my fabulous idea

[immense]

I don't know but I think you guys think way too much into things! It's just a simple idea that I think will really interest Habbox's demographic and something that no other fansite offers.

[kk.]

Ye but an anonymous feature is quite good anyway..

[Catzsy]

They can just use the teen forum "Remember, don't use a forum name that people might recognise you from..." etc etc so they can still be anonymous and then just use them normally like me or you would if we wanted advice, anybody can contribute.

Well if someone could post anonymously that would be great - how that could be done though is a little more difficult.

[Plean]

Yeah try it could turn out could

[kk.]

Well if someone could post anonymously that would be great - how that could be done though is a little more difficult.

It is possible to click 'post anonymously' in certain forums, so I'm sure it'd definitely possible

[immense]

Yeah, that would be a nice extra but if that's not possible I still think having a teens section with numerous helpful articles and links can go a long way.

[Mrs.McCall]

Hmm. Ostinato, as has been said, did something similar and it may have been one of the most popular articles features but wasn't most popular on Habbox.com (when looking at page views at the time from what I can remember).

I'm not sure how many people would write in for advice but it could be interesting. I think that it's treading a very dangerous line and whoever writes them would have to be super, super careful because they will not be professional so it would be ineducated advice but if it were to be angled more as "for teens from teens" and had the appropriate disclaimers I don't see why it couldn't work.

You could even expand it slightly and maybe turn Habbox Help Desk into an Advice Centre for teens real life problems maybe once a month. I dunno.

I'd say give it a go, what's the worst that could happen?

[immense]

I don't think you necessarily need users to write in advice. I think users will find it useful. Every single teenager will have a certain aspect in their life they're confused about. Whether it's what age to start shaving or battling with their sexuality. There is an array of different issues. All of these issues can be transformed into articles by competent, older users. These users could be picked from applications, hand-picked by General / News Management, whatever.

I just think it's an opportunity to offer something a bit out there and different. Sure, there are numerous sites who offer very similar services with perhaps better advice. This will be simplified and will be coming from teenagers themselves. Most schools now try and get older students to advise the younger students because they're on similar wavelengths. I think that's comparable to this and could, potentially, if ran right, a hit.

[Slowpoke]

I like the topics you used as examples Jake. Things like "So you think you're homosexual?", whilst controversial, will appeal to a lot of people on Habbo since teenage years are the years where a person begins to "discover themselves". Better still, if said articles would appear on a Google search for example it'd bring a lot of people to the site and forum that aren't even from Habbo. But I'd imagine that this wouldn't bother management, it's still primarily a forum for teens after-all. Something definitely needs to be done, though. I'd hate to see this forum die away.

[Mrs.McCall]

I think this idea could be great and when it was previously done it was successful but it'd have to be integrated it well because I do fear its critics will argue that first of all, would it not mean the subsequent forums less needed? Although I believe the simple answer is to ensure that the advice and articles posted are varied and more researched than your forum answer would be and second of all the validity of the information given would probably come under quite large scrutiny but I think plenty of research could fix this.

Also, why not get charities involved? Say you go for the "So you think you're homosexual?" option then you could provide an interview with a gay charity such as Stonewall (I am sure they'd be more than happy to help) or even a smaller charity like PFLAG along with the article posted therefore offering the best and most educated advice that could really benefit teens. I think it would be benefitial in real life.