OpenDNS Domain Tagging Moderators & Moderation System
Hello everyone. I mainly want this to be seen by the OpenDNS Staff, but of course, all community members are welcome to give their opinions and thoughts as well.
I made a support ticket regarding this topic about a month ago. Pretty much all I was told that is that it has been discontinued for the forseeable future. I don't know how long ago it has been since this program was discontinued, but I feel that it should be brought back again... very soon. It is really needed!
I am also open to helping the community with getting domains tagged that need to be and report any false positives to higher ups so that they may make changes to existing domains. Or help do that as well, if Moderators can even do that.
I do not want to have to create and submit a support ticket each time for a domain, or multiple domains, just to be reviewed. I have flagged so many domains for review and yet, after checking up on them myself multiple times, the results are still the same - the wrong tags are/tag is still accepted, the correct tag(s) needed has/have been rejected, or the current correct tags are/tag is still pending. Many of these domain tags just sit there each day in limbo land, and having more help would definitely help speed things along.
A small piece of constructive criticism: If something has been discontinued, would you please put a note of it on the website where it originally was showing information about it being discontinued, or, remove it from any OpenDNS webpages altogether? It feels really misleading to apply to something that has not been ongoing for some time and discouraging to then get told that the program has been discontinued in a support ticket - this coming from my recent experience. Note: The FAQ webpage and Domain Tagging Moderator application form.
I really hope you will consider bringing this program back.
Thank you for your time to read this.
-
I hate limboland! I've not submitted millions of domains like some accounts seem to have done, but I have done hundreds of them, maybe thousands. At one point there was a count on my profile page, but that's broken now, maybe for anyone who has submitted and/or voted on a domain. The only ones I see showing now are all zero.
I agree with your constructive criticism statement. I submitted an application long ago (March 2018) and sent a follow-up note via the application a little over a month later (April 2018), yet I don't think I ever received a response to it. I now suspect it was discontinued back before I submitted for it. I signed up to use OpenDNS back in 2008 and probably started submitting and voting on domains not long after I created an account. I'm still waiting for a response to my application as of May 2023.
I would love to be able to help more, and yes, it's selfish - I want it to work for me, but also, I like to see things done completely/correctly - having things categorized correctly so the system works well for everyone is pleasing to me.
I wonder if this has anything to do with OpenDNS having been handed off to Cisco. 🤔
-
Here are some related OpenDNS Community - Idea Bank posts that could help as well, which people have suggested because of the slow categorization of sites due to no votes and maybe lack of ability to keep up with voting moderation/approvals:
- Can we block pornography while it's waiting for votes / pending? – OpenDNS [2019-09-03] - An option in a comment by godfreyko on September 17, 2019 22:23 suggests offering it as an option, rather than as the "default family filter or the whole site" enforcement. (Also see the reply by rotblitz immediately below it.)
- OpenDNS tag sites – OpenDNS [2021-02-28] - voting system issue / quick block for user
- Domain classification: sort newest to oldest – OpenDNS [2022-05-02] - assist with getting votes on newly submitted domains
- Block more malware by default – OpenDNS [2022-10-06] - People going elsewhere because the OpenDNS community voting/moderation system is slow to respond to submitted categorizations of domains, ultimately resulting in domains not being blocked due to correct but unapproved categories.
- Keyword Blocking – OpenDNS [2023-02-18] - suggestion to work around adult sites not being found and submitted/voted/blocked quickly enough
Rather than only working around the issues, I'd rather see OpenDNS try to solve the main issues and take the other feature requests as advice for future features or implement (some of) the more useful, better-defined, features now as true workarounds that can be fixed in a better way eventually, hopefully sooner rather than later.
There could be an official status offered for each of the Idea Bank ideas as a response from OpenDNS management at the top of each Idea, something like the following:
- New/Unchecked
- Investigating
- Rejected
- Possible at a Later Date
- Planned
- Implemented
(I may continue to edit this comment if I find other useful/related ideas.)
-
Robert: After reaching out again and asking about this, applications for Domain Tagging Moderators are on hold for the forseeable future. This is unfortunate and disappointing news, even though I reiderated and expressed the same points again of how much this is needed, but I guess things will remain the same. :(
@OpenDNS: Once again, if you have discontinued a program and nobody knows about this, learning through a ticket and not a public community post... that's a problem. The information and link for the Domain Tagging Moderator Application IS STILL LIVE on the FAQ Webpage. This is causing confusion, has caused confusion, will cause confusion and continue to cause confusion. I guess I may have to switch to another content filtering service. If things are not actively monitored or categorized daily, there are still many potential threats and other content that may slip through the cracks. While I like the concepts that OpenDNS has, I don't want to be running on pending votes all of the time. Basically, untagged domains are allowed by default, which to me personally, is quite concerning and a security risk, and I feel that you should add an Uncategorized category, and, unlimited blacklist and whitelist entries, regardless of OpenDNS claiming it will "break the internet" or not. This is possible with other services, I don't understand why it isn't for OpenDNS. If things turn around and changes happen, I may consider coming back full time, but until then and for now, I guess my account will remain dormant. I'm sorry. This is not meant to bash the company, I just want to express my concerns and give constructive criticism, because it needs to be heard.
-
Reg Ham: I am so sorry for tagging you here. I know you've helped me before in past support tickets, and I greatly appreciate your help and time. While I know this is not your fault at all, I would like to ask and see if there has been any changes to this recently, or, if someone higher up may be able to post here with more information about it?
-
Yes, definitely sad to see things going downhill. I keep categorizing, but more and more I feel like I'm wasting my time.
Though it looks like we're at least up to 2020 and some random 2022 and 2023 ones on the unfiltered [All Categories] https://domain.opendns.com/ page - many "Web Spam" categorizations on there, and it's interesting that even after several refreshes I'm still seeing that and most of them start with "h" for the Web Spam. Makes me wonder what the sort is, though it doesn't look sorted by anything visible, but "xucifer" has added most of the ones I'm seeing.
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
11 comments