Considering the recent events that took place here, I feel it necessary to stress the importance of being cautious about who you interact with.

I used to work for a net safety group so I am gonna post a few things to be aware of.

The net is loaded with pedos. I have personal experience with this. PLEASE, PLEASE if you give out your age, be aware that some unscrupulous pedophiles will try and form a relationship with you.

1. NEVER give out personal info. Dont give out the name of your school, your town, your own name. The smallest info about you can be used to find out who you are easily.

2. Dont ever think that some older person has pure motives for contacting you and interacting with you in a manner that is not appropriate. BY this I mean, asking you personal questions, flirting, even trying to elicit some sort of relationship with you.

As writers I know that we all get familiar with each other and help with writing issues and thats ok...but just remember..if it goes beyond that, its not ok.

I hope you younger folks will please be careful and make sure and report and strange activity to the mods asap if you suspect someone is being inappropriate.

Take care and always be watchful.

Good to see some advice posted, IndianaJoan. I just wanted to balance it a little by saying that not all older people are pedos. Actually, pedos are not all older people, either.

Sometimes you can validate someone's online identity. In those cases where you can't, be safe.

Cheers,
Rob

Good to see some advice posted, IndianaJoan. I just wanted to balance it a little by saying that not all older people are pedos. Actually, pedos are not all older people, either.

Sometimes you can validate someone's online identity. In those cases where you can't, be safe.

Cheers,
Rob


Excellent point! I am an older person too LOL I should have made that clearer, thanks for bringing it up

Its a sad thing when we have to issue a warning like this.
So please read Indianajoans post and Like said please report anything that you consider strange no matter how trivia.



Thanks
~Raven.

This cannot be prevented raven...
good Idea posting this Indiana

Am I in a position to request the information of what went on here a little while ago? That way I may be more aware of what to look out for.

A slightly unhinged member posted some far out stuff on the site. I missed most of it myself - What I read I took to be the usual attempts to be outrageous by a young girl determined on rebelling against her parents rather than the determined campaign of an insidious pervert, but she offended a lot of people and sent some pm's (I hear). All very melodramatic.
The moral of the lesson:
a) Be careful of weirdos on the net.
b) Be careful you are not the weirdo.
Common sense, you might say, but then the problem was always that common sense isn't common, and often not sensible either....

The main thing that must be done from the user's end is simply to notify one of the moderators or myself. Report the post or forward the PM. We can't help if we're not aware of the situation.

Thanks!

Gah! What happened here! Whoever was influenced I am deeply sorry! I'll side with IndianaJoan in a heartbeat on this one, which is why I try to stear clear of the posts about age, location, pictures, hobbies, etc. Why they would come here when they could hit up myspace is beyond me but it's still a VERY scary thing. Thanks for posting this one Indiana and sad that there was a need :(.

zb

Thanks for writing that, it can never be said too many times :eek: CAUTION

Agreed.

Sheesh - something kicked off here, huh?

Eh, kinda. I think it's mostly settled down by now.

I'm not mad or perverted, so no worries there then. Well, not that perverted, anyway. And not that mad, either.

Take care and always be watchful.What a shame that something as wonderful as the internet can be poluted by those dark soles bent on destruction, both of themselves and others.

This kind of thing happens all over the internet though and I apologise for dredging this up again everyone but I think that some excellent points have been raised in this thread and that members should be made aware of them.

Torana

(I am actually writing a short story about this kind of thing and remembered I read this here not long after I joined here so I wanted to make sure everyone was actually aware it can happen.

I hate that there are sickos out there on the net, but at least there are good people who care enough to make sure everyone is safe. Thanks Torana for posting this thread

thats all true im glad this forum make sure everyone know that

With this; may I ask everyone who knows my real name to not use it, especially when they're replying to my threads and posts.

Cheeerrrsss

Good point, Eoz. I deliberately don't use the real names of people whose names I know (that flowed better in my head...) on the forums. I think it should be general practice really.

When it happens, it's usually an unconscious slip up. But if anyone sees that someone has used their real name, whether or not it's accidental, please PM a moderator, and we'll expunge it as quickly as possible.

Can I ask what happened?

I don't know if anything similar is happening in the US, but the Australian Government has just sent a pamphlet to all Australian families regarding Internet safety and who you talk to online, what sites you visit, etc. Hopefully it'll be very helpful for parents and young teens who don't realise the dangerous of the Internet.

I used to frequent some other websites and forums that are pretty, fanatic, for lack of a better word. I've seen cases where a particular person was targeted through their myspace pages or their MSN or yahoo handles, and these fanatics made it their personal mission to find out every possible detail about the person, for the most trivial of reasons.

I joined up here because it was actually a nice place to be, and it still is. Yet, you'll note that there are almost no details about me in my profile.

I agree with the others that are stressing that even a few little details can do you in. Lets say, a 15 year old named Wendy Parker from Parramatta. Thats not very critical information, but a stalker could phone highschools in that area and ask for information, then find out the phone number, and then the address, and the next thing you know, something very bad could happen.

At least 50% of the details I give out about myself on the net are lies (ie if I tell a story about something that happened to me), and I change my aliases like I change my pants.

If I ever did want to contact someone on the net, I'd use my mobile phone. You can't work backwards from a mobile number to get peoples details, and if you're being stalked via it, you can use the caller id/message logs as evidence for the police.

Some people have little else to do than to **** with other people for the hell of it. Don't give them anything to use. And I'd advise against visiting any site with 'chan' in the name. They are the people I'm talking about.

Can I ask what happened?
Nothing more than what you see above. Someone's (partial) real name appeared in a couple posts, and it was clearly not deliberate. No real harm occurred, as far as I can tell, but we take privacy issues seriously.

What a shame that something as wonderful as the internet can be poluted by those dark soles bent on destruction, both of themselves and others.


The world is a dangerous place nowadays and the internet is making it smaller. My message to all you youngsters. Trust no one until you are 200% sure of their intentions. If you have any doubts -TELL SOMEONE!

Thank you for posting this IndianaJoan!
Nice to see some one cares enogh to post that :D

I agree with this all. I think that if your (younger folks) parents are not strict with your computer use then it is up to you to be very, very careful. Take all of the advice seriously (please don't brush it aside) and just be overly cautious. You should do that on the web (especially) and just in life in general.

This hasn't been raised in a while, so I'm taking this opportunity to remind everyone about Internet safety, especially the younger members.

Please be careful about giving out personal information. There are a lot of predators out there, as well as many people who are just enough off center to be dangerous. Even though we have accounts and logins, the site is generally visible to everyone, with or without an account. The Review Rooms are restricted such that only members can view the posts, but remember how easy it was to get your own account.

Be especially careful what you reveal in your profile. Even though it may feel like your only sharing this information with other members, it is visible to anonymous visitors and even to search engines!

On a related note - if you do discover another member's instant messaging or email account, please do not use it without their permission. In general, forum-related requsts should ONLY be performed through PM unless a member specifically allows otherwise.

We do not permit harassment, and unwanted persistent communications through external means may be grounds for a permanent ban.

I think caution is particularly relevant given the new expansion of the profiles. People could get carried away and put too much information on it.

I agree.

This is a common problem with a lot of sites IndianaJoan. Although, it cant always be preverted most of us try to and therefore it always helps to be careful about people over the net. I have to admit, with proper evidence, some people on the net can be trusted. Don't get me wrong, I have come across my fair share of pedophiles and weirdos.
I knew a girl that used to be one of my best friends that had joined another forum about a month ago. She ended up getting involved with this guy that was fourty-seven years old and a few miles away from where she lived. She was eighteen at the time and just was looking for love. I, of course, told her i was very concerned about the situation and told her she could end up getting seriously hurt or killed. I ended up talking her out of it and she ended her relationship as soon as she talked to him.
It's sad that things like that happen to people. It can end very badly but as i said before, some people on the net are not always bad. I am sure most of you would agree that all of us on here are sane and very well mannered people.
Anyway, it always pays to be careful about people over the net anyway.

it cant always be preverted Laughing - I know you mean prevented!

haha picking on me Cog.
Silly typo :p

This issue really hits close to home.

A girl that I work with met her boyfriend online. He lived in the nearest capital city which was about 250km away.
They talked over msn a lot, and they decided to meet up, and he travelled up here to her. Now, he hadn't lied about his age, and he was about 24 like he said.
They ended up having a sexual relationship, and nobody knew.
The problem is, this girl is 15. Her mother I believe found out, and reported it to the police.
Turns out that this man in question had over 90 girls strung along like this, and so far the police have only been able to track down one.

This proves that online stalkers don't have to be old.