Eco forum for kids?

[Milims]

My son has just asked if he can sign up to SSish but I thought that I might be a big grown up for him. So I wondered if anyone knows of a site similar to this thats more for kids?
He's 12 and they have a green club at school that he's interested in. Ay ideas?

[PurpleDragon]

My son watched the Green Awards on the telly with me the other night, and this was all part of the sudden eco-awareness he seems to have woken up with one morning. He too wants to get involved, but everything is too 'old' for him - he's only 7 - si I'm interested in these replies as well.

[pskipper]

Maybe Andy and Dave should start up CSSish :)

[Milims]

Sounds like a plan to me!!!!
Andy and Dave - how about it???

[Chickpea]

How about simply having a "Young Ishers" section on this forum? My kids might like to contribute a bit, but they're only young and tend to be flibbertigibbets and lose interest quickly.

[the.fee.fairy]

sorry if this seems stupid, but why is ssish too grown up for children?
Especially a 12 year old, surely if he can read, its ok?
There's not a lot of adult subjects on here, or coarse language.

maybe is just that i don't have children, so i miss things that parents find too old for their children...

[Shirley]

I thought about doing one for kids... but having seen some of the spam posts that appear on this and other forums I'd be wary about doing it unless I could absolutely guarantee that children wouldn't see them. Hard core and very explicit I could be a dirty spammer, please let one of the moderators know about this post in some of the posts that I've deleted

edit to add... the spam filter has kicked in and cancelled out some of the words I put in to describe the disgusting pics in threads that I've deleted.

[PurpleDragon]

Well, my son likes kid specific graphics, things he can click all over the place on, games to play, puzzles to do, and so on.

Ish is great for adults, but I wouldn't allow him to join a forum at age 7 anyway, no matter what the subject.

[Annpan]

I suppose any forum for children is open to all sorts of nasties.

It would be good if it was just the kids of others who post on here regularly, but how could it be moderated, you would have to really stay on top of things (there are alot of weirdos out there)

My daughter is only 4 months old so theres no danger there.

Annpan

[Wombat]

Hmmm. My "kids" are well over the kid stage!

I think that a kids forum is a good idea and am all for involving kids from an early age for obvious reasons. Yes keeping an eye on things would be difficult but, being a certified technoclutz in this area, is there not some electronic means of keeping the @#$$%&@s out?

I dunno, I typed in several thoughts but erased them because I cold see the problems with them.

I agree it is a good idea!

Nev

[baldowrie]

Shirlz

but having seen some of the spam posts that appear on this and other forums I'd be wary about doing it unless I could absolutely guarantee that children wouldn't see them[url]

I would have to agree with you 100% on that.

A children's section would have extremely heavily moderated.

[Annpan]

My OH made another point about it last night. Although we both agree it would be a great thing he reckoned that the more heavily it is moderated the more people will let their guard down and think that it must be safe.

Not that I am a "wrap your kids in cotton wool" person but I would hate to think of "ish" being used by some of the nutters out there.

Then again if you made sure that there were no "where do you live?" type personal questions, could any harm really come of it?

It seems a real shame that kids can't have there own space on a harmless site like this, I am sure that at a certain age they badly need to vent their frustration and it is sad that they couldn't do it freely, knowing that their parents might read the posts, or that the mod. might delete them. We can't force them to talk about approved subjects... it's censorship

Oh it is such a difficult one

Ann Pan

[manxminx]

i think its a great idea can't we have a section on our forum for the kids i have 2 sons 9 and 11 who love gardening and care deeply about being greener they offten sit with me and read the posts on the forum once i have checked out whats been written first i would be happy for them to join this one but i would still check first if they had there own section this would be much easier for me to do

kelvin (9) has already asked if he could post how his mushrooms are getting on i've told him that once they started growing i would ask andy about it

[Andy Hamilton]

Excellent idea in theory but yes totally full of potential problems. When you sign up to the site on any forum you have to aggree that you are over 12. Why 12, well I don't know but I guess that there are laws about this. Below 12 and you have to get parents permission to post.

If we had a section on this forum just for kids then it would have to be heavily moderated just to keep the spam posts from appearing. - There would be the problem of allowing access to only one part of the forum too.

I have recently bought the domain name selfsufficientish.net that could be used for a child friendly site, selfsufficientish.org is not really doing much at the moment either and I have been wondering what to do with both sites.

If we were to go ahead and set something up then we would need to work out if it is the same set up as this with articles and a forum or just a forum. Above all else it I would need a lot of help to get it off the ground as I don't have kids.

[TheLancsLass]

Couldn't you set up a protected part on this forum?

My kids would love a green forum!