Hi again, Tred.

I think my approach to this very real problem would be to 'regulate the other end'.
Let's just for a moment compare this to the PTC and kids watching 'adult content'.
What the PTC wants, and a lot of Americans want, is to regulate TV even more than it is. Not an F-bomb or an s-word can be heard (sorry), and as soon as one slips through, religious extremists, nervous ninnies and God knows who else are up in arms. For Goodness' sake it's just WORDS!

And if it isn't it's...body parts. Don't you think what happened at the Superbowl was quite an overreaction to a harmless little nipple? I mean, that's where kids get LUNCH as young'uns, and as soon as we bring reason to them, it's DIRTY? What Southern Reverend went and decided that for me?
I don't need to see everything, but a little slip up like that? What's next for women here - burqas (sp)?

Anyway, that aside, the result of pressure groups doing their little thing since TV and Radio have been the easy target for slack parents over the years, is that radio and TV have now been completely and UTTerly neutered, sanitized and completely rendered without a soul:

We can't even find a reliable news outlet, there's no critical though to be found, and we're lumbered with Friends, Raymond, WWE Smack down, Who wants to marry a millionnaire, and TONS of excrement. And it's all terrible. It's dreck.

To the living among us who like TV (it can be done), and the TV watching world DOES contain a lot of adults, thankyouveryfriggenmuch!, there's nothing with an edge, nothing with passion, conviction, passion, brains, ideals, etc. It's been neutralized. TV is dead, because we regulated it to death, because slack parents in the seventies and eighties complained to the government. Because they didn't want to tell their kids to go out and throw a ball themselves. You get the drift.

NOW...
Should we go the same route with the internet? This board is for adults, but of course the owner cannot enforce that in ANY way, unless he asks for some official authentication with a credit card that can verify age. But as we know, that is not totally waterproof either.

The fairer question, again, is should we regulate things on the content end, like we already have to an extent? The Internet, after all is supposed to be a free environment, yet we all know the long and restrictive laudry list of things and words and subjects that are strictly verboten on this board alone. Again, we're already ankle deep in rules and regulations, we've already lost interesting features and ideas thanks to our buttoning up our shirts around here. Every other interesting thread that gets too heated gets cut to ribbons (certainly not a blue ribbon!).

So how much further shall we go? I can say 'Best if kept off the board', but no stronger than that. Shall we make 'darn' the acceptable 'sweary'? Shall we just pretend we're in the discussion board's equivalent of MacDonals and make sure no liquor is served, and everything is nice and predictable and inoffensive? Kids might see if there's anything that might harm them, and if that happens, then what are we to do?

Tred, my ever-so-slight sarcasm is directed at regulation, not for a second at you, I swear! I respect your idea, and I admire your reasons.
I am just giving one man's opinion here. I do not condone kids buying drugs on the Internet at all.

Kids should be kept off these boards - period. They've no business here, and it IS up to the parents to make sure of it.

A house, a family is no democracy. Mum and Dad rule. That means they are allowed to go through their kids' things, they can forbid a kid from using a computer at certain hours, they can even block sites. OR they can just keep an eye on them, make sure they have lives outside of the world of computers and drugs. And they can punish kids if they find drugs on them, as well they should. Being soft, lazy, or afraid to punish, is a big problem. And in an ideal world the parents are responsible for what their kids do.

One final note, Caramello is indeed correct: what this board does, and in which direction it goes is entirely up to its owner. He bought it and maintains it. We just get to benefit from it.

This is all just my opinion, thanks for hearing it.
Nobody's offended here ( I think) so let's all get drunk and go to a nudie bar now! (if that didn't do it..)

As for your thought

"it would be nice to have a board that wasn't so easy for little kids to find Narcotics" - I couldn't agree more! It'd be nice, but.

Red, enjoying this Thread, Tred (ain't that poetry? - what do you mean, 'no'?)