I just received a Whymail that said "Where do you live?" I was mad and disgusted by that person. I personally think the City Hall should revise each message that is sent to people. It would take a much longer time for your Whymail to reach someone, but it would make Whyville a much safer place.

What do you think?

Signing off,
Someone34


Editor's Note: While it would be really safe if City Hall could personally review every single Y-mail that goes out, there's a couple problems it, I'm afraid. For one, it would mean City Hall could learn everything there was to know about you -- and if you wanted to send a private, personal Y-mail, well, you'd have to accept that City Hall was going to read it. While it's our company that runs Whyville, and reading all Y-mails might be legal for us to do, it's not cool.

Plus, it would be INCREDIBLY time consuming. Thousands of Y-mails are sent out every day!!! If it took one worker three seconds to read a Y-mail and decide whether to let it be sent (which is tremendously fast), then 1,000 Y-mails would take almost nine hours to read through. We just can't afford to pay someone a full-time salary simply to skim Y-mails.

This is why we have the safety tools, especially the Filter and the Report tool. The Filter helps limit what perverts and nasty people can even say -- and if they waste their time getting around the filter, then the Report tool allows you to help us punish them! It's a pretty good system, we think.

What do you folks feel about the way Whyville protects its citizens?

All that said, Someone34, I'm curious if the person who asked where you live just wanted to know what state or country -- that's pretty general, safe information to give out if you choose to. If they wanted to know your address, on the other hand, that's totally bad, and I hope you 911 Reported their Y-mail. Thanks!