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Quibuz
Wapanese Weeaboo
While, of course, it's not my place to question what happened since I don't know the whole story, I just find it odd you state a moderator "basically harassed" you for creating a "false report." Without knowing the whole story, I'm limited in what I can give on the subject but that just doesn't seem right. Was it harassment or was it simply the moderator educating you on what the situation you reported was and how your report against it wasn't valid?


It was through a pm sent by a site moderator. It clearly states that this particular moderator has noticed that I have a tendency to report any thread, post, or signature with the word "sex" or "p***s" in it. Which is not true at all. I normally only report explicit graphic materials posted in the forums. And there are a lot. In the past weeks i must have reported over 20 threads containing pornographic images. However this time i reported someone's signature as i wanted to make a point that certain repeating violators of the ToS and R&G circumvent the optional gaia wordcensors, by putting spaces in certain words. And this particular moderator tries to convince me in an unfriendly manner not to make similar reports again. In a similar case (also involving the use of certain words in a signature to bypass censors), which was handled by a different moderator, I was thanked for helping to keep the site safe for kids. Which underlines the double standard some moderators seem to have.
I created this thread to gather enough information about opinions of other gaians concerning this topic. Based on that information i might take further steps that may involve, but not limits nor excludes contacting gaia staff and/or management. I prefer not to digress too much on that at this point in time. I am willing to explain my motives though.

In the past 7 years i have seen changes in gaiaonline's and gaians attitudes towards eachother. Many of my the people i knew from then left gaia as it (and i loosely quote) "gaia has losts its appeal as it has become too much part of the commercial industry. It has lost the joyfull, warm, welcome feeling it used to bring."
It is a fact that the given number of people being online on the site has gone down drastically. If anyone likes to contest that.... just take a look at the following information:

The gaiaonline main forum site as of the moment of creating this reply:
Who is Online? - 7111 users. (5836 visible, 1142 hidden, 133 guests).

Gaia has 2,116,349,584 articles posted with 26,844,083 registered users.

Most users ever online was 77,655 on Mon Nov 08, 2010 1:31 am



The gaiaonline main forum site as documented by the web archive on june 29, 2007:
Who is Online? - 65699 users. (58782 visible, 3844 hidden, 3073 guests).

Gaia has 1,074,609,046 articles posted with 8,081,368 registered users.

Most users ever online was 86,738 on Thu Jan 04, 2007 3:00 pm


For your information... i picked a random date out of available data for comparison.

The amount of registered user accounts has increased a lot, but that is no surprise. Such an increase can easily be explained by the following reasons:
  • there is no means of deleting an account on gaia
  • over time a population growns
  • many gaians have multiple (mule) accounts next to their "main" account.


Surprisingly the amount of articles posted has merely doubled in value. Over that time with such a large amount of users one would expect a lot more articles to be posted. A possible reason for that can be that non-public accessible parts of the forums (like closed event forums) are not included anymore.

Times mentioned in both observations can't be compared as I do not live in the same timezone as where the internet archive index bots reside. Nonetheless, back in 2007 one could get similar results at any given time of the day. Whether it was in the middle of the night or during the day, there were always more than 50,000 unique visitors online.

What i find striking is that at this moment there are 7,111 unique users online. On june 29, 2007 that were 65,699 unique users.
Possible reasons for that are:
  • gaia has lost contact with the original targetgroup. It has seized to be the warm, tight, loyal community it used to be.
  • gaiaonline has become too much of a marketing thing. In recent years gaiaonline has become more and more focussed on making profit, than investing in what their targetgroups really wanted. An example of that is the announcement last year made by certain developers that zOMG! (which has been gaiaonline's spearhead for a long time) would be discontinued. This hasn't happend yet, but that can only be contributed to the amount of concerned posts made by many zOMG!players
  • due to above reasons a lot of gaians have moved on to other website communities.


If this trend continues gaiaonline will seize to exist within a few years. Of course the marketing department of gaiaonline (which is larger than the game maintenance/developing department) will prevent that from happening. However, it is likely that more and more institutes (like the OpenDNS systems, parental control software, schools, libraries, campuses, etcetera) will block access to the site as it clearly is not the PG-13 site it claims to be and therefore is not "safe for (young) teens". Let us all put some effort into this and make this site safe for everyone.


Ah, I see you've disregarded the other part of my post. That's fine if you have no response to that. 3nodding

As for the point you've brought up, I'm failing to see how that is "basically harassment." You reported something, the moderator messaged you back letting you know they have noticed you report a lot of content that's sexually explicit, or what you believe to be sexually explicit, you then state they told you in an "unfriendly manner" to not make reports like the one they contacted you about again. At this time, unless there's proof of what was said, this is all entirely one-sided, he said she said if you will. You're not required to prove what was said of course, however, I find it highly unlikely the moderator would have been unfriendly or harassing in their reply to you. After all, moderators that harass users don't stay moderators. I'm pretty sure the moderators are well aware that users attempt to bypass certain word blocks via altering how they're spelling something but like I mentioned in my original post, it all comes down to context which is why I'm sure the other moderator you mentioned thanked you for reporting because in the other context, it may very well have been a violation.

As for the numbers you're quoting there, I find it a bit funny you mention bots (referring to the "internet archive index bots") because that's where a lot of those "online" users came from when the numbers were much higher years ago, and why the counter was reset. As for why there aren't a lot of users online compared to before, well, you're going to have people give different answers because everyone has their own view on it and some of those views may be spot on. For example, people leave due to loss of interest, I'm sure quite a few of the older users on here joined in their mid-teens and over the years have grown apart from what used to keep them entertained, thus leaving Gaia. Real life got in the way, people growing up means they're leaving school to start working and whatever else may keep them busy in the real world, they no longer simply have the time for Gaia that they once did. Nothing has really changed over the years, this is sort of goes in hand with my original one where Gaia is still a forum based site with games thrown in here and there as well an avatar dressing aspect to it. Perhaps a lot of the users have just grown out of that "dressing up avatar" phase and the forums no longer appeal to them and they've grown bored with the games as they can't compare to the countless other types of games out there on the internet (as well gaming consoles) so they've lost interest there as well. Maybe some only joined because a friend of theirs joined and said friend has left and they only really stayed around for their sake, with that friend gone, there's really nothing else to do without that feeling of starting over to look for others to enjoy their time with. There's tons of other reasons people can come up with as to why they feel the numbers have dropped over the years and more than likely, that reason that they came up with may very well be a reason why at least one person has left.

I'd love to hear your reasoning on your "gaia has lost contact with the original targetgroup. It has seized to be the warm, tight, loyal community it used to be" point you made. Who did Gaia exactly "target" before when the number of users was higher? Tight and loyal community? That's something that's going to be impossible to keep on a site that grows and has as much traffic as Gaia does. The more people that join and participate in the site, the more "drowned out" the tight and loyal becomes, it's just a fact of online communities I'm afraid.

As for your second point that Gaia has become "too much of a marketing thing," well, yea, money is what makes the world go round. Without constant income, Gaia goes away. It only makes sense that try and make money. More money means more money to pay developers and artists to create other things that can make more money and give the users more to do.That's pretty cut and dry right there. For zOMG!, I would like links, if you have them, to where a developer has stated zOMG! will be discontinued. All I've heard about zOMG!'s future lately is that it has been placed in "maintenance mode" meaning that it's still here and not going anywhere, and literally it's not going anywhere, as in no new content to provide, just the bare essentials to keep it running. From my understanding, while zOMG! did rack in some money, it just wasn't enough to keep the amount of attention that the users wanted to see. Like the real world, from a business standpoint, you don't keep feeding money to something that you see isn't making you money. Instead, you use that money for something that either you know will make you money, or you branch out and try new waters (in this case, Gaia's Facebook games they've been pushing out) until you find that little gem that everyone likes and is putting enough money towards it to show that.

As for places blocking Gaia, only thing I really have to say to that is my job blocks Gaia simply for "gaming." That's literally the reason that comes up on the firewall if I were to try and visit it from the office. However, as for being blocked for not being "PG-13," I don't see this happening because this isn't how Gaia shows itself nor would the staff allow it to, hence we have moderators that clean the site up.
Wapanese Weeaboo
Quibuz
Wapanese Weeaboo
While, of course, it's not my place to question what happened since I don't know the whole story, I just find it odd you state a moderator "basically harassed" you for creating a "false report." Without knowing the whole story, I'm limited in what I can give on the subject but that just doesn't seem right. Was it harassment or was it simply the moderator educating you on what the situation you reported was and how your report against it wasn't valid?


It was through a pm sent by a site moderator. It clearly states that this particular moderator has noticed that I have a tendency to report any thread, post, or signature with the word "sex" or "p***s" in it. Which is not true at all. I normally only report explicit graphic materials posted in the forums. And there are a lot. In the past weeks i must have reported over 20 threads containing pornographic images. However this time i reported someone's signature as i wanted to make a point that certain repeating violators of the ToS and R&G circumvent the optional gaia wordcensors, by putting spaces in certain words. And this particular moderator tries to convince me in an unfriendly manner not to make similar reports again. In a similar case (also involving the use of certain words in a signature to bypass censors), which was handled by a different moderator, I was thanked for helping to keep the site safe for kids. Which underlines the double standard some moderators seem to have.
I created this thread to gather enough information about opinions of other gaians concerning this topic. Based on that information i might take further steps that may involve, but not limits nor excludes contacting gaia staff and/or management. I prefer not to digress too much on that at this point in time. I am willing to explain my motives though.

In the past 7 years i have seen changes in gaiaonline's and gaians attitudes towards eachother. Many of my the people i knew from then left gaia as it (and i loosely quote) "gaia has losts its appeal as it has become too much part of the commercial industry. It has lost the joyfull, warm, welcome feeling it used to bring."
It is a fact that the given number of people being online on the site has gone down drastically. If anyone likes to contest that.... just take a look at the following information:

The gaiaonline main forum site as of the moment of creating this reply:
Who is Online? - 7111 users. (5836 visible, 1142 hidden, 133 guests).

Gaia has 2,116,349,584 articles posted with 26,844,083 registered users.

Most users ever online was 77,655 on Mon Nov 08, 2010 1:31 am



The gaiaonline main forum site as documented by the web archive on june 29, 2007:
Who is Online? - 65699 users. (58782 visible, 3844 hidden, 3073 guests).

Gaia has 1,074,609,046 articles posted with 8,081,368 registered users.

Most users ever online was 86,738 on Thu Jan 04, 2007 3:00 pm


For your information... i picked a random date out of available data for comparison.

The amount of registered user accounts has increased a lot, but that is no surprise. Such an increase can easily be explained by the following reasons:
  • there is no means of deleting an account on gaia
  • over time a population growns
  • many gaians have multiple (mule) accounts next to their "main" account.


Surprisingly the amount of articles posted has merely doubled in value. Over that time with such a large amount of users one would expect a lot more articles to be posted. A possible reason for that can be that non-public accessible parts of the forums (like closed event forums) are not included anymore.

Times mentioned in both observations can't be compared as I do not live in the same timezone as where the internet archive index bots reside. Nonetheless, back in 2007 one could get similar results at any given time of the day. Whether it was in the middle of the night or during the day, there were always more than 50,000 unique visitors online.

What i find striking is that at this moment there are 7,111 unique users online. On june 29, 2007 that were 65,699 unique users.
Possible reasons for that are:
  • gaia has lost contact with the original targetgroup. It has seized to be the warm, tight, loyal community it used to be.
  • gaiaonline has become too much of a marketing thing. In recent years gaiaonline has become more and more focussed on making profit, than investing in what their targetgroups really wanted. An example of that is the announcement last year made by certain developers that zOMG! (which has been gaiaonline's spearhead for a long time) would be discontinued. This hasn't happend yet, but that can only be contributed to the amount of concerned posts made by many zOMG!players
  • due to above reasons a lot of gaians have moved on to other website communities.


If this trend continues gaiaonline will seize to exist within a few years. Of course the marketing department of gaiaonline (which is larger than the game maintenance/developing department) will prevent that from happening. However, it is likely that more and more institutes (like the OpenDNS systems, parental control software, schools, libraries, campuses, etcetera) will block access to the site as it clearly is not the PG-13 site it claims to be and therefore is not "safe for (young) teens". Let us all put some effort into this and make this site safe for everyone.


Ah, I see you've disregarded the other part of my post. That's fine if you have no response to that. 3nodding

As for the point you've brought up, I'm failing to see how that is "basically harassment." You reported something, the moderator messaged you back letting you know they have noticed you report a lot of content that's sexually explicit, or what you believe to be sexually explicit, you then state they told you in an "unfriendly manner" to not make reports like the one they contacted you about again. At this time, unless there's proof of what was said, this is all entirely one-sided, he said she said if you will. You're not required to prove what was said of course, however, I find it highly unlikely the moderator would have been unfriendly or harassing in their reply to you. After all, moderators that harass users don't stay moderators. I'm pretty sure the moderators are well aware that users attempt to bypass certain word blocks via altering how they're spelling something but like I mentioned in my original post, it all comes down to context which is why I'm sure the other moderator you mentioned thanked you for reporting because in the other context, it may very well have been a violation.

As for the numbers you're quoting there, I find it a bit funny you mention bots (referring to the "internet archive index bots") because that's where a lot of those "online" users came from when the numbers were much higher years ago, and why the counter was reset. As for why there aren't a lot of users online compared to before, well, you're going to have people give different answers because everyone has their own view on it and some of those views may be spot on. For example, people leave due to loss of interest, I'm sure quite a few of the older users on here joined in their mid-teens and over the years have grown apart from what used to keep them entertained, thus leaving Gaia. Real life got in the way, people growing up means they're leaving school to start working and whatever else may keep them busy in the real world, they no longer simply have the time for Gaia that they once did. Nothing has really changed over the years, this is sort of goes in hand with my original one where Gaia is still a forum based site with games thrown in here and there as well an avatar dressing aspect to it. Perhaps a lot of the users have just grown out of that "dressing up avatar" phase and the forums no longer appeal to them and they've grown bored with the games as they can't compare to the countless other types of games out there on the internet (as well gaming consoles) so they've lost interest there as well. Maybe some only joined because a friend of theirs joined and said friend has left and they only really stayed around for their sake, with that friend gone, there's really nothing else to do without that feeling of starting over to look for others to enjoy their time with. There's tons of other reasons people can come up with as to why they feel the numbers have dropped over the years and more than likely, that reason that they came up with may very well be a reason why at least one person has left.

I'd love to hear your reasoning on your "gaia has lost contact with the original targetgroup. It has seized to be the warm, tight, loyal community it used to be" point you made. Who did Gaia exactly "target" before when the number of users was higher? Tight and loyal community? That's something that's going to be impossible to keep on a site that grows and has as much traffic as Gaia does. The more people that join and participate in the site, the more "drowned out" the tight and loyal becomes, it's just a fact of online communities I'm afraid.

As for your second point that Gaia has become "too much of a marketing thing," well, yea, money is what makes the world go round. Without constant income, Gaia goes away. It only makes sense that try and make money. More money means more money to pay developers and artists to create other things that can make more money and give the users more to do.That's pretty cut and dry right there. For zOMG!, I would like links, if you have them, to where a developer has stated zOMG! will be discontinued. All I've heard about zOMG!'s future lately is that it has been placed in "maintenance mode" meaning that it's still here and not going anywhere, and literally it's not going anywhere, as in no new content to provide, just the bare essentials to keep it running. From my understanding, while zOMG! did rack in some money, it just wasn't enough to keep the amount of attention that the users wanted to see. Like the real world, from a business standpoint, you don't keep feeding money to something that you see isn't making you money. Instead, you use that money for something that either you know will make you money, or you branch out and try new waters (in this case, Gaia's Facebook games they've been pushing out) until you find that little gem that everyone likes and is putting enough money towards it to show that.

As for places blocking Gaia, only thing I really have to say to that is my job blocks Gaia simply for "gaming." That's literally the reason that comes up on the firewall if I were to try and visit it from the office. However, as for being blocked for not being "PG-13," I don't see this happening because this isn't how Gaia shows itself nor would the staff allow it to, hence we have moderators that clean the site up.


First of all.... i reply to what i like to reply to. You can draw conclusions as to why i only answer certain parts of your messages, but those conclusions are assumptions that most likely aren't based on reality. This thread is to discuss the rating of gaiaonline and i don't want to digress too far from that just to satisfy you. However... to answer a few of your questions...

Many parents are advised to use parental control software. OpenDNS is a cloud based solution for blocking undesired contents from your kids. OpenDNS and sites alike use the DMOZ.
gaiaonline on the dmoz: http://www.dmoz.org/Kids_and_Teens/People_and_Society/Online_Communities/
As said.... OpenDNS uses the DMOZ to cathegorize websites. Apparently gaiaonline is classified as a site for Kids and Teens, which would indicate a PG-13 or Teen rating. And the OpenDNS parental control software potentially blocks it when a certain percentage of foul language is being used througfhout the site. Again... i don't see why i should digress that much on this... If you like to know what others (mostly parents) think about the PG-13 rating gaiaonline gave itself... Just search the internet for reviews about gaiaonline and you'll see what i mean.

about zOMG!'s possible discontinuation: The original thread made by |JK| seems to be removed. I had it in my "subscribed threads", but it doesn't show up anymore. However.. there still is the Follow up on zOMG from the admins, which appeared after the petition to keep zOMG! alive.
http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/zomg-gaia-s-mmo/follow-up-on-zomg-from-the-admins/t.78122171/

About "my reasoning on your "gaia has lost contact with the original targetgroup"... eventhough i think i was quite clear on that, i'll give you a short reminder. Gaia has moved from being a community for manga, roleplay and creative enthousiasts to a site with one general targetgroup; "money spending teens", regardless of their interests. Many things changed with the introduction of site integrated sponsorships. Think about brand/product/movie related items and advertisements within hangouts and/or the marketplace, subliminal messages, etcetera. Like i said... When that happend many old friends moved to sites that don't have such a high "They Live (1988.)" contents. It is time more people put on their special sun glasses. wink

Now, can we go back and stay on topic??? thank you very much.
Quibuz
First of all.... i reply to what i like to reply to. You can draw conclusions as to why i only answer certain parts of your messages, but those conclusions are assumptions that most likely aren't based on reality. This thread is to discuss the rating of gaiaonline and i don't want to digress too far from that just to satisfy you. However... to answer a few of your questions...

Many parents are advised to use parental control software. OpenDNS is a cloud based solution for blocking undesired contents from your kids. OpenDNS and sites alike use the DMOZ.
gaiaonline on the dmoz: http://www.dmoz.org/Kids_and_Teens/People_and_Society/Online_Communities/
As said.... OpenDNS uses the DMOZ to cathegorize websites. Apparently gaiaonline is classified as a site for Kids and Teens, which would indicate a PG-13 or Teen rating. And the OpenDNS parental control software potentially blocks it when a certain percentage of foul language is being used througfhout the site. Again... i don't see why i should digress that much on this... If you like to know what others (mostly parents) think about the PG-13 rating gaiaonline gave itself... Just search the internet for reviews about gaiaonline and you'll see what i mean.

about zOMG!'s possible discontinuation: The original thread made by |JK| seems to be removed. I had it in my "subscribed threads", but it doesn't show up anymore. However.. there still is the Follow up on zOMG from the admins, which appeared after the petition to keep zOMG! alive.
http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/zomg-gaia-s-mmo/follow-up-on-zomg-from-the-admins/t.78122171/

About "my reasoning on your "gaia has lost contact with the original targetgroup"... eventhough i think i was quite clear on that, i'll give you a short reminder. Gaia has moved from being a community for manga, roleplay and creative enthousiasts to a site with one general targetgroup; "money spending teens", regardless of their interests. Many things changed with the introduction of site integrated sponsorships. Think about brand/product/movie related items and advertisements within hangouts and/or the marketplace, subliminal messages, etcetera. Like i said... When that happend many old friends moved to sites that don't have such a high "They Live (1988.)" contents. It is time more people put on their special sun glasses. wink

Now, can we go back and stay on topic??? thank you very much.


Oh, of course you can, I just find it odd is all since you seemed a bit concerned about that part in your opening post. Which, I feel is on topic as by your own admission is the reason that sparked the creation of this topic. ^^

Ah, so the site you mention considers Gaia as (basically) PG-13? Well, I guess the Staff have done a good job thus far in handling the content site-wide so that their rating isn't something that warrants a more mature audience. Good going staff, keep up the great work! As for other people's reviews about what they would rate Gaia, I'm more the type to check something out myself rather look at the reviews of another and trust it considering that review is based off their experience. While there are bad apples spread throughout Gaia, I won't allow them to change how I feel about the site itself because those users do not represent the site nor the values the site tries to project to those looking at it. I'm more inclined to look at the site itself as a whole, and look at what exactly the site is aiming to accomplish overall (being a site that doesn't allow mature content on here in this situation) and how the site attempts to maintain this goal. Which is where the Staff comes into play. If the Staff didn't care about this PG-13 level of content on it then they wouldn't have the staff they do now to handle these bad apples as mentioned earlier, it would be a free for all where anyone would past whatever they want with no repercussions.

Which brings me to your suggestions part of your second post. From what I've seen, Gaia does ban repeat offenders, while you can make a new account, that doesn't mean you start on a clean slate. It would only make sense that a user that has been banned before not get the same treatment as someone who has broken the rules only once, instead, they would receive harsher treatment if they were to come back and commit the same violation that got them banned in the first place. Also, I've never heard of a six month ban temporary ban before, only 3 days and 14 days, then the permanent ban. As for many moderators being students and being limited to what they're able to do, I find it hard to believe that these moderators are going be in places where they're unable to handle inappropriate content 24/7, and even if they are, I'm sure they're able to find a way to make sure it would get taken care of, possibly by the moderators that are in a place where it's fine to handle such content. Even then, if those moderators can't find a way to get someone else to do it, then the moderators that are in a place they can handle the inappropriate content will come across it on their own time. The only thing I'm not able to see eye to eye with you on about Gaia changing their "PG-13" stance to "R" is Gaia isn't a movie and shouldn't be held to the same exact rating system. Gaia's mentioning of PG-13 is more of a reference, not an exact literal guideline, which is why everything is broken down a bit to help users further understand what's allowed and what isn't.

I hate to sound like a broken record when I say the word "context" but I won't be able to help that since it's literally what keeps Gaia moderators around. Without moderators to use their judgement when it comes to situations, we might as well replace them all with automated systems that aren't able to tell the difference between someone using the word "p***s" in a non offensive way or any other way that violates the rules than someone someone using the word to cause problems around the site. Then, I'm sure you'll see the numbers on the site dwindle down to nothing since at that point you're taking away the part of Gaia that helps make sure everyone's experience is as enjoyable as possible with the amount of staff it has: the human part.

I've read over the opening post to the link you posted about zOMG! and I didn't see anything that stating the game was being removed I'm afraid. The closest thing was where DARKNRGY stated to "halt production" but that merely means what I mentioned about it no longer receiving updates/new content, not literally being removed where no one can play it all any longer. So that's good at least, that there's nothing showing the game will be removed from the site at this time. 3nodding

I still see Gaia as the simple site it used to be, but with more, so much more. We still have roleplaying, an entire forum created for it with several subforums. We still have places where users can discuss manga and the like. We still have those "creative enthusiasts" as well, maybe not as in our face as they used to be, but they're still here. I'm sorry you feel as though all Gaia is nowadays is some behemoth out to get our money but at the end of the day, Gaia is a business, plain and simple. I'll refrain from going further here on this subject (as well with zOMG!) since I can see this part potentially going off topic. ^^

Salty Pirate

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If your internet software classifies Gaia incorrectly that's hardly Gaia's fault. Kids SHOULDN'T be on this site. They aren't even allowed to be on this site. And we can use the words "sex" and "p***s" if we want to.

Salty Pirate

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Quibuz
@ Lazarus Larkin .... I have a life lesson for you:

Before claiming someone's suggestions for improvement will not work ...
User Image
... and then suggest better ideas of improvement.


I DID think. And I posted exactly why I don't think it would work.

I don't' think any of your suggestions are remotely feasible or practical, and I think that the ONLY valid point you've made in this entire thread is that mods sometimes have differing ideas of what breaks the TOS and what doesn't.

You're also under the very mistaken assumption that Gaia is mostly young teens, I notice. Most of the GCD is over 20. Many of us are over 30.

Premium Gaian

Technically asll that makes somethign PG-13 is, no over use of swearing, and no frontal nudity.

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Marshmlow1
Technically asll that makes somethign PG-13 is, no over use of swearing, and no frontal nudity.


Actually PG-13 means accessible to all with a warning to those under the age of 13. Gaia, however, does not allow anyone under the age of 13; therefore, Gaia is not actually a PG-13 website, in spite of its statements to the contrary.
Marshmlow1
Technically asll that makes somethign PG-13 is, no over use of swearing, and no frontal nudity.


That is just his point, Gaia now tolerates and through the enforcement approach--that is, waiting for users to report to the moderators through the report system--even seems to condone overuse of swearing, frontal nudity, sexually explicit conduct, and other visual and verbal harassment of teens.

As well, some offenders seem to get by with warnings, while others get bans of 2 days to 6 months for similar offenses. And, frequently offenders are repeat offenders, changing a few letters in their names or adding a number to the end of their names, yet keeping the same siggy or twitter account reference for all to see.

Salty Pirate

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Lord Coolman55a
Marshmlow1
Technically asll that makes somethign PG-13 is, no over use of swearing, and no frontal nudity.


That is just his point, Gaia now tolerates and through the enforcement approach--that is, waiting for users to report to the moderators through the report system--even seems to condone overuse of swearing, frontal nudity, sexually explicit conduct, and other visual and verbal harassment of teens.

As well, some offenders seem to get by with warnings, while others get bans of 2 days to 6 months for similar offenses. And, frequently offenders are repeat offenders, changing a few letters in their names or adding a number to the end of their names, yet keeping the same siggy or twitter account reference for all to see.


Mods don't really just sit around waiting for reports, though. If they notice an obvious violation they'll take care of it themselves. The problem is that there are thousands of users on Gaia and not all that many mods, so they really need the report system because there's no way they can find every violation themselves.
Lazarus Larkin
Lord Coolman55a
Marshmlow1
Technically asll that makes somethign PG-13 is, no over use of swearing, and no frontal nudity.


That is just his point, Gaia now tolerates and through the enforcement approach--that is, waiting for users to report to the moderators through the report system--even seems to condone overuse of swearing, frontal nudity, sexually explicit conduct, and other visual and verbal harassment of teens.

As well, some offenders seem to get by with warnings, while others get bans of 2 days to 6 months for similar offenses. And, frequently offenders are repeat offenders, changing a few letters in their names or adding a number to the end of their names, yet keeping the same siggy or twitter account reference for all to see.


Mods don't really just sit around waiting for reports, though. If they notice an obvious violation they'll take care of it themselves. The problem is that there are thousands of users on Gaia and not all that many mods, so they really need the report system because there's no way they can find every violation themselves.


Threads with blatant announcements of "nude drops" in the titles--and yes, actual male and female nude drops in the threads--have taken over 24 hours and multiple reports to be removed. One particularly violent drop (a animated gif image of the rape of a brutally battered and possibly murdered woman) remained on Gaia for over a day with numerous comments before any moderator acted. These threads are typically announced by the threadmaker as containing such items, so the moderators should have no trouble identifying and acting upon them if they are actually monitoring the Forums.

These days, moderators respond; they don't act, and often they don't act promptly. One moderator stated, ". . . Other things can happen as well where a moderator reads the message, and maybe internet cuts out, or they can't deal with sexually explicit content at that very moment (being in a public place, in the company of children, etc.)."

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Hey, I'm not arguing that there aren't nearly enough mods. But the reason they aren't proactive isn't because it's policy or anything, it's just because there aren't enough of them to cover everything.
Lord Coolman55a
(...)

Threads with blatant announcements of "nude drops" in the titles--and yes, actual male and female nude drops in the threads--have taken over 24 hours and multiple reports to be removed. One particularly violent drop (a animated gif image of the rape of a brutally battered and possibly murdered woman) remained on Gaia for over a day with numerous comments before any moderator acted. These threads are typically announced by the threadmaker as containing such items, so the moderators should have no trouble identifying and acting upon them if they are actually monitoring the Forums.

These days, moderators respond; they don't act, and often they don't act promptly. One moderator stated, ". . . Other things can happen as well where a moderator reads the message, and maybe internet cuts out, or they can't deal with sexually explicit content at that very moment (being in a public place, in the company of children, etc.)."


i see and agree with your points. I have seen and reported similar threads on the Chattrbox and GD. They seem to be more a rule than an exception these days.

What you mention about moderators not always being able to deal with sexually explicit materials.... that i find disturbing. I mean... if you volunteer to be a CPR aid at an event, you just can't say "i won't do CPR on that person, because i don't want my kids to see me put my mouth on another man's mouth". You know in advance that such a thing may be required and that you have to take responsibilities for that. So to claim that a moderator can't deal with such reports is nonsense in my humble opinion and should be classified as unqualified to be a moderator.

I believe that gaiaonline should employ at least 3 people just to monitor posts made from certain ipaddresses. According to what i fund out, ipaddresses of violators of the ToS and/or the R&G are being logged in the databases. It doesn't take that much effort to have an automated script scan for certain undesired contents in those posts. I know this doesn't provide a failsafe solution, but at least it would be a start. At this moment, what is done by moderators apparently is not enough. And what i just suggested (3 by gaia employed moderators, who are no volunteers) would help the moderators of the GD and CB as they can be addressed in case a forum moderator "can't view" a certain thread.
Lazarus Larkin
Hey, I'm not arguing that there aren't nearly enough mods. But the reason they aren't proactive isn't because it's policy or anything, it's just because there aren't enough of them to cover everything.


Ironically, now there are only 19,036 Gaians Online, down from the over 70,000 of 6 years ago, as reported by the Internet Archive--I would think that this is a more manageable number for moderators, but this kind of activity in the forums has increased in the last few years. And it frequently comes from the same people.

There are ways to block them permanently, yet Gaia doesn't seem interested in taking action, instead teens are subjected to really offensive images. I have to wonder what they get out of doing this, and why Gaia allows it.
Lazarus Larkin
Hey, I'm not arguing that there aren't nearly enough mods. But the reason they aren't proactive isn't because it's policy or anything, it's just because there aren't enough of them to cover everything.


no offence, but... That IS because of gaiaonline's policy. They should employ moderators instead of recruiting volunteers. It is gaia policy to have a certain amount of moderators per forum category.

Back in 2007 there were nude drops too, however they appeared far less frequent. Nowadays you can find at least 10 topics with the words Nude and Drop in it per day. Curiocity makes people visit those threads. And some (not all) contain sexually explicit or even pornographic materials.

I know that the CB and GD were created to discuss things, but i fail to see why pictures of genitalia contribute to such a discussion and what educational value it has for younger teens. Also the descriptive content where no pictures are used, but the description could have been taken out of some sleezy adult magazine (you know the ones nobody ever reads wink ) Topics about masturbation should exist only if they have an educational value. But i fail to see what more than 500 topic titles containing "jacking off" contribute to that educational value.

Furthermore... i believe that sexual education is one of the responsibilities for the parents, not for a website that claims to uphold a PG-13 rating.
Quibuz
Lazarus Larkin
Hey, I'm not arguing that there aren't nearly enough mods. But the reason they aren't proactive isn't because it's policy or anything, it's just because there aren't enough of them to cover everything.


no offence, but... That IS because of gaiaonline's policy. They should employ moderators instead of recruiting volunteers. It is gaia policy to have a certain amount of moderators per forum category.

Back in 2007 there were nude drops too, however they appeared far less frequent. Nowadays you can find at least 10 topics with the words Nude and Drop in it per day. Curiocity makes people visit those threads. And some (not all) contain sexually explicit or even pornographic materials.

I know that the CB and GD were created to discuss things, but i fail to see why pictures of genitalia contribute to such a discussion and what educational value it has for younger teens. Also the descriptive content where no pictures are used, but the description could have been taken out of some sleezy adult magazine (you know the ones nobody ever reads wink ) Topics about masturbation should exist only if they have an educational value. But i fail to see what more than 500 topic titles containing "jacking off" contribute to that educational value.

Furthermore... i believe that sexual education is one of the responsibilities for the parents, not for a website that claims to uphold a PG-13 rating.


I think one of the big problems is that the moderators ARE volunteers--they are unpaid, receiving only a nominal sum of Gc or Gg each month. Employ the moderators (pay them in US currency) and maybe the job would be more thoroughly and rapidly done.

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