Welcome to Gaia! ::

(this was posted on a thread frm a friend, but i wouldlike to post
it for you to read, I support this )

This is an open letter I've written and have started to send off to Lanzer and various mods here on Gaia. I've gotten fed up. Don't know about the rest of you, but I've had it.

An open letter to the owners and moderators of Gaia Online:
To Whom it May Concern;
I am a 41 year old parent and user of Gaia. I’ve been online with Gaia for a few years now. My daughter was involved in the site and so I made an account myself to help keep track of her. Since then my son has also joined and I have used my account to watch over both my teen kids. I’ve made my own circle of friends on this site and it’s those few friends who keep me here. If not for them, I would be long gone and my children too.
When first reading over the Terms of Service (ToS), I had hoped this would be a nice site to play on and have fun with friends. I’m afraid I was horribly wrong. As adults, my friends and I are often harassed by the teens on the Gaia because of our age. We are often accused of being child molesters and ***** for being on Gaia and told we don’t belong there; Gaia is a TEEN’s site, you know. Many of us have reported this sort of thing repeatedly and it just keeps on happening.
Speaking of the ToS, I have to wonder why it’s even there. It really isn’t being enforced much at all. Let me give some examples. Everything I’m quoting in here will either be directly from the ToS or taken randomly from one of the various forums that are open to everyone. Please remember, most of these posts are NOT being made by adults.
“Prohibited Conduct -- BY USING GAIA ONLINE YOU AGREE not TO:
a. "stalk", harass, threaten, or defraud other Gaia Members”
My one friend’s user name is iCappie Capitain and here are a few of copycat user names that have been used to threaten, stalk and harass him: iCappie Captain, The Cappie Captain, iCappie is a 44 year old, iCappie, iCappie The True Ped0…. Need I say more? Yet when I was trying to make a mule account I had problems getting the name I wanted because it was too close to another user’s name. I ended up switching to a different language to get the name I wanted. Seeing these makes me think someone is hacking (another violation) and creating these names on purpose. Or perhaps I’m just a bit paranoid?
b. send, post, or make available pornographic, threatening, embarrassing, hateful, racially or ethnically insulting, libelous, or otherwise inappropriate messages to other Gaia Members”
This one takes a beating so badly. I would be embarrassed by so many postings in many of the forums and I certainly don’t embarrass very easily.
“Emo's WTF!!!!!???? If you wanna die then go kill yourself.... stop slitting your wrist F_____U_____C___K!” from the general discussion board.
“I'm just sick of seeing people wear clothes 53985687678 bajillionx's smaller than they are. >[

I went to the mall and saw girls spilling out of their clothes like they were made of liquid.
EWWWW.

Nobody wants see your ******** rolls.
I have nothing against fat people,, but your "lovely" rolls aren't pretty.
Idc what people tell you.
Those pants make you look fat.

Why don't you just wear something that compliments your figure.
&& doesn't make you look like a fat slut.” Also taken from general discussion.
“Masturbation question first off i'm a girl.
I want to know if there is any type of household item
that I could use to make myself c**...
can't go buy a d***o cause I don't want my sisters to see it and
there would be no way of me hiding it.
any ideas anyone?” Taken from Life Issues….. where are the parents?
“whats sex like????? be vivid “ Taken from Chatterbox… I’d rather not repeat a few of the responses, though most were typical juvenile humor.
Also you can find these youngsters engaging in “cybering” in various role play scenarios and in towns, even though that is totally against the ToS and is exactly what they accuse the adults of doing. These samples I’ve taken here are very mild compared to some things I’ve seen. If you choose to wander through towns, beware, you may be totally shocked. I could capture screen shots of various conversations to “prove” my point, but it seems that some teens have taken to creating false screen shots to get some of us in a particular group of friends banned lately.
c. • make unsolicited offers, advertisements, proposals, chain letters, or send junk mail, to other Members
I get a lot of these and continually report them. Unfortunately, just as spam is ever present in regular email, I doubt we’ll ever be rid of this in our pm’s or chats on Gaia either.
d. impersonate another person or access another Member's account without permission
See my points under a. above. Some definite occurances of impersonation going on there. Yes, it’s been reported, and yes, it continues to happen.
e. fail to deliver payment for any purchases made on Gaia Online
f. share Gaia-issued passwords with a third party or encourage another Member to do so
These I can’t really comment on except to say that there are people on Gaia who insist on trying to scam all of us out of our passwords. It’s incredibly annoying, but most of us aren’t quite so gullible.
g. misrepresent the source, identity, or content of information transmitted via Gaia Online, for example, claiming a created work as your own that is not yours
Actually my daughter is more familiar with the transgressions of this. She tends to keep to the art forums on Gaia and has discovered that a number of people there tend to copy art and try to pass it off as their own. Plagerism? Forgery? Illegal? Against the ToS for sure. Do they get away with it? Yes.
h. use Gaia Online for any illegal purpose
I haven’t seen anything openly illegal, unless you count the slander and harassment my adult friends and I have had to face continually. Though if I ever do run across a real ***** or someone doing something totally illegal, I think I’ll go to the FBI first. I’m not sure I can trust the moderators to believe me anymore.
i. interfere with any security-related features of Gaia Online
Oh my, this one. My daughter’s account has been hacked. I’ve had friends who have had their accounts hacked. Yes, botting runs rampant, but I will thank the admins for all the attempts to patch these problems and track down those who have pulled this sort of thing off. There are still a lot of security issues though. Chats are being hacked and falsified. Screen shots are very easy to alter as “proof” of some misdeed that never happened. I know the moderators say they don’t ban people under false accusations, but it has happened and is happening. More than they think.
j. intentionally interfere with the operation of Gaia Online or any Member's enjoyment of it, or intentionally post inflammatory statements to get responses ("Trolling" wink
Now here is one that probably takes the absolute biggest beating of all of them. The constant infractions of this one has me ready to leave Gaia and urge my adult friends to pack up our children and our money and go elsewhere. How much enjoyment can you have if some 13, 14, 15, 16 year old is in towns accusing you or your friends of being child molesters, botters, hackers, ***** or whatever just because you are an adult on Gaia? Or threatening to report you and get you banned because you are an adult on Gaia. Oh yes, some of the other ToS issues overlap this one, but it all boils down to the fact that there is a lot of harassment and literal verbal abuse going on that very little is being done about. Oh yes, an account might get banned. That person can just make another account and come right back and hit us with more. Oh, and don’t forget the chat bubble hacking. Now these kids are starting to try to hack the chat bubbles and keep it the same black text color so you can’t tell you’ve been hacked. Where is this going to end?
I’ve made some friends on this site that I enjoy keeping company with. I don’t appreciate being consistently tormented by young people who seem to think that just because this is the internet they can get away with it. My own children aren’t angels, but I know I would make sure they were grounded at the very least if they were pulling some of this stuff. There is absolutely no call for the constant harassment and abuse we’ve had to endure just to try to have some fun in Gaia towns with our friends.
What can be done about this problem? It’s so far gone, I honestly don’t know. Some sites do have language filters that help tremendously. That might help some of the problems. What can we do to get rid of the harassment issues? Am I to just sit there and take the abuse I’m handed from a kid just because that child thinks he/she can get away with it? Should all of the adults who have been trying to enjoy our little corners of Gaia just pack up and leave Gaia to the kids; oh, we’ll take our financial support of the website with us as well. I’m sorry, but my money goes with me.
Well, this is how I feel. I’m sure I speak for a number of my friends at this point as well. I’m seeing too many of my friends getting hurt at the least and falsely banned at the worst. I just hope someone will read this and be compelled to try to clean up what could be a good, fun site.
Vicki C.
Aka Aredhel-s

But is it right that the young ones tell us to "get the ******** off"
just because we are older....that we should go to Myspace.
And what if you get harassed constantly every day for
absolutly no reason just for being older?



BTW, would you be willing to sign the letter?

But you should give me a link....
ninja

I'm in agreement with you Aredhel and Wak! I am also a parent with a child whom is a member of Gaia and I joined to monitor my childs activties. I truly enjoy this site for all of its activites and items. The only unfortunate thing about this site is the negative things you have brought to light. I have had two separate run-ins with young adults or teenagers who told me the same. I was ridiculed and called an old hag. However, I advised these youngsters that with out Mommy and Daddys help they didn't get their cash cards ;as well as, that fact that Adults OWN gaia!! I said," Hello, Do 12 year olds own it NO!!" As for the Harrassment/Stalking and pornographic issues. I can only suggest to web cam these things and forward them to the local authorities or FBI. I do think law enforcement officials watches these sites. However, I think this issues are still new and laws need to be created for such activity. We as members must support one another and help bring this subject to light.

I am a parent, and my daughter made my account for me.I had a problem with some guy who said he would sell me something then stole my first account.I could never get it back so my daughter had to make me a new account.some teens try everything they can to hurt others just because they think it is funny,other then that I have made friends with not only adults but some of the kids as well.I wish all the kids on here were as nice as the ones that know that I older them they are and still like me. heart heart