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The s/m section...
Recently I have noticed a lot more members aged 13-15, and a lot more 13-15year old's asking for subs and doms, and a lot more members being banded for under aged s/m... this is a problem. It is all well and good you allowing members that are 13-17 come onto the website but I really and strongly feel that areas such as the S/M area and the dareslave chat should be moved to kinktalk to try and shield the younger members from this a little more.
I do understand why you may be reluctant to do this- quite a lot of members are on here for the s/m relationships and yes it may cause the numbers to drop slightly for a small while, however this may be beneficial to kinktalk also as it would bring more members there and level up the user distribution some more making kink talk more popular while still maintaining the core group of members here who are here for the dares, truths stories and other elements. xx Shadow. Feel free to comment below The main reason I fell that this is a good idea is because as it stands people with the set up the way it is it seems to be tempting the younger members as many do not see it as fair that +18s can have what they can't. Its kinda like holding a tasty looking baby zebra in front of a starving crocodile and expecting it not to go for it. While I have heard people saying that they should just get over it and follow rules, or have the common sense to wait this isn't the mentality we should be having about this issue. I feel that while the sections and the chats stay where they are the temptation remains there and so do the people looking specifically for the under aged members will also remain here posing more of a threat as more and more members between this age of 13 and 15 (17 respectively) join the website. In making these changes it also brings the added bonus that those targeting younger members will be easier identified, and those members seeking a s/m relationship would be easier guided and advised to wait. |
I agree with all said.
It is also true that those seeking a serious s/m relationship will have an easier time finding one. I think moving the s/m related things to kinktalk would move a lot of members there as well as staying at gD. There are obviously a lot of fakes on this website (just look at the ban list) and I think moving the s/m related content to kinktalk would filter out at least a few of the fakes, and still make it easier to notice them here in gD... I'm not sure if any of that made any sense...but it did to me XD |
Great suggestion as always Star!
I do completely agree with this, although this is a 13+ site, as it was when it started, and alot of the content is suitable for that age range, a hell of alot is not. Quite frankly, underage s/M is illegal so surely we shouldn't be making it so easily accesible to those under 18. As far as I see it Kink talk and getDare are sister sites, and with a bit of a shuffle round they could be linked very smoothly with getDare being about truth and dare (being one of the only decent dare sites around) and Kinktalk leaning alot more to bdsm, as it does already anyway. Sure you will get people lying about their age, but that happens anyway, and then it would be their own responsibility rather than that of the staff. The other areas that don't involve s/m on this site still thrive, and I think will continue to do so, and at the minute Kinktalk is a bit of a graveyard - moving all the s/M stuff there would give it a real boost. I know this would be quite a bit of work, but I do think it's a good idea. 13 year olds shouldn't be in a position to be picked up by creeper dom/subs so easily. |
As i was saying in the chat -
GD is one of the few places where people age 13 and up who are CURIOUS can go and LEARN with relatively little risk of running into creeps. Break away the S/M section entirely and GD will die with it, while KT will become Yet Another Ad Site. The intermix of young users and older, more experienced, is part of what makes this site so successful as opposed to Kinktalk's more rigorous 18+ only ruleset. Yes, i feel that posting and reading in the ad section and in the ad section alone should be made impossible for users below eighteen, by simply dissallowing access to anyone below that age. A turing test of maturity, perhaps, notwithstanding. But the curious should be allowed to learn, to ask their questions and have their debates, regardless of age or status - if only because each and every kid we teach to recognise and stay away from creeps, is worth it. By giving children a place to ask questions, we give them a place where they can find answers - without heading to the shadier pastures of the internet in order to find 'people' willing to give them these answers... At a price. My own daughter Tinka wants to join GetDare in roughly 8 months - not because of the truth-or-dare games - she couldn't care less - but because she feels that GetDare is a viable place for her to have discussions about things she's curious, or anxious about, a place where people won't be as prejudiced against her for her age and where she can be at her own level of intelligence... And yes, she could learn a lot from me and me alone. The point here being that there are quite a few questions she is, and simply put will always be too embarassed to ask her old man. Yes, children her age can struggle with their sexuality and kink-curiosity. Are you seriously telling me that you wish to remove one of the last venues - as far as i'm aware - where these people can find themselves answers they so desperately need? Bad move, in my opinion. |
@Anjelen
imo, 13-15 year olds shouldn't be on this site. They are too young to be on a site like this especially with the s/m section and I learned from a user that giving a sexual dare to a minor is against the law. So, I agree with the OP that access (to the s/me areas) should only be granted to those 18 and over or maybe, just ,maybe, 16 and over. I really could only imagine the non-internet control the parents have over the younger people like 13 and 14 year olds. They really shouldn't be on a site like this. |
I agree and have posted this in the mod forums previously, the anwser was that it is a long term strategy to move the the S/M stuff over to KinkTalk.
Your opening lines are very naive Anjelen, if you were a mod then you would see some of the stuff that we have to deal with. The risk isn't relatively small, it is in fact quite large. As well as the mods do, there are always instances of young users being taken advantage of. Whilst you say that people are able to learn here, you are forgetting that a lot of people do not come to this site looking to get into S/M stuff. The majority of users come to this seeing truth, dares or to be dared live through a thread in the TorD online forums. They are not here for S/M - having a S/M section smack in the middle of a TorD site is in fact exposing youngsters to potential dangers rather than giving them a safe arena to learn about it. i.e 14 year old user comes onto GetDare to get a dare because she is bored, she spots the S/M section and has a read and gets interested in it. What do you reckon the next step is? It's to find a master. It's a fact that young girls and even boys to an extent prefer to go with someone older than them. You may not think this happens a lot, but trust me it does. You may argue that the masters/mistresses should be responsbile enough to decline younger users but unforunately that's not the case. Just as the they should be responsible, we (the site admins) have a responsbility to protect the younger users as well. It should not be forgotten why Depp founded GetDare, it is primiarly a TorD site not a site for people to learn S/M. That has not changed, right now there are around 150 people looking at the TorD related forums and 50 looking at the S/M related forums. The above also dispels anything you may say/believe about GD suffering and KT not getting any users. If anything, it will make GD more safe for people and at the same get KT more active. |
So why not move the SM ads and such to kinktalk and leave the general SM discussion here? So people could ask questions and debate but no one can ask for slaves or Masters here.
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Rant has a good idea, just to move ads themselves. What is going to stop someone signing up on KT as 18, like people already do here. I think if anything is done soon would be setting 18+ members to a separate usergroup adding posting privileges in the s/M ad area, while users not in the "18+" group could only read, leaving of course a small discussion area possibly for those not 18 to ask questions about it. The idea of slowly migrating like Pingu stated is also a great idea. With any of these options all I see is more work for everyone.
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I feel like just making it so you could only access the s/m section at the age of 18 would be easiest. It should be the job of the forum to protect minors from such activities and simply restricting the section would solve that issue. I don't believe moving to kink talk is the best idea. I believe that s/m and Tord have become so integrated on this site that splitting them would leave get dare a little lacking. Maybe that's just me because I'm not a fan of kink talk :p
But if the section has to be moved, just move the ads. Although, people would still attempt to create ads in the Tord online section or somewhere else, leading to confusion and bans. |
To be perfectly honest i think its naive to imagine that people around the age of 13-15 are stupid enough to let themselves be taken advantage of, i may be wrong. If you are on webcam and dont want to do something all you need to do is turn it off, i came on this site simply because of the S&M and then later got more and more into dares. I think that regulating the age gap bewteen "slaves" and "masters" is probably more important that trying to stop it altogether. Moving the S&M to kinktalk will not work, people lie about there ages and soon there would be more underage players than not.
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I personally believe that Anjelen has a point. In terms of education, getDare is a wonderful place where younger teens can explore their sexuality a bit more. I think keeping the age limit at 13 is right. 13 year olds are teenagers, and everyone here has been 13 (hopefully). When i was 13, i was curious, horny, dealing with this new found sexuality, and learning about new things sexually. Although I didn't know this site back then, I wish I did. It's not like you can bring up at the dinner table "Hey, mom, i think i might have a thing for bdsm... it turns me on so much..." Teenagers wouldn't bring it up with their peers, and most resort to porn, which is misleading. However, getDare brings about an accepting enviroment for people to learn about themselves and the things they do. Just from participating the site, and sticking with the more respectable users, teenagers can learn a lot more about their sexuality and also learn about what's safe and not. However, there -are- creepers on this site, and we do need to find a way to keep the contact between minors and creepers to a minimum. Although minors might like to learn about bdsm, being involved in a bdsm -relationship- is a whole new story. My proposed solution to this, is for there to be age restrictions, so that the areas where this site is inappropriate for minors (s/m ads, R-18 stories, bdsm scene room etc.) aren't accessable, this should reduce underage s/m by a sufficient ammount. I am quite sure that people -will- lie about their age, but if they do, they're doing it at their own risk, and the site shouldnt be held responsible in any way. As for creepers soliciting minors on the chat, there really isn't anything that can be done about it, without having to reduce the gD population by about 20% or so, or by banning people from chatting. I think with the case of people soliciting minors on chat, the best way to go is to educate everyone about the dangers of engaging in things that they aren't ready for and telling people about the warning signs to look out for. |
This is not a answer people will like, But I think it should be considered. To help protect underager's why not raise the getdare age to 16+ atleast thier wont be as many underager's getting solicited? The more underagers we have the more creeps will come and try and take advantage. =/
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