I was wondering if any of you know anything about the virtual worlds, I have a daughter that likes to play of gaiaonline.com
and was wondering if any of the other gamers have heard of this site and what they might think.

Goldnorchid, hubby has attented conferences via Second Life, but other than that and Myst online, I have no experience with virtual worlds.

Hopefully, some of our members will have more information for you

Do you mean to ask about how Gaiaonline is?

As far as I know, they have a really good thing going on - a teen community that features customizable avatars and forum-based RPG. I knew a few kids that hung out on it, and though I was concerned (pedophiles are one of my biggest concerns of my students using any online hangouts) they were never approached inappropriately and such. They're also prohibited to post personal private information like phone numbers and they have staff that deals with stalkers and weirdos.

With younger kids (12 and under) I'm a huge believe of Webkins because they have a "multiple choice" style of communicating with other members that makes it impossible for them to share private info. Club Penguin is also a great choice, but those are both paid communities.

However, being a FREE online community for kids, they do serve ads on their site. I'm against showing ads on children / pre-teen sites because they are very impressionable (same reason why we don't have cable at home - if they kids want something to watch they can go through our DVDS with no ads) and while Club Penguin and Webkins cost a little bit of money (Penguin charges a membership and Webkins require that you have a webkins toy) they don't serve ads. There's also no way for a parent to screen these ads.

What I'm saying is that Gaia is a relatively safe place for your daughter as far as predators go, but do load up the ad-blockers.

Thanks Sally

My daughter is 10 and she has an account on club penguin already, I don't mind paying that fee because i like the site.

The only reason Gaiaonline bothers me is because I was sitting at the desk after her and some avatar asked her to "sit in his lap" might be innocent but when it comes to my kids nothing can be to safe. I even signed up and went around on the sight, it seems to me more other countries on there and a neat source of meeting friends all over the world. She knows no private info, I think I have drilled that into her head enough.

She also goes to neopets online. But the one that she wants on the most is maples story and when I went to look into it, it asked for a social security number and that was big no on my part.

Just though with as many gamers as there are on here maybe someone might know of the virtual worlds.

I tried Second life and my computer video drive isn't up to date enough to get on there.

Thank you all very much for the input so far.

If you check the "note to kids" section in Gaia Online, there's a note in there saying that Gaia online is NOT for kids under 13.

I did a lot of research over these things myself for my stepson. (he's 11 now)

I played MapleStory with him a while back, don't remember the SSN being asked (maybe because I put Canada in the location). It's much more age appropriate than Gaiaonline. (it's good old 2D hack and slash fun) I'd rather he play that than Runescape or Ragnarok online.

Webkins is possibly the safest community you can ask for, but the membership only last one year after you activate. It's a lot of fun for younger kids though. My niece loves it and there's no worries about letting her play alone either because she can't type in anything.

There's also Disney's Toon Town - it's also perfectly safe and a lot of fun. However, it's the MOST EXPENSIVE option. It costs as much as an adult MMO game subscription.

Here's a link if you want to do all the reading I already did:
http://www.virtualworldsreview.com/info/categories.shtml

and if you need other reviews, I find this extremely useful:
http://kidconfidence.com
(It's like gamespot for parents who wants to buy games for their kids - they also do books and toys and I use it like a bible.)

P.S. You're very welcome.
P.P.S. Have you looked into TyGirlz?