Allowing Children to Join Online Communities
http://www.webmarktools.net/articles/1115/1/Allowing-Children-to-Join-Online-Communities/Page1.html
Martin Reed
Martin Reed is passionate about online communities. He is the owner and manager of Just Chat, and offers free community building advice at his blog, Community Spark. By Martin Reed
Published on 04/16/2009
Do you manage or own an online community? If so, you may have thought about whether children should be allowed to join. This article will help you decide.
How are you defining a child? Some may consider a child to be anyone under the age of 18, others may say anyone under the age of 21. It is very difficult to come to a number that will be accepted by all. When dealing with these numbers you also have to ask yourself some questions. Is it really wrong for someone who is 18 to be communicating with someone who is 16 or 17?
You also need to make a judgement based on the subject of your community. If it is based around adult activities such as gambling, then of course you should be limiting your membership to those who are legally old enough to gamble. Do not forget that children are more vulnerable than adults, and you need to keep this in mind.
If a community is about a less age specific subject such as video games, then surely it would not be appropriate to ban younger members from joining?
If most of your current members are adults, you should think carefully about whether that environment is the best place for children to be. Regardless of your community guidelines or rules, your adult members may share content or discuss issues of an adult nature from time to time. Not only is this a moral issue, but it could cause you headaches of a bad situation was picked up by the press or if a concerned parent decided to pursue legal action against you.
All online communities should incorporate safety features. If you plan on allowing children to join your online community, you need to ensure that you have ways that members can block other members from communicating with them, and that you have a clear complaint and escalation policy. The fewer safety features your community has, and the fewer moderators there are, the less appropriate it is for you to allow children to join.
It can be difficult to change your age policy once your community has been established. Members of online communities do not like change, and furthermore you risk alienating those members who are not even affected by any policy change. You will be removing members who may have previously added value and had a strong social standing in the community. You need to be very careful about this.
Even if you only allow adults to join your online community, you should still have clear rules and guidelines. Just because members are adults, it does not mean you want to allow them to discuss anything and everything. Certain topics should always be off-limits. Remember, it does not take much for someone to lie about their age. Even if they don't, do you really want them to see abuse or discussions of an offensive or illegal nature?
If you are still unsure about whether or not to allow children to join your online community, put yourself in the shoes of a parent. Would you want your child to register at your online community and get involved and share information about themselves? If not, then you should probably change something such as your guidelines, enforcement or age policy. If you would be happy with your son or daughter joining, how old would you want them to be before getting involved? Now you can figure out your lower age limit.
Just be honest, step away from the community and think carefully. You know your community better than anyone and should be able to determine whether it is an appropriate environment for children to get involved in.
You also need to make a judgement based on the subject of your community. If it is based around adult activities such as gambling, then of course you should be limiting your membership to those who are legally old enough to gamble. Do not forget that children are more vulnerable than adults, and you need to keep this in mind.
If a community is about a less age specific subject such as video games, then surely it would not be appropriate to ban younger members from joining?
If most of your current members are adults, you should think carefully about whether that environment is the best place for children to be. Regardless of your community guidelines or rules, your adult members may share content or discuss issues of an adult nature from time to time. Not only is this a moral issue, but it could cause you headaches of a bad situation was picked up by the press or if a concerned parent decided to pursue legal action against you.
All online communities should incorporate safety features. If you plan on allowing children to join your online community, you need to ensure that you have ways that members can block other members from communicating with them, and that you have a clear complaint and escalation policy. The fewer safety features your community has, and the fewer moderators there are, the less appropriate it is for you to allow children to join.
It can be difficult to change your age policy once your community has been established. Members of online communities do not like change, and furthermore you risk alienating those members who are not even affected by any policy change. You will be removing members who may have previously added value and had a strong social standing in the community. You need to be very careful about this.
Even if you only allow adults to join your online community, you should still have clear rules and guidelines. Just because members are adults, it does not mean you want to allow them to discuss anything and everything. Certain topics should always be off-limits. Remember, it does not take much for someone to lie about their age. Even if they don't, do you really want them to see abuse or discussions of an offensive or illegal nature?
If you are still unsure about whether or not to allow children to join your online community, put yourself in the shoes of a parent. Would you want your child to register at your online community and get involved and share information about themselves? If not, then you should probably change something such as your guidelines, enforcement or age policy. If you would be happy with your son or daughter joining, how old would you want them to be before getting involved? Now you can figure out your lower age limit.
Just be honest, step away from the community and think carefully. You know your community better than anyone and should be able to determine whether it is an appropriate environment for children to get involved in.