Just A Few Words

[Guest]

Hello to you all, however I say this in the loosest possible way.

My name is Mr. Paige, and I have been directed to your little community as a concerned, caring parent.

My youngest child has recently been paying visits to this website, and I believe a few others which may or may not be affiliated with you. However, since my child (who shall not be named for their own protection against you all) has been behaving rather oddly since they began visiting here.

They have suddenly become very rude, and constantly misbehave at home and at school. Due to the timing of this emergent behaviour and checking the history on the family computer, it seems to be that my youngest has been influenced by content on this forum. My child shows symptoms of multiple personalities or something, and when they do bad things, they use the excuse that they are "in character" or something. I'm all for children expressing themselves, but violently throwing our delicate bone china at imaginary creatures is just a step too far.

I run a Parental Awareness group on the internet, and I am currently on the verge of posting up your address for the other concerned parents out there, unless you tone down your activities here. I also ask that you cease this silly little RP thing that you do immediately, as I believe it is brainwashing my little one into such acts. Please, for your own sakes, stop this at once and help make the Internet a safer place for our children.

Thank you,

Mr. Paige.

[LordPsycho]

Dear "concerned" parent,

It is my opinion that you are in the wrong. You can ban your child from my site if you like, but if they are young enough to so influenced, they should have had you fill out a COPPA statement before using my site.

And seeing as I only have one such statement, that means I know exactly who your child, and who you are, or you child lied to me about their age.

Guess you should have paid more attention. oops.

And as such, it would take legal actions (which you side has nothing to stand on) before I would shut down blackstar.

Thank you, and have a good day,
Rodney, aka The Sensei

[Embri]

It's not Zane, Sensei. First of all, he's off at camp. Second of all, he doesn't behave badly what so ever (I would have heard about it, let me tell you!), and his last name isn't Paige.

So I would have to assume that your child, Mr. Paige, lied when they signed up for Blackstar. Which implies a lack of monitoring on your part.

I have two young acquaintances who participate on this board, and neither one has displayed any of the character flaws you blame on Role playing.

Instead, I have seen a marked improvement and awareness of grammar, spelling, continuity and sense of fair play. I would also like to say that rudeness is not tolerated on Blackstar any more than it should be in real life. Look to your own actions for the source of your problems before pointing the finger at someone else, sir. There are any number of reasons why children misbehave, and they will use any convenient excuse to cover their behavior. Most often, children "misbehave" because they are looking for attention, even if it's negative. Perhaps some extra quality time with your youngest is in order.

[LeeJenson476]

Why is it that the very second this concerned parent makes a complaint that you are all jumping down his throat? When I first asked my son about your site, he assured me (many times) that you were quite a friendly and reasonable lot, though your rather unsatisfactory reaction has left me wondering just what kind of people you really are.

Firstly, Mr. Paige did not mention the age of his child at all, yet both of you instantly assume that this child is under the age limit for the site. Of course, regardless of how old Mr. Paige's youngest actually is, assuming that his child is lying about their age is the easiest way for you to shift all of the blame to the parent and absolve yourselves of all guilt, so I guess it's only natural that you'd prefer to assume than to know. To the ironically named 'Sensei', are you suggesting that once a child turns 13 he or she is beyond bad influences? I'd have to say that I disagree with you there, and it's quite obvious that you don't have very much experience with young teens.

My son is 14, and I do not plan on letting him visit your site any longer. As a single parent I try to keep a fairly good relationship with my only son, however his recent (and rather drastic) change in behaviour has caused me to put a stop to all of this RPing business of his. I decided that I'd best have a look at what's kept my son so preoccupied before taking it away from him, and I was quite shocked by what I found. There's worse content in here than what you see in a lot of M15+ movies nowadays, and I simply can't believe that you'd think it appropriate for minors.

I would like to second Mr. Paige's opinion and ask that you please stop doing things like this, least more children fall under it's influence.

[Leporidae]

Alright, I understand that your or any child can be enfluence by something they see or hear. I understand that your concerned for your own child, witch is great. But, although we are acceptive of your complaint, you did not make the wisest choice. The wisest choice would be to leave us alone and just ban your child from Blackstar until/unless you find a diffrent resond for this cause.

Although his behavor might relate to this site alot, duley note that there might be more/anouther cause(s). Let me list some factors:

1. Other places on the internet causing this behavor. Monitor closley where your child is going on the internet.
2. Lonleyness. Sacrifice some of your time and try talking or playing a game with your child
3. Mental disability. Your child might have a minor mental disability like Aspergers or Low-functioning Autisum like I do. With this problem, I suggest getting support for your child in school and at home. Also, look up your child's mental disability on the internet or a book. May I suggest Wikipedia?
4. Just plain being rebellious. Sometimes children just want revenge or just want to get in trouble so they do. It's natural. You should talk to your child about the cause of this.

I'm not saying that your child has any of these, but there is many possibilities out there that could be the cause. Out of all of the possible cures, councilling is the best remedy.

Ok, I don't want to sound mean. But, as for the swear words and that kind of stuff, I'll say this: Grow Up. When on the internet, your child can and will run into a swear word or two, maby some gore, and possibly even pornagraphy. He or she will encouter all of these sometime in life and you can't sheild him/her forever. Although, that dosn't mean you should try and avoid those paticular sites.

If you really can't stand this site, then I suggest you just plain leave, bring your children with you, and never look back. It's tough, but once you got through with it, your free from our bonds. It's not like were gonna hunt you down if you leave and drag you back by the ear.

And one more thing I'll point out: This is an RPing message board. It's what this whole thing is about. I'm sorry, but I belive we won't drop the RPing anytime soon.

I'll wrap up this post now, hope you follow my advice.

PS: I'm curious. Any chance that Paige and Jenson are the same?

[Somefreakoverthere]

I agree with Leporidae:Grow up.We won't drag you back,we won't force you to do anything.Just leave us be!

I used to feel secure here,but when you started asking us to stop what we're doing i had the same feeling i had when i first heard of the K9norn incident.And trust me,you don't want to hear about it.

So go,and if you feel you must take your child with you.We won't hunt you down and hurt you,or anything.

[Guest]

I am not asking you to shut your website down, so do not worry about that. However, I do suggest that you cease your satanist games right here.

I don't really know what you people get up to here, and frankly, I don't much care. But if your website is a danger to children, then I shall do all that I can to resist. I have spent countless hours trying to teach my little one the correct way to live life, and that is by God's law. I shall be damned if I see a bunch of children's lives ruined by some poxy internet website! You think you are free from criticism because you ask for people's ages? It's fairly simple to lie about your age and gain access anyway, when I signed up and saw it, I thought what a poor attempt it was to shoulder the blame onto someone else.

You cannot place the blame on me, I spend as much time with my children as my job permits. I do volunteer work at my church for the youth group, so I come into contact with lots of happy, well bought up, christian children, and I understand what makes children tick. I only let my kids look at certain websites with fun games on them that teach them about christ, like here:

http://objectiveministries.org/kidz/

Oh and, for those who seem to think me and Mr. Jenson are the same person, I can assure you that you are very much mistaken. I contacted Mr. Jenson after I found out what our children were going on, it's quite simple to do. We also got in touch with a few other parents of children on these boards, and I was pleased to see a lot of them were as concerned as I was about their child's wellfare.

[Leporidae]

Alright, look. I understand that you have your own beliefs and your own ways of life. But, we have no relation to anything religous in real life at all. Us RPers have two lives in a way, one is online. One that is IC, or In Charature. It always (Or, at least, should) keep out of the world outside of the computer, where anouther one of our lives live.

Now look. All we are trying to do is help. We don't want to argue or fight, but we will if we have to. I belive we won't end our 'Satanist' games, for RPing is what we do here. As you can see, most of the places you can post here are dedicated to RPing.

Ok, see here that the children of the world have there own lives to lead. And if their coming to this site is going to send them to hell, it's their problem, not yours. As I said earlier, if you don't like are comunity, then leave.

Mr. Paige, your loosing your cool. I can sence it. Look, if your getting that frustraited, then heed this advice:

Turn off the computer and do something calming. Read a book, ride a bike, have a snack, whatever can get this site off your brain.

I hope this helps:

Leporidae.

PS: I'm sorry to crush your hopes, but I read the wiki article for the site you just posted is a fraud. Take a look: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambuel

[LeeJenson476]

'Leporidae', please do not assume that I don't spend time with my son, it is very insulting. As a single parent I admittedly spend a lot of time working, but every moment of spare time I get is devoted to my son. We go on vacations, hang out on weekends, I help him with his homework whenever I can, so I'd really appreciate it if you all keep this in mind (as you yet again assume things that make it easier for you to shift the blame).

Being a parent who helps his son with homework, I would also know that his teachers never accept Wikipedia as a reliable source. For those of you who can't understand why, it is because Wikipedia is basically an encyclopedia that anybody can write in. The article that you just posted doesn't seem to offer much in the way of proof at all (although the fact that a couple of major news sites believe it to be real could be seen as proof that it is legitimate).

Now, to go back to an earlier post, 'Embri' pointed out that RPing seemed to help children's spelling and grammar. It would certainly improve my opinion of this site if that were true, however, of the four people who've put forward their opinions, only half have been able to do so without making a large amount of grammatical or spelling mistakes. This hardly can be put forward as

'Leporidae' once again brings up an interesting point though. I too was hoping that perhaps my son was getting these bad influences from elsewhere, as he seems to enjoy your site immensely, however, there are various comments on here that are virtually identical to some of the things that he's been doing lately, and it's a little hard to simply put that down to coincidence.

I wasn't commenting on swear words or just a little bit of gore (and there are various programs that I've gotten to prevent my son from ever accidentally stumbling upon adult websites) when I mentioned that this site is highly innappropriate for young teens, I was talking about the obscene amount of graphic violence. Given how you people seem to love assuming whatever places the least blame on you, I guess it would be best to give an example.

Just the other day my son was playing the piano with his younger cousin. He and my sister's youngest usually get along quite well, though my son, being quite a bit better at the piano than his cousin, was beginning to get a little frustrated at him. This is where the situation becomes unnacceptable behaviour - my son threatened to use a knife to hold his cousin's hand in place (in other words, stab his hand to the piano) if the young lad didn't stop messing up. I nearly fainted in shock - my son is usually very mild-mannered, and yet he'd somehow picked up this most graphic threat from somewhere and was now using it on his even younger cousin. Needless to say, I sent him to bed that night without any dessert, and told him that we'd have a good long talk about his behaviour in the morning.

Of course, my son didn't admit to having heard it before, but I knew that it was impossibe for such a quiet child to come up with such an inhumane and violent threat on his own. It was then that Mr. Paige came into contact with me and brought my attention to your site. Now, I'm not quite as religious as Mr. Paige, nor do I pretend to be, so I won't go into just how satanic your activities here are, but imagine my surprise (and horror) when I read the following:

[LordPsycho]

Mr. Paige.

Little known fact: I'm a devout Christian. I believe that there is only one God, and he gave his only Son to die for my sins. I have no doubt this is the way it is, and through Him is the only way to salvation and everlasting life. All other paths, quiet frankly, lead straight to hell.

However, I am also an American. Which means that I'm going to suppress another's right to free speech, within reason. I maintain a STRICT PG-13 limit, but beyond that, people here have a freedom of speech.

There are not satanist here. If you'd like I'd double check that statement. But you need to check your belief in human rights before telling other's what they can and can't post. Because, quiet frankly, it's people like you that make my life as a Christian hard.

[Netdroid9]

I appologise if any of Blackstar's various members may have seemed a tad rash in their replys. They are avid role-players and hate to see their art threatened by anyone.

Normally my fellow members are nice, understanding people who maintain a good understanding of the correct spelling and grammer of the English language. However, when faced with something they feel threatens them, such as your posts on the supposed dark side of role-play, they can lose some of their composure and retaliate in an undesirable manner. Once again, I appologise for this.

Certain studies (such as this one: http://news.com.com/Study+Wikipedia+as+accurate+as+Britannica/2100-1038_3-5997332.html) have shown Wikipedia to be a reliable source of information on various subjects. Indeed, many schools that I have encountered over the years accept Wikipedia as a valid source of information for their students.

On the subject of grammer, I again appologise for my fellow forum members behaviour and assure you that if you choose to scan the records of these forums, you will find that many of our members maintain perfect grammer and spelling.

In reference to these comments that you find are akin to your child's behaviour, I assure you that these comments are not designed to be taken as an example of correct behaviour. There are many forums like this one out there, and you would do wisely to discuss the difference between prose and reality.

I appologise for your child's behaviour in concern with his cousin's piano skills, but I seem unable to find the thread from which you obtained the quoted example. I assure you that most of our material is not even close to as graphic as the one you depicted, and such behaviour is frowned upon within our online community. However, you must realize that the referenced prose may have been placed in a 'Horror' setting and that if that were the case the quoted material would be perfectly justafiable.

I will refer your concerns to the rest of the administrative staff for further consideration.

[addman]

Seriously Mr. Paige and Leejenson, I'm sorry to hear about your children's behaviour, and I can understand why you feel this way. I can imagine your distress on this matter, and if you feel you should take your children away from Blackstar, then so be it.

However, I do not appreciate the fact that you have come here to tell us how to run these forums. You say yourself here:

[LeeJenson476]

I must admit that I am a little relieved that some more reasonable people have chosen to comment in this thread, though that doesn't really change the situation much.

'Addman', that comment is Mr. Paige's, and not my own. From what I've seen around here, this kind of website is hardly suitable for 13 year old children, and as a parent, I can't simply stand by and wait until a more impressionable child than my own takes things too far. It's all fine and well to say that you aren't responsible when it happens, but I'd much rather it not happen at all. In your example, you point out that the makers of the Matrix can't be held responsible for what that man had done, yet I wonder if such a thing might have occurred had the Matrix never been made?

To 'Netdroid9', that particular quote I was referring to actually took place in a Western scenario. I checked it many times, but it seems that the pianist was nothing more than an innocent man doing his job. This is not the only case of such graphic violence that I have found here, and I'm a little worried that these kinds of things can happen without people in positions of responsibility such as yourselves knowing. This particular thread is usually at the top of the list of threads over in your section entitled 'The Wilds', and was quite easy for me to find.

One can't help but laugh at the irony of you assuring me that many of your members have perfect spelling and grammar whilst managing to misspell quite a few words yourself, however, I do appreciate that you will see that those responsible for this forum will hear our concerns (it certainly beats some of the earlier comments that Mr Paige received here).

[Mag]

[Cloud]

You have much to say on the matter of spelling but I see a few mistakes in your own writings. You also ask a difficult question: What if the Matrix did not exist? How can one possibly answer this question as it was made. It's like saying what if that man had never lived, an unanswerable question.

I know you are probably bringing a crucial point to the table but your child would have found another way to act as he/she did. There are many films, games and even books that have a certain role play element in them but your child needs to realise it is fictional.

If you are so concerned you can easily block this website so you cannot go onto it and can even put a password onto it so only you can disable the block.

The best course of action you could take would be to talk to your children, explain the difference between fiction and the real world and always keep an open mind.

I was about to end my statement there but I feel another point is in order. The Sensei aka the creator of this website has no direct control over what is posted here and he can't very well sift through every single post on here. If you notice you can report certain posts as well if anyone is offended or disgusted you can just click the report button to bring it to the administrators attention. What more can be done to prevent abusive or offensive content being posted?