Childrens BBC

How can we create a safe environment for children online without discouraging participation?

This was the question set by Jim Flemming from Childrens BBC, regarding their message board on the Childrens BBC website. In researching this issue I came across a website called ZD Net, and an article written by Dion Hinchcliffe called: Ten leading platforms for creating online communities. The first thing Dion Hinchcliffe states is "Learning how to design an effective community is something that were all going have to get better at in the coming years", and continues "as were still in the early stages of learning how to build online communities successfully". These statements represent the views of many I.T. consultants and business leaders globally. They also idicate that at present there's no clearly defined way to successfully create an online community, and quite often it's just a case of trial and error. Another very interesting point that Dion Hinchcliffe makes is regarding how "Too many online communities today exhibit worst practices such as a lack of sustained community management, a tendancy to use computers for 'Push Marketing', cross wiring business and consumer motivations, and lastly, starting with the technology first".
The way to avoid these pitfalls is by using Tacit Interactions, which consist's of eliciting useful participation, reaching out and engaging all on the network, thus creating a community. To do this one needs good understanding of how communities work, and to make sure that their are established clear goals involving what needs to be achieved. Plus also understanding what your community would like to do, and gaining a true understanding of it. Tacit Interactions do not provide an exact template or set of rules on how to correctly create an online community. But moreover only offer a rough set of useful guidelines on how to make online communities work.
Below is a useful diagram by Dion Hinchcliffe called the "Membership life plan of online communities", and shows the path and life span that a community member's engagement takes, during their involvement with an online community.

Discover-[Peripheral(vistitor)]-Join-[Inbound(novice)]-engage-[Insider(regular)]-ascend-[Veteran(leader)]-change-[Elder(retired)]-Depart.

After contemplating the merits of Dion Hincliffe's above mentioned article and the argument that it makes, one should now re-examine the question that was set by Jim Flemming from CBBC. His question was: How can we create a safe environment for children without discouraging participation?
Some commentators would suggest that Dion Hinchcliffe's methodology, actually proposes that building a successful online community first is the ultimate goal. And all technical reasoning must come second. Using this premise one must analyse the Key elements of Jim Flemmings question, which is to "create a safe environment for children", and "without discouraging participation". The two standout words from these elements are - environment & participation, or in other words community & engagement. Therefore some may conclude that the correct required stratergy is to design a flurishing online community first, which successfully engages all of its members. Before initiating the safety protocol policing policy. Who's sole existence is only merrited by the fact that it is there as the protecter of the community. Thus it's true purpose being to uphold the community, and not to inhibbit it. In order for this function to be delivered attentively, it must only make its tweeks and alterations at the last stage before the facility goes live, but not to an extent that would discourage participation. With the safeguard's only responsibility being to complement the primary objective. Which is the achievement of designing a true online community for children which they can successfully engage.

This then leaves the conundrum, how do we design a true online community for children which they can successfully engage.

Why not look at the example of real world communities and how they work, and then transform them into a cyberspace virtual community for children. What do real world communities consist of and how do they work? Is the possible answer connections. When one looks at real world communities it's hard to look beyond this point. Examining the real, one may find that within the local geographical social hinterland, many connections occure in many different ways. Stepping out of ones urban residence they may find neighbours in the adjoining residences. Then adjoining streets & roads to their own. Then the area these streets are incorporated in, which borders other areas, which altogether are incorporated into a city. Then counties, then regions, then countries, then continents, and so on. But if one begin's with the immediate local geographical area one may find that it's poeple interconnect and interact through many different ways. Some of these methods consist of neighbours interacting of all ages in their locality, children interacting at school, people interacting at workplaces, consumers interacting with retailers etc. Real world communities also create organised interest groups for example the cubs, the scouts, the boys brigade, the girl guides, the mothers union, football teams etc. But they also create informal groups of friends, gangs, colleages, believer's and other collective groups who also have common interest's. There are also places for these different groups to gather and bond such as community centres & youth clubs, churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, pubs, clubs, cafe's, stadiums, galleries, museums, cinema's, theatre's etc. It doesn't stop there, these individual's and specific interest groups also engage with the wider society and other individuals and other groups at the same time. The dynamics of human societies community engagement is very vast, and there's an astronomical multitude of interconnections, using many different methods and platforms. These in essence are the tools of how they engage. But what actually makes them want to engage, is the possible answer desire. Desire is what makes most human beings actually engage in society. It is the drive that makes people interact, because some kind of interaction either large or small is required in fulfilling ones goals. If this is the case, then this is what needs to be recreated in a virtual community. There needs to be many different area's of various sizes for the children to meet. A desire or a goal must be created to give them the inner drive to engage, and CBBC must then create all of these aspects for their virtual online community. It also must do it in benign ways, for example instead of competitions have exhibitions. Have secret votes & polls to engage childrens opinion, and make them feel that their opinion matters, giving them a sense of worth. Create genres and culteral connections that delivers the power for smaller groups to intertwine into larger groups. But always maintain common interest areas so that the children can always bond and then engage. Beware not to de-territorialise, which can create a disconnect between culture and social spaces, thus inhibbiting the creation of a community. A very large foundation stone needs to be laid by CBBC, that will allow a magnitude of buiding blocks to be placed on it. Cultural territories create communities and organise a sense of cultural belonging, without the forementioned tools and building blocks a successful online community that fully engages children will not occure.