I wanted to let you all know to avoid elibs . it's a site that was recommended to me from another homeschool forum site. It was recommended as a language arts supplement online. Beware of this site it is not a childrens site, in fact it is more of a light porn site instead. Me and my girl put our words (like madlibs) and the story that came back was shocking and to say the least I was horrified, was full of f-words, d-words, s-words, you name it- it was there. So I have posted it on as many forums as possible, to get the word out that this is not a kid friendly site. Another lady told me that on the forum on elibs is a gay and lesbian pick up site for kids. I thought this was absolutely Horrible . Luckily, we saw all of that, the laptop was in my lap and not my girls. So just to let you know BEWARE.
They have this warning on the bottom of their pages: Please be advised that some stories contain inappropriate content. We have bad word blocks but some stories slip through. If you come across a story that has inappropriate content please email me the story title: hoffman@elibs.** I had it bookmarked from awhile ago so I took a look.
I must confess that I was suspicious when I read your message. At other forums, it's not uncommon for companies/individuals to register as new members and then slam their competitors by posting messages like this. So - I went and checked it out. I've never seen the site before, but I selected a story, filled in the blanks (in one case, I was prompted to enter a 'Dirty Verb'), and hit Create. Sure enough, the story was very questionable. Plus, there were several obvious typos (for example, I was prompted to enter a 'Peice of Clothing'), which can indicate that something is amiss. I wonder whether the problem is with the site owners or with users who have hijacked it? So, forgive my suspicious nature: I believe you are right on with what you wrote.
I was horrified to say the least and want everyone to know that this is not a kids site like it was said to be. I want to protect as many kids as possible because it's terrible that kids can be lured into such stuff. It's interesting that a few days ago it said to contact matt@elibs and now it says hoffman@elibs. I tried to email matt the other day and my email sent me a message saying that it was undelieverable that makes me wonder if they know that the site is done like this. I am going to try to email this hoffman person and see if there's any response. By the way I did notice the typos right off and wondered but had no idea that meant any thing. Now I will be more leary of spelling errors.
If you want a website that actually does have madlibs on it that are meant for children, check out: eduplace dot com/tales I've done a few of the stories on there with my daughter and she enjoyed them.
Parents need to remember that any website should be checked out for their kids and should continually be checked out. Domain names do have renewal dates and those that fail to do this (many times by accident) will lose their url in less than 24 hours. Then it can quickly become any other type of site and have these links recommendations to it. Check and re-check sites your kids go to.
Wow...there was definitely some shocking stuff on there. The site is registered to a guy named Matt and his website can be found at http://coconutlounge.net It takes more than 24 hours for a domain to be available for someone to register. If the owner of a domain fails to renew the name it goes into redemption waiting period which takes at least 45 days but can go as long as 3 months. At that point it is usually released to the public domain for anyone to renew. The guy named above is the owner and did not steal it from someone but seems to either purposefully lets this stuff on his site or he just doesn't monitor it closely. Contact him on his official portfolio site and complain. BTW, the best way to make them change is to report this site to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint center. They specifically accept complaints about providing obscene and sexual material to children. http://www.ic3.gov
Thanks wackzingo, That's exactly what I needed to know. I was wondering how someone could stop that type of activity. I am going to the site you recommended as soon as I get done with the post. I know now to check out a site before I check it out with my girl. I should have known that but am still new to this computer stuff. I find it very distubing that this sort of stuff goes on.
I forgot to mention yesterday that OpenDNS.org provides free filtering. You don't need to install anything. They recently (within the last month) began offering additional features for $9.95/year but all the basic features including filtering are still available for free. The E-Libs site was not listed so I added it for consideration but you can also manually add sites to a black/white list on a case by case basis.
