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| ==Forums== | |||
| get a life and get your fatass off the comp bitchhhhhh | |||
| The forum system, among other things, have been custom designed to fit the huge amount of users. The three most popular forums are often the Teens forum, a place for the younger members of Nexopia to chat, and the Attention Seekers forum, which is considered a free-for-all, and the Sex forum, where users can go to ask and talk about sex with other users. | |||
| ==Nexopia Plus== | ==Nexopia Plus== | ||
Revision as of 20:38, 29 August 2006
Evolved from the small community site Enternexus.com, created by Timo Ewalds, Nexopia.com is an Edmonton-based website, designed primarily for people aged 14 and up (accounts with users that are proven to be under age are deleted), that allows its users to design their own profiles with pictures and interact with each other via private messages, comments and forums. The website used to contain a "Rate Your Picture" feature on users' profiles, but it was taken down from lack of use (less than 1% of users voted on it). The picture rating system also experienced many different ways of cheating. At first, the picture rating was on a users profile itself, but because of various problems with up-voting and down-voting, it was made random. Once it was made random, the amount of use the feature received dropped to well below 1% of the sites population.
Coding
The whole site is custom code written since early 2002 by the CEO. Most has been rewritten or updated in the past four years. Only in October 2005 did the site employ additional programmers to help maintain and grow the site.
Members
Though users from all around the world can now be found on the site, over 95% of its users are Canadian and the site has become quite popular in western Canada. With over 10,600,000,000 hits and over 841,000 member accounts, it is said to be one of the largest websites of its kind in Canada. However, it's impossible to know if each account corresponds to an individual person, and there is no standardized system for auditing claims of membership levels of different online communities. Often, a person will create multiple accounts, usually to change usernames, but occasionally to take on different personas. Additionally, a web site can't tell if two accounts are of the same person, or two people sharing a computer.
The site is advertising based and shows an advertisement at the top of each page, although the site does not use popups.
Nexopia in the Media
Recently, Nexopia has come under attack from various media outlets, which criticize the site for having sexually suggestive content on user profiles and forums, as well as the potential for attracting pedophiles. However, administrators for the site have countered that parents ought to be responsible for their own child's safety, and have posted an advice section on its main page, giving safety tips to the site's users. They also provide many tools to help protect the users. No nudity, racism, violence or gore are allowed in any of the forums or profiles, and all profile pictures are checked by moderators for content before being allowed up on a users page. The rule of thumb used by picture and content moderators is that if it is not allowed in public, it is not allowed on the site. Nexopia has also changed its rules regarding official user pictures. If the picture can be in any way perceived as sexually explicit, or suggestive, it will not be allowed on a users page.
ahha this is a gay website fucking fagggggssss
get a life and get your fatass off the comp bitchhhhhh
Nexopia Plus
Nexopia also has an optional premium service, used to keep the site up and running. Nexopia Plus gives users extra features, such as an advanced user search, the ability to create a forum along with a custom forum rank, the ability to customize the colors of their profile, ability to choose whether or not to have iFrames in layouts and the elimination of ads. Also, With Nexopia Plus, users can see who has visited their profile, create a personal journal and can have up to 12 pictures on their profile, whereas members without Nexopia Plus can only have up to 8 pictures on their profile. Users can also be one of the randomly generated profiles to be on the front page in the "Plus Spotlight" Section, where an image from the chosen users profile, and a link to the users profile profile is shown. In regards to what percentage of the site actually has Nexopia Plus memberships is left to speculation, as the administration will not release this information.
Negatives
Unfortunately, one downfall of Nexopia is that most of their default settings in the forums and profile pages are set in such a way that in order to be as private as possible, and a user has to become quite familiar with the site. It is the belief of many safety groups that the privacy should be default, and that once a user is more familiar with the site they, or their parents (if underage), can decide if they are known to frequent the site.
Further attention concerning the meeting of young users with adult users came to Nexopia in April 2006. A twelve year old girl (from Medicine Hat, Alberta) and a 23 year old man, previously having met elsewhere, openly discussed interests in one another, and goth culture. The two were charged in the murder of the 12 year old girl's parents and brother. Heavy publicity over the case extended to web sites where the two interacted.
References
- Walton, Dawn, "Net holds dark hints on slayings: Pair accused in deaths of Alberta family posted messages on notorious websites", The Globe and Mail, April 26, 2006.