This is more a philosophical question, than technical, but there may be technical approaches to it. A public OpenSim grid allows access to people of any age, adult or child. Then, the availability of both chat and IM makes the site the equivalent of a public chat-room with a private back-channel. This presents a situation in which adult predators can approach children, with the attendant dangers. How can this concern be approached? Any kind of "public" OpenSim is prone to this issue, which will thus need a long-term, broad-based approach. A specific example could be a museum.
A significant advantage of having a public museum on an OpenSim grid, open to all, is that museums typically are valuable learning assets for children. Allowing chat/IM enhances the experience by fostering sharing of insights and questions. Thus, totally blocking chat and/or IM limits the value of the site. Another approach could be to require prior approval for each avatar that has access to the site. However, this is impractical in terms of resources needed to accomplish it (and difficulty in proving the nature of the requester), except in very limited (essentially non-public) situations. Monitoring of all the communication on a site is not practical (or even possible). Further, attempts by the site owner to monitor or otherwise provide security can leave one open to litigation. A typical, hands-off approach is to provide warnings and do nothing more. In the case of children, parents should know what their kids are doing and teach them safe internet practices. It is essentially analogous to going to a real, bricks-and-mortar museum, or store, or public place. Realistically, this may be the best that can be done. Or is it? I am interested in hearing ideas from others, either via this list or by e-mail to me at <[email protected]>. If there is significant e-mail exchange, I will summarize and post that summary here. Thanks, Mark _______________________________________________ Opensim-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-users
