tigressjewel said:
Wow, this really strikes a cord with me, so bear with me, it could take a minute, lol This isn't a comment on your post personally qruthie, but just thoughts that came to my mind from reading the above statement.
This is exactly why they are so careful about personal information being shared in the game. In my view many kids are expected to behave and conduct themselves in much more of an adult way than used to be. I think a lot of homes have both parents working or are single parent, which leaves kids home unsupervised. My son is 12, he's very mature and very smart. He's also very responsible and I do sometimes leave him for a couple of hours to shop or something. Just because he is a "good boy" though doesn't make him an adult. Kids just haven't learned yet how to always make the right decisions regarding when its ok to trust a person and when its not. Toss into that mix the fact that its totally possible to portray yourself in any way you like online and have it be believable (expecially for an impressionable kid) and you have potential for very real danger. I don't mean to sound paranoid about this, but when I read about or see on tv about a 40yr old man who friends a 13yr old girl by posing as a 17yr old boy it scares the holy you know what out of me!! I watched a News show not long ago where they set up a sting. They had an adult pose as a 12yr old in a chat room and you would not believe the things men much older were saying. Several of them got the address and showed up at a house they had set up with cameras with no good intentions believe me!
I do have opinions that match most of yours as far as the way VMK handles things, seems they still have a long way to go to get it all figured out. I am definetely annoyed about bans of people who are a positive infuence in the game too. I guess we all just need to keep writing in and giving our feedback along with suggestions to help them improve. I didn't mean to go so long on this subject but as you can tell, I feel very strongly about doing my part to keep the internet (and vmk) as safe as possible!
No offense taken. I have the same concerns as you. Mal said it best, you don't know who you are talking to. It could be male, female, adult or child. That's why I don't like that VMK treats any "personal" information as fact. This is going to be long winded but I hope it makes sense. I'm still cranky and now I have a major headache. Neither improves the clarity of my thoughts.
I'm going to think out of the box a bit here... Perhaps we should be allowed/forced to create profiles for our characters with false locations, professions, school names, etc.. VMK could provide a list of things to choose from, much like they allow us to choose the sex, hair color, skin color and facial features for our characters. Locations could be made up like Frontiertown and could have schools like Duckville School. Kids could form groups together by chosing the same demographic information. My main thought about this is that the characters would probably assume the false traits (based on my limited knowledge of games like Dungeons and Dragons) rather than the traits of the humans behind the characters. I'm not foolish enough to believe that people wouldn't still try to share information but having a character profile based on fantasy would seem to reinforce that this virtual game is fantasy. For example, if you ask a Dungeons and Dragons person about themselves within the context of the game, they aren't likely to respond with their human (or mundane) name. They will say something like, "I am Gandalf the Grey Wizard". When you ask for more information, they tell you about their character's attributes such as strength and intelligence or perhaps which types of magic they possess. The beauty of it is, they don't see it as YOU doing the asking, they see your character. I'd love to hear your opinions about this, especially if you have some experience with role playing games.
I've seen the reports about adults posing as teens and setting up meetings with unsuspecting teens. That is 100% unacceptable. I have repeatedly warned my children about that sort of person. To make the picture more realistic for them, I have told them to assume that the person they are talking to is my father, their grandfather. Why did I choose him? Well, he's a bit creepy looking (sorry Dad!) and my children know he visits websites that are seedy. I don't for a second believe my father has posed as a young boy or young girl but using him as an example for my children seems to have worked. Once my son was "chatting" with a 15-year-old girl he didn't know. He called me in to see it and laughed about it probably being Grandpa and had me stay with him while he chatted. He was 12 or 13 at the time. The important message to me was that he realized it was quite likely an adult posing as a kid was chatting with him, not a 15-year-old girl. The bonus was that he wanted me to stay with him and supervise the chat.
I've seen scarier reports about testing kids with strangers. The conclusion was teens were more vulnerable to posers than young children are. One test that was done had a man using crutches and trying to carry a brief case in a mall. He then asked teens to help him by carrying his brief case to his car. Every single teenager he asked for help cooperated with him without hesitation! When they got to his car he asked them to put the brief case in the back seat (putting themselves in the position to be easily shoved into the car). At some point the teens were shown that they had been tricked, the man didn't need crutches and didn't need help with his brief case and he could have easily kidnapped the kids. Even the kids couldn't believe how naive they were. I've seen the same test with a person supposedly looking for a lost dog.
By the way, I'm very impressed with how serious we are treating this subject. I liken it to figuring out how to worry about our children and protect them without going completely insane.
qruthie (the 'q' is silent)
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