Sometime in the future, we will be replacing the current age range restriction in the search engine with a per-user setting allowing you to decide what age range is allowed to send you a message.
Now my question is: would anyone also want to be able to block someone based on their gender from reaching out? Please don't say yes for the sake of it, but only if this feature would be important to you.
Feel free to vote ๐๏ธ/๐๏ธ on this post or share your opinion below ๐
Sometime in the future, we will be replacing the current age range restriction in the search engine with a per-user setting allowing you to decide what age range is allowed to send you a message.Hi Etienne, I like the first change that will come in the future. ๐ For me, however, the one with the gender isn't important. I do saw some profiles from females stating they don't want males to reach out to them, so I do think it would be helpful for some users. ๐Now my question is: would anyone also want to be able to block someone based on their gender from reaching out? Please don't say yes for the sake of it, but only if this feature would be important to you.
Feel free to vote ๐๏ธ/๐๏ธ on this post or share your opinion below ๐
i don't think gender or ages restrictions is needed. cause If it starts from the issue of harassment or feeling disturbed by some people here, I think it would be better if Penpals had an AI feature that could filter sentences or words or activities that are leading to dirty chats, or sexual activities carried out by users without consent orrr yea costumize words based on our preference just like in instagram.
i mean, yea, i agree some of them are annoying and irritating, but It doesn't mean that certain genders/ages are 'all' like that.
Sometime in the future, we will be replacing the current age range restriction in the search engine with a per-user setting allowing you to decide what age range is allowed to send you a message.Personally I don't experience these problems because my communications are very limitedNow my question is: would anyone also want to be able to block someone based on their gender from reaching out? Please don't say yes for the sake of it, but only if this feature would be important to you.
Feel free to vote ๐๏ธ/๐๏ธ on this post or share your opinion below ๐
I think both age and gender restrictions would be useless, for different reasons.
- a user can still decide if they want or don't want to reply to a person, so no need to set restrictions, users can just ignore the messages from others, if they don't want to reply (as it's already happening) and even block them, if keep bothering
- i think in a site like this, most of people are opened to interact with every kind of gender; i mean, i don't think many people would sign in just to write to males or females only, as it's not a dating site; and, anyway, they could write their preferences in their own profiles, or create a forum where looking for people of a particular gender
- sadly, i think it would increase the number of fake profiles on the site, as they would probably try to contact people with some restriction on their profiles the same
For me the restrictions are not so important because I chat with a lot of persons and most I know from the forum (and some are same age and some are older). So I think the changes are good and not a problem. And if somebody is acting weird I will just block that person. ๐ So not a problem at all for me. ๐
The age thing is great, I'd use that for sure! Personally wouldn't use the gender thing, but I still vote yes because I know it will be used by other people!
Thank you all for your feedback!
i don't think gender or ages restrictions is needed. cause If it starts from the issue of harassment or feeling disturbed by some people here, I think it would be better if Penpals had an AI feature that could filter sentences or words or activities that are leading to dirty chats, or sexual activities carried out by users without consent orrr yea costumize words based on our preference just like in instagram.
Well, I can see how being a 13 year old girl you might know right off the bat that you don't want to have a conversation with a 70 year old man who is a complete stranger. Maybe he's a great and all, but you only signed up to relate with people your age. Additionally, many parents will let their kids use a penpal website only if such filters are in place. So to me the age thing is a no brainer and needs to exist in some shape of form (the current system being somewhat unsatisfactory).
Word filtering is a different topic, it relates to abuse. Truthfully these don't seem to occur very often, so I'm not sure pouring many hours of work into this virtually non existent issue would be the best investment. Usually when such situations happen, the person gets blocked, and if they do it again to other people (and get blocked again) their account automatically gets locked permanently.
I think both age and gender restrictions would be useless, for different reasons.
- i think in a site like this, most of people are opened to interact with every kind of gender; i mean, i don't think many people would sign in just to write to males or females only, as it's not a dating site
- sadly, i think it would increase the number of fake profiles on the site, as they would probably try to contact people with some restriction on their profiles the same
Before venturing into this subject I pulled some stats and found that 85% of conversations started by males are for females, while only 42% from females to go males. While this is relevant behavioral data, it doesn't suggest it is something that needs to be addressed and I was only wondering if I could get direct feedback from females.
From my experience people don't make fake profiles just to bypass the age limitation. Those who make fake profiles will go to great lengths and create entirely fake personas with deep manipulation techniques, which goes far beyond this topic.
Anyway, it looks like those in favor of gender filtering wouldn't even use it personally (I was trying to collect first hand experiences only ๐) so this means only age range will be tackled for now. Gender filtering can be added later if need be!
This is a fairly quiet site. There are certainly many men who are looking for women for relationships of various types. I have a lot of difficulty relating to Italians. I often send a greeting to new Italian members but I don't receive a reply. Or they disappear during the first few conversations. So I decided not to write to anyone. I only communicate with people I meet on the forum, even though my English is always very poor ๐ . The age problem exists. Unfortunately there are many depraved people who can bother minors. We must always keep our eyes open ๐๐
Just a cautionary remark to also remain mindful of certain European developments. There is a new EU strategy to protect and empower children in the online world (including a proposal for a Digital Services Act). I am not familiar with the current status of the DSA, but I understood that new developments - including the introduction of certain compliance rules for online social platforms - are likely to take place in the near future (apologies it is not my direct area of expertise).
Perhaps it may be good to review the scope and content of the DSA and other elements of the new EU framework and to review its possible impact on the operation of this penpal site. I assume that any new compliance obligations for this site will be modest, but it may add some colour to the above discussion.
