Q...it is clear that certain administrators can set parameters to block any site they wish to. If someone at a company reads a naughty thread and decides to block Mudcat, there is little we can control.

The issue, once again, is if & how a site like Mudcat gets blocked by ordinary filtering programs, where the page, as loaded, gets scanned for forbidden words or topics. On many sites....for example, porno sites, there are words and phrases that hit you in the face as soon as the page is loaded. This is done ON PURPOSE to allow search engines to find them so that those seeking porn can find them. Some even hide long lists of explicit words & phrases in white-on-white small script to maximize the number of hits! These places are TRYING to sell porn, and work hard to BE found.

Now the question is, can or does a security program which uses a word list and related features, look *INSIDE* Mudcat threads to make its decisions? If "fuck" were in only on one Mudcat thread in 9 years, would the program read a couple of hundred thousand threads and cause the automatic censor feature to kick in? I doubt it! But if FUCK is in one of the thread titles at the moment someone loads Mudcat, of course it will!
Then, I suppose, there may be a feature that places an offending site on a "do not allow" list, just as I can put spam IP addresses in my email filters. In this way, a site like Mudcat could be perfectly safe IF a user did not open threads that indicate there might be naughty words.

   The whole point is, MOST censoring filters and programs deal only with what they see, and 99.9% of Mudcat is NOT visable at any one time. But as I have said, anyone who is interested in bawdy (I wonder if THAT word is censored?) lyrics can easily find them INSIDE the threads, and John Mehlberg can easily phrase a title to indicate that bawdiness is contained within. Interest in bawdy lyrics being what it is, those who care about such things..(INCLUDING ME!) can open the thread, and it is not likely John will miss many likely contributors to his research.

I do NOT see why it is so difficult for some folks to separate the issues of whether explicit material should be 'available', and whether very explicit language should appear in thread TITLES.

Let me end with a joke:

A woman was touring a town in Israel when she spotted a small store with dozens of interesting watches and clocks in the window.
She stepped inside and said to the proprietor, "You have such an interesting display in your window. Do you sell timepieces?"

"No, I don't," said the storkeeper.

"Well, then you must repair them," exclaimed the woman.

"No, I don't repair them either," said the man.

"Well, what do you do?" asked the woman.

"I perform circumcisions!" said the man.

"But you have watches and clocks in your window!" exclaimed the woman.

The man replied, "So what should I put in the window?"