I promise I won't go on about PC, politically correct, attitudes, because it is so easy to get outraged at the examples. We collectively have turned or are turning into a bland intolerant bunch of ninnies with no sense of humor, in the name of being sensitive and tolerant. If you want to laugh and/or cry, check out Tongue Tied , a blog.

Here is an example from that site about my old adopted home town:

The Robert E. Lee Council of the Boy Scouts of America in Richmond, Va. voted this weekend to change its name later this year for reasons that should by now be obvious to all, reports WRVA radio. . . . .

I thought I had seen the last of the stupid "Best viewed with Netscape" or similar banners that used to be the hallmark of the bottom of web pages back in the ancient internet days a few years ago. Of course web designers still have to worry about such things, trapping browser types behind the scenes or working out incompatibilities. We know that the web was not lucky enough to have settled on pdf, which would have made content identical on any platform, but instead is saddled with html's less predictable format, even though xml, java, php and the like make things snazzier. On top of this, only maybe 20% use older browsers now, making things more standardized.

My point is that the user, bless his soul, does not have to be warned of these things. What is he going to do? Turn back in shame, or trade up on demand? What was the point of these notices? If he or his company has for some reasonable or non reasonable excuse, stuck with Netscape 3.0 or IE3 or something believe me, he already KNOWS from experience that things are not going to look exactly perfect all the time.

Well, a college student in Virginia, for a class assignment, re-did the concert band web site I started years ago, and abandoned when I moved up north. They must have taught him from an old textbook, because right there on the first page, distracting from the otherwise fine design job he did, is:

Site requires Internet Explorer 5, Netscape 7, Opera 7, or Mozilla 1.3
If you do not have one of these browsers, click here.

I discovered Zeal.com. This is very much like dmoz Open Directory, as it is a human selected and maintained directory for the Web. It is kin to open source programming, since the power is with the masses, not corporate search engines or commercial interests. Unlike Open Directory, which has a hierarchy of specialized editors who must review and categorize everything for you, with Zeal you can become a contributor and start participating right away. You do have to register and learn the guidelines to get started. After this you earn points for good submissions and category selections, which are reviewed by more advanced "Zealots". You are given progressively more authority as you do good work. I think the presence of these types of diretories , feeding results to search engines, helps democratize the web and perhaps will keep the paid marketing forces from taking over.
Zeal.com - Share your knowledge. Set the standard.