Barbara S.

Our paper has ran stories about Topix in the past and after checking it out I was horrified. From what I read, Topix has said it is a news aggregator and community journalism site. I found it to be anything but. What I said was one insult after another and considering I knew some of the people listed on the site, I saw plenty of libel which is illegal. I quickly discovered the simplistic site does not require its users to register for an account which that in itself tells you how trashy of a site it is and they have to have one of the worst feedback systems I have ever seen. From what I read and discovered they only have five moderators for hundreds of thousands of forums and the moderators have been known to post on the site attacking users to increase ad hits. I am also very disturbed at the lack of remorse shown by the CEO of Topix. What really stood out to me was when the media goes after him, he has claimed they were doing all they could to cut down on the libel (yet you won't hire more moderators and won't even make users register, Riiiiiggghhttt) but then would go on Tech sites mocking those who were concerned with the content and the media. As a parent that scares the heck out of me. I have since learned there is a growing number of people that are very worried about this website and many communities have tried to pass ordinances about it. I also learned many states have been adopting cyberbullying laws and many of them have stated it is because of the complaints they receive regarding Topix. They definitely need to make some changes. There are some other sites that concern me but I have never seen anything quite like or as disturbing as the Topix website.

The site is mainly a place for kids to hang out and while some of it is useful, it is basically a cyberbullying site. Formspring has worked hard to make some changes so I give them credit for that but the bullying is still way too high. If the guidelines were stronger, it could be a fun place but if you have children this one I would watch out for.

I really don' t have a lot to add here other than for a free email service, gmail is about the best you are going to find. It does not go down that often and is reliable.

I think Wikipedia is a fun site and gives you a good broad overview of things. However, the content often has errors and it is not a fully reliable source for information. I will put it this way, my daughter tried to use it was a source for a research paper and the teacher gave the entire class a lesson about finding more valid sources. That is not intended as a putdown to Wikipedia. It is good, general knowledge but if you are seriously researching something you need to dig deeper.

If it is not an amazon, it probably doesn't exist. You can find all kinds of deals and do some price checking through amazon. They are quick, in most cases, to ship out products and if one of their marketplace companies doesn't cut the mustard they will usually get your money back fast.

I have mixed feelings on Craig's List. It is indeed a quick and easy way to post things you have for sale or services. It also can be somewhat of a disaster because it is so easy to set up a fraudlant account. Craig's List went downhill with me when I learned they were allowed sex trafficking ads in their Adult Section. A decent site that is useful at times but they need some stronger guidelines.

I have found this to be a really good websites. You have a good group of people who actually still read books. I find most of the reviews pretty open and honest and people's opinions are not overly criticized if someone disagrees. It is a good, honest place to discuss books.