Age Unraising Proposal

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 00:45:06 +0000

Following discussion and bleep's post on the second page of this thread, this will not be moving to a vote at this time. The following steps will be taken to reassess and return to the proposal following the timer expiring on this thread:

1)Wait for current discussion to time out and allow everyone to say their piece

2)tally a list of viable and relevant concerns from the 05 and 04 thread that need to be addressed before policy can be implemented

3)Speak to every captain about how this would affect them, add results to step 2

4)solve step 2

5)round 2 babey

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Mon, 27 Sep 2021 17:12:48 +0000

I will emerge from under the rock I've been living under as of late be the requisite grumpy old man voice of total dissent. I echo all of the discussion RE: this proposal being rushed, and add that (in my opinion) the policy we currently have is perfectly serviceable for both the needs of staff and our users.

I don't see a minimum age requirement as something that alienates most of our "fanbase". One must keep in mind that there are literally millions of kids who are only interested in fan games and other creations outside of the site. This is perfectly fine, but it shouldn't be assumed that even a majority of these kids have a huge interest in writing for the site, and those who do can find dedicated groups for their age. I don't really think it's up to us to curate a space for children/teenagers.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" applies, here, to me — eighteen covers liability and a set age gives us plausible deniability (reason for disciplinary action) if someone comes out and says "hey, guys, actually, I'm 13!" And if they are actually thirteen, are a contributor to the site, mature in chat/on the forums, and nobody ever figures out they were lying, was there really ever a problem?

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Mon, 27 Sep 2021 13:40:19 +0000

rushing policy through like this without proper infrastructure is why we are where we are in the first place.

This doesn't actually respond to any of Yossi's points though, does it? Yossi presented solid arguments for almost everything you wrote, both the specifics and the broad generalizations, and you focus on some vague nebulous danger of a possible problem.

Let's address the policy as it stands rather than some boogeyman of "but what if it was rushed".

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Mon, 27 Sep 2021 05:56:28 +0000

Bleep put most of my concerns on this way more eloquently than I could have, so I'm not going to elaborate on those again. I disagreed with this heavily on discord already and I have to say, after the hours long discussion we had where many concerns were raised - not just by me - it is incredibly annoying to see this put up on 05 a day later with zero changes. If you're not interested in the feedback you're given, why ask people in the first place? This is including the part I specifically pointed out that attempts pre-emptively dismiss dissenting opinions as "inexcusable", which IMO is a completely unacceptable way to phrase a policy proposal.
This rushing into a *major* policy change, disregarding feedback and apparently not even gathering it from some of the people affected by it the most, combined with the needlessly aggressive wording of the policy itself leaves an extremely sour taste in my mouth.

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Mon, 27 Sep 2021 01:15:50 +0000

Currently I am not in favor of lowering the age limit.

And as of right now, Meat's proposal above seems like a solid way to move forward for future enforcement.

That said this whole affair smells half baked at best and the rush to push it through is deeply troubling.

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Mon, 27 Sep 2021 00:58:05 +0000

Nothing about the initial proposal has been quite satisfactory enough to convince me to consider this age lowering. The way the initial asking-around was handled leaves a lot to be desired, as a number of critical staff team captains, and even individual staff - like myself and zyn, who are two of the most responsible for interactions with minor aged users on the wiki, myself being Disc captain and Zyn's responsibility for Forum Crit - weren't consulted at all. That alone would give me significant pause.

I think that's been communicated elsewhere, but I needed to put that here.

I want to revisit a serious 'should we' after this has been discussed thoroughly, part by part, over the course of actual weeks. The potential impact of this rollback is beyond 'we're protected by AO3 type laws' and 'more review staff for drafts'. I haven't discussed, *at all*, with any of Disc team or other admins even of potential changes to Disciplinary processes for much younger users, nor has AHT delved into the (complicated) possible theoreticals there. Maybe they'd end up not so complicated! We don't know, we haven't discussed anything yet.

Currently I'm totally against any changes in the near future to how we have this set up. After there's been exhaustive, and i mean exhaustive, discussion on all aspects and with every possible facet worked out? I'll probably be more amenable, but I don't know yet.

We are not in 2010 any more when a mid-teenager can accidentally become an admin. We don't have a small and comfy community where we can sorta shrug and stick an arbitrary age limit with minimal consideration for the minutiae. We're a phenomenon and sometimes improvements take a LOT of time, and sometimes people are excluded until they're of age, or excluded until the people in charge can ensure everything works out without the potential for reversal. Because it WOULD be reversed.

Additionally I echo Bleep's entire post, but I'm not as articulate right now.

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Sun, 26 Sep 2021 23:55:47 +0000

I very strongly disagree with that mentality, since rushing policy through like this without proper infrastructure is why we are where we are in the first place. However I don't think we're going to convince each other on this point so agree to disagree.

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Sun, 26 Sep 2021 22:40:42 +0000

My opinion is that the age increase repeal would actually be beneficial to protecting minors, and that — although we do need more policy involving protecting children on our site — allowing for the age increase to continue would do more harm than good overall.

Our current age limit is 16. Technically speaking, if we undid the age increasing policy now, next to nothing would change short-term, and even long term the change is minimal. I see no reason we need to push this policy off until later when that would end up causing more problems.

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Sun, 26 Sep 2021 22:24:03 +0000

I feel like you missed the forest for the trees for most of my argument here Yossi, I'm not going to lie. My stance was from the viewpoint of the infrastructure we need to put in place to handle what will come from an undo of the scaling age progression, and how just repealing it is vastly insufficient.

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Sun, 26 Sep 2021 22:10:34 +0000

+ Response +

- Collapse -

While yes, a reversion of the age requirement to 16 would ameliorate this some, we will still have 13, 14, and 15 year old users on the site who will continue to face and experience this problem.

The problem is greatly alleviated though by the fact that these individuals can (and if they are on the site, will) lie about their age. The reason this was a concern regarding the 18+ age limit is because sexual interactions that may seem entirely normal if between consenting adults becomes predatory if one of those parties is, in fact, not a consenting adult. A minor wishing to report sexual misconduct of an adult would not be able to convey they are a minor if the age limit is 18+, thus making it significantly harder to report the incident; however, if the age limit were 16+, the user (who is under 16) may lie about their age being above 16 but under 18, and still report the predatory behavior involving an adult and minor.

The perpetrator attempting to take revenge by revealing the true age of the individual is a problem regardless of the above proposal.

Any policy step reverting the scaling age limit needs to address our inadequate reporting/protection systems. This proposal fails to do any of this.

Increasing the age limit not only fails to adequately address the issue on its own, but also introduces the above problem involving reporting predators. This proposal works towards undoing that problem independent of other solutions.

It is a fact that many members of staff often receive creepy/offputting messages from users who are minors or underage. Users with specifically feminine sounding names on the site, and palpable presence/knowledge among the user base often receive creepy/offputting messages as well. The ferquency of this behavior has dropped with the age ban.

I do not believe this is true in the slightest. As someone who has similarly been on staff for years, I have not noticed any significant change in creepy messages sent to female-presenting users (in fact, I've noticed it a lot more), and there's no solid statistical data to back this point up. We even permanently banned someone for this reason recently. Stopping minors from accessing the community will not drastically change this, and real harm towards users from predatory and manipulative individuals would not be prevented in the slightest.

It is also my opinion, that minors should not be allowed to be staff.

I agree with this point. However, there are many exceptions to "minors are not capable of handling staff matters" (such as Elenee and Hex), and I find it disingenuous to ignore their contributions to the site. Nonetheless, the position can certain be difficult on the developing mind, and there are definitely harmful things staff handle that minors should not be exposed to.

We cannot be fanfiction.net, or other creative writing areas and expose underage users to inappropriate content. The adult splash pages and tagging of adult articles and our steps there have been great.

The splash pages have been ineffective at preventing exposure of NSFW material to minors. Since we allowed anyone to view NSFW pages regardless of being logged in or not (a decision we decided on due to immense backlash from having them only available to site members), there is no actual barrier to prevent minors from being exposed to sexual content on the site besides a single page they can easily click past. To emphasize this point, my SCP-6969 had its image reviewed (and was voted on) by a minor on staff, and I am aware at least one other minor read the article. These are only the people I am aware of because I knew their age prior; there are likely significantly more, especially with memes about the article circulating on off-site platforms such as r/DankMemesFromSite19.

Removing individuals from the community who talked about NSFW topics on main, who were horny or otherwise creepy on main, so on and so forth has been incredibly effective in removing a great deal of that behavior onsite, and in the immediately adjacent community.

This is what actually alleviates the issue. Increasing the age limit only prevents minors from accessing the on-site and prevents minors from coming forward about predatory behavior. As someone who personally witnessed Gabriel Jade and Eskobar's interactions with their victims (and unfortunately was a victim myself to some extent, as I was 16 at the time), if I had known that I may be banned for being underage when I came forward, I would have certainly never come forward. As it stands, the reason I did not report on the situation at the time was because I did not want to speak to anyone about the things I saw in that server, and I can speak for at least two other minors who were present. Additionally we did not know who to report it to even if we did report it. This is another issue I believe we need to address, but regardless, the raising age limit would not have served us any better in that scenario — in fact, it could have served us worse.

Another point you bring up: NSFW/horny on main. If a chat is operating under the presumption that everyone present must be 18 or older, then a minor present would be much more easily exposed to NSFW material since the chat was operating under the idea that all members were adults, and NSFW material may not be seen as particularly harmful (especially if on the "tamer" side, such as implied NSFW or NSFW-related memes). Sure, we could enforce NSFW rules as stringently as possible (which I advocate for regardless of the outcome of this proposal), but by then the chat would be safe for minors, and it makes little sense to restrict them from such an environment.

This ties in with the issue of legality. […]

This is, perhaps, the only point I concede on here. The legality is not certain, and we should contact a legal professional to determine if this would be allowed. However, I would like to suggest legal professionals actually be consulted, rather than us merely repeating over and over that we should consult a legal professional. The details can be hashed out in staffchat, adcap, or admin chat; I don't particularly care as long as it gets done.

I also find it to be morally repugnant, just because we may be covered legally does not mean it is morally acceptable to look the other way as minors interact with our site and the adult content just because we have splashes and tagging on them.

Minors will still interact with our site regardless. The age limit only prevents them from creating NSFW material, not consuming it, which is the primary issue.

A stop gap bandaid repeal will not fix it.

This proposal is to rip off a bandaid proposal, not a bandaid in of itself.

With this being said, I am in favor of keeping the age limit at 16 indefinitely. Further policy must be made to help prevent sexual predation on the site, but as it stands, our age increase does little to actually alleviate this at the time (except maybe in certain chats, which outside of IRC are not even under our control), and only further prevents teenagers from practicing their writing and contributing to the SCP Wiki.

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Sun, 26 Sep 2021 16:49:35 +0000

Like many others have elaborated in this thread, I had mixed feelings about the original age rise to 18 over 4 years. At the time I saw it as a stop-gap solution, a way to provide a liability buffer for ourselves while we worked out the problems within the community when it comes to interactions with minors, and also tackle the challenges of reworking how we handle staff-user interactions, and how minors fit into the picture of our site and the sites culture. I am not unmoved by the logic and argument provided in the reasoning put forth in this thread, and there are salient points to it that make me see the argument that raising the age limit was not the effective stop gap that we all thought it might be.

That said this proposal is so wildly insufficient that I have made it explicitly clear that any attempt to move what is currently present to a vote would essentially require me to wield my administrative power to Fiat the vote.

I will illustrate why I believe this would be necessary. In the reasons for repealing our scaling age requirement, one of the primary logical cornerstones is that we have pushed minors into an unsafe position where they feel unable to report harassment or unacceptable behavior to staffers on the site for fear of being banned. While yes, a reversion of the age requirement to 16 would ameliorate this some, we will still have 13, 14, and 15 year old users on the site who will continue to face and experience this problem. One of my original grievances with the discussion regarding measures to prevent the events of May 2020 from happening again and shifting site culture was that we needed better reporting systems for minors to report abuse towards them to staff, and better protection systems for minors interacting in our spaces with adults. Our current system, the ability to anonymously report through an AHT account, is insufficient to address what this proposal logically points out is a problem. I am putting faith in the reasoning that these things are actually occurring, and perhaps that may be too generous. Any policy step reverting the scaling age limit needs to address our inadequate reporting/protection systems. This proposal fails to do any of this.

It is a fact that many members of staff often receive creepy/offputting messages from users who are minors or underage. Users with specifically feminine sounding names on the site, and palpable presence/knowledge among the user base often receive creepy/offputting messages as well. The ferquency of this behavior has dropped with the age ban. We need to consider and contend with how to protect vulnerable members of our community who experience this level of uncomfortable interaction with users. This proposal does not attempt to address this.

It is also my opinion, that minors should not be allowed to be staff. There have been several times in the past few years where young-er members of staff have behaved erratically or irationally, due to immaturity or emotional inexperience, causing issues for the rest of staff, and straining their mental health. Despite having been in leadership positions across multiple communities, the most relevant being the Fallout Wiki, I am a strong exception and I do not believe we should allow anyone to become staff who is under the age of 18. This proposal attempts to address this, and I do commend it for that.

In whatever case we need to address and formulate policy to deal with how minors interact with the site. I do not know if I am comfortable with allowing minors into spaces and onto the site in areas that have clearly adult or not safe for work content, and given that our site is and was initially based off of strong horror vibes, it is unacceptable to me for us to attempt to neuter our content. We have a large, and mainstream impact and viewership, frankly we are an internet phenomenon. We cannot be fanfiction.net, or other creative writing areas and expose underage users to inappropriate content. The adult splash pages and tagging of adult articles and our steps there have been great. Removing individuals from the community who talked about NSFW topics on main, who were horny or otherwise creepy on main, so on and so forth has been incredibly effective in removing a great deal of that behavior onsite, and in the immediately adjacent community.

This ties in with the issue of legality. Someone pointed out in discord the other day that we would be covered on a liability front in federal/state jurisdictions by a supreme court ruling from 2012 on both the issue of minors interacting with Adult content. I found that argument to be extensively repugnant. We have not consulted with any sort of legal counsel on the matter and to say that we are covered by it is grossly overstating how much legal standing we would have without seeking consultation. I also find it to be morally repugnant, just because we may be covered legally does not mean it is morally acceptable to look the other way as minors interact with our site and the adult content just because we have splashes and tagging on them. This proposal fails to address this.

In totality, I find this proposal to be an irresponsibly dangerous and rushed attempt to ameliorate a VERY complicated and nuanced issue that requires extensive discussion. With that said, I AM NOT wielding an Admin Fiat to stop discussion, I am not wielding a fiat at all. THIS IS A TOPIC WE NEED TO DISCUSS. This is a topic we deseprately need to consider solutions for in the future. So multiple layered discussions should be had. BUT UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES IS THIS READY TO PROCEED TO A VOTE.

We need large, sweeping policy to change these major facets of site culture, community culture, and how we interact with it. A stop gap bandaid repeal will not fix it.

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Sun, 26 Sep 2021 06:21:07 +0000

Hope you’re all ready for another Really Long Fullham Post

Oh boy, do I have some opinions about this one. I want to preface this by saying that I was not really part of the discussion at all when the major decisions behind the age limit were made back in 2019. I will also say that recently I have been spending a lot more time on IRC than on the forums, so a lot of this is coming from my views from interactions with users in the chat.

My original assumptions

And that’s where the problem lies, really.

How much of this can we reasonably be held accountable for?

– hide block

Sexual harassment and predatory behavior happens on the internet. Literally everywhere on the entire internet. It’s a sad thing that I can say that with such confidence, but there it is. Reddit, 4chan, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, Twitter, Twitch, literally every site that is designed to connect people with one another experiences this problem. And almost every single one of them is a site with a stated age limit that still regularly has users on it that are under that age limit. The way I see it, it comes down to a question of personal responsibility. If the only way to remove ourselves from the responsibility of protecting minors is to keep minors away from the site completely, then I feel like that's ultimately what we have to do. But you can't. There's literally no way to do that. So that part of the proposal, I definitely have to agree with, because all it's ultimately doing is forcing underage users to lie in order to be here.

As the proposal says, there's really nothing stopping them from just lying about their age, and as long as they don't cross the line into acting overly immature, nobody is ever going to find out. But at the same time, they are at fault for that lie, not us for giving them the opportunity to lie. They broke the rule that is ultimately in place to protect them, and can we be blamed for the failure of a rule, when the problem is simply the rule not being followed? At what point can we say, “you were warned, and you ignored the warning, and now you are facing the consequences”? Just because they are minors does not mean that they are completely free of responsibility in any of these situations. Can we really be held accountable for someone else's judgment, or lack thereof? I feel like that's just completely letting them off the hook for their role in this. I'm not saying it's their fault that it happens, I'm saying that they were made aware that they were entering a community that is primarily for adults, with the full knowledge that they are not an adult. Are we just going to ignore that? Because I feel like that's not fair. I hope I'm wording this in a way that doesn't sound like I'm siding with abusers, because I'm not, I'm just an anti absolutist, I try to look at things from every possible angle when I can. And I feel like at a certain point you have to be able to say, “You were warned. We did everything we could to try to protect you and you ignored the warnings and went there anyway.” Doesn't that count for something? Isn't that the whole reason that foods have warning labels on them, so the companies don't get sued when people ignore the warnings and burn their tongues on the hot food?

Age and Maturity

Numbers and metrics

Underage users and the community as a whole

Legality and 5 Days

– hide block

The one thing I want to echo the absolute loudest is what some users have said about involving an actual legal professional in this. It's definitely something that should be looked at by someone with an understanding of how these laws work, especially where the internet is concerned. I know that deciding things like this can't be easy, and comments like mine unfortunately probably don't make it any easier, but once again I have to bring up the concept and the question of personal responsibility versus the responsibility of the staff and the community. There is only so much we can do, and there's only so much we should even be expected to do. We are not a site that sells a product or subscription or makes any kind of money; we essentially have zero actual “full-time” staff on this site because we can't pay anyone to do that. All of the other sites that actually are able to moderate stuff like this have paid, full-time staff.

I also have to agree with what a few other users have said when it comes to the time limit on this decision, I believe five days is not even remotely enough time for a decision this massive and important. I understand that the original decision needed to be made quickly because it was a response to a specific situation, but it doesn't seem to me like that's what's happening here, so I don't understand why this decision needs to be made so quickly. Literally one business week’s worth of time, when I think this is something that we should be spending a lot more time discussing and contemplating before we come to a decision.

And this was well before I had read anything about the age limit on the IRC versus the site, and the potential fiscal and legal ramifications of that when it comes to the chat. It would not make any sense to me for the chat and the site to have a different age limit, so I feel like ultimately it has to be the higher limit, whichever that is, be the limit that we follow. If the people who pay out of their pockets to run our chat system would be faced with significantly higher costs or potential lawsuits if the age limit is not raised to 18, then I say we continue to raise it to 18 like we planned and deal with it as best we can. It's not the easy road, but the right one rarely is, is it?

TL;DR:

Doing the best I can to look at this from all possible angles, I have to disagree with the age limit being lowered - at least not right now. As regrettable as it is that we are alienating a significant chunk of the community in doing this, the reasons are ultimately there for their protection, and much like parents, sometimes you have to do something that they won't understand was necessary until they get a bit older. And, much like parents, we will see some of them break the rules anyway. And they'll face the consequences. But that's what part of maturing is, understanding that sometimes not getting your way is actually better for you. We should not be held responsible for people not following rules that we put in place to protect them. Personal responsibility and judgment should not be ignored, even if the person in question is a minor. If we do reverse this, I think it's something that I'd rather spend five weeks discussing than five days, and get an actual legal professional involved.

So, ultimately I am against reversing it, if the age limit does end up being reversed or lowered I personally say no lower than 16, and I would agree with standard user age limit for staff other than disc and AHT.

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Sun, 26 Sep 2021 04:55:25 +0000

Bring it back down to 15 (a lot of people are saying keep it at 16 but I honestly don't care either way), and staff should be at minimum 18. It's already an unofficial rule for some teams, so I don't see why not just make it official across the board.

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Sun, 26 Sep 2021 04:24:42 +0000

I am largely undecided on this topic, and would need more time to think it over. That said, I think this largely boils down to 2 main aspects:

1. The level of maturity we expect from our userbases,
2. The amount of accommodation for minors in Disc and AHT-related discussions.

For the first, there's definitely a correlation between maturity and age, and generally speaking, 13 onwards is probably the absolute minimum for acting mature enough. The difference in maturity from 15 forward is however, a lot fuzzier, and making the cut-off point 18 would likely encourage lying about your age as much as any other options, in my opinion - which leads to the second point.

As Lucio stated, we've perhaps made our underage users afraid of coming forward with reporting abuse for fear of being banned from the wiki. If we really do decide to keep the 18 age limit, I really hope we try to explicitly state that all cases of harassment and/or abuse, regardless of your age, should be forward to the appropriate teams.

Staff isn't here to judge you (with exceptions of AHT-banned people I guess), we're here to make the community as comfortable for you as we can allow.

(Apologies for the disparateness, my thoughts aren't quite gathering well right now.)

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Sun, 26 Sep 2021 04:07:30 +0000

I want us to keep our age limit but I want us to change our enforcement. While acknowledging we have a duty to attempt to protect users, this manual "ask and get an answer" exchange we do put the onus on us as an institution to where we have now said "Yep, they're of age" to everyone on our site. So if that turns out to be wrong, that is now our fault by invitation. As opposed to sites which literally host porn who stop at asking users to confirm they are of the proper age, it's the user's fault for misrepresenting themselves. It's not like we have extra liability versus sites like that.

I would like us to go to an "opt in" age limit where we have an age requirement and a maturity requirement. A user submitting an application is a promise that they are (1) of age to participate (2) of the necessary maturity. And (3) if at any point we feel that either 1 or 2 are a lie, we revoke their membership.

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Sat, 25 Sep 2021 23:04:56 +0000

This really isn't an easy discussion to have and not one I'd like to have completed within 5 days. Regardless, there's a couple of things I'd like to say.

The original discussion and subsequent voting on raising the age limit was one that I had personal grievances on. Not necessarily for what it did (though, that is why we're gathered here) but because it proposed a policy that systematically changed (or, intended to change) the culture and landscape of the site, and it was discussed passed in three days. I understand that the circumstances at the time prompted swifter-than-usual action, but I feel as though the inevitable consequences of the decision weren't properly touched upon nor brought up at all. That, in turn, is why we're back to the drawing board.

The protection of minors against harassment is why this policy was so swiftly implemented, and subsequently why it's being discussed again. Really, I feel it's the most worthwhile point to discuss - the wiki's readership being younger on average hardly compares to harassment of minors.
And yes, lowering the age limit will, at the very least, allow minors above said limit to feel more comfortable coming forward. The issue comes with those who are below said limit, which really loops back to the initial issue. The idea that people under the age of 15 are terrible liars is a broad generalization - I mean, it's not untrue, but to put it that way feels like ignoring the idea that minors under the age of 15 exist in the community. There have been in the past, and I'd place a safe bet that there still are.

In that case, unraising the age limit feels like a half-baked solution. Will it work? Sort of. Really though, the issue of harassment against minors will continue to be an issue until we find a definitive solution, but that's another discussion entirely.

As it stands, I would be in favour of unraising the age limit. Admittedly… the question of 15 or 16 feels a bit odd? Is there really that much of a difference (i.e. of maturity) between the two? I'm ambivalent to either but it seems like an odd discussion to have.

I'm… not quite sure about raising the staff age limit to 18+. Perhaps it's my bias shining through as a poster child, but I feel like there have been plenty of minors who have performed perfectly fine as JS and OS. To my knowledge, there's nothing we're, like, protecting them from. I understand the reasoning behind this and I'm generally ambivalent to whatever conclusion we reach, but there's potentially a lot of lost talent and manpower if we go this route. (Disc and AHT being 18+ is fine though)

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Sat, 25 Sep 2021 22:23:54 +0000

I will go on record as saying that much of what Zyn says above is why I'm still largely on the fence about even lowering site age reqs to 16. I currently support it but it's not a very strong support.

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Sat, 25 Sep 2021 20:29:30 +0000

For full context since potential liability to the SkipIRC network has been mentioned several times both here and on the mainsite thread, here's logs of the full conversation that occurred in #site20 (#site19's public overflow chat) wherein Kufat discusses the network's policies and potential actions. Fair warning that it's long and unedited:

+ Open

- Close

[2021-09-25 16:14:48] → Kufat joined (ten.tafuk.repeeketag|tafuk#ten.tafuk.repeeketag|tafuk)
[2021-09-25 16:14:48] * ChanServ set +o Kufat
[2021-09-25 16:15:01] so there's a degree to which… like, it's easy for me to say '18 hard limit', but it might just mean it's easier for me to be callous against people who are 16, now that I'm no longer 16
[2021-09-25 16:15:07] Guys u forgot to take 20 off your aop
[2021-09-25 16:15:11] Guess*
[2021-09-25 16:15:32] CuteGirl: oh well, I'll fix later
[2021-09-25 16:16:01] * CuteGirl set -o Kufat
[2021-09-25 16:16:09] I temp fix
[2021-09-25 16:16:11] Wow rude
[2021-09-25 16:16:15] :D
[2021-09-25 16:16:22] this is just like animal farm
[2021-09-25 16:16:26] by eric blair
[2021-09-25 16:16:32] Limey: I'm not a furry smh
[2021-09-25 16:16:40] lmao
[2021-09-25 16:16:48] But seriously, I'm only here briefly but wanted to pop in and communicate the SkipIRC age policy and its reasoning, in the interest of transparency and such
[2021-09-25 16:16:57] — Limey nods
[2021-09-25 16:17:07] yo, suggesting updating the channel topic, now that it's not about the art proposal anymore
[2021-09-25 16:17:13] Kufat: this would be a valuable insight from someone smarter than me
[2021-09-25 16:17:21] * CuteGirl set the topic to #site20: #site19's official overflow channel | 19's rules still apply and will be enforced. | This channel will remain muted when not in use. | current topic:
[2021-09-25 16:17:34] if i where in the animal farm i would be the cat because i am stupid
[2021-09-25 16:17:39] * stormfallen set the topic to #site20: #site19's official overflow channel | 19's rules still apply and will be enforced. | This channel will remain muted when not in use. | current topic: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-14207259/age-unraising-proposal
[2021-09-25 16:17:42] * CuteGirl set the topic to #site20: #site19's official overflow channel | 19's rules still apply and will be enforced. | This channel will remain muted when not in use. | current topic: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-14207259/age-unraising-proposal
[2021-09-25 16:17:44] lol
[2021-09-25 16:17:48] jinx
[2021-09-25 16:17:51] GlowZoe: mood
[2021-09-25 16:17:52] stormfallen: lmao nice
[2021-09-25 16:18:40] Limey not to get into another orwell discussion but the cat was my favorite character in that book
[2021-09-25 16:18:51] Allowing minors onto this network puts a big target on my back. Me, personally. That would be true of any internet chat allowing minors, but there are two things that make SCP particularly vulnerable to frivolous suits
[2021-09-25 16:19:33] Preemptively - if it's "exposing minors to NSFW content," that cannot get you sued, atleast in US jurisdiction
[2021-09-25 16:22:22] If that /could/ get you sued nearly every social media website would have tons of lawsuits
[2021-09-25 16:22:46] One is the horror element. Most of the people here are too young to remember the whole Satanic Panic. I'd encourage you to read up on it, and to remember that it resulted in a number of court cases based on flimsy or totally fake evidence that nevertheless made it to trial. Winning in court is much better than losing in court, but not being sued is much better still.
[2021-09-25 16:23:18] Jesus, that happened to us too???
[2021-09-25 16:23:25] DrGolden: no, probably not
[2021-09-25 16:23:32] Oh
[2021-09-25 16:23:33] Thank his
[2021-09-25 16:23:36] *god
[2021-09-25 16:23:40] DrGolden: not to us, no
[2021-09-25 16:23:44] But kuf is citing it as a possibility. If he was forced into court, even if the trial was fruitless, hed have defence costs
[2021-09-25 16:23:47] My bad for misunderstanding
[2021-09-25 16:23:57] But that still sucks
[2021-09-25 16:24:12] Kufat: how would that liability change if we were ever to move chat, for example? And does it carry over to the wiki itself?
[2021-09-25 16:24:25] Just look at how much money we needed to raise for the Russia case, which theoretically should be an open-and-shut win.
[2021-09-25 16:24:43] CuteGirl: I'm on mobile, discuss later?
[2021-09-25 16:25:07] Kufat: aye
[2021-09-25 16:25:26] Kufat: I appreciate you offering some insight here
[2021-09-25 16:26:37] Seems like we do need to discuss liability more, dora was right lol
[2021-09-25 16:26:51] The other is that we're so LGBTQ friendly. This is something I agree with wholeheartedly, but it puts us in a bad spot with rich, litigious parents. "SATANIC HORROR SITE MADE MY BABY (teenager) TRANS" would get a lot of play in some parts of the country. And, let's be honest, plenty of trial level judges would turn a blind eye to a lack of legal merit.
[2021-09-25 16:27:20] beware the pipeline
[2021-09-25 16:27:42] "hehe that statue looks creepy" - > "oh i'm a girl"
[2021-09-25 16:27:54] tbf scp unironically trans'd me so like
[2021-09-25 16:28:09] but back on topic, this is a very interesting point I hadn't considered
[2021-09-25 16:28:11] thank you kufat!
[2021-09-25 16:28:23] OptimisticLucio: all kidding aside, more than one person has realized that they're trans because of interaction with other gender nonconforming people in the SCP community
[2021-09-25 16:28:25] Not done yet
[2021-09-25 16:28:37] we can just use the money from our crayola stocks
[2021-09-25 16:28:39] Kufat: Also, if you ever due get sued for dumb shit like that, this might come in handy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_v._Shurtleff
[2021-09-25 16:28:40] ah, my bad, continue on
[2021-09-25 16:28:47] For these reasons, my initial inclination was to raise the policy to 18 for SkipIRC, with an exception for existing members. I've been looking into other options though.
[2021-09-25 16:29:05] but yeah, I know a lot of people who got pipelined by the scp community
[2021-09-25 16:29:13] OptimisticLucio: that doesnt help the legal costs, still need a defence
[2021-09-25 16:29:31] I had a phone meeting scheduled earlier this week to discuss the purchase of additional liability insurance. I never got the call, but it is something I'm actively looking into. I'd be willing to consider allowing minors on the network if the community was willing to help out with the annual premium for the insurance.
[2021-09-25 16:29:32] The hypothetical ones
[2021-09-25 16:29:33] CuteGirl: could help cutting it down from 3 sessions to 1 session of kicking the accuser out of the door
[2021-09-25 16:30:10] Kufat: cant wait to watch donations team ponder insurance premiums
[2021-09-25 16:30:13] kufat: ballpark for how much that would cost?
[2021-09-25 16:30:28] This is all very preliminary, and I didn't plan on discussing it until after I had more information.
[2021-09-25 16:31:18] are we talking like 10 pounds a year or a thousand pounds a year though?
[2021-09-25 16:31:23] Kufat: I appreciate you coming to us with it a bit sooner given its relevance to the current conversation
[2021-09-25 16:31:27] ^^
[2021-09-25 16:31:30] very mcuh so
[2021-09-25 16:31:31] This is probably also something we'd need to consider for Wikijump. I assume currently, any liability would fall on Wikidot while they host us
[2021-09-25 16:31:52] Limey: somewhere near the latter
[2021-09-25 16:31:58] ouch
[2021-09-25 16:32:08] Insurance is fucked
[2021-09-25 16:32:24] But so are frivolous lawsuit costs
[2021-09-25 16:32:54] aye
[2021-09-25 16:32:55] Speaking as someone who does have to carry liability insurance for a large organization, it's in the potential thousands to tens of thousands per year. My fraternity, for no minors, is over 1000$ a month.
[2021-09-25 16:33:03] stormfallen but those adverts with the meerkats make it sound so simple /s
[2021-09-25 16:33:10] oh christ
[2021-09-25 16:33:12] 12k a year
[2021-09-25 16:33:16] The liability is different between a group of people who co-habitate, and operate a network
[2021-09-25 16:33:24] So that's….*very likely* a massive overestimation
[2021-09-25 16:33:28] Jeeeez
[2021-09-25 16:33:28] as i said, crayola stocks
[2021-09-25 16:33:47] I'd still say at least 1500$ a year is a very very optimistic figure.
[2021-09-25 16:33:58] Which, if it's ever exercised, I can tell you from personal experience, makes that go up very very fast.
[2021-09-25 16:34:07] DrMagnus: the situations aren't completely parallel because your fraternity maintains housing which is also a premises for social events. I don't think it would be near that, but yeah
[2021-09-25 16:34:12] Precisely, yeah.
[2021-09-25 16:34:20] But in this case, Kufat is an identifiable owner.
[2021-09-25 16:34:51] DrMagnus so are you telling me that the meerkats lied to us
[2021-09-25 16:34:52] Wheras on the wiki, we're not. Which is why on wikidot, we're fine. For wikijump, assuming the organization of wikijump treats the wiki as a user instead of an extension of the organization, same deal.
[2021-09-25 16:35:17] E.g. Skipirc or Wikijump provide a service, which gives them the kind of protections facebook has against its user content for example.
[2021-09-25 16:35:24] Athenodora: Unfortunately…yes.
[2021-09-25 16:35:29] The meerkats have lied.
[2021-09-25 16:35:34] aww
[2021-09-25 16:35:37] the meerkats would never
[2021-09-25 16:35:50] Could we please keep it on topic for the moment? I only have a limited amount of time and I want to be able to answer any questions
[2021-09-25 16:35:58] my bad
[2021-09-25 16:36:03] Np
[2021-09-25 16:36:06] Kufat: May I ask (and this may have been noted in the upscroll, but I'm busy rn): is this hypothetical liability insurance for the site as a whole, or you as the owner of this network?
[2021-09-25 16:36:17] Legal protection is complicated is the long and short of it. (That's all I wanted to add)
[2021-09-25 16:36:54] Hex: haven't gotten that far yet. If it's a policy for me as a whole I would expect to pay for perhaps half of it out of my pocket
[2021-09-25 16:37:35] There are other angles as well, including potentially forming an LLC, etc
[2021-09-25 16:38:05] sorry im not really that familiar with american law but the main worry about suits is online harassment right?
[2021-09-25 16:38:32] GlowZoe: not primarily. Scroll up s bit
[2021-09-25 16:38:34] You can sue anyone for basically anything in the USA
[2021-09-25 16:38:43] GlowZoe: angry homophobe parents. Satanic panic
[2021-09-25 16:39:03] people would sue us over their kids being LGBTQ??
[2021-09-25 16:39:28] that seems extremely frivolous
[2021-09-25 16:39:38] They could sue you for "influencing their children against their religious beliefs" and sue for "damages", sure. It would 99.9% get thrown out, but you need to spend money defending yourself, even in a SLAPP case.
[2021-09-25 16:39:39] It would be, yeah
[2021-09-25 16:39:40] GlowZoe: a frivolous lawsuit still has costs associated
[2021-09-25 16:39:52] Frivolous or not, it can still costs thousands of dollars to have it legally declared frivolous
[2021-09-25 16:39:53] Even getting a lawyer to submit a SLAPP motion costs ~3500$
[2021-09-25 16:39:53] yes it would have very expensive costs i would imagine
[2021-09-25 16:42:42] Obviously I have no control over the age policy of the wiki.
[2021-09-25 16:43:13] have their been any cases yet of websites in america being sued by parents about them 'making' their kids LGBTQ?
[2021-09-25 16:43:21] ⇐ OptimisticLucio quit (ten.tniqezeb.der.avhhr0-PCS|citsimitpO#ten.tniqezeb.der.avhhr0-PCS|citsimitpO): Ping timeout: 120 seconds
[2021-09-25 16:43:37] GlowZoe: excellent question, and I don't know the answer
[2021-09-25 16:43:41] I never would have thought that simply lowering the age limit on poopy peanut fanfic website would bring up legal problems
[2021-09-25 16:44:09] It does feel like a strikingly rare contingency to plan for, especially if there's zero precedent to this ever happening before
[2021-09-25 16:44:13] If you wanted to look into that a bit and get back to me with what you find, it would be most helpful and I'd appreciate it
[2021-09-25 16:44:28] Limey: easier to say when you're not the liable one
[2021-09-25 16:44:40] Limey: it's rather like losing the lottery, yes
[2021-09-25 16:44:44] Er
[2021-09-25 16:44:57] certainly. I didn't mean to downplay people's concerns, especially kufat who's gona be dealing with the shit end of the stick for this
[2021-09-25 16:45:03] Kufat: winning the reverse-lottery :p
[2021-09-25 16:45:09] Inverse lottery, you're out millions of your number comes up
[2021-09-25 16:45:13] Yes
[2021-09-25 16:45:19] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-49933003
[2021-09-25 16:45:23] a lot of the cases i can find are primarily cases about really young kids transitioning like under 16
[2021-09-25 16:45:26] this talks about a russian suit
[2021-09-25 16:45:38] but it's to a much larger company than like scp
[2021-09-25 16:45:48] Question
[2021-09-25 16:45:49] In a suit filed on 20 September, it is claimed a crypto-currency called "GayCoin" was delivered via a smartphone app, rather than the Bitcoin he had ordered.
[2021-09-25 16:45:55] is scp even a registered like LLC
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[2021-09-25 16:45:57] okay this is actually really funny
[2021-09-25 16:46:00] Would /not/ lowering the age limit save us from these suits?
[2021-09-25 16:46:05] no
[2021-09-25 16:46:22] GlowZoe: no
[2021-09-25 16:46:34] Then why is this relevant
[2021-09-25 16:46:38] DrGolden: it would cause less liability
[2021-09-25 16:46:49] Ah
[2021-09-25 16:46:50] Okay
[2021-09-25 16:46:53] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/dec/06/keira-bell-lawyer-warns-on-internet-coverage-of-transgender-issues tw for transphobia, this seems like the only relevant 'case'
[2021-09-25 16:47:01] DrGolden: there is inherently more liability involved with minors than legal adults
[2021-09-25 16:47:07] CuteGirl: If the issue is frivolous lawsuits, you could be sued for the minor being there without staff knowng, no?
[2021-09-25 16:47:10] DrGolden: no, but reducing the number of minors would reduce the odds of such a suit occurring and make me more likely to win a motion to dismiss
[2021-09-25 16:47:17] Like, we're assuming these are lawsuits that don't make sense
[2021-09-25 16:47:40] GlowZoe: this also doesn't seem tied to legal action
[2021-09-25 16:47:46] it wasn't no
[2021-09-25 16:47:52] I am also having a lot of difficulty finding a suit like this that actually exists
[2021-09-25 16:48:08] its just the only thing slightly relevant i could find
[2021-09-25 16:48:14] aye
[2021-09-25 16:48:23] It's not unreasonable to want to protect yourself from potential risk. It may seem unlikely, but all it takes is once, and kufat loses his house defending himself in court.
[2021-09-25 16:48:30] If we assume that the lawsuit is frivolous, then it won't matter if there is or isn't a rule for them being 18+, they would just sue you for being "negligent."
[2021-09-25 16:48:33] I completely get the concern
[2021-09-25 16:48:35] OptimisticLucio: I mean theyve actively lied to us in that case
[2021-09-25 16:48:52] its a completely understandable concern
[2021-09-25 16:48:54] Sometimes it's about going through the motions when it comes to legality. Even if it's dumb, and not effective.
[2021-09-25 16:48:55] It may be that my concerns are exaggerated. As I said, I'm still looking into things and wasn't near the point of making an announcement yet
[2021-09-25 16:48:56] CuteGirl: But either way we still need to go through the motions to get the court case thrown out
[2021-09-25 16:49:05] CuteGirl: "You should have had more measures in place!" Yes, you could 100% win that case, but the concern seems to be going to court at all.
[2021-09-25 16:49:09] if they lied to us or not, it's still a hell of a lot of money
[2021-09-25 16:49:11] Same reason they put "Any and all resemblance to events is fictional blah blah blah" in movies based on real people
[2021-09-25 16:49:14] exactly
[2021-09-25 16:49:23] Kufat: Understandable, thank you for bringing it up when it's relevant
[2021-09-25 16:49:24] if the issue is merely going to court, this doesn't stop it
[2021-09-25 16:49:33] ^
[2021-09-25 16:49:37] OptimisticLucio: the primary concern is going to court at all, but getting out of court quickly is an important secondary concern
[2021-09-25 16:49:52] Also, like
[2021-09-25 16:49:53] going to court is still expensive irregardless yeah
[2021-09-25 16:49:55] Same reason any time we talk about stocks, I say "Anything I say is not financial advice etc etc". I don't *think* people are going to sue me for meme'stocking but I am a financial professional, and I *could* be if I don't CMA
[2021-09-25 16:50:13] If the age limit keeps 90% of minors out, then we're only buying 10% as many tickets to the lose your house in a lawsuit lottery. And by we I mean me or possibly I.
[2021-09-25 16:50:36] Kufat: for the secondary concern… well, if it's something insanely dumb, any lawyer worth their salt could get you out of there in a session. I get where you're coming from but I think it's like putting a safety net under a 2M ladder
[2021-09-25 16:50:36] I mean, technically I could fall under that umbrella too, as someone who runs the network.
[2021-09-25 16:50:52] OptimisticLucio: Hiring a lawyer will cost several thousand dollars to even show up in court.
[2021-09-25 16:51:04] exactly
[2021-09-25 16:51:11] DrMagnus: I know, that was a response to Kufat's secondary concern
[2021-09-25 16:51:19] OptimisticLucio: it's like having someone hold your 2m ladder
[2021-09-25 16:51:24] Because we said that if it's frivolous enough, you could get your ass in court anyways
[2021-09-25 16:51:24] Which people do
[2021-09-25 16:51:44] i just want wizzblizz back
[2021-09-25 16:51:50] Those be wobbling
[2021-09-25 16:51:58] I'd also like to point out, the OSHA rules about ladders is 22 sections long >.>
[2021-09-25 16:52:03] But that's mostly pedantry.
[2021-09-25 16:52:03] DrMagnus: pffft
[2021-09-25 16:52:18] based
[2021-09-25 16:52:20] it goes over every possible length of ladder
[2021-09-25 16:52:25] Regarrrrrdless.
[2021-09-25 16:52:35] OptimisticLucio: I have personally been involved in a lawsuit where we have absolutely ironclad evidence that the other party was estopped from making their claim in court. I ended up having to settle and pay them few dozen grand to go away because it would have cost more than that to get to the point where we could win a motion for summary judgment.
[2021-09-25 16:52:52] Lawsuits are something I"ve been through twice, and I can promise you, it's never good. Ever.
[2021-09-25 16:53:19] my grandfather just got found guilty on a much more serious case than this, the other side had basically no evidence now he is in jail for 10 years and his wife doesn't have a house anymore
[2021-09-25 16:53:34] scary things man
[2021-09-25 16:53:43] Never understimate a litigious asshole.
[2021-09-25 16:53:47] underestimate even.
[2021-09-25 16:54:31] Anybody have any other questions before I head out?
[2021-09-25 16:54:42] thanks for coming in kufat
[2021-09-25 16:54:45] Once again, this is all very preliminary and it's something I'm in the middle of looking into
[2021-09-25 16:54:48] GlowZoe: yw
[2021-09-25 16:54:56] <3
[2021-09-25 16:54:58] Yeah much appreciated kufat
[2021-09-25 16:55:04] > <•CuteGirl> Aoife OptimisticLucio: I mean theyve actively lied to us in that case
[2021-09-25 16:55:16] Kufat: I think some stuff needs to be discussed later, but it isnt urgent
[2021-09-25 16:55:53] again, with the full understanding that a) I'm a non-legal-expert trying to think in terms of legalese, and b) even a frivolous lawsuit would still be costly for us
[2021-09-25 16:56:33] Also, as a point of general information: if SCP staff were to set a lower age limit than this network, the network age limit would take priority here on SkipIRC but the SCP age limit would apply in other spaces.
[2021-09-25 16:56:41] I'm wondering there'd be lessened probability of us being sued in those cases where a minor lied to us & gained site membership that way
[2021-09-25 16:57:13] insofar as the minor's internet safety should be the responsibility of their legal guardians
[2021-09-25 16:57:14] i think the important part is just that 16-18 can post stuff to the site
[2021-09-25 16:58:05] Athenodora: it might help dissuade lawyers from taking the case and might help get it dismissed more quickly. It wouldn't stop the hypothetical individual from wanting to sue
[2021-09-25 16:58:10] Kufat: i.e tldr: if site age goes down server age may stay 18 (by may etc) effecting official chat age?
[2021-09-25 16:58:20] Kufat: I was meaning to ask that question in regards to other places. Makes sense
[2021-09-25 16:58:29] CuteGirl: yes
[2021-09-25 16:58:35] Emphasis "may"
[2021-09-25 16:58:36] and the legal guardians can't claim "well my kid asked for permission and I looked at this website and they say they have an age policy that covers 16-year-old as well and they looks professional so I was deceived into thinking that they knew what they were doing"
[2021-09-25 16:58:45] Kufat: mm
[2021-09-25 16:59:45] they could use discords instead of irc for 16-18
[2021-09-25 17:00:00] GlowZoe: then whoever owns the discord is liable tbf
[2021-09-25 17:00:48] like at that point, there are so many horrible discords out there that would be sued a million times over any scp discord
[2021-09-25 17:00:54] Definitely
[2021-09-25 17:00:57] CuteGirl: owning a Discord is more like "owning" a subreddit, so it's not quite the same
[2021-09-25 17:01:12] ye
[2021-09-25 17:01:32] Kufat: hm thats good I guess
[2021-09-25 17:01:54] and most 16-18 use discord a lot anyway
[2021-09-25 17:02:34] Is there any way Kufat can be deemed not the owner of this server? Or rather, can he be deemed not liable for whatever bs fanatic religious parents decide to nag on
[2021-09-25 17:02:47] the discord server?
[2021-09-25 17:03:01] he could simply not be the person who created it
[2021-09-25 17:03:17] Kufat owns the network.
[2021-09-25 17:03:30] wait are we talking about discord
[2021-09-25 17:03:45] GlowZoe: no, still SkipIRC
[2021-09-25 17:03:51] Which I own, yes
[2021-09-25 17:03:51] k sorry
[2021-09-25 17:03:59] Np
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[2021-09-25 17:05:22] * ChanServ set +h WarFang
[2021-09-25 17:06:33] But yeah. To be perfectly clear and unambiguous, this is a network that I own in my personal capacity. I make it available to the SCP Foundation and other interested users, including the general public subject to some limits, who operate individual channels here.
[2021-09-25 17:06:40] Since this part of the convo has died down or going in circles a bit, is everyone okay if I log and bring this to staffchat?
[2021-09-25 17:07:08] i got nothing else to ask or add
[2021-09-25 17:07:45] Limey: I would ask that you emphasize that this isn't at all final on my part and that I only chimed in because I wanted to be transparent about my decision making process, even though it was early on
[2021-09-25 17:07:58] Will do

- Close

And once again to make it clear for those who understandably don't want to read all of that:

[2021-09-25 17:07:45] Limey: I would ask that you emphasize that this isn't at all final on my part and that I only chimed in because I wanted to be transparent about my decision making process, even though it was early on
[2021-09-25 17:07:58] Will do

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Sat, 25 Sep 2021 19:12:32 +0000

I am in agreement with the above points, and will also note that a change of this magnitude this will significantly affect our mainsite review teams as well.

We need to keep in mind the mental health of staff who receive overly-forward communication from younger members of the community (I used to get pretty frequent requests for personal tutoring from users I'd never even spoken to onsite), and reviewers who may experience increasing levels of burnout from a sudden influx (younger authors do trend towards needing disproportionately more assistance with the writing process). As a general note, these aren't the full extent of considerations; I myself tend to get a lot of… for lack of better words, creepy and weird PMs from kids (sometimes specifically because I'm female). I don't think this is the case for all staff though.

We might also want to be mindful of legal planning with regards to internet safety (minors tend to be the ones who preemptively offer unsolicited personal information, whether in chat and on the mainsite, and another example is requests for editing assistance with drafts in Google Docs linked to school-managed accounts that have student name and school district in the Doc owner info). This is a discussion for another thread, though.

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Sat, 25 Sep 2021 18:38:43 +0000

I would have greatly preferred if this was allowed to percolate an extra week or two so we able to double check and ensure everything is in order before pushing this sort of thing. I used the example of having a segment in the Admin-Captain monthly meeting regarding it, just so everyone relevant could be brought up to speed or ensured to be on the same pages as everyone else, at the same time.
This is a really wide ranging change to the wiki and how we'd be moving things forward, and I'd really want to ensure everything is done correctly. It's a LOT different to bump an age limit down below 18. This isn't a policy that can have all its ripples and ramifications explored and understood in a week. It's the kind of thing that should be given a month of discussion and picking over.

This can hugely affect staff work and the wiki as a whole. It also like, really really affects higher ranking staff more than OS/JS, and especially those who work *with* newbies like crit staff. Admins are in the end wholly responsible for how the wiki is run and I know in that capacity I want this to back up.

Every single possible issue needs to be brought up, and worked through with possible answers or backup plans. I'd even suggest having meetings or at least discussions among individual staff *teams* who would be affected - Crit teams, Disc, AHT, even Licensing and stuff, just to ensure everyones on the same page. I don't expect it would be *needed* in the end, but we *must* make sure everyone's on the same page.

I almost suggest that we could shutter this thread, and make a generalized 05 discussion where we can have it open a week to discuss points on this on 05, and not in the ephemeral and less accessible Discord channel.

I'm absolutely certain we are missing something. What, I don't know yet, because I haven't been able to figure that out or discover through long discussion.

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Sat, 25 Sep 2021 18:15:47 +0000

(Note: am JS and chatstaff)

This is not a minor policy that can be adequately explored and set in stone in only a week. The original change to the age policy was arguably the biggest and farthest-reaching policy change in the site's history, and many of the issues that have cropped up are due to how quickly it was pushed through (out of necessity, but I digress). There is no reason for us to repeat that mistake; anyone who gets banned for being underage while discussions are ongoing would be unbanned anyway if we decide to lower the age limit. This is a change that every staff member needs to know the full extent and ramifications of, especially those who would be disproportionately-affected: admins, Disc and AHT members, and chatstaff.

Just a few issues that will need to be ironed out before this should go to a vote:

What legal ramifications would arise from allowing minors on a site that hosts adult content?
What kinds of protection do staff and the Wiki have against frivolous lawsuits due to minors being exposed to adult content and/or predation?
SkipIRC network administration has disclosed their discomfort with allowing users under 18 on the network and potentially opening them up to lawsuits, to the point where Kufat is researching potential liability insurance. What other potential options are there?
What kinds of legal protection would Wikijump need if the policy is in-place when the move happens?
How do we deal with unbanning users who were banned for being underage under currently policy, but wouldn't be under the new policy?
We should attempt to consult professionals, like was done last time.

In short, this policy is not ready to be voted on, and this thread should have been a general opinion and information gathering discussion for before any actual policy is written and discussed.

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Sat, 25 Sep 2021 17:51:47 +0000

I'm really mixed on this one because while on one hand I do sincerely see the benefits of lowering the age restrictions back down, I just cannot completely get past the fact that we very much have a lot of mature content on this site and have fairly high standards for maturity from our users and authors. The site itself, despite the wider community being what it is, feels built to support the more mature audience rather than minors.

Overall, I believe that I can support the new proposal if we are willing to lower to 16 and not 15. I just think 15 is too young. See edit below.

I am 100% against allowing staff to be minors. It isn't just a maturity issue- it's the fact that staff need to deal with issues and content that it is neither appropriate or responsible to expect a minor to be involved with. Minors have other issues that they should be focusing on in life- they do not need to add staff responsibilities to that.

EDIT: This has been stuck in my head all day, and the more I think on it the less I like it. I just don't feel like it's a responsible decision to change the age policy. I've decided I'm against this proposal. There's just not enough to gain and too much to lose from it.

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Sat, 25 Sep 2021 17:48:25 +0000

This discussion has been… something, and of course it was going to be controversial. Initially what I was going to vote for it being lowered back to 16 hesitantly, as long as we continued to work on accountability and safety for users, however some things have came up that made me re-consider my initial hesitant position and make me disagree with this.

First off, Kufat brought up earlier in the IRC that this age change was a liability for him, and if this went through, he'd have to get liability insurance which can range in the thousands every year to pay for… and if Kufat doesn't do this, he is potentially exposing himself to court cases which can be extremely expensive. The funding for the duskin case was a lot, and that was for an open-and-closed case. So… basically if we do this, we'd have a weird juxtaposition of our official IRC being something you can only participate in if you are 18+ but the rest of the site you can join, and we haven't really fully explored the liabilities in this… like… fully, I think?

Furthermore, some points in the main-site were raised that particularly influenced how I see this issue along with the fact that I feel like this was posted too soon with little time to allow people to think about it.

Overall for now, I don't think I support this, my opinion could change as I'll be actively reading this and the main site thread but I'd like to see more opinions and everything on it, especially from people more experienced at managing this site and the influence this kind of policy will have on the site.

So I guess… two things?

1. If this does pass, I'd prefer 16+ to be the age limit, with no minors allowed to join staff.

2. I'd prefer if the timer is extended to give everyone more time to process and think about this.

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Sat, 25 Sep 2021 16:17:48 +0000

Supporting this. I'm for making minimum age 16, though.

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Sat, 25 Sep 2021 16:10:00 +0000

I find myself having a very hard time deciding on this. Every time I think I’ve decided someone mentions something relevant and I get confused again.

I think we should definitely look into liability a lot more, given what stormfallen pointed out about it’s possible application to us in future if WikiJump goes ahead, and chat staff will need to speak with Kufat about the network age, and any decisions he makes there.

If we do vote yes for this, I’d like to see it be reduced to 16. The need for maturity bans has reduced since the age hit 16, and while people cite our ability to maturity ban immature teenagers, that’s a lot more complex than it sounds at first. It takes a lot of continued instances to maturity ban someone, all while chat is being disrupted. The environment seems better as a 16+ zone.

I’d be supporting staff remaining 18+.

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Sat, 25 Sep 2021 15:55:53 +0000

Disclaimer: I'm not active Staff.

1) The concerns brought up by various Staff and non-Staff members convinced me that undoing this is probably the best course of action.
1a) 16 is, for me, a better limit, for the same reasons Possum stated. It's, in my eyes, a better indicator of maturity in a user.
2) I would say that the 18+ age requirement is not a bad thing, but I'm less than willing to put a fight over this so if we undid this, will probably not care.

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Sat, 25 Sep 2021 13:43:17 +0000

To be honest, after I first interacted with a few 16-18 year-old people in chat, I was wondering why a 16 year age limit wouldn't be enough (only read the relevant thread today, since Lucio linked it here). I'd say 16 is a better cutoff age than 15, as one year in one's teens can make a lot of difference maturity-wise. So yes, I agree with this change.

Regarding staff age requirements, I think it should be the same as regular users. If you've proven yourself mature and competent enough to be trusted by staff and considered for a JS position, age won't make much more of a difference.

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Sat, 25 Sep 2021 13:35:39 +0000

Supporting, though I am still unsure whether the limit should be lowered to 15 or 16. I'll wait to see what others think on the matter.

After further discussion, I have decided to withhold my support for the time being.

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Sat, 25 Sep 2021 12:56:37 +0000

Absolute full support. When I initially joined the site, I was admittedly underage, and in retrospect — sort of stuck out as a sore thumb around the site; however, upon turning 15 in March, 2020, that was around the time where I could really start to develop the maturity and skills necessary to properly interact with the site and the community at large. While I'd be fine with accepting 16, from my personal experiences — 15 would be the most optimal.

Edit: Forgot to note my opinions on the staff age matter. I see no reason why it shouldn't be the same as regular users. Though, I can see an argument for why Disc and AHT should be 18+.

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Sat, 25 Sep 2021 12:14:06 +0000

i've made my support for this clear. the increased age limit does nothing to fix the issues we introduced it for, making them worse if anything, all while making it so two thirds of the userbase needs to lie about their age to use the site. i'll be voting for it to stay at 16 if that option is available, but if not i'll choose 15 over keeping it at 18.

Re: Age Unraising Proposal

Sat, 25 Sep 2021 09:54:36 +0000

Full support. We’re losing a massive amount of talent and isolating a huge portion of our community for safety measures that fail to do anything. This proposal is vital for the long term sustainability of the site. 15 seems like the best number to lower the age requirement to as long as keep maturity requirements the same - the more the merrier in our little corner of the internet.

Age Unraising Proposal

Sat, 25 Sep 2021 09:50:29 +0000

This proposal has also been posted to the mainsite, and can be viewed here.

This proposal is a proposal to undo the age raise from this 05discussion thread, including unbanning the appropriate users and shortening the bans of others.

Why do this, you may ask. In short - this age raise has alienated a majority of our readerbase (and partially creator-base), does not solve the issue it looked to fix, and infact worsened any future examples of the issue.

First point - alienating the community.
Here's the 2020 survey for reference.

According to this survey, 66.27% of our readerbase is 19 or less, with nearly 20% being below 15. If we're to assume a roughly even distribution between 15-19 it's not unfair to assume that this age raise makes nearly a half of our active readerbase - the kind who follow offsite/onsite communities enough to do a survey as long as this one - unable to join the site and participate in full. This is a major gutting to any potential artists, writers, staffers, and creators we could get from this age demographic, which is our main demo. Many of our most prolific and active users - DrClef, Rounderhouse, Yossipossi, Lilyflower, Elenee Fishtruck, DarkStuff, etc - joined the site while they were in their teens.

We are gutting half of the site with this at minimum, so any pros better be good. And.. they aren't.

Second point - This does not help stop the harassment of minors.

The age of 15 was initially chosen because that's when people start being mature enough to act reasonable in online spaces, but most importantly, this is when people start being good at lying. 12~15 year olds are typically questionable at hiding their age, and lord above knows 11 year olds are shit at it, but once you reach high-school age you get the hang of not being blatantly a tween. Any 16+ year old who was not made by Geppetto can lie on the internet to a pretty convincing degree. This means that even with the technical age limit, we're gonna have a lot of teens running around the site.

A teen being around the site is a teen that can be harrassed as per usual.

Moving from this onto the third point: This does not do anything to protect the minors we have in the community. It, infact, makes them more afraid to come forward.

Sexual harassment on the degree that members of this community previously went through is not something that happens between two randos; one person sending another "hey show me ur tits" is something that Disc is already capable of handling. This kind of thing happens between two people who know and trust eachother. Similarly to how rape is most common between a person and their long time friend, this kind of messed up interactions that you can't just ignore come from a place of two people who interact for a while in a shared environment. For this to happen in a uniquely SCP group, (because outside of SCP that's not really something we can control), the people involved have to be people who interact and take part in some onsite or offsite community. The two have been part of that community for a while, shared some laughs, and know eachother.

They have been part of an SCP community for a long enough time to create meaningful bonds with others. Someone like this is someone who, on some level or another, does not see the Wiki as just "another site" anymore. It's their pastime; they read stories in it, participate in discussions, meet with people, join side servers - to these people, this site has value and meaning. To these people, getting banned off the site is major. If this hypothetical person does get into a situation where another, older user starts manipulating them, and then they get the strength to snap out of it, they can't tell it to anyone without being taken out for being underage. Even if they don't say so directly and use an anonymous avenue, the harasser has blackmail in the form of "I can get you banned this quick; I know you're lying to them." If the victim comes forward, the harasser casually let it slip that the victim is a minor in a public space, and, well, disc cleans up their problem for them. Their other option is just to take the ban and leave the site, which is a dilemma we should never be posing anyone with - you either stay in this community, or you protect yourself from harassment.

This issue did not solve the issue of minors getting into abusive situations, and infact made getting them help worse. It did help one group of people, however.

Point 4 - Washing our hands of guilt.

This proposal puts up a sign that says "we do not allow minors." It doesn't actually stop the minors from coming in, we don't have ID verification, and any minor with half a brain can bypass it, but it stands tall claiming that this is a minor free zone. It's not, but the sign was put there to claim it is. Now, instead of it being the owner's fault that they can't deal with the abusers in their community, it's the abused's fault for coming in. The owner can now sit content knowing it's not their fault anymore.

I understand why this change came to be when it came to be - a major case involving multiple well-known and previously trusted members came to light, so people were confused and afraid for the members of their community. Any solution that promised to protect minors on the site was welcomed with open arms with nary a dissenting voice in sight, but this solution only worked in the most literal form - it stopped harassment of minors on the site by not having any minors on the site. Minors on the offsite were still vulnerable, minors in the larger community were still vulnerable, and the issues that could recreate such an event were never properly treated.

It’s understandable to have made the initial decision at the time that it was made. However, it's been long enough since that initial call that we should reevaluate whether or not this actually helped solve the issue it set out to solve, and what were the repercussions it caused in its wake.

During opinion-gathering for this proposal, a few specific points of contention were brought up. As opinions regarding them seemed to be very evenly split, they will be raised to vote along with the main proposal. As such, this proposal's voting post will include the following questions:

1) Should the user age requirement be lowered? y/n
1a) If yes to 1), to 15 or 16?
2) If the age requirement is lowered, should the staff age requirement be kept to 18+, or lowered (with exceptions for Disc and AHT)?

This discussion is open to all staff.