A long time ago, my adventures in blogging began in AOL’s “J-land.” While I was there, there were controversies on other people’s blogs — they called them “journals” — about content and Terms of Service. The TOS police of AOL are vigilant, which is both a good thing and a bad thing.

It’s good because it means someone is watching to make sure that inappropriate content doesn’t get lots of exposure. Some people get bent out of shape over that, screaming “censorship.” That’s not really a valid concern, since the people who have blogs on AOL — and most other blogging services for that matter — must first agree to the Terms of Service in advance.

But it’s bad because the Terms of Service are invariably vague when it comes to describing what is and is not appropriate. You could write the most innocent, well-intentioned post imaginable and have someone still take offense in this crazy world we live in. Or, you could write a post meant to push buttons, only to receive nearly unanimous agreement and kudos.

In the past, I argued that AOL really needed a rating service for its blog feature, so that the users themselves could determine how their blogs should be classified. Readers would then have to agree that they want to read a blog with an ‘R’ rating or an ‘NC-17’ rather than sticking with ‘G’-only blogs.

Unless you have someone visit your blog and actually read your posts, there is no way an outsider can come up with an appropriate rating that describes your content.

Here’s an example, from Mingle, which, apparently, is a dating service. When this blog is checked by its Blog Rating test, it gets this rating:

It says no “bad words” were found, but I thought there were a few lesser ones lying around here somewhere. Out of curiosity, I ran the URL of the Blogger version of “Patrick’s Place” through and got this result:

Despite the fact that I try to keep the profanity no worse than what might be encountered in daytime television, the subject matter is an important consideration that apparently isn’t taken into account at all by such a test.

I’ve tackled subjects like religion, abortion, homosexuality, and child abuse. I think some of those wouldn’t be subjects that are appropriate for “all ages.” At best, I think this blog should be rated ‘PG-13.’ But I wouldn’t object to reading a blog I knew had scored an ‘R’ or even an ‘NC-17.’ Different people express useful, interesting ideas in different ways. Too much profanity will turn me off. But some, used within reason and when reasonably necessary, hardly ever will.

It’s all a matter of perspective, which is the problem with blanket rules of decency that never spell out what decency actually is.