I'm having a frustrating time with perfectly legitimate domains that seem to have been arbitrarily tagged with negative categories (e.g. pornography, malware, nudity, etc.). Reviewing some of the blocked domains on my network, it seems that over 50% are legitimate domains that have been incorrectly tagged. (All the websites that my users visit are Japanese, which should be difficult for a non-Japanese speaker to review and categorize). If a user tries to access a legitimate domain but cannot due to an incorrect tag, then their work may be hindered.

It seems that the offenders who are haphazardly tagging domains also seem to have lots, and lots, and lots of "points." I can only assume that these people are submitting arbitrary domains by the thousands, without properly reviewing them or even visiting them, using the handy one-click domain submission page. All in the name of racking up points. With such a convenient system it would be bound to be abused at some point.

Is there any mechanism in place to keep the above behavior in check? One thing that I can think of is to have some sort of "reliability" score for each OpenDNS user which rates how accurate one is at categorizing websites. If one submits a category for a website and it is eventually approved, then their reliability score goes up. If one submits a category for a website that is eventually rejected (e.g. tagging a technology site as being pornographic), then their reliability score goes down. Since points seem to be such a big thing, one could be penalized points if their reliability score is low.

This post seems to have evolved from "question" to "suggestion," and probably wasn't posted in the most appropriate forum. So I hope nobody minds. Any thoughts?

The issue of abuse or misuse of the tagging system is one that is continually discussed in other channels. From my experience action can and is taken when concerns are raised but it may be some time before you see results due to the complicated nature of the systems involved. Please use the 'flag for review' system and the forums to raise concerns about particular sites.

Reviews of sites in other commonly spoken languages is no longer of great difficulty given the ability to freely translate those sites in a speedy fashion and a difference in language should not be used as an excuse to tag sites incorrectly.

If the tags are not approved, they are unlikely to be corrected, as there is nothing to correct. Vote against, instead. Once the negative is approved, then the site is at no risk of being incorrectly approved for a category.

As previously stated action is taken when the body of evidence warrants it. All users can help by flagging sites for review and thereby bringing the issue to the attention of members of staff.

lol