h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I do wonder if CRB checks is over-doing it. We do have folks who have CRB checks anyway (Z's a doctor, for example, and we've any number of teachers).

B

I agree with you on the whole, my preference for them being a requirement is extemely limited to those responding the designated email thingy.

I'm sorry to but I'm going to have too be back later, I'm off to be a slummy mummy, duty calls and all that

Love Peanut xx

CRB isn't an issue. If nothing else, I can say I have one, but who here - including those of you who know my real name - can confirm that? It's also going to be merged with the Independent Safeguarding Authority soon anyway (which is a good thing, for those who are wondering).

It is something we have to think about and yes, definitely have a policy about.

On the plus side we are a low-risk site already:

We are totally public
We have a community that looks out for its own
We have a grown-up demographic (regardless of the actual ages of the users)
We have anonymity by default - including age
Any meets happen in public places with several people, and they are reasonably rare


Things we can do:

We can easily make the Yikes button be used for posts that are potentially grooming or inappropriate.

Not to let people become volunteers (especially ACEs) if we don't know them

Flag conversations that happen between only two people and the moderators keep an eye out (possibly - this might be pushing it)

I agree with the idea of having an email so people can take any concerns off-site


Just some thoughts there.

'Flag conversations that happen between only two people and the moderators keep an eye out'

I think that's a bit much for the moderators. There must be loads of those.

I also don't think that it's possible to automatically hide all posts where somebody says they are younger than 15. Just think of how many possible ways there are to reveal your age. You can never get all those hidden and if you do you will certainly hide several other posts that are in fact ok. It will only end in annoyance and not really help.
I don't say it's a bad idea, I just think it's not realistic.

Yeah, I thought it might be unrealistic, but it was an idea.

People tend to reveal their age through what they talk about - preparing for their school exams, what they do on an evening, the disagreements they've had with their parents, etc.

Whoami used to come to meets when he was 14. There are *huge* numbers of places on the internet where teenagers can arrange to meet up. Facebook for instance. I think it's unlikely that they would use h2g2. There are also places that are not public such as chat and facebook. If someone was choosing to use h2g2 to 'groom' young people then they would be dumb because all the conversations are recorded and can't be deleted.

If they arrange to meet up with their parents permission then it's not really a problem as long as safeguards are in place, and it's up to the parents to ensure that.

Encouraging school children to use h2g2 to write has a number of advantages for us and for them, and I think that outweights the risks. If they weren't on h2g2 they would be on another website where people could contact them. I'd rather they were on here than facebook, or chat or something.

I wonder if we should have a 'child protection officer' who does have a CRB check and keeps an eye out for problems on site. Realistically it would be possible to keep tabs on most young researchers just by knowing who they were and by lurking in their conversations occasionally. I'd be happy to do this role, I also currently have 3 (three!) current Disclosure Scotland Checks, and I could easily do a 4th.

ACE's could drop a line by e mail when they come across someone fairly young, or who appears to be young and they could just keep a look out. We could make sure that we didn't let them give out their real life contact details as well.

That wouldn't just be people who might be groomed but a teenager who posted something such as a suicide threat etc.

That reminds me - there's a lot on the DNA hub about how to tackle suicide threats. In fact there's a lot on the DNA hub about how to run a community site.

B

We don't have a large number of regular participants in this site, and (except for England) they're spread across the planet. The chances of any of us getting together are not great without arranging some expensive transportation (again, except for England).

Here are some examples of the difficulties involved in getting together in real life: I live in Boston, Massachusetts. Some years ago, I tried to organize a meeting of the other researchers in the Boston area. I could only find two others who might be able to make it, and neither of them turned up when we actually tried.

Okay, then I tried getting together with a group of researcjhers in the Northeast U.S. Maybe twelve of us arranged to meet in a restaurantt in Manhattan (it's in new York City). Does anyone want to guess how many actually showed up? Six. In the whole Northeastern part of the U.S., only six of us could manage to meet each other face to face. This was in 2001.

There was a third try, this time in Pennsylvania. This was much more successful. I don't remember having more than twenty people there, including one who flew in from California.

Conclusion: H2G2 is not fertile soil for people who want to get together. It can be done against the odds, but the odds remain.

There were 13 of us for breakfast, including parents of the teenagers. I remember because we caused something of a crisis, seating-wise

Bumbles in again, to put where I am coming from, I think this is not only a safe setting for 14-18's to be involved in but a positive one for them and what they will contribute, we have as much too gain. I also think that this community has great strengths when it comes to 'self regulation' and call me idealistic but I hope that is based on an ethos of respect and understanding, and to a degree looking out for each other

Where do the what ifs, the what shoulds, come in for consideration? Solely on the back of a bid that this community making to run itself and how it might sustain itself there after.

Piedos aren't on top of my list when I consider 'safe guarding' in this setting or any other.
On a day to day basis ( not daily hopefully), issues may come down to 'bickers'. An early intervention in a discussion to prevent bickering from escalting, we'd be pretty self regulating on this one.
Step up from that how are we going to deal with 'bullying' again should it occur.
How are we going to deal with other 'child protection issues' should they crop up, suicide been mentioned, but run a through a gamat of issues. I do think we'd deal with them well, but we do have to have a baseline process to deal with them.
Ramp that right to piedo concerns then sod yikes, don't care what the policy is I'd be off to ceops

I raise these issues just cos of the bid, we have to consider these issues in the same way that we think of financial legal ones. It's just the way it might be. So if a child has serious issues why not an email addy to address these privately, why should it not be staffed by peeps not just crb checked but with the skill set to deal with these issues and skilled enough to know when they don't to call for some good advice and we can get plenty of that in house.

After quite a lot of what ifs, miandering though what we'd have to do, through to what we should, the really comforting thing came down to actually not a lot different for under 18s than what we do already for everyone when things go wrong.

I don't think of this communnity any different than another in RL, if I was taking responsibility for it, then 'safe guarding' would be on my radar. Along with book keeping, insurance, h+s, other legal requirements. As well as juggling what a community wants, needs, how to practically deliver that.

When I saw the reference to piedo, I thought of pie. Then I realized that it wasn't about pie.

Interesting points.

From my experience, CRBs have to be linked to the place they are for. I have had three, for example. So if we did need them, they would have to be got through the legal entity and kept on file with the legal entity, which at least solves the problem of me saying I have one (which I do, as it happens, but my current one if for vulnerable adults, not kids) and it not being checkable. It costs, maximum, about 35 GBP. A cost to be factored in for the legal entity's bookkeeping perhaps, if we did go ahead with something of the sort.

However, it really depends on whether we need them or not, and I know that some rules are being relaxed on that point, such as parents occasionally helping out with school stuff.

Regarding people abroad. I also have a certificate from the Russian authorities stating I have no criminal record there. It was a requirement of my getting my first CRB certificate and I tend to thrust it on all the later employers who require a CRB check too. I got it by going to the Russian embassy and filling out a form. It cost fifty GBP. However, they Russian embassy in the UK has a proceedure for it as they are based in the UK, which requires such things. I have no idea whether it would be possible from inside another country for example, and presumably there would be an updating issue too as subsequent convictions abroad would not be flagged up here in the same way that they would for someone in the UK (I presume).

So I think we shouldn't do CRBs unless required to, but should definitely have a policy, and there are some good suggestions here. Did someone suggest that the volunteers who did the kids outreach would have to give up anonymity? Not on site, but in much the same way that people joining the legal entity would? I thought I might add that perhaps we could get the under 16s involved in 'policing their own' as much as possible. Ie have a good smattering of them involved in the kids outreach volunteer gourp.

Of course, theoretically, the trick will be to get them to want to sign up. I assume there isn't anything actually stopping under sixteens signing up here if they lie about their age, but do they...?

Oh and perhaps we could put the opening up of thee site to under sixteens in the 'medium term plans' section of our plans. I think it does need some thought.

From my not very scientific research I don't think we'd be overwhelmed by an influx of young peeps.

As I said I've been browsing around with the objective of finding out what people thought of us and why they wouldn't join or have joined and left.

1 Never heard of us (surge of comments after BBC announced our disposal)
2 editorial process is a pig
3 it's a pig to get around the site
4 we're geeks
5 we think we are all it and a bag of chips
6 cliquey

Yeee---ouchchchch!

That hurts. That hurts because there's so much truth in each of them....

But that seems to me to be the starting point for how we tackle the problems of engagement with the rest of the web.

There's a crucial few minutes after someone finds us (HOW they find us is another topic) when they decide whether or not to join us. And a crucial couple of days after they do join us when they decide whether or not to stay.

And your list there gives us solid starting points for an Engagement Strategy (sorry about the Corporate-Speak)....

Ben

Mm

I think we should open the site up to under 16s ASAP, and not have a designed kids outreach volunteer group, but instead just have an behind the scenes 'safeguarding officer'.

We can see how many under 16s we get and if the numbers get out of hand recruit more.

We need a safeguarding policy and an engagement policy..

Z i think that was what I was trying to get to with the group email addy this would be behind the scenes, wouldn't have to be staffed by ACEs or Mods cos the have plenty to do. Could stick to user names too if responding to emails.

U18s need a couple of extra safety nets in my mind but the 'safeguarding' we have here for everyone is pretty robust and is on whole the suffcient for U18s as it is

Mrs Zen, was a bit of an ouch, but after the first hour of trawling I toughened up , from memory one of the harshest comments came from a R4 listener *gasp*. When I was trying to think about peeps might have a natural affinity with this site I was going on the lines of R4 listers, peeps who post on the comment sections on the broad sheets but R4 listeners now just scare me

The only thing I like about the redesigned h2g2 is it is much easier to get about, big buttons for the forums and the guide is much more assessible everything else about is just horrible.

Barlesque is good for readers, but the dna platform is better for users.

Me, I'd like to see a Barlesque style skin on the dna engine.

It's really hard to evaluate Barlesque when it doesn't work. But we have been asking for a more user-friendly interface for years and Barlesque was designed to be that.

The skins we have now are cute but either dated (Brunel, Plain & Alabaster) or unusual (Goo). None of them can be customised to be accessible to those with additional requirements, although at least there's four to choose from.

People I know haven't signed up simply because Brunel is so ugly. It's a barrier to people actually exploring the site and liking the content.

We need more unicorns and rainbows. (sorry, private joke)