Creeps

I own sev­er­al mail­ing lists. I help mod­er­ate or screen mem­bers for sev­er­al others.

One of those lists is called “care­about­girls” and is asso­ci­at­ed with New Moon Mag­a­zine. (Incred­i­bly cool mag­a­zine for girls—shades­ong, has Miss Kid seen a copy yet?)

The list is for adults (par­ents, teach­ers, Scout lead­ers, aunts, uncles—whoever) who are con­cerned about the girls in their lives. There are a few girls on the list, but they don’t usu­al­ly participate.

After the list was repeat­ed­ly hit by kid­die porn spam­mers, we went to restrict­ed mem­ber­ship and required intro­duc­tions from poten­tial mem­bers, with new mem­bers mod­er­at­ed for a month after they join. No more kid­die porn (or any oth­er kind of spam).

But from time to time, we get peo­ple try­ing to join who are obvi­ous­ly, to me, adults pre­tend­ing to be 11 or 12-year-old girls. I can­not think of ANY legit­i­mate rea­son for that. None. And I deny their requests for mem­ber­ship. And they gen­er­al­ly com­plain and kvetch and want to know EXACTLY why they can’t get on the list. 

The list own­er leaves this stuff to me because, frankly, she has­n’t a sus­pi­cious bone in her body. When I point things out to her she says, “Oh, yeah, I guess that does seem weird. I did­n’t think about it.” 

I’m not going to lead these idiots step by step over every lit­tle clue that trig­gers sus­pi­cion. Why help them to improve? But I haven’t yet found a polite way to explain, either. And I know per­fect­ly well that I am NOT infallible.

If it were just MY list, I’d sim­ply state that it’s mine and I make the rules and that’s that. But it isn’t. It’s a list asso­ci­at­ed with a great orga­ni­za­tion, and I don’t want my actions to reflect poor­ly on them in any way. So I do think I need to come up with SOME kind of expla­na­tion for the rejec­tions. I’m solic­it­ing suggestions.

It would be eas­i­er if we just closed the list to minors, but the list own­er does­n’t want to do that.

Cur­rent Mood: productive
Cyn is Rick's wife, Katie's Mom, and Esther & Oliver's Mémé. She's also a professional geek, avid reader, fledgling coder, enthusiastic gamer (TTRPGs), occasional singer, and devoted stitcher.
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