If the Kid's Crater were to be moved where would it go?

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First: A Disclaimer....
I'm not a prude etc and I'm not going to have a fit if this goes nowhere - so please don't take this out on me (or any other WP people for that matter) - it's just a discussion to get feedback.

So, what's this all about?
There are suggestions in this forum that moving the kids crater away from the adult discussion could reduce the number of children accidentally reading inappropriate material. So... the plan is two-fold..

1. To work out where it could be moved.
2. Once we have a new location, to do a poll - that says...
Should we move the kid's crater to location x.
Answer 1 - Yes
Answer 2 - No
Answer 3 - No Opinion

If we get enough yes's we will ask for it to be moved.

Of course, whether it actually happens or not from then is probably up to Alex (who hopefully won't take too much offence at this posting)...


So... below is a rough list of the WP Forum structure... Please make any comments about where it should be moved - I guess other comments would be welcome too.

Bear in mind, we're only after where things should go at the moment, not IF. So if you have a lot of bad comments, could you hold them for the next topic the one with the poll...

General Discussion
- General Autism Discussion
- Random Discussion
- Getting to know each other
- News and Current Events
- Members Only Discussion
- Off the Wall: Forum Games, Quizzes, Roleplaying, etc.

Coping in life
- Parents' Discussion
- Love and Dating
- The Haven
- Friendship and General Social Interaction
- School and College Life
- Work and finding a Job

Topical Discussion
- Art, Writing, and Music
- Television, Film, and Video
- Computers, Math, Science, and Technology
- Games, Sports, and Fitness
- Politics, Philosophy, and Religion

Age/Gender related discussions
- Adult Asperger Issues
- Women's Discussion
- In-Depth Adult Life Discussion
- Adolescent Asperger Forum
- Kids' Crater

Administration
- WrongPlanet.net discussion
- Stats

Foreign Languages
- Español, Nederlands, Deutsch, Français

The modification could be as simple as reversing the order of the age / gender section. Sure, the adult section and the kid section would be the same distance apart, but the kids section would be the first that younger members would see of that grouping, rather than the last.

Yes to reversing the order of the age/gender forums.

If that will help stop any situations involved with kids wandering where they shouldn't, then yes.

I think that would be a good idea, I mean It's never happened to me but I suppose it would be helpful for some people, Like when I try to close MSN Messenger and end up clicking on a button on one of my toolbars

That's what I think would be the best option too. I am all for a poll about this issue too. Being a lone voice in the wilderness is a scary place to be.

I like this idea myself but it still wont stop young minors on the site going onto google and typing in certain words or just go into the adult section onlyway i definatly think it be a good idea,

Comet said:

Yep, that's why I said the aim was to prevent accidental clicking.

Honestly, if kids want to read juicy stuff, I'm sure they can find places much more interesting than our adult forums.

I just realised that there is also the adolescent forum where young people have to go past the adult forum first. If it is decided to move the crater to the top of the age discussions, the adolescent forum could be moved to just under it.

I dont think it change a thing but it be best for it to be reveresed i think i read that if theres enough people that want this change then alex might consider the change,

i think there should be 3 types of accounts...

kids accounts to everyone under 13 (they will be restricted to the crater only)
teens accounts to everyone 13-18 (they will be restricted to the adolescents and all NON adult forums)
18+ all access account

I dont think it work to be honest strapples maybe blocking the adult section only to minors would be better but we already have alot of minors on WP and wouldnt be able to block the adult discussion from every single one of them,

I’ve added a preliminary poll.

For future reference, Site Discussions do not headline on the home page. I feel discussions of the site are very important and of great interest to the membership. I feel that site discussions should first be posted in the General Discussions section so that they will headline on the home page. They can later be moved to the Site Discussions section.

Thank-you gbollard.

An initial, and fairly pointless comment now, is that raising this whole subject as an issue has probably resulted in far more younger members going and looking at the adult section than would ever have gone there accidentally for years. It's no use crying over spilt milk, as the expression goes.

I'd suggest that whatever the outcome/decision, the members who discus this subject here should be open to the idea that this thread is deleted as soon as a reasonable period of discussion is over.

That said, I'll list my main objections to a move.

• Any move may well unsettle children who are familiar with where their forum is.
• Any move may result in children "finding" the adult section whilst looking for the Crater.
• Any move will, to some degree, draw attention to "why" the move is made.

I'll leave it at that, although there are several other minor objections that I can think of (such as a worst case scenario, whereby a predator may be alerted to the existence of the crater by a move).

I was suggesting that a move might well be better done if "cloaked" in a larger reorganisation. I welcome the suggestion of reversing the whole section. That does make it less obvious why the reorganisation is happening. Unfortunately, it has very little real effect. The crater is not significantly nearer the top of the page and is exactly the same distance away from the adult forum.

I don't think I have any better suggestion.

I'll still vote for no change, at present, unless someone can come up with a significantly better place to move it to. I.e. I don't think enough benefit would be gained from reversal to outweigh the above objections.

I'd leave it where it is, until there were other more pressing changes to be done (e.g. addition of removal of forums), then address this problem at that time.

Not pointless at all.

MrMark said:

Oh, ok.. thanks... I never would have thought of that.

lau said:


Yes, actually quite funny if we weren't being so serious...

I was expecting people to chime in with more radical changes, so have been a little surprised that a reordering is all that most people require. Strapples raised an interesting point about different types of accounts but it looks like a bit of programming work and I doubt it would be childproof.

lau said:


Yes, you're probably right though I do think that this is a good example of how changes should be considered at WP, instead of what was happening in the forums. It would be nice to have an example to point to next time someone complains about things.