Written By [ Kaimee ] and [ _Dilandau_ ]
Two short articles written by Kaimee and _Dilandau_ in response to a recent article found in Elfwood's Ezine, WoodWorks.
We apologise for the use of a possibly slow outside link, but for copyright reasons cannot publish that article in our own ezine.
They might as well go out with a Big Cynical Bang... by [ Kaimee ]
I don't know how many of you read the woodworks ezine, I don't know how many of you will agree with this particular article, but I just noticed this marvellous little piece of opinion... and I want to know exactly how these people plan on initiating it? I mean, don't get me wrong, it would be GREAT to have paedophile-free internet, and not have to look out for the weirdos who give the net a bad name, but how are we supposed to stop them? and how are we to prevent children from pretending to be older? and how are we to stop anyone interacting with anyone they don't know, just in case one of them is too young, or they'll get romantically involved, or one of them simply turns out to be mentally disturbed?
I mean, yeah, we could expect everyone to behave as they would in "real life" and not accept candy from strangers but hello? What's the first information given to kids who are allowed on the internet? Don't tell anyone your real name, don't tell them where you go to school, don't give them your address, your phone number, your bank details, remember that anyone could be anyone --- no matter what they say --- and that you cannot trust people you do not know, many will be ok, but you could end up talking to a paedophile.
Everyone should be going by this advice, but not to the extent where they assume anyone they do not know in "Real Life" is therefore a greasy fat 65 year old man, who lives in his mother's basement... just to paraphrase a statement I heard recently ;o) The sensible thing everyone should be doing here is to use caution when privately chatting to anyone you dont know. But remember folks, your next door neighbour could turn out to be a serial killer, and you'll still send your kids in to borrow a cup of sugar right? The new kindergarten teacher could be a paedophile, but you don't automatically assume they are. The 'Internet Safety Rules' we got quoted to us in primary school apply to everyone, everywhere, whether on here or at the supermarket. And just because one person doesn't follow them does not mean they are faulty, or that the net is an unsafe place or even that you should never trust anyone you don't know ever again. The net is a great place to make new friends, just like you could make friends with someone next in line at the shops, but use caution, practice safety, and don't blame a site when you or someone else doesn't.
Thanks much for reading, and remember, there will always be stupid people, but its as much our fault as it is yours :)
~Kaimee, your friendly neighbourhood 17 yr old girl, who doesn't give out her bank details.
[ _Dilandau_ ]'s Opinion on the Matter...
I have to agree with [ Kaimee ] on this one. I disliked how they blamed [ Hedda ] and the other administrators of this site and Elfwood for carelessness and even ignorance. The guards leave messages at the top of a member's house warning people of artistic nudity or questionable content. Violent or disturbing images are deleted, so it's not like they're not trying. What do they expect us to do? Privately investigate everyone and somehow make everyone write the correct age in their descriptions? God, you get more porno images looking up 'lime' on Google than on this site. (bad experiences for me -_-;)
Should you ban Google from children? That's absurd and this site is pretty good in that it provides warning in nudity and such. But you can not stop kids from clicking on galleries with artistic nudity. You warned them, but it's their decision in the end. They could just as easily look up porn on Google if they wanted. Elftown never claimed to be a perfect site for little kids. On the internet you'll always find inappropriate material.
Common sense is another one. You just don't give out personal information to anyone. There's even a button to hide or show your email. Mainly, the people that have emails or aim in their descriptions generally want random people to add them. Again, you can not stop people from giving out their information.
Internet safety: How can we improve it? In my mind this site is absolutely perfect, but some other people, after reading that article might want us to act on it. I'm sure we've all gotten the speech on internet safety when we were kids; but I guess that's not good enough for the writers of that woodworks article. I've thought of some things we could do. When someone first joins Elftown, we could give them the idiot's list of things not to do on the internet:
1. Don't give out personal information (your real name, address, etc.)
2. This site contains some artistic nudity
3. This site may have weirdos on it, like any other place on the internet.
4. I suggest you don't go meeting someone you met on the internet in real life. If you do, exercise caution and bring a friend or two, preferably Big friends.
We could up the security a little bit, increase the number of guards and patrollers. Even make wiki investigators who go to all the thousands of wikis and make the owners put up warnings (in red) in all the "Inappropriate For Children wikis (if they haven't done that already). And I still have no idea what that woodworks article was going off on.
Quote: "Still others blame the parents of members or even the members themselves, claiming they should know better than to visit a portion of the site marked adults only... While this might be true, it doesn't explain why there has been no visible attempt to protect children"
Now I'm sorry, but that just contradicted itself. We have marked off the 'inappropriate for children' parts of the site (warnings and such), and yet they say we've done nothing and made "no visible attempt" to protect the children. Usually 'adult only' wiki's are not for children and if the kid doesn't understand that, they have bigger problems to deal with, apart from accidentally seeing artistic nudity. So we get a bit of contradiction here and there. Trying to find a scapegoat, but not one single constructive criticism or suggestion or even vague ideas on plausible way of enforcing the ideals they are so outraged about. So, in my mind, that about sums up the article "No Action is Less than Action."