There are portions of the site that are intended for adult members. Is there a way of implementing some kind of restricted access to those sections so they're not accessible to minors?
The Erotica sections are already age-restricted (17+). Are there any other sections you think should be restricted as well? (Except the "Character Bar (explicit)" thread, I'm aware that there is some commotion regarding this in there at the moment.)
Personally I think the whole site should be age restricted ... because having minors around raises all sorts of issues (like for example we have essays about drug use, we have swearing, research threads about torture, prostitution , slavery , we have debates about all sorts of stuff, then there's the issue about crit - adults tend to be fairly blunt, do we have to moderate our crit to be gentler to the young uns, and if so wheres the line between that and talking down. Then there's the whole grooming/mentoring can of worms, and the cyber bullying one (Duty of care to inviting young members usually requires admins to have pm access either turned on for admin to monitor, or turned off for minors) Plus its supposed to be a writing forum and while you do get serious teenage writers there has to be a cut off point somewhere
How would you enforce an age restriction, though? It seems like it would give a false sense of security. I'd rather have the site be open to all ages so I know to monitor what I say rather than having it ostensibly be age restricted with kids lying about their ages and coming in anyway.
the same way it's enforced on the erotica sections now ,,, ie that if someone accesses it by putting in a false dob that's their problem not the sites liability
I'm not going to have yet another pointless argument - I'm concerned about a) shielding the adult members from allegations of inappropriate conduct with/towards a child - you can't be guilty of that if the kids age is misdeclared (on a forum I mean not in physical terms) b) shielding kids from predatory adults - kids who are declared as adults don't attract them, and c) shielding Daniel/Wrey/the site in general from allegations from angry parents - again not something that can carry much weight if the child misdeclared their age
I see what you're saying. What if the age restricted areas were actually locked to users below the age of 17? Kinda like what youtube has with their 'mature' or '18+' rated content. Cause I am pretty sure any user can just waltz right into the Erotica section and there is no barrier to prevent them from accessing that content. Yes @big soft moose has a point that a false DOB could circumvent an imposed barrier to age restricted content. But at the same time that falls on the one who is falsely accessing that content, when they complain about what they find there. Though I think the simplest solution would be to add a small blurb in the welcome/rules pm you get when joining, addressing this concern by stating that it is ill advised to enter areas with a clear age limit is imposed. That if they so choose to enter such areas, the proprietors on the site cannot be held liable to any and all content the user may find offensive in clearly Age Restricted labeled areas. Just a thought.
There is a mention in the New Member Quick Guide. To my knowledge, the character bar (explicit) is the only other "area" which should be age restricted. I don't know how to set up a barrier, or if @Daniel is the only one who can do it, so at this point we just have to ban underage members who post there (from the thread, not the entire forum ).
The erotica sections cannot be accessed by anyone whose age is set to anything younger than 17. I know this because I was blocked by that barrier at some point in my first years on the forum (the barrier was configured wrong so it blocked me even though I was 17). As far as I know it should be possible to age-restrict the entire forum (i.e. if you select an age lower than X when creating an account, you cannot proceed), or specific sub-forums (e.g. Erotica). The latter is done using a plugin, and I would assume that only @Daniel can do it. I do not know of a way to age-restrict individual threads (other than adding a restriction in the title and thread-banning underage members who post in it).
That works, and now that I think about it, it would be more of a pain to have to setup an age block for littler things like the Character Bar. We (as in the patrons) of places like that will need a way to verify that a party is allowed to be there, but there is an option to hide age in the profile which will make it difficult to vet those that we don't know. Obviously in this most recent instance they did have their age displayed in profile. Guess we could figure out a system to check ID at the door (even though it will not be a hundred percent, it will lower the chances of having someone underage walking in). I did not know that. Though to be fair I did join at 28. So I kinda feel stupid for not knowing that about the Erotica sections. Thank you for enlightening me.
why don't we just put the character bar in the erotica section and leave a redirect.... simple and painless
swearing, rude songs, nudity, violence , discussion of sexual practices .... its just like a friday night out in daventry
I don't pay attention to the character bar, but I wonder if moving it to the erotica section might send a skewed message of what it's for? Unless that's what y'all're actually after ...
That's the difficulty I'd see with moving it to the character bar, because I definitely don't see it as a place for much of anything erotic. It's more violent and riddled with language than anything else. Given that there's not really a section I'm aware of just for mature content, I see why moving it to erotica would help, but it would likely send a wrong idea to some.
Yes, I saw that. But I also know I could've put my age as 97 when I signed up and you whippersnappers wouldn't know any different.
To me, that's good enough. If a youngin' comes by, we'll just point to the sign and call in the mods if we have to. Thanks!
