Perhaps being a bit controversial here, but does the OpenDNS model for blocking domains actually work? It seems to me that there is far too much scope for domains to be wrongly tagged and approved, thereby causing too many invalid blocks giving OpenDNS a bad name.

At the moment, my users are complaining that translate.google.co.uk is blocked. We regularly receive information in foreign languages and it is useful to quickly pass it to google to get an idea what it is about.

Looking at the 'approved' tags for translate.google.co.uk it has been tagged with both Proxy/Anonymizer and Web Mail...

You have to ask yourself how that tagging happened? And more to the point, why? Did the 'approver' actually look at the site and decide that it looked like a web mail client, or a Proxy??

Curiously, translate.google.com has not been tagged as such, and when checking the cache it appears to be the same site.

Of course I could just whitelist it, but that defeats one of the purposes of OpenDNS - namely to give me a reliable DNS service that blocks suspicious domains.

I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong, OpenDNS has the potential to be a great service, but at the moment my users are not impressed and I am being pressured to switch it off.

From http://domain.opendns.com/translate.google.co.uk :

Tag Status Is this an appropriate tag?
Webmail added by rotblitz Awaiting Votes
Advertising added by rotblitz Awaiting Votes
Forums/Message boa... added by rotblitz Awaiting Votes
Research/Reference added by rotblitz Approved You didn't vote
Proxy/Anonymizer added by rotblitz Approved You didn't vote

So it seems that you yourself added it as Webmail (awaiting votes). I guess my question is really "What was your motivation for adding it as Webmail??"

In the link you posted, you seem to say that you disagreed with the site being tagged as Proxy/Anonymizer - the list above seems to contradict that, as you were the one adding it!?

Common sense in domain tagging should come from checking carefully before tagging a domain, rather than trying to tag as many domains as possible with nonsensical tags such as Webmail on a translation site. Otherwise OpenDNS will be perceived as not dependable on for keeping users safe. Ultimately, this will hit OpenDNS in that people will be reluctant to subscribe to their paid-for services. I know I wouldn't, unless I could depend on it, which I can't as things stand.

There is a bug within domain tagging that seems to be allowing users to vote on 'phantom' domain tags, and then adds them to the list of tags for that domain as if they've been submitted by the user that voted on it in the first place, regardless of if they have voted 'yes' or 'no' for that particular tag.

We are aware of it and are working on a fix.

Also, tags that are 'awaiting votes' don't apply to that domain until they are reviewed and approved by an OpenDNS moderator.

What's even more frustrating is that, as of a few seconds ago, translate.google.co.uk is accessible even though it is apparently tagged as Proxy/Anonymizer and I've asked OpenDNS to block that category.

Frustrating because of the seemingly random behaviour... So tomorrow, will it or won't it...? Hmmm....

Did you flush local resolver cache(s) or reboot, and clear browser cache(s), and wait 3-5 minutes after changing the setting? (If you didn't just change the setting, this does not apply necessarily.)

translate.google.com can be gamed to be used as a proxy, bypassing things like your OpenDNS filtering settings, so enough people found it important enough to tag and approve it as Proxy/Anonymizer. Yeah, it isn't the primary purpose of Translate to be a proxy, but it can easily be used as one.

@ wolvo2741

Funny thing, I use OpenDNS for ... DNS!
I can't really get a grip on the great number of people who want to use it for blocking, let alone those who think that blocking "is the whole point" of OpenDNS.
I mean, it can only block by domain anyway.