I'm also voting a qualified "Yes" because I assume that conversation across generations is innocent until shown to be otherwise. It's one of the most natural ways for children to learn, and I was hoping to list situations where it was safe for children to talk to trusted adults. Unfortunately my list, which began
"family/ school/ church/ work" , ran into problems straight away because of the way these institutions have allowed predators to operate. So we clearly need tighter safeguards to protect children against a minority with sinister intentions.
In MB's favour is the fact that contact with younger members stays in the realm of typed messages, and I hope stays in the open on these boards. AFAIK children are now taught from quite an early age about safe internet behaviour, so that as long as people are following the usual internet constraints about sharing personal info, I can't see that any serious grooming can take place here, and anything approaching the inappropriate is likely to be picked up by the mods.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SGR
If you had a 14 year old kid, would you allow them to go on message boards talking with random strangers? I wouldn't. I mean, look at some of the dialogue we have here - some of the jokes we tell - some of the things we talk about. We have a lax moderation policy regarding most of this (which I like), but is it really an appropriate place for kids? Often times, I'd say no.
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^ One bad thing about MB is this: as SGR reminds us, the forum is open for anyone to read, from a 10-year-old to your grandmother, but we don't usually consider that, either in the heat of an argument, or in a volley of joking insults. How many innocent lurkers are we all unwittingly corrupting, just by our regular chat?!
On a lighter note, without looking it up, I'm pretty sure "methinks" is all one word, and to the question "Is it ok to talk to younger people?" I have the counter-question, "Well, who else can I talk to here?"
