Buddy, lonely lady has chosen not to promote something she finds objectionable.

A polite, private request to someone you think has the information you seek might work.

I'm seeing a different perspective if I read the question situation correctly. Is the question "Which below was not lost at sea?" and the answer is for an open case where the place (if so) of loss is not known, there exists the possibility that that girl was lost at sea, though we do not know it yet, and therefore she could be a possible Yes, not a Not, answer to the question. If her fate is unknown, she shouldn't be the answer to a question asking for certainty.

Her fate is unknown

Buddy has posted the quiz, last post on page 1. I thought Board Rules prohibited it.

I only have one page…to what post number are you referring?

I've sent you a note with the link, Kaddars. I didn't want to post a link here either which is why I sent Buddy a PM.

Thank you Lonely Lady. I cannot see how she then could be the answer to a question asking for which has not been lost at sea.

I live 10 minutes from where this event took place. It caused a great deal of upset in the community. If it upsets me to see the name of this child used in a quiz, what must it do to someone who is connected?
I also believe court cases are still going on.
There are many names that could have been used in the question.....why use that one?

It's not promoting anything. If anything, it's providing a source for what she says. Seriously, posting a link or saying the link can be found in Reply #1065644 is not that big of a deal. Why must people make a big deal of things?

Always better to err on the side of caution, don't you think?

If you had used your initiative, Buddy, you could have done what I did which was to find the quiz with no information other than lonely-lady's initial post - it wasn't all that difficult.

I chose not to publish a link in this thread because it could drive more traffic to a quiz which contains a child's name that I don't think should be there so I sent it to you in a private message - and you promptly published it. I can't see what you have achieved by that apart from making me feel stupid.

Barbarini: I don't think there is any caution. It's like not wanting to reveal your favorite quiz just to err on the side of caution. At least, that's what it's like to me.

flopsymopsy: I did try to use my initiative and use lonely-lady's initial post, and I still couldn't find the quiz. I personally think you're overreacting, as if it's a guarantee that a quiz link (in fact, the way I posted the quiz, the title wasn't even displayed) will lead to a group of people playing the quiz and leading to false impressions. Also, don't feel stupid; you have no reason to do so, despite what you may think.

I feel stupid to have trusted you; don't worry, I won't do it again.

I apologize for not making myself clear. It's a bit of a delicate situation. One should always use discretion in delicate situations.

flopsymopsy: Like I said you have nothing to feel stupid about despite what you may think.

I have taken the quiz being discussed here and I have to agree with Lonely Lady, Flopsymopsy and the other posters. The case generated so much of discussion even in my part of the world, that just by reading the original post I knew who the child would be and took the quiz to see how I felt about it. I agree that the question hasn't been written in a bad way and only contains a few lines of info written in a factual matter but the question really has nothing to do with her. It is not even about children missing during a sea voyage, which may have made it difficult to find another famous missing child for the wrong answer. To have that child's name in the middle of three adults does seem unnecessary. If it has to be a giveaway wrong answer, there are definitely other options that can be used. Since it asks for people who have disappeared during sea voyages, off the top of my head, Amelia Earhart or Glenn Miller, who disappeared while flying, could have been used and I'm sure a little bit of research would yield many more options.

Fate: 'unknown at this time' could mean Fate: 'lost at sea'. To suppose at this juncture that it means 'not lost at sea' is illogical.

I vote that the author (who is an infrequent Forum visitor) be asked to replace the answer or, if asking to get that specific answer, pose the question in a less ambiguous way (i.e., get rid of the 'not lost at sea'). Perhaps "... whose fate is unknown...?" but then that brings up the time stamping of the question. I tried there to correct the question but it seems it cannot be done (or better, that I cannot do it). I guess that until the fate is known, questions of unknown fate should not be acceptable. Can someone else logically make it work?

According to several reports, the child in question may have been seen last being carried towards a beach. A beach by the sea...

The child was last seen asleep in her hotel room. Anything else is pure speculation, and I really think enough of that has gone on in the press over the years. The question in the quiz was straightforward and factual and is far less likely to cause any distress than repeating any unconfirmed rumours.

The quiz has been played 276 times - I'd played it myself before this thread was started. That would suggest that most people who played it haven't felt strongly enough about the question to send in a CN or a message objecting to it, so I'd be tempted to leave it alone. Other suggestions for an answer have been put forward, but I wouldn't have though any of them particularly suited the question.

Typing in the child's name into a search engine brings up 810,000 results, on the scale of things a straightforward question on a quiz site is probably one of the least upsetting things that can be found on the internet.

There's no time-stamping here; no specific dates are being mentioned. This is time-sensitivity.



Unless questions about unknown fate are about people who would otherwise be dead at that point, they aren't acceptable just as 'Who is missing?' or 'Did they ever return?' A clever author should easily be able to rework their question to avoid asking a time-sensitive fact.


Personally, I agree with Supersal. Editors have to draw the line somewhere; if we removed the names of every missing (or, in some cases, murdered) person from the site simply because they may offend or upset people, I feel like we'd be spending a lot of time censoring (Oh! We can't include any pictures of the WTC!). I'd like to think that, unlike tons of places around the internet (and the world) which are very, very afraid of not being PC or offensive at the drop of a hat, we can, at the very least, mention a name, famous or infamous, for whatever reason, without getting people worried or, in some cases, outraged.
Maybe this is all spurned from the recent conversations we've had about Kidnapping and Serial Killer quizzes; maybe it isn't. Either way, as has already been said, the editors make a judgment call on these cases based on many years of experience dealing with the subject matter.

If the news (CNN? BBC? what have you?) ran a story about a missing girl, would they get letters of complaint asking them not to report it? Would people be outraged if the name was dropped as a reference point in another story about a missing person? Outraged enough to ask that it be revoked? My personal opinion, as I said, is that the name is fine. People go missing. It's unfortunate, but true. The question found here goes into no real details; it essentially drops a name.

(And before I get notes of "It was so close to home." or "Think of the family" or "It's just an emotional soft spot", I understand. That's clearly why it's up for discussion. Maybe it's my 'cynicism of youth' or something for which I say thanks for the compliment, but I wouldn't have thought twice about the name.)

My criticism of this question lies as much in it being a terrible question as much as anything but it is tied up with the fact that dragging a child's name into it goes beyond the pale for me. Drag an adult's name into it and I have no problem with it, even though I'm sure that the families concerned might be equally wounded. On top of that there's the timing - it's only a few years since that child disappeared so the wounds are very recent, and from an FT viewpoint, other disappeared children have been found ten or more years afterwards so you might very well have to change the question anyway.

Just chucking that child's name into the mix is an obvious device to make sure that people get it right. Call me cynical if you like but I'd say that the name of that particular child was chosen only because her name is recognised worldwide with no thought whatsoever to anything else. You could make this a much better question by changing that option.

Far better than using a child, use an adult. What about one whose disappearance was linked to the sea but wasn't actually lost at sea at all. John Stonehouse's clothes were found on a beach in Miami - had he gone swimming and drowned? Had he been taken by a shark? When he was arrested in Australia a few weeks later it was because someone thought he was Lord Lucan, another interesting angle. Or there's John Darwin, who faked his death by paddling out to sea in his canoe and whose "widow" claimed on the insurance. He turned out to have been hiding in his own house.

I'm not saying this to argue, but I've never heard the name before. :s

Yes, Kyle, but you are but a child yourself.

*makes quick getaway*

This is not a solved crime. We do not know what happened to this child... who may very well still be alive.

FT has always protected children. No one under 13 can join, and posts are modified or deleted when an underaged person posts his age, or school level, etc. This missing child would still be underaged... still too you to join FT, and still young enough to fall under FT protections.

There are several questions on this site about JonBenet Ramsey that no one has raised concern about.

As I said before, you can't be faulted for feeling upset about it, but I just do not see how this is FT failing to "protect a child". I don't think I'm a heartless bitch, but I truly don't get the reaction to her name simply appearing in a quiz in a factual manner. It certainly could be inappropriate, but I don't see that it is in this case.

Likewise the Lindbergh Baby.