Trollheart

Continuing a hijacked thread, what do you think? The contention from at least jwb is that our attempts to educate 14, now 15-year old Eleanor Rigby in a thread where she asked for music recs is evidence that we were all grooming her, or trying to. Who feels this is correct? Do you worry about approaching those younger than you here, for fear of being accused of being a perv or a creep? Particularly with young girls of course. Or is there enough of a demarcation line for you in your behaviour between innocent chat about music and attempts to divert your conversation into more personal areas? Wonder what everyone thinks about this?

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

rubber soul

I think we just need to let this one go.

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jwb

Me thinks thou do protest too much, TH. I think that's how you say that phrase.

SGR

The internet is weird. One thing I will agree with jwb on is under most circumstances, you'd never find yourself (assuming you're older) chatting with random 14 year olds in real life. You ever watch those vigilante predator catcher Youtube videos, the ones that are like DIY-Chris Hansen Dateline NBC videos? One of the excuses that the chomos will often use is: "Oh we were just chatting as friends, we have a lot of common interests, we were just gonna hang out and maybe watch a movie..." to which the retort is usually: "Oh yeah? You [some scraggly looking 36 year old creep] have a lot in common with 14 year old boys/girls? What the **** were you gonna talk about, how annoying biology homework is?!", etc.

Of course, the internet puts us into contact with everyone, and sometimes we don't even know the age. If I had my druthers, we'd only allow 18 or older on the site, but we don't, our sign-up guidelines state you need to be 14 years or older.

If we were to consider that this wasn't the internet - and we were all a group of adults who had regular in-person meetups to talk **** with each other, would we be okay with some unaccompanied 14 year old joining in with us? I don't think so.

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.

When I was 15/16 and working my first real job - I'd often talk with some of the older guys I worked with about classic rock. But of course, work was a very structured and supervised environment. I don't think strictly talking about music and exchanging opinions about music with younger people is weird, but a lot of it depends on context.

rubber soul

I think it's actually, "Me thinks thou doth protest too much"

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jwb

I knew I was ****ing it up somehow.

ribbons

Voted "As long as it remains only about music" because I don't think it's de facto pervy merely to recommend music to a 14 year old. However, needless to say, not everyone can be trusted to maintain that boundary - and there lies the problem.

^ Totally agree. But how to prove "18 or older"? Another problem.

Absolutely not. I've always been strict about closely supervising my children's internet use; but the issue is, you can't be everywhere all of the time. I would never in a million years knowingly allow my child to be on this or any other internet forum chatting to strangers.

Not saying anyone here has bad intentions (and especially not Trollheart, who is a good person), and no disrespect intended - but I think allowing underaged girls or boys on here is inappropriate and potentially dangerous.

Lisnaholic

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.

^ 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?"

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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

The Batlord

Is it okay if I tell your kids to listen to Cannibal Corpse?

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ribbons

Of corpse.

My son likes The Ramones and The Stooges - so I must have done something right.