Bulletin Boards: what can go wrong?
 

To complement , our eZine launching next week, and truly building a national dialogue with, and within, girls in the U.S., we are considering a bulletin board on. Here's a quick set-up of basic the shell: [

Unfortunately, A LOT can go wrong with predators being the worst case scenario. Below is an outline of precautions and safeguards we will take to ensure safety as well a healthy environment for our posters.

Request: please let me know if you think it will work, if there is something we have overlooked, if you just think there's no way it will work at all. That is a very real option.

1. We will follow all the rules as outlined in COPPA, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. For a bulletin board, this means that if you are under 13, your parent or guardian has to fax their signature saying it is OK for their child to participate in our BBS.

2. While not stipulated in COPPA, we were thinking of also placing a personal phone call to a parent AFTER getting the signed authoriation. or having them place a toll free call to us.

3. Posting: no posts will ever be automatically posted. A series of full-time BBS monitors will read each and every post and then allow only those that are "OK" to go up.

4. Therefore, the BBS will be open from 9AM EST to 9PM PST.

5. Personal information: we will pull all personal contact information from each post/thread.

This will be an entirely closed circuit.

Question: Will this kill the "community" aspect?

Could we get parents involved? Too cumbersome?

is there a way we can get teachers involved? Incenting them to help isn't a problem.

Moderators will be able to call a poster via supplied contact info if they see "safe" but suspicious posts.

OK, what can go wrong?

We think there's a very real chance this won't work at all, but thought I would throw it out there.

Number three is the killer, I need not read further. Children are impatient and will NOT wait for posts to be "approved" Heck, I wouldn't.

Agreed Joel, but I think it's the only way to 99.9% keep predators out.

We can easily create scripts that pull information out based on characters and patterns of characters. We have also thought of more moderators reading/reading/reading and picking stuff up, but info will still be up even if just for a short time.

Any thoughts on how to make it work?

Simply police it. Or ask yourself if the sales/customer loyalty gains are actually worth the expense/liability/headaches.

If you go so far as to "verify", I feel you're hangin your corporate asss out in the wind if one sneaks by.

Hmmm, You'll call the parent after receiving the FAX? What if that adult is the predator? You may want to talk to the kid as well.

Publicized IP tracking may be a good deterrent.

Will you prevent PMs? That's where the undehanded stuff will likely go down.

Good thoughts Rick, thanks. Yup, PM is turned up. talking with both the mom and the kid at the same is a good idea which would allow us to open up the forum for immediate posting.

We aren't planning on thousands of girls doing this, rather in the 100s, but think it has potential as a competitive advantage, especially being a place where girls can share their drive experiences, etc.

How far away from Montclaire are you? Our first doll drive is happening at Hip Chic on Sept. 17.

Montclair is about 25-30 minutes from me. Will you be there?

BTW, downtown Montclair is an up-n-comin area which suffered from a few years of decline. IIRC they are in the initial phases of a revival.

It's actually in Upper Montclair and the town seems really nice.

I wasn't planning on it, but yes, I may come down and check it out. Will let you know.

Cool, Let me know.

Upper Montclair.....very nice upscale area. Lots of old money there.....

It's bad enough that I feel strange checking out your website, Shaun. Worse that my draconian work internet filter just blocked one page as porn.

My gut reaction is that a BBS which is operated by a business and lends itself to juvenile girls is a huge liability. I wouldn't do it.

What are the other online "gathering places" for your age demographic? What are the rules there? My initial hunch is that your rules will stifle participation. Kids use online in large part to get away from parental influence and hook up with their peers. If parents are interested into too many parts of the process, it won't fly.

One of our researchers looks at this stuff. I'm meeting with her at 3...maybe she'll have some insight. But you'll have to pay ;)

I think kids do the IM thing with their friends.
A good place to check is Nick Online. If anyone has researched it it would be them: http://www.nick.com/blab/

Personally I don't care for their "stacked" thread architecture. Seems to be cumbersome and less conversational. (Maybe for a reason :))

Think about this: a strange male voice calls up to confirm data about a young teen girl?

BZZZZT.

You need your 'front' people to be female.

IMHO, you need to establish "classes" of permissions. In order to maintain liveliness, everyone you've vetted should start out with full permission. Posting a phone number or other prohibited info gets one warning; then on the second violation, all posts from that person are filtered/delayed.

If you don't allow spontaneity, I think you'll kill it, dead. We are probably talking about penalizing 98% for the 2% who can't behave.

The secondary attraction for most participants would be a 'blog' area.

Good luck!

Yeah, just look ay THIS place...
:)

Grant - there are dozens of BBS off the top of my head who lend themselves to juveniles - not necessarily girls - but juveniles nonetheless. Coming from the comic book/animation arena, many of the posters on these sites are under 18.

I think Shaun's concern is very legitimate: the idea here is to police while not killing the community. My thought is that G9Girl should abide by COPPA and at the same time police the site themselves. Yes, parental approval is a nice selling point - and reassuring, but here again, parental approval or too much intervention for safety's sake in fact could compromise the community feel.

I like what Z-Man does with the OT Thread. In the event that someone misbehaves, they are banned - usually temporarily, and are asked to speak with Z-Man via email, where I'm certain the misbehavior is discussed. Up to that point, Z-man seems to monitor each thread with the idea it could be lascivious in some manner, yet using, as I see it, common sense toward what is and what is not offensive.

I think the thing to do is "learn" the audience, and get used to styles, vernacular, themes, etc., of what the girls will discuss, and as Joel says, self-police accordingly. Secondly: stipulate or give warnings to the girls - up front on the BBS - about personal information and the dangers of giving that out. Third: to cover G9 Girl's ass, G9 Girl should not ask for personal information in order for a girl to register. Other than a sign-in name (like dd74, lendaddy or Shaun 84 Targa), city and state of origin and a personal quote, and some other very general information, no other personal information should be used on the BBS. It is done like this for the Pelican BBS, and I think it could work for the G9 Girl BBS.

The hope is that the less information that the G9 Girl BBS asks for, the less ammunition (I would hope) a predator has at his/her disposal.

Tech - so you're saying if a girl posts her own personal information, she should be warned about violating BBS rules? I think that's a very good idea. Make the girls' privacy their own responsibility...and then take away permissions if they continue to post information that is too personal.

I don't think I could get one minute of sleep if I was hosting a BBS for pre-teen girls. What a NIGHTMARE! Some creep will find a way around your security. I wouldn't want that responsibility.

Wait! This could be fun. Let's get Mark Wilson and Tabs to sign up on the G9Girl BBS. :eek: :eek: :eek:

Even I have limits.....