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Hello again, folks. This article follows "City Hall & Duct Tape", and comes before "Banishment:
The Last Frontier". I encourage you to read through them all thoroughly,
and in order! Don't forget to check out the Callbox Instructions
and your user
agreements, too.
Bad Language
Clearly, Whyville punishes citizens that use
bad language, and especially those who use it over and over. Sometimes,
City Hall gets complaints saying, "That wasn't really a bad word!" We try to be as culturally sensitive and politically correct as
appropriate for this day and age. We are a group of adults, and as we try
to keep up with the changing slang language nowadays, we still reserve the right
to say, "Hey, that's not appropriate."
There is a way to keep from
getting punished for bad language: don't use any! How do you not use any? For
one thing, there's always another way of saying something without bad
words. For another, if you can't think of another way, you probably don't need
to say it anyway -- why say something nasty, probably making enemies, when you
can spend your energy on someone else, making friends?
Fact is, if you can't say the word to your parents or any of your teachers, you
probably shouldn't say it in chat in Whyville; this especially includes racism, sexual
offensive language, and gratuitous (repeated) use of other bad language. This is not to restrain your freedom of thought and speech but to keep the
website clean and safe for all citizens. The fact is, your 8 year old little
sister or brother should not have to deal with the potty mouth of an older
citizen. We have folks of all ages and maturities, and we need to do our best to
make the environment ok for every single one of them. We won't wash any
one's mouth with soap, but we are counting on all of you to protect every
member of your
community.
Password Exchange
One of the worst crimes in Whyville is hacking, which is
brought on usually by password exchange. I don't know how many times I can
reiterate this: NEVER GIVE YOUR PASSWORD TO ANYONE. Have any of you ever
wondered why we don't allow users to type their password in chat? It's to protect users! Once you give your password to someone else, that
person can take over your account and change the password so that you've lost
your account. Makeovers may be fun, but do any of your really want to risk
losing the account you worked so hard on? Also, people who exchange
passwords in order to get their salary raised disappoint me: salaries are
to be earned, not handed out. I can't think of a more fun way of making money
other than by playing games, but on top of that, the citizens are risking losing
their account to a heartless hacker.
Therefore, asking or giving our a password usually results in
being silenced if not more. If you ask for a password, you know you are
doing something wrong and that just hurts each of us at City Hall. And we
duct tape people who give out passwords because they encourage password
trading and hacking and whatnot. It doesn't matter if the two users
exchanging are best friends who live right next door to each other -- it's just
not safe! On top of losing your Whyville account, your safety is
compromised because now all your personal information is open. If someone
were to take your account, wouldn't it be horrible if someone got on your
username and started chatting with your best friends, "Hey, where are we hanging
out again?" or worse, "What's your address? I want to retype it in my
address book." So, keep your interests in mind and never give our your
password!
Personal Information
The most important thing to us at City Hall is to protect all
of our users. To do that, all citizens need to keep their personal information
safe and intact. Obviously, when you chat, you may want to get to know
your other Whyvillians a little better. So, while we don't necessarily recommend
it, it's OK to ask for general
information such as first name, country/state, just not specifics such as full
name, street address, phone number, etc. The idea is to never give out or ask
information that can allow someone to find you in real life. However, please please please do not ask for or give out personal information such as
full names, addresses, including instant messaging or email, schools, or phone
numbers in Whyville. Each one of you should talk to your parents to decide
what is okay for you to give out and what isn't! Even on Whyville we
cannot guarantee the absolute safety of all citizens, so we need your help. If someone steps over the line of what's OK and not OK to ask,
please remember the 911
Report.
Inappropriate Behavior
This topic is a rather broad one -- it could include cursing
to "virtually" participating in acts that I'm pretty sure most of your parents
and teachers would disapprove of. It also covers misuse of community tools like
the 911 Report, BBS, and City Hall petitions. I don't really want go into the
specifics of what can get you punished because I know that most of you know
when something's wrong. For those of you who may not realize
that you're doing something wrong until City Hall Y-mails you a punishment, you
can at least learn from the experience, as I said earlier. The fact remains that Whyville is an educational website designed
for children and young adults. It's supposed to be the fun learning
environment that not everyone gets at school -- where you learn by
playing games and chatting safely with people all over the world. It's a happy
place where people can get along and have some good clean fun -- we didn't make
Whyville so you could make out
with your virtual boyfriend or girlfriend.
Though Whyville may not have the
physical walls of a school, we do have certain restraints
that we expect our citizens to abide by. Again, if you can't do it in
front of your parents and all your teachers at school, you probably can't do it
in Whyville. Besides... there are so many better things to do with your
time -- like play Mancala! (I'm still undefeated against Bigfoot Bill!)
Click here to read about what what
happens when some citizens go too far.
-cyranojoe
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