I deliberately chose to avoid asking about classification systems and rather instead wanted to focus on the "policing" issue.

The problem with classification systems is always their inadequacy in relation to forums and/or dynamic content, whereby it's quite easy to slip in porn under the radar. I mean even here at Procooling there's been the odd tits'n'arse photo floating about, and I think most anyone would be hard pressed to claim that Procooling deserved a *.porn domain rating (although some might disagree).

so you don't want censorship but you want your work to excersize it over you?
that doesn't make any sense to me... :shrug:

My network Admin did that a few years ago.. banned the ability to view all porn webpages... That got removed pretty quick... head of the company complained :evilaugh:
My step daughter wanted info on the white house so went to whitehouse.com...
betcha it had nothing to do with the government at the time...
IExplorer has it under "Content Advisor" Look in your options...
on the other hand i don't know how well it works...

The only acceptable way of classifying material, as I see it, is making the system totally opt-in. (someone mentioned this earlier)

Instead of forcing the .bad/.porn/.xxx on unwanted content sites, you could get .kids/.safe and make siteowners apply for that. Then you could filter out all content BUT .kids on your children's logins.

It would be like security certificates, demanding proof from an indepent party that content is good. Like Thawte etc does today with SSL certs

You know, that's the best idea I've heard so far. It should keep everyone happy.

The problem of course is that it would end up costing something, but I don't see why this couldn't be done in the same spirit as Open Source software development.

but that all already exists with "Content Advisor" in IE.
works through IRCA (Internet Content Rating Association)
and it's free...
Linky

Kewl. I just added it to my site; worked transparently.

Don't you think "crawling hypocrisy" is a little strong for folks that don't want internet censorship? If you give over the decision of what is and what is not to be censored to an "authority" how is it not a slippery slope?
IMHO the "best" solution is for there to be lots of IRCA type lists/categorizations - and individuals can pick out the ones that best fits what they want and don't want to see for both themselves and for their family
Don't think your kids should get poisoned by exposure to evolution or the possibility they might consider the world to be any older than expressed in the Bible - filter through biblebelt.com or godsrevelations.com or whatever. Live in china and want to be sure your kids aren't poisoned by thoughts of democracy, filter through redchinaisbest.com, or maybe taiwanisreallypartoftheprc.com.
Of semi-related interest, Ted Nelson seems to have foreseen this problem in his 70's era design/proposal of a "hyperverse" - the idea of "subscribing" to sets of information lists, links, and filters is his, not mine...