We sometimes get messages from parents and teachers who wonders if our lists are safe. The answer to that question is that nothing is a hundred percent safe. Everything has to be judged by it's own standards. Judging by statistics the risc for kids to come to physical harm by participating in Internet projects are much smaller then if they cycle in traffic, compete in sports or play in the schoolyard. It is much harder to say anything about the riscs that the kids encounter inappropriate material or language. In that case we prefer to tell you why we think kids can participate in our lists.

Kidlink's lists, which KIDCAFE is a part of, are mostly frequented by schools. This means there are many adults with education as a profession that daily looks at the lists. Many parents that allow their kids to take part also follow the lists closely. So we are fairly confident that any strange behaviour on the lists will be noticed. We feel that this is the best protection.

Some people ask us why our lists aren't passworded and why we don't have people register. First of all we do have some parts of our activities passworded and we do require registration for some activities. We do however think that technical solutions often provide a false safety. What keep people from picking up the passwords? What keep skilled computer people from forcing their way in. The registration and password protection we have is not first of all a protection against unwanted participants. Instead it gives us the possibility to contact people who don't abide by our rules.

What then are our rules and how do we enforce them?

First of all we have coordination lists and youth lists. The coordination lists are for planning activities and both adults and youth are allowed to participate. The youth lists are only open for kids between 10 to 15 years of age, or classes holding the same ages and for the people running the lists so they can send information.

Secondly we have the rule that says that all people sending to our lists must sign with their full name.

Thirdly we have a rule about content. This rule says that in the activities youth are free to express any opinion they honestly holds. To understand this rule is important because it's the basis for the moderation in our lists.

Finally people participating in Kidlink are required to follow Internet netiqette.

While mediapeople often focus on the risc that kids are tracked down and physically molested because someone has seen their name on Internet we think this is highly improbable. The problem that has always been most important to us deals with content. What is acceptable to one person will not be accaptable to another. Our most open lists have been moderated by adults or trusted kids. Moderation however is not a sharp instrument. How do we decide that the message a kids sends us is an opinion he honestly holds? Sometimes it's easy. A kid sends a message containing a four letter word and we just reject it. In context this can however be a problem. Four letter words are not judged the same way in all cultures. We can't reject messages based on the moderators individually founded cultural opinion. This gets even more problematic when we talk about topics. Some people do not think some topics to be appropriate to discuss at certain age levels. Who then is to decide what is appropriate and what is not.

In Kidlinks the list manager decides what is appropriate for their lists. They may have moderators to help enforce their decisions but they haver the final word. This means we cannot claim that the content we provide is safe too take in by any certain individual. We claim that we run serious discussions and that most of our material are provided and screened by teachers in countries all over the world. We are always open to discussions about content and we do take action and stop individuals, classes or schools that missuse our lists.

We know that this is not sufficient garanti to all schools and parents. Therefore we say that the only way for a school or a parent to feel safe when it comes to content is to moderate themselves. To us it comes natural that teachers and parents have a good grip on what their pupils and children send out and what they read. On a school level this is probably decided by curriculum standards and objectives. On a family level it will be decided by the views of every particular family.