DavidCooper wrote:
There are ten thousand members of this site (minus duplicates and the departed), but the chance of there being no paedophiles amongst them is next to zero. We don't see what goes on in PMs behind the scene, so how do we know there isn't any grooming going on where a child has been identified by a predator?
This raises another point of concern to me. This morning I received a PM from one of the posters here who claims to be a minor. The potential dangers, to both sides, of a private exchange between a mature adult and a minor should be obvious to everyone, however innocent the contents. I have no intention of exposing myself to such dangers.
I deleted the PM without opening it, and I would do the same with any such PM. Anything that needs to be said to me can be said on the open forum.
It may be true, as Brenden posits, that the "9-year old" poster is actually a 19-year old liar; equally it may be that the "29-year old" poster is a 9-year old liar. I have no way of telling so the safest action is to say that I will in future delete all PMs, from any poster, unopened. (I haven't checked yet whether the forum software allows me to refuse PMs.) I guess I can trust that the moderators are who they say they are but, otherwise, I have no need for private communications from or to other posters.