What the Heck? Age mean anything?

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Ok so yes I am too old to post here - But, I want my son to get involved here but, do not want 50 yr olds chatting with him. I also do not want to monitor it constantly I thought that was the point so he could come to this forum and chat with you? If a child wants a adult answer they will post their question in the adult forum. Ok am I being a complete freak?

You can't be too careful now days when your kids are online. I sometimes respond to the kids posts if I see it on twitter or something. I often don't even realize that I'm in the "children's" forum however. Being a female, I normally don't get negative feedback when I do. But, being the mom of a 25 yr that was molested at 2 & 1/2 yrs old and the mom of two other younger children, I so get where you're coming from! It's better to be safe than sorry. I wish to God I'd done a lot of things differently that would have better protected her. But, I definitely do now with the younger two. So no, you're not being overly anything. But, it also is a good idea for you to monitor all his posts anyway. You never know what sick piece of garbage is out there waiting to pounce on a young, confused or vulnerable child so it's a pain but, necessary. I also thing the moderators and/or webmaster should restrict posting based on age in certain forums or have a setting so parents can block adults or something as an added security feature.

I usually don't notice what forum I'm posting in. I just go by the feed on the right of the page. if it looks like something I might have a decent contribution to, I post.

If you can trust him not to disclose any personal information he should be fine... Perhaps I misunderstand.

I just got here via RSS (which doesn't show which forum a post is in). You should send Alex a note to turn the RSS and Twitter links features off for this forum. The Member's Only forum works that way, so it's definitely possible to do that.

Teach him what NOT to ever say on the internet, then he can be safe on his own, especially as he gets older.
The list is pretty short, mostly it's the things a cop or doctor or banker would ask you.
First name, last name, address, city, state, phone, relatives, birth date, SSI number, maybe even gender. And explain to him why so he'll understand even if someone asks about your car's license plate number or other such things. Tell him to not even confirm these things. (until he's old enough to do his own online banking)
To a child these things may seem harmless to tell a stranger, but even a 7 or 8 year old child is likely to be old enough to get creeped out by sexually related questions, and then come to you.
So covering both of these areas should stonewall just about any internet frootcake.

Just a thought.

But you have to enter the forum for 12 to 18 yr old? So you look at the feed on the main page and click.... Well that makes me feel better that they are not intentionally going into the forum....
He is thoroughly taught about computer internet safety, but that does not mean someone could sway his mind. He does have the Brain of a teenager.

You could restrict him to the forums and not allow him to use private messaging (I think that can be turned off?) or IRC.

I feel the same way. My daughter wants to get online and post with/ talk to like minded peers. I feel like I can't send her anywhere because adults seem to think it's fine to post on forums for children. I mean I know many adults have no ill intentions. But there are a fair share of creeps. I mean, back when the internet was in it's infancy (ok it was fetal- i think this was a BBS system or something) I was online all of 5 seconds before I stupidly gave my address to a 40 year old man. That went really well. So I'm ultra suspicious and extra cautious. I just feel like my daughter is probably not going to be able to socialize anywhere else. Not a lot of options.

Well I am glad to hear you feel the same way.. I sent a email to Alex asking why no response yet. I mean its like 50% of the post in a child forum are from adults... Now the young 20 something who just went through it I do get but 40, 50 and 60 not so much... I even see post from the kids saying why are adults in there. They go there not to talk to adult and talk to peers.

I think at least in the forum around here, you can relie on the mods to prevent any "creepers" sneaking up on the kids forum. So a typical sign of Aspergers is too mature a bit slower, so its not unusual here in this forum to have lots of so called adults, that still have tons of interests normal people would consider to be "childish". (I can offer computer games, Star Wars, Dungeons and Dragons-games, midiage-markets, .... XD ) So when its about topics of certain hobbies, its not unusual that people discuss with each other about Pokemons or whatever, without caring about age.

But most poster know each other pretty well, so I think a new poster, that focused only to post on the kids forum, would become suspicious after a certain time. As well that I think most here know from expierences in their own life, how bad it can be, if someone tries to benefit from the typical Aspergers being more "clueless/innocent", so it hardly will be accepted here. In general I think the real important think is 1401bs advice about talking to your kid, to never give away personal informations. No photographs, telephone number, real names, ... so if you whyever have a facebook account with your true name, that means as well not to give away your facebook-link. ^^

Dont scare your kid of the internet, but make it aware, that its nothing else like real life. Most person are ok, sadly some few are bad ones you need to be aware of. Make your kid aware, that giving away your personal data in the internet is similar to giving someone a key to your house. A sign that someone is not ok, is if they insist to get your personal data. Normal internet users understand, that you dont give away personal data, and do so as well on their own.

If you create an account on wrongplanet for your kid, you can as well use your own Email adress for it. If you activate it, then you will receive an information if your kids receives an private message, which will not be automatically observed by the forum moderators. So your kid has the possibility to message with other kids, if he/she wants, but you can check every now and then, if everythings alright.