flipbook - a gymnastics social network

[Flip Book]

Hey all! I'm a JO and TOPS coach and a former Level 9 gymnast. This forum is great!

The gymnastics community is so vast, complicated, fascinating, and our sport is so hard to understand by people who aren't involved in it - so I think it's very important that the community finds ways to stay connected.

I just wanted to invite anyone interested to a free social network that I started a few months ago, mostly to give the gymnasts that I coach, as well as other gymnasts and coaches that I know, a place to connect. It's called flipbook. And on it you can post blogs, connect with and invite friends, create a profile, post pictures, and send messages to others. It's informal, safe, and fun! Sort of like "Facebook" for the gymnastics community, only it's private and monitored, no information from it is shared with the public, so it's safe for gymnasts of all ages!

Check it out!
flipbook

Have a great day!

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

When you say "private and monitored," what exactly do you mean?

 

[bogwoppit]

How will you make it safe for gymnasts of all ages if anyone can sign up including adults? We have a 13+ rule here and keeping them safe is a lot of work.

Stopping them posting personal info and giving out way to many details is tough, but essential. I would be concerned about older folk taking too much interest in gymnasts.

 

[All Chalked Up]

Its 13+ like Chalkbucket. My 12 year old friend just tried to sign up and it said she was too young.

 

[gymnastbeth]

Is it a part of ning? I just noticed that it looked like it was. My English class uses Ning as a discussion board, and it works well. If it is a part of it, I wonder how much alike it is of the regular site?

 

[Flip Book]

Hey all. Flipbook is not 13 and over. Any one of any age is free to join. It does require an email address but only the network server, myself, has access to that. It doesn't require any other personal information, you can choose to use a real name and age when you make your profile or to put up made up one's. I recommend using a nickname, with no last name.

It is private, so I personally have to accept and approve all memberships and I can block anyone out at any time. I have it set up so that any spam or bad language will be flagged and I can block the member that tried to post it. Right now the site is not too large so it isn't hard for me to monitor it. I imagine as it grows I will need help monitoring and but I have had no problems with safety thus far.

Yes, it is built on the ning platform which is a pretty easy and customizable place to create a website so there's many different kinds of websites built on it.

Happy to answer any other questions and consider any feedback about the site. Thanks!

 

[bogwoppit]

MY only advice, as after a few years of moderating this place, is that you really have to watch if you have the abilty for members to PM each other. As you can get members on the board for the wrong reasons who send all sorts of innapprpriate stuff to the younger crowd.

Our original format had us allowing the under 13 crowd on the CB, with a parental permsiion form submitted. But we had many issues with that. We still have some who sneak on and someitmes they get banned for it.

You might want to check out our "safety on the internet" thread as it was created after years of dealing with teens and the stuff they post online, thinking it is fine, when it really isn't.

Good luck with your site.

 

[Flip Book]

Thanks! I'll definitely check out that thread.