Chatterbox: Down to Earth

Note from Admin 

Cricket’s mission is to promote reading, writing, creativity, and community among all kids ages 9 to 14. We want the Chatterbox to be a welcoming place where everyone who visits feels encouraged to join in the stories and discussions. 

Not every topic on which you have passionate convictions is appropriate for this forum. Because of the range of age and maturity levels of kids who come to the Chatterbox, it remains our policy that this is not the place for discussions of gender identity issues and other controversial issues. Our older magazine for teens, CICADA, hosts a forum called the Slam, at cicadamag.com/theslam, with active discussion of gender issues within a very creative and supportive community. 

A second CB policy is that posts must be respectful and never hurtful. Disagreements are expected, but recently admins have had to delete, or leave unposted, a number of comments that, perhaps unintentionally, crossed the line of what we will allow. The admins become especially concerned when comments, whether meant to or not, have the effect of suppressing or shaming who another CBer is. That is not allowed.

The stories and role plays CBers create are mostly tales of adventure and light romance that can be enjoyed by kids in the full age range of the Chatterbox. A third fundamental Chatterbox policy is that stories about sexual themes, or with scenes of disturbing violence, drug abuse, etc., will not be posted. 

These polices help us make the Chatterbox an exceptionally great community of readers and friends. 

In creating the character DJ, Gared did not violate any of the above policies, and so his character was, and is, allowed. We hope that other CBers, while respecting the sensitivities of the broader Chatterbox community, will also feel comfortable creating characters as they wish to imagine them. 

The Chatterbox is a big space with room for all. The admins will continue to monitor posts and comments closely, and there will always be borderline cases of what’s appropriate. The admins will try to make judgments that are in the best interests of the CB community and of individual CBers. 

This thread will be left open for a few days for everyone to process what has been said. Then—following the first policy above—it will be closed to new comments so that everyone can get back to creating stories and discussing books with their friends.

Admins

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Thank you for your thoughtful comments. This thread is now closed to new comments.

Admins