. Who’s up for constant re-assessment of a few billion web pages, then?

Throw in the issue of how to apply classification to material linked to and the whole thing quickly descends into farce.

An expensive, ineffective, unpopular and unrealistic farce that – if it goes ahead – will come to haunt this Government.

There was a time that I had some respect  for Sen. Conroy thinking he really was doing the right thing. I don’t believe that any more and I have lost that respect. The evidence is overwhelming that this is a bad idea. It  increasingly appears that Sen. Conroy is stupid and dangerous, just another inept politician with a use-by stamped on his forehead.

The website for Russell Vale Scouts is my latest effort, and a good example of a very local group working within a global organisational structure.

Or perhaps a better way of putting it is that Scouts is a global organisation requiring very localised web-based shop windows to inform current members and their families as well as attract new members.

It’s the perfect atmosphere for trying new things in just about all aspects of building a web presence, from the first discussions through the user group analysis, content decisions, back end & site management planning, layout & structure, functionality and visual design from paper through Photoshop to browser.

Just as my former experiments with a range of content management systems for dynamic sites resulted in my becoming a WordPress devotee, trying the different themes and plugins available has also pulled me towards a quite narrow range of options.

Currently, I seem to be able to meet all of my existing and new client needs by using Atahualpa or Thesis themes, both of which add a theme-specific set of modification tools that amount to a self-contained CMS within the greater WP framework.

With the RV Scouts site, I delibrately tried five or six different themes, but ended up using Atahualpa because it works so well.

It won’t surprise that I volunteered to set up a website for them. Junior club President Garry Luyten showed great interest in taking a hands-on role in managing the site and expanding it over time, so I set out to design a site that was complete but basic.

WordPress was again the obvious content management system to use, and Atahualpa stood out as the theme of choice, mostly because it offers that modular but flexible approach to finessing the structure and design.

For those who are interested in such things, we used WordPress 2.9 as the content management system, adapting the Atahualpa theme (again).

For particular functionality and layout, we installed the following plug-ins:

Alkivia SidePosts Version 3.0.2

We also installed what have become our standard plug-ins: Akismet, WordPress Automatic Upgrade and WordPress Firewall, and installed Google Analytics code for traffic tracking.

Drawing on extensive experience and community feedback, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 improve upon W3C’s groundbreaking initial standard for accessible Web content.

This new standard from the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) will advance accessibility across the full range of Web content (such as text, images, audio, and video) and Web applications.”

Read the rest of the W3C media release here.

Personally, while I certainly agree that WACG 2.0 moves things forward, I am extremely grateful that someone as clever as Roger Hudson has put together a guide to migrating from WCAG 1.0 to WCAG 2.0, which he has kindly made available through the Web Industry Professional Association website here. WIPA good!

If you go to the website www.penpoemrelay.org you will see the PEN poem relay, a web-based campaign calling for Free Expression in China.

A short poem, “June” by an imprisoned Chinese journalist, Shi Tao, has been translated into more than 90 of the world’s languages and since March 25 has been virtually travelling the globe following the route of the Olympic Torch. Writers all over the world, some of them former political prisoners themselves, have translated and recorded “June”.

“June” is a chilling meditation on the 1989 June 4 military crackdown in Beijing, which ended the Tiananmen Square protests. These remain censored topics in China. Shi Tao is serving a 10-year prison sentence on the charge of “revealing state secrets abroad”. An editor at Contemporary Business News and a freelance journalist, he was convicted for sending an email to an overseas pro-democracy website using a Yahoo! email account. Yahoo! provided the Chinese authorities with his identity. His case has been taken up by PEN, the international writers organisation.

The PEN Poem Relay has become a powerful message of solidarity with the 38 writers and journalists imprisoned in China for their writing. These writers include Han Chinese and Uyghurs as well as Tibetans, so the poem relay is a broader protest than the pro-Tibet message of most of the protestors at the torch relay.

So far the poem has been to 70 locations throughout Europe, the Americas, Africa, the Middle East and South-east Asia. The poem has been translated to major languages, such as English, French, German and Russian, but also to Basque, Tamazight, Krio, Swahili, Cree, Afar, etc.

Go to www.penpoemrelay.org and read, as well as listen to these translations and many others.

Today the poem is published in a number of Australian indigenous languages: Darug, Adnyamathanha, Ngarrindjeri, and Arrernte.”

What a cool idea, so powerful.

For the past 24 hours, I’ve been following the progress of FullCodePress, the local section of an international competition to build a website in a day under controlled conditions.

Australian and New Zealand teams of designers, coders, programmers, content managers and usability professionals have been locked up since 9.30am yesterday until just a short time ago, both building complete websites for a selected non-profit organisation.

The results (Australia, New Zealand) are spectacular. They will of course be judged on a lot more than appearances, but even a cursory look at the code shows beauty is much more than skin deep.

I know the work of some of the Australian contingent and they have maintained their already high standards on this project. When people like David McDonald and Ruth Ellison are involved, you just know you’re going to get good work.

And congratulations to WIPA and Webstock for organising this event. The results will be announced at noon today.

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