'parent' password

[blackfalcon]

Each account, if the person is under so old, should come with a parent password set by there parents, which can restrict access by what time they can and cant use the board for, and how long they can use it for, suspend their access to it, and regulate what forums they can use on what days and other functions, such as the arcade.

[Rikki]

Good suggestion :) Parental controls are a big feature of new technologies, and I certainly think they'd have a place in IPB at some point in future.

[Louis M.]

I disagree. I come from the school of thinking that parents, not the software on sites, should regulate internet access and controls. If I am the owner of a site, and some child cracked or guessed the password, I would be concerned with the parents coming back to sue me for the breach.

Children will always find a way around parental controls, but making sites responsible for it now seems a bit onerous. Parents have options at the PC level to restrict access, but my parents were a lot smarter than that. They actually taught me what I was allowed to do and not. granted I did stray a bit as most kids will. I do not see how a password will help. If the child registers and says they are over the set age, what does that do?

[Josh Flamel]

The most important part of parental controls is parents knowing how to use the software. You can have passwords all day long and when the kids are 10x more tech savvy than the parents it's not hard to get around such controls.

[Mark H.]

It all boils down to teaching kids the meaning, and consequences for disobeying, the word "NO".

Mom and Dad made that painfully clear to me when necessary.

[Louis M.]

It all boils down to teaching kids the meaning, and consequences for disobeying, the word "NO".

Mom and Dad made that painfully clear to me when necessary.

Heh, almost 29 years old and Mom and Dad still can do this! :lol:

[blackfalcon]

Lol, you cant be sued for that. Just put something in the TOS.

And you are right. And kids can register and say that they are over the age of 13, that did not stop the passing of COPPA.

[Louis M.]

Lol, you cant be sued for that. Just put something in the TOS.

And you are right. And kids can register and say that they are over the age of 13, that did not stop the passing of COPPA.

And I thought there was no way in hell that the lady could sue McDonalds for burning herself with hot coffee... In today's world, I take nothing for granted.

[Josh Flamel]

I don't allow porn on my site... but there are some edgy things. I have a policy in my rules that state no one under 13 admitted anywhere on the board and if a younger child is caught on the board the IP can be banned.

It's out there... we can't stop it all. But I want to cover my &^% as much as possible.

[Renita]

Well, seeing Harry Potter is still a kids thing, we often deal with younger children/under 13's on our forum and website. We do not have COPPA registration initiated though. Our members come from all over the world and out side of the USA no one gives a flying saucer about COPPA.

While I totally agree with LMarkham that parents should take the responsibility for what their kids do online, we have some rules in place that keep the young ones out of forums that we deem not suitable for them. It's sometimes a bit of a hassle, but we have our 17+ forums password protected, and to receive the password you have to have been a member on the site long enough for us to see if your posts are consistently mature enough.

Now to come to the point:

There are some ways and modifications that use the members birth date as given when they joined the site, to determine if they should have access to certain forums or not.

That would be a feature I would love to see in IPB: being able to restrict access to forums based on age.

After all, we are not the parents, but we are a website open for children, so we take over a tiny bit of that responsibility when kids do come on our forums. We don't want them scarred or abused in any way after all.

[blackfalcon]

As it is your board, you can give away your members passwords, so if their account is hacked, then that is their problem.
Also, what is so special about someone finding out someone's parent password? If you could get sued if someone finds out their regular password? So should we cut passwords all together so people can find out other peoples passwords?

[sunrisecc]

Passwords to a password-secured forum have nothing to do with passwords to a member's account.

@blackfalcon: I am confused by your reference to "members' password"

[Jaggi]

i've always thought parental controls can be organised with a venture to do with browsers and sites. Basically you add a new meta tag giving your site a category rating (outlined by w3c). the browser has parental controls on it and it grabs that rating and based on that allows or disallows the person to view the site. Google could then organise their search engine to only show results in these categories and could force sites to use it by not indexing them properly if they have not set the category, also if the search spider picks up certain words on the site it could categorise the site itself (like it does now with some sites). Don't see it happening any time soon but think it could work.

[W13]

I think this should be limited to a 'modification' (if even) as it applies to a VERY small percentage of people. ^_^

Kids can access everything online - and forums are mostly harmless compared to the other crap that's available online.

Also- on forums such as mine, the moderators keep it a very "G-Rated" forum as we have many young gamers (most just lie about being over 13).

[Digi]

i've always thought parental controls can be organised with a venture to do with browsers and sites. Basically you add a new meta tag giving your site a category rating (outlined by w3c). the browser has parental controls on it and it grabs that rating and based on that allows or disallows the person to view the site. Google could then organise their search engine to only show results in these categories and could force sites to use it by not indexing them properly if they have not set the category, also if the search spider picks up certain words on the site it could categorise the site itself (like it does now with some sites). Don't see it happening any time soon but think it could work.

IE already contain all of these controls. However, it's up to the site to transmit the data. Unfortunately, most either don't know how or just don't do it. (Other browsers may also have parental controls built in, FF definitely does not)

[blackfalcon]

I think this should be limited to a 'modification' (if even) as it applies to a VERY small percentage of people. ^_^

Kids can access everything online - and forums are mostly harmless compared to the other crap that's available online.

Also- on forums such as mine, the moderators keep it a very "G-Rated" forum as we have many young gamers (most just lie about being over 13).

Where did you guys get this G-rated 13 year old thing. I am not talking about unsuitable content, I am talking about a parent not wanting their child to be able to access the arcade on week days, or only be able to spend so much time on the forum a day.
You can have 50000 moderators and still not be able to do what I am suggesting.

[sychn]

"Dad, I want to read a cartoon topic, would you please enter the password for me?"

"Why does it need a password?"

"I don't know. The name is 'Beauty and the beast in the bed', it might be a new edition."

[China J]

Where did you guys get this G-rated 13 year old thing. I am not talking about unsuitable content, I am talking about a parent not wanting their child to be able to access the arcade on week days, or only be able to spend so much time on the forum a day.

You can have 50000 moderators and still not be able to do what I am suggesting.

How about the parent just take resposibility and password the computer? :lol:

[zigs]

How about the parent just take resposibility and password the computer? :lol:

Exactly, it is up to the parent to say no to child and to tell them to switch the pc off..

[blackfalcon]

I dont mean prevent someone from using the entire forum, just a feature like the arcade during specific times.

[W13]

There is 3rd party software that locks the computer after a certain amount of time.

Also- some parents place time restrictions on their internet routers (nearly all modern routers have this setting).

IPB should be the last thing to have this feature. It applies to VERY few people - and should therefore be (at MOST) a modification. Parents have many other methods to place time restrictions on their kids (including walking to their kids and telling them to get off the computer).

[blackfalcon]

It is not all about restricting the amount of time they can use it for either.