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My school has this software on all the computers which filteres out sites which are deemed to be innapropiate.
I have been able to go on MLHH since i found it, but now it's been blocked.
Smartfilter has blocked the site www.mlhh.org, it is the blacklist of inapropiate content.
or something like that..
Why is this banned at shcools?
I surely wouldn't know, but I bet your school will. Ask the school and see what their position is about this.
One possibility may be because this site can lead to others like Gay Mens Long Hair sites, which could be inappropriate? Basically from my experience most sites on school computers will be blocked unless they provide information on topics, not discussion boards like this.
-animosity
My school does that too.... why I don't know.
Same reason as 15-year-old Grant Stranaghan got banned fr. his high school up where "The Troubles" so famously took place. Conform or be banned (or, as w/ MLHH, block'd fr. internet access).
At the risk of being redundant, here's the connecting link for the story as the BBC broke it on the young Mister Stranaghan's plight, already introduced on the board here days ago:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7120547.stm
Or simply click your mouse on the attach'd link. Mayhaps, Beanz, you should bring this net block to the administrators, or even a teacher you have an especially good rapport with, kinda get the ball rolling to unblock MLHH.
Yours for striving and persevering in longhair'd camaraderie,
Quenyan
Because a school is a place for education. Hence, since the only education this website offers is on how to look after your hair, or to promote diversity (which schools hardly care about), then this website is rightfully banned.
[teacher's voice] You should be working at school, not chatting on message boards![/teacher's voice]
In reality though, this software usually works automatically. It scans the website and filtrs out content. In my school, this means blocking ALL forums, no matter what educational value they have, and unblocking is on a case by case basis.
To explain how you could previously visit this website, your school's software probably got updated, and now includes hyperboards in their list of banned forums. Or, as my school does, the technicians periodically spy on what you surf and may ban websites you frequent if they are deemed inappropriate.
You go to school to learn not chat on message boards. When I was in High School on the school computers all we ever did was use message boards and other internet sites that had nothing to do with education. Go to the Buzz board, I bet that is banned too. I don't think it is has anything to do with long hair discrimination. Just go to a Library where blocking such a site would be considered long hair discrimination. Or use MLHH at home.
Most schools block social networking sites like Facebook, Blogger, etc.
There's absolutely no reason to be using those sites from school anyway.
Most all schools do that I'm sure as it's their computer your on and they want you to use it for educational purposes they see fit.
Kevin
That program has been around a very long time. It bans sites in large categories, and the purchaser of the program just picks which categories to ban. You'd have to ask them to specifically exempt mlhh.org to get that done, and they'd probably ask you what educational value the site has, and "good luck, dude" on their seeing that the way you do.
If you google "smartfilter" you will find lots of discussion about the program, including lots of ways to get around it, but I would not advise it. If caught, they might consider it "hacking", and you might be banned from using computers at school altogether.
Schools don't have the manpower to create banned lists, so they just buy them, and the vendors of them get good reputations when "nothing slips through" and when they can promise "more sites blocked than anybody else". This encourages them to block with wanton abandon.
MLHH is a personal endeavor so it is most suitably accessed from home, not work or school. Site logs, though, show that the site does have a lot of activity mid-day, so you are not alone in accessing it at school or work! This is for yesterday, a weekday. Times are California (PST) and since most of our users are in North America, their time at home does not vary more than 3 hours from this:
Time Requests Bytes Sent
----- -------- ------------
00:00 2301 14316470
01:00 2138 21639232
02:00 2689 34165803
03:00 1998 21475639
04:00 1364 18819066
05:00 1951 23496862
06:00 2270 26657682
07:00 3840 37319805
08:00 3218 39619034
09:00 2634 31925343
10:00 2427 29887223
11:00 1990 29811411
12:00 2276 27022843
13:00 3126 32140462
14:00 7118 46952533
15:00 10513 52533082
16:00 4032 33857802
17:00 2313 30117267
18:00 2239 29099403
19:00 2283 29264934
20:00 2998 29391024
21:00 2369 27077066
22:00 5035 29553970
23:00 4819 22825188
Bill
MLHH Tech Crew Chief
Part of the problem might be that the MLHH is user-edited and written. Anything can appear here from swear words to discussion of guns and bombs and anything in between. Granted, it is moderated and edited for content but this can regretfully be imperfect. Of course, the program probably scans and makes a decision on the safe side.
yeah, our school blocks all non-educational websites (minus a few obscure gaming sites) via Websense. This includes message boards/forums. I agree with their reasoning, since it technically doesn't have anything to do with what we do in school. They also are required to block non-educational sites to qualify for a state grant for computers.
But the school does state that the computers are for any use as long as it is unoffensive.
Though of course you can do homework on them
As others have suggested, just ask if it can be unblocked. When I taught, my county school system had a simple form available from the school librarian. A request could be filed giving a basic description of the site and what it is used for.
Your school district might even have the form available online. If anybody has to review the site that may take time and the answer could always be no but it is worth trying. Basically they would rather block too much and approve exceptions rather than the other way around.
Good luck, Beanz!
Elizabeth
It's because we have free speech.
Wait..
It seems like the reason may just be that this is a forum. It's hard to justify why you are on a forum at school (although I'm at work, LOL!).
You're lucky, my personal e-mail (not the one used if you e-mail me from here) is blocked at work. It's on an unusual port number, 8383, so I guess that port is blocked. I need to get around to asking why.