Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

Althogh I have to follow it....I HATE IT!

In case you're confused: COPPA.

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I don't mind it so much (although being 22 kinda negates any negative feelings I might have towards it).

I can understand why it is in place though. Some 13 year olds would do just fine without it, but most wouldn't. It is in place for the same reasons that you can't drive until you are 16, can't smoke until you are 18, and can't drink or gamble until you are 21. They are all in place for your protection (and so mom and dad can keep an eye on you... you little rascals you... )

It's in place because lazy parents press litigation that excuses them fro actually parenting their children. No parent should be allowing their sub-13 child surf the web unsupervised, but just like teevee, it's become parent, nanny, and babysitter to a whole generation. And that's going to screw everything up for the rest of us, because the neocons will (and in fact have been for some time) crusade to destroy all "obscenity" on the Internet "for the children."

What, touchy subject, where?

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Must you turn every single thread into a political discussion, IJ? I come to this forum to get AWAY from that stuff.

I'm sorry, Gem, but this was a political discussion to begin with, and I didn't start it. Take a look at the topic. When you start a topic like "I hate act X which was passed by the U.S. Congress", you can't exactly steer the conversation toward blueberry muffins.

And you'll notice that I didn't mention Bush, um, yet.

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I don't know what a neocon is, but I'm in favor of preventing predatory practices through the internet by law. Americans like privacy: a few because they do bad things they want to hide, but most for security. The more someone knows about someone, the more that person is vulnerable. To establish that statement, meditate for a moment on how you feel about your credit report. Now think how easy it was to trick you when you were 8. I mean, I know 40+ year olds who still get tricked by "there is virus/spyware on ur computer the, click here 2 dl fix" web pages and emails. I also agree that many parent foolishly abdicate their responsibilities, but the reason we have laws at all is for protection of those unable to protect themselves. If you advocate anarchy, then do so overtly. :casio:

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I have no problem with punishing child predators, and taking certain steps to prevent such predation, but the COPPA, though masquerading as such an act, in actuality does little to actually protect children (Think about it: when was the last time a horny 16-year-old actually clicked on the "I'm under 18" link on a porn site? I know I never did.) and is unconstitutional and entirely unenforcable. Fortunately, the supreme court agrees.

I wouldn't mind seeing a COPPA-like act that isn't an impediment to constitutionally protected speech in sheep's clothing, but that's the sort of thing that doesn't really happen anymore.

And for god's sake learn to use Google, Buz.

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You only "have" to follow it in the same way that at our school we "have" to refrain from swearing: although it's technically a law, nobody really minds if you break it, and, let's face it, it's barely dramatically enforced: on a standard forum, you either click "I am under 13 years of age" or "over or exactly 13 years of age". Even if you're only eight, it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out how to hoodwink the system.

I'm against COPPA, myself. Ultimately, it's the parents' responsibility to prevent their child from running into rapists online and because of some laxity on the parents' part and naivety on the childrens' part, a law just has to be passed. And thirteen is an absurd lower limit; at the age of eight most people are easily intelligent enough to know about "Stranger Danger".

While I agree with the rest of your post, the above is unfortunately far from the truth. Every year hundreds of teens and "tweens" are abducted, most frequently by strangers posing quite convincingly as friends-of-the-family or authority figures. Everybody by the age of eight knows not to talk to strangers, but so many don't now the difference between someone who's a friend of their parents and somebody who's really friendly and clever enough to pretend to be a friend of their parents.

I recall in the '80s (perhaps much earlier, I dunno, I wasn't around) various child protection agencies started recommending parents to use the "password" system, whereby children will only go somewhere with a stranger who knows a special password that they child and parents have decided on. This is a very good system in theory, but in practice I think the vast majority of parents fail to really drill it into their kids' heads that they should never, ever, ever, ever, ever go anywhere with anybody who doesn't know the password no matter who they claim to be or what uniform they're wearing or how nice they are.

Many parents expect the schools to teach their kids this stuff effectively, because parents remember "Stranger-Danger" and think, "hey, I never got abducted, the schools must be getting it right". But the schools never succeed in teaching children to truly fear what a stranger might do to them.

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My family had a password system plan. Thank goodness we never had a reason to use it though.

when I say that, i meant for the forum thing.

I'm 13 so I just escaped it.

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"They've taken Mr Rimmer! Sir, they've taken Mr Rimmer!"
"Quick, let's get outta here before they bring him back!"

Jones: That's quite frightening. Then... it's the fault of the schools. Issuing a "law" is still just skirting around the issue.

I'm not quite sure what you're claiming is the fault of the schools, but I don't think I'd blame anything on the schools (okay, that's not quite true). Our schools and more specifically our teachers are trying really, really hard to do their job well, but they're just overwhelmed and underfunded. This has been true for a very long time, but drastically moreso since NCLB. The schools are just another symptom, not the cause.

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Well, if the schools aren't teaching children enough about Stranger Danger, then the problem isn't going to be solved by creating a law which nobody follows anyway. If the entire problem is due to underfunding, then it's clear that more money should be spent on the schools.

I think we can all agree with your last point.

Ultimately, the responsibility for keeping children safe from predators lies with their parents. Schools do their part and maybe could do more, but ultimately if a parent wants to make sure their child is safe, they have to do it themselves. Of course, no amount of education or training or ID badges or metal detectors or security systems will make a child 100% safe.

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Yeah! Let's hear it for underpaid schools!

/waiting to "hear it"

My school system is NOT underfunded, they just waste money on unnessecary things which we do not need, like 3 new roofs.

And now they're try to pass a levy.

Maybe I should've clarified; I wanted to "hear it" good stuff about schools.

Your schools don't need 'roofs?' What if it rains? Maybe the three rooves were put onto the same school? That would be silly.

All in all, I would have to say a roof is necessary. It even keeps out the sun's harmful rays!

And remember what they say (or at least what Led Zeppelin said), when the levy breaks, we've got no place to go.

Now let's hear it for Schools!


YeeeEEAAH SCHOOLS

But isn't it "roofs" and not "rooves"? Just asking. I'm more of a math and science person myself...


I love school. Every day, every way. It just gets better and better.

Hey, you're right. Fahoogelly Doogelly was right too. Wow, I never knew that about the word roof. I also just realised how to spell 'definite,' though I really still have trouble with any word ending with an "ible" or "able."

Perhaps my school system needed more money so they could teach that. Perhaps we should have had year-round schools so that we wouldn't forget 75% every summer. 'Cuz goodness knows we weren't studying all that summer.

Well, who would've saved the world from Bowser or Dr Wily?

COPPA is a joke. I escaped it last year, when I turned 13, and pre-birthday I considered it evil. Now I just consider it ridiculous.

COPPA is ridiculous and inneffective; written by idiotic neo-cons(short for neo-conservatives) who think that they're doing something other than forcing us to fake a birthdate.

..huh?

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Yeah. I wanna be an English teacher.

woul you really change "my computer desk, az" to My computer desk, japan"?

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RIP Nathan "Buz" Buzdor

Before I turned 13, I had to pretend that I was at least 13.

Probably. Or, "My computer desk, Japan" in Kanji. That'd be cool.

that's really cool,someone who has their goals set and is going to acomplish them. Major props to AgentSeeThrough

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RIP Nathan "Buz" Buzdor

Thankee, Thankee.