What Are Account Age and Karma Requirements On Kid Online Groups, And How To Handle It With Your Child
Last Tuesday, I was folding matched socks at the kitchen table while my 13-year-old Lila picked at a bowl of strawberries and hunched over her phone. She huffed so loud I looked up, her thumb hovering over the screen, eyebrows pulled together. “What does this even mean?” she said, turning the phone to me. There it was, plain gray text on a plain off-white background: In order to post your account must be older than 10 days and have 100 positive karma.
Lila had spent three weeks working on a fanart piece for a contest in a small online forum for her favorite underrated animated show. She’d stayed up an hour past bedtime three nights in a row fixing the lineart, added a little stray cat in the background that was a nod to the main character’s backstory only super fans would catch. She’d been hyped to post it for a full week, so this block hit hard. “I didn’t break any rules,” she said. “Why do they get to tell me I can’t post my art just because my account is new?”
I nodded, because I get that frustration. When I first joined a parent group for her elementary school a few years back, I ran into a similar rule and thought it was ridiculous gatekeeping too. But I’d learned a little since then, so I pulled a chair next to her instead of telling her to just get over it or quit the forum.
We clicked through to the forum’s rules page to read the mods’ explanation together. Turns out the whole community is run by three volunteer mods, all older fans in their 20s who do this in their free time after work and school. They put the rule in place 18 months prior, after 400 bot accounts posted scam links across the forum in one weekend. This simple rule cut their spam by 90% without them having to pay for expensive automated moderation tools. It also keeps people from making throwaway accounts to harass creators or steal finished art, a common problem in small fan communities centered around kids and teens.
A lot of parents I know see these arbitrary-feeling online rules and write them off as nonsense, or just tell their kid it’s not worth the hassle and to go do something offline. But what I realized sitting there with Lila is that these rules aren’t just for keeping bots out. They teach a pretty basic lesson about community that a lot of us don’t explicitly talk to our kids about, online or off.
Lila’s first idea was to just spam 100 posts with “cool art!” to rack up karma fast. I stopped her there. I told her that people on most forums can spot that kind of shortcut instantly, and it usually gets you downvotes instead of upvotes, because it feels like you’re just using other people to get what you want. Instead, I pointed her to the pinned new member introduction thread at the top of the board. I helped her write a short intro that said she was 13, had been binging the show with her cousin over spring break, and was working on a piece for the contest that she was excited to share once she could. Within an hour, she had 12 upvotes and half a dozen comments welcoming her to the group.
Next, I suggested she comment on 2 or 3 other people’s posts a day, but only if she actually had something specific to say. If she liked someone’s art, she could say “I love how you drew the main character’s jacket, the fabric shading looks so real” instead of just “nice art”. It took a little more time than spamming generic lines, but by the end of the second day, she was already up to 32 karma. I also pointed out that she still had a week left before her account hit the 10 day mark anyway, even if she hit 100 karma tomorrow. She could use that time to tweak her art if she wanted, or just hang out and look at other people’s work. She ended up going back and fixing the coloring on the stray cat’s fur, which she said had been bugging her for days but she was too excited to finish to change it.
The thing I’ve found with most online rules that frustrate kids is that most of us dismiss them out of hand because we see online spaces as less “real” than offline ones. If Lila had joined a new after-school art club and the teacher asked new members to wait a week before showing their final portfolio so everyone could get to know each other first, I wouldn’t have told her it was stupid and to quit. I would have explained that it’s just how the group runs, and helped her adjust. These online rules are no different.
A few concrete things I’ve taken away from this that I’ve shared with my mom friends whose kids are just starting to join independent online communities: First, always validate the frustration first. Don’t brush off their project as “just a drawing online”—it matters to them, so acknowledge that it sucks to have to wait. Second, if you don’t understand the rule, read the mod’s explanation with your kid instead of guessing. Most of the time, there’s a practical reason that makes sense once you see it. Third, stop them from karma farming before they start. Spamming generic comments just hurts their reputation before they even get started, so guiding them to leave genuine, specific comments gets them positive karma way faster and helps them actually connect with people.
It’s day 7 of Lila’s 10 day wait right now. She’s sitting at 78 positive karma. She comments on a couple posts every night after homework, and last weekend she traded sketches with another 13 year old who lives two states over. She still complains a little about having to wait, but she’s not angry anymore. She said if she doesn’t hit 100 karma before the contest deadline, she’ll just post it late anyway, and enter next time. I don’t know if she’ll win, or even if her art will get as many likes as she hopes. But this whole little mess ended up being a better lesson about joining new communities than any lecture I could have put together. Some days, the rules that feel the most arbitrary end up teaching the most useful stuff.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » What Are Account Age and Karma Requirements On Kid Online Groups, And How To Handle It With Your Child