Okay, so spin off of my own question, What could be done if something horrible was happening?

I think it honestly depends on who is working at the time. There was one time where something like that happened, and supposedly CM sent a message to the user with contact info for crisis centers. Then again, there was another time someone was completely off the rails and when it was reported, the response was that we needed to contact their local authorities (as if we even knew where that might be). If they've ever taken the initiative to actually call 911 themselves with the IP of the person in trouble, they've never publicized it.

in other words, the only thing they/we could do is give them a 1800#.

well from the response from a PP, I guess cafemom doesnt feel its their problem and will send them a link adn then wash their hands of it. I can say that I would report it to the authorities no matter how "unfounded" it might be. If I had the resources to maybe stop a person from killing themselves or another person I would use it.

Good question Kimi. I'm sure someone knows the answer, I'm interested.

I would think that cafemom admin could track their IP address and find out who it is and alert the local authorities where they are.

I wonder if they have ever had to. I know I've seen some posts about potential suicide, none of the others you mentioned.

i just dealt with this yesterday, and started to pm you. i reported something, and CM actually answered me rather quickly, but the response was
''We have contacted the member in question and sent her a link to our Member Resources page.

We understand your concern, however, we cannot verify the information that members share about themselves or their situations.

We believe that CafeMom members can be supportive and helpful to each other, especially in times of need.''

My only thought is that if they wanted to let her family know she was okay then they maybe would use a more popular site (no offense CM) to get that message out there. Perhaps create a new FB account and put it on there. I'm sure there are more FB account holders than CM ones and perhaps the word would get out faster and therefore they would be able to do more to track that said person down quicker.

Until there's a case (something like the Skype thing) that goes to court and a 3rd party online is forced to take responsibility, I doubt any website is going to open itself up to the liability. If they do it once, they're setting precedent that they are responsible for the safety of every user on their site. That's absolutely counter to how all the terms of service are written for every site out there, whether it's social networking like this, or something like Skype or YouTube that has means for people to interact with each other in real time.

While I would like to think someone would have the tug of conscience at any website to call the police directly, I doubt anyone's lawyers would let them.