Great that this site is a resource for educating our children in gardening. So... our day-to-day communication with each other needs to be children friendly. So...I would like to suggest that the sandbox forum threads not be available to minor children users.

I'd like to vote that the entire Sandbox be moved to Cubits. Since no one 'polices' the Sandbox folks get carried away and forget about the young people. Better safe than sorry.

My reasoning is this. Over on the right side of the screen on the home Sandbox page there is a blurb to state the intended purpose of the Sandbox:
This is the sandbox forum where you can post test messages, play with the forum system, and goof off with bb codes and such-like. It is also the attic where hijacked threads get moved. Smiling

Oh my

I think Trish just "composted" some of the stuff in the Sandbox ... older, inactive threads maybe?. I don't interact on that forum very often but I'd hope that if someone sees something in print that is not meant for the eyes of children, they'd make a comment (in a kind manner) reminding everyone that children, as well as adults peruse this site and that some of the things being discussed are not appropriate for children. Since there isn't a moderator who watches and monitors the sandbox (which would be a daunting task) I can't think of another way to control what is written in the threads there.

plantladylin said:make a comment (in a kind manner) reminding everyone that children, as well as adults peruse this site and that some of the things being discussed are not appropriate for children.

A few have tried making gentle reminders...with negative results.

Oh my ... that is a shame! Gardens.org is an educational site, meant to educate on plants and gardening related stuff. Maybe if we see a thread containing discussions of something that's not good for children to be viewing, we should send a private tree-mail to @Dave or @Trish with a link to said thread and let them handle it? I know their lives are quite busy right now but I think they'd want to be made aware of a situation like that.

I like the idea of trying to be cautious and all that, but do keep in mind a couple points:

This site is for adults. Our terms of service even states that you must be 13 or older to use the site. Educational resources here are targeted towards adults who will be teaching others, including children.

So I don't expect a lot of youngsters hanging around and reading our threads.

Having said that, I do expect people to be civil and appropriate in their communications on this site. Especially in the sandbox, I'm not afraid to delete stuff that doesn't seem good for the health of the community.

Darn, now I have got to go to the sandbox, which I never visit normally.

I go on a few of the forums and have not seen anything offensive.

dave said:I like the idea of trying to be cautious and all that, but do keep in mind a couple points:

This site is for adults. Our terms of service even states that you must be 13 or older to use the site. Educational resources here are targeted towards adults who will be teaching others, including children.

So I don't expect a lot of youngsters hanging around and reading our threads.

It's good to know that "you must be 13 or older to use the site." Those bright kids who log into this site will be doing so to further their gardening education. Chances are if they do view the sandbox forum of the variety of threads they will roll up their eyes, then view no further. I'm sure they could care less about the grown-ups' conversations in the sandbox forums (well, maybe they'll be interested in the pets and what's for din din threads).

I don't think I've ever seen any offensive either At times adult like but that's about all. I rarely frequent cubits and certainly wouldn't want the sandbox moved.

I don't mean "adult" as in PG and R rated conversations, I mean grown-ups conversations. So I edited the above post to change from "adult" to "grown-ups"

dave said:
This site is for adults. Our terms of service even states that you must be 13 or older to use the site. Educational resources here are targeted towards adults who will be teaching others, including children.

Thanks for clarifying, Dave -- I was just about to ask if that policy was changing with the site change.