How Kids Build Community: Cyberstyle
My daughter belongs to a Nickolodean sponsored website, The N, originally designed for tweens and teens. She has been participating in the message board community on this site for almost three years.
Board participation is reward based; the more you post, the more credits you get. These credits are used to buy your base avatar and accessories such as hairstyles, clothes headphones and jewelry. But this is not the only way to accumulate points. The boards have strict rules about posting any personal information, and has a zero tolerance for private chatting (no passing around your msn or aim to people you meet on the n). They have implemented a reward based snitching system. When a member sees posts that go against the board rules, the person who reports the infraction gets credits added to their account. If a member makes a false report, they are penalized by having credits removed from their account.
I've been thinking about this method of keeping the boards clean. Sharing personal information is prohibited - and for good reason. What is the difference between having each other responsible 'police' the environment and the company having monitors that canvas and delete posts? What are the implications in an anonymous system? What does it teach kids?
The internet offers kids so many spaces to call their own - even if some of them are owned and operated by corporate america with flashing banners, its better then the mall i wandered endlessly at her age. (in that it offers more opportunities)
On a side note, they recently made some structural changes, raising the age of participation to 13. Sadly, my daughter no longer has access to the account that she has been cultivating for almost three years. Although her 13th birthday is in a few months, she has created a new avatar to continue participating in the community - but she was put in the position that she had to lie about her age in order to create a new character. She will regain access to her old avatars on her thirteenth birthday - a day she looks forward to for so many reasons. But I question the company for taking her access away without notice.. and since its so easy to lie about your age, what was the point?
Here's one girl's avatar:
My daughter belongs to a Nickolodean sponsored website, The N
Board participation is reward based; the more you post, the more credits you get. These credits are used to buy your base avatar and accessories such as hairstyles, clothes headphones and jewelry. But this is not the only way to accumulate points. The boards have strict rules about posting any personal information, and has a zero tolerance for private chatting (no passing around your msn or aim to people you meet on the n). They have implemented a reward based snitching system. When a member sees posts that go against the board rules, the person who reports the infraction gets credits added to their account. If a member makes a false report, they are penalized by having credits removed from their account.
I've been thinking about this method of keeping the boards clean. Sharing personal information is prohibited - and for good reason. What is the difference between having each other responsible 'police' the environment and the company having monitors that canvas and delete posts? What are the implications in an anonymous system? What does it teach kids?
The internet offers kids so many spaces to call their own - even if some of them are owned and operated by corporate america with flashing banners, its better then the mall i wandered endlessly at her age. (in that it offers more opportunities)
On a side note, they recently made some structural changes, raising the age of participation to 13. Sadly, my daughter no longer has access to the account that she has been cultivating for almost three years. Although her 13th birthday is in a few months, she has created a new avatar to continue participating in the community - but she was put in the position that she had to lie about her age in order to create a new character. She will regain access to her old avatars on her thirteenth birthday - a day she looks forward to for so many reasons. But I question the company for taking her access away without notice.. and since its so easy to lie about your age, what was the point?
Here's one girl's avatar:
posted by Kelly at
16:46
2 Comments:
Interesting to see that the concept of message "flagging" to the admins is fully fledged like this in a site for tweens. Would love to see reports on how often the feature gets used. I find it encouraging that the kids are being taught responsiblity in this way, not just for their own words and actions, but for those of the community around them.
By
Sashay, at 2/5/05 10:37 a.m.
i personally thought it an interesting feature as it encourages kids to participate in the care and keeping of the community. We are not talking about arbitrary, freedom of speech type rules that force children to conform to a strict 'norm'. But rules that aim at online safety like not giving out personal information... Even though some people disagree with any form of policing online, teen sites or not, I think that it is an interesting way to give kids the choice to report or not. The anonymity of it keeps potential animosity among peers down, and the penalties for false reports discourages abuse of power - which has been a known problem in many forums for all ages across many subjects.
By
Kelly, at 2/5/05 12:01 p.m.
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