CYBERsitter Correspondence Round 1

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The MoJo Wire:

To: bmilburn@solidoak.com
From: Eric Umansky
Subject: Why are we being blocked?
Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996

Dear Mr. Milburn-

It has come to my attention that one of your pieces of software, Cybersitter, is blocking *one* of the domain names of our site, The MoJo Wire. The domain being blocked is www.mojones.com. The MoJo Wire is the online sister publication of Mother Jones, a magazine dedicated to "investigating and reporting on the important social and political issues of our time. " While Mother Jones prides itself on engaging substantive issues, we do not host any pornographic material or material that would be inappropriate for those under 18 (your own criteria).

Please explain why a site such as ours, that has a political focus, is currently being blocked. Or, if our site was blocked unintentionally, please remove the block.

By the way, any explanation for blocking one of our urls www.mojones.com and not blocking the other www.motherjones.com?

Sincerely,

Eric Umansky
Associate Editor
The MoJo Wire

Solid Oak’s response:

From: "Brian Milburn" bmilburn@solidoak.com>
To: Eric Umansky
Organization: Solid Oak Software, Inc.
Subject: Re: Why are we being blocked?
Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996

Eric,

MoJo Wire was blocked because of our educational customer complaints (9) last year for gay/lesbian issues. I am sorry, I do not have any more detail than that.

I have reviewed both sites. My *personal* opinion of Al Franken is that while he is a comedic genius, he is one of the most illogical, shallow, and overrated dim wits given any creditability whatsoever when it it comes to politics and social issues. I would like to see him blocked until the cows come home. Just because someone is well known it doesn't mean they have the ability to reason.

However, my personal opinions are not the criteria by which a site is included in the blocking list. Upon review, you have (or now have) a magazine format that is totally acceptable (except Al Franken) and I don't believe would be considered offensive to anyone.

I will see to it that the site(s) are removed from the filter file tomorrow and that all updates will reflect the change. I apologize for any inconvenience.

Brian Milburn

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The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

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