Whyville

Growing up, I found Whyville in an issue of Family Fun magazine, and found it to be a great environment for kids my age. Now, the majority of the kids who stayed on from the very early stages of Whyville's development are older. I see a lot of mature behaviour from them, but Whyville is launching a brand new website just for the older kids, where we can talk more about the things that interest us, such as social media, and some adult content. It definitely wont be a free-for-all, but the goal is to make the main site age appropriate again. The best thing about Whyville is that it provides a good sense of community. You're guaranteed to find at LEAST one good friend, who you might end up knowing for years. My oldest friend on Whyville is of 6 years. We still talk all the time. The games on Whyville are fun and educational. My favorite is the new activity in the Wellness center, where you help stressed and upset avatars cope with different scenarios, so that you can learn to use the same skills and apply them to situations in your own life. Whyville, like any other website, has for sure had some bumps down the road. But overall, it is an amazing place for kids and teens to go, and I'm really grateful to be a part of it. Don't let the bad reviews sway you. Take the time to see Whyville with your own eyes as a guest on the site. We are a welcoming community, and we love to see new members join us.

I have made life long friends that I talk to regularly in chat, ymail, or on the forums. My favorite feature on whyville is the Face Factory. This is where I can design and sell "face parts" for anyone on whyville to buy and wear on their avatar. There are a lot of fun and educational games on whyville, too. My favorite game is project tricho, where you help real scientists identify and categorize bacteria. A lot of these games are even used in class rooms. Overall whyville is a great website for children to socialize safely and learn new things in a fun and interesting way. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to try something new. To this day I have still not come across another website like this one.

Whyville's main focus has always been on educating its users. To this effect, it does very well: every user on whyville has a daily salary, and they receive a set amount of clams when they log in. The salary can be raised by engaging in the website's plethora of educational games. Not only do these games enhance classroom learning, but they also are structured in a very challenging and engaging way. The games also don't fit only one age group. I joined this website when I was 9, and I am now 21. Note that I am in no way affiliated with the site, I am just a user who has learned a few things along the way. During these years, whyville has helped me succeed in the classroom--tools such as the "Spectroscopy Game" helped me understand important concepts that I was later able to apply throughout high school and even in college. The education doesn't stop with the games. There are also other factors, such as social development. When you join whyville, you become part of a tight-knit community. Your child will develop lasting friendships, and if anything like me, will use social skills developed on the site in real life. There are so many lifelong friends I have known from the website for over 10 years. Your child will also learn about the economy of face parts (designers can customize their avatars with approval from Akbar, the owner of the face factory). Due to supply and demand, face parts range from a few to hundreds of thousands of clams and above! I just want to address some prior reviews because I disagree with some of their points. First of all, there were issues with lack of round-the-clock supervision on the site but these have been addressed and there is now a near-constant adult presence. There is no website where you child will be 100% safe, but Whyville does a very great job and has zero-tolerance for bullies. Secondly the learning rating of only 3/5 is woefully inaccurate. I have learned so many skills from their games, which skirt the line between fun and learning so well! And yes, the website may be vast, but the guides do an adequate job of showing new users where the popular chat rooms are, and the site's vastness allows for a new adventure every day! I still find new rooms after 11 years on the site. Some other quick rebuttals to points raised in other reviews: Enrolling in the whyeat program is completely optional and you can quit at anytime. Therefore, you do not have to eat everyday. And one again, the problem with inappropriate behaviour has been addressed, the website is much better moderated now than it was at the time the prior reviews were written. The Common Sense Media overview asks: "do the educational benefits outweigh the commercial influences?" However, these commercial influences provide an incentive for children to learn, and whyville teaches kids to view everything with a critical eye. The perceived balance in this review between educational and corporate sponsors is unfair. Wal-Mart sponsored whyville only temporarily for two months in 2005, and other corporations like Disney are not nearly as big factors as this review would make them seem to be. Scion is also cited, but I believe that whoever wrote this misunderstood the whole point of the site--children cannot afford to buy a car (scion) unless they devote a certain amount of time to the website's educational games. The site's mingling between commercial incentives and learning is not a weakness, its a strength. There is no other website where education and social development are so well intertwined. Alternatives suggested by Common Sense Media like Club Penguin and The Club do not come close to providing the same benefits that Whyville has given me through the years.

If your kid cries, don't be surprised. The educational value is overshadowed by the swearing and bullying.

Whyville is one of the best virtual worlds I have ever seen. You can chat with friends and even be a stylist at a salon! This world teaches lots of real life skills like managing a business to earning a salary. Even though there is some dating and privacy concerns, I love Whyville. I'm xxMaghda on it.

ive been on whyville since i was 12 (13 years now) and i occassionally go back to visit with my friends and remember our childhoods on there. however lately the language, bullying, and sex has been over the top. i would definitely monitor my childs behavoir on there. its really actually nice to see an honest review of this website, as what they advertise as and the reality of what happens on their site are skewed. kids will be kids sure, but sometimes the attitude of the mob on whyville is relentless and disgusting. the children can be extreme bullies, many often encourage each other to make "nov" or "novel" accounts which is code for Facebook where then they share photos. others encourage use if "sky" which is skype where they engage in sexual behavoir over cam. i would seriously seriously suggest monitoring your kids on this website, een the older kids.

Half of the web site focuses on education, mostly science. The other half is devoted to socializing. Whyville users can skip the educational part completely by cheating the answers. "Pick Your Nose" features face parts that one buys with money earned from playing educational games. If your face parts are not of a certain kind or arrangement, you are bullied or called names. There are snobby cliques and cyber preditors who misspell words to get around the language filter. Y-Mail is a feature like email, but with a low caliber language filter. Even if one write in a clean way, the filter demands it be re-written. If you have concerns about what kind of environment you want your child to subject themsevles to, then monitor their whyville sessions. Participate in the educational games with your child and it will bring a positive aspect of sharing learning together!

They claim to be a child friendly and educational website, but the only educational thing you can find on there is sex ED. They let the kids talk about sex, drugs, drinking, and smoking. They let the kids pretend to have sex in the chatrooms, tell each other to go kill themselves, and they let a lot of harassment go on. They tape kids for telling homosexual kids they are not interesting in dating them, even if they do it nicely. They let the kids talk about nude pictures and porn sites, but if you talk about a website as innocent as the Hello Kitty website, you get in trouble. They also let kids over the age of 18 influence minors and harass them. This is not safe website.

I HATE WHYVILLE FOREVER!IT IS SO MAKING ME MAD THAT I CAN ONLY SAY ''HELLO'' AND ''HOW ARE YOU'' THATS ALL!AND ONE TIME,I WENT INTO A ROOM AND THIS BOY,LIKE,PUT HIS AVATAR ONTO MY BODY AND COVERED IT!HE WAS GOIN UP AND DOWN TO COVER MY AVATAR!HE WAS DRUNK AND STUPID!

I love Whyville and still go on it. But it has gotten so pathetic with new kids and they always come up with terms like Licks, Blows, etc.. Sexual words... The kids also find ways to get pass the filters and end up figthing. I would not allow a child under the age of 13 to come on this site has innaproaite teenagers which curse, and think there the cools ones in Whyville. Another thing is kids take advantage and threaten people on the chatting rooms which is a big cyber bully. These lazy City Workers needs to wake up and bring the old whyville back. Message to City Worker your ignorants, stupid, and idiots for not doing such a goodjob. Somebody get new workers that actually handle a child website.