Question re posting age...

[Daistallia 2104]

Something that's been in the back of my mind of late...

Posters are supposed to be at least 13, yes?

viewtopic.php?p=1367681#p1367681

[Arumdaum]

What happens if you're not 13 years of age? I was 12 when I started the game, but now I'm 13.

[HC Eredivisie]

Something that's been in the back of my mind of late...

Posters are supposed to be at least 13, yes?

viewtopic.php?p=1367681#p1367681

Why should they be?

[Lackadaisical2]

What happens if you're not 13 years of age? I was 12 when I started the game, but now I'm 13.

If only we could raise the age limit a little higher.

Seriously though. I kind of agree with Dai though. There are a lot of adult themed kind of threads on NSG, its a bit weird for little kids to see them, I think.

[Arumdaum]

If only we could raise the age limit a little higher.

Why? Why?

[Garimidia]

What happens if you're not 13 years of age? I was 12 when I started the game, but now I'm 13.

That makes two of us.

How dare you suggest the age bar be risen! D:-<

[Daistallia 2104]

Something that's been in the back of my mind of late...

Posters are supposed to be at least 13, yes?

viewtopic.php?p=1367681#p1367681

Why should they be?

Well, the Mods have issues with it...

True. I suppose technically, if you convinced her not to use the forums, she could have a nation here, but if we found out we'd probably have to delete it, since according to COPPA children under the age of thirteen aren't permitted to use websites like this one without the written consent of their parents. Or... something like that. I can check what it says exactly, but basically, young kids shouldn't be on NS.

Please tell your nine-year-old sister she should not make a new nation and should not use your puppets.

She might be permitted to use this site in the controlled environment of a classroom region, but she's not welcome without the permission/supervision of an adult.

[HC Eredivisie]

snip

Aha, something foreign I didn't know.

[Warkus]

I'm 11 and Australian, No COPPA here. You might get a 9 year old N00b or a 34 year old n00b, just people expect it to be the 9 year old one.

[Arumdaum]

True. I suppose technically, if you convinced her not to use the forums, she could have a nation here, but if we found out we'd probably have to delete it, since according to COPPA children under the age of thirteen aren't permitted to use websites like this one without the written consent of their parents. Or... something like that. I can check what it says exactly, but basically, young kids shouldn't be on NS.

Please tell your nine-year-old sister she should not make a new nation and should not use your puppets.

She might be permitted to use this site in the controlled environment of a classroom region, but she's not welcome without the permission/supervision of an adult.

Warkus, run away and delete your post! Quickly, they must not find out!

[Daistallia 2104]

I'm 11 and Australian, No COPPA here. You might get a 9 year old N00b or a 34 year old n00b, just people expect it to be the 9 year old one.

The forum is supposed to be PG13. It had been my understanding from way back that you needed to be 13 to post, the posts from before and then the one in the OP have me wondering if this is correct or not, hence the question.

[Sarzonia]

Why don't we wait until or unless we get an actual ruling from the Moderators?

Personally, I'd rather not have a hard and fast minimum age rule, but I'm not aware of precedents, protocols and laws involved.

[Melkor Unchained]

Why don't we wait until or unless we get an actual ruling from the Moderators?

Personally, I'd rather not have a hard and fast minimum age rule, but I'm not aware of precedents, protocols and laws involved.

In order to be COPPA compliant, I believe we're obligated to remove anyone under 13. Obviously we can't tell for sure who is 13 and who isn't, but I believe it's in the ToS and if someone publicly admits to being younger I suspect we have to remove them.

[Czardas]

Why don't we wait until or unless we get an actual ruling from the Moderators?

Personally, I'd rather not have a hard and fast minimum age rule, but I'm not aware of precedents, protocols and laws involved.

In order to be COPPA compliant, I believe we're obligated to remove anyone under 13. Obviously we can't tell for sure who is 13 and who isn't, but I believe it's in the ToS and if someone publicly admits to being younger I suspect we have to remove them.

Are we obligated to be COPPA compliant though? Every mod, IRC, and M/A discussion on the subject I've seen has been inconclusive. Kryo intimated that we'd need to know which province the servers are hosted in. Parthenon suggested in NSG that our use of personal information may not fall under that rule. Et cetera.

I'm not sure if we have a fixed policy on this kind of thing or not, but if we don't, we probably should.

[UNIverseVERSE]

To the best of my knowledge, COPPA is US legislation. As NS is hosted in Canada and run from Australia, I'm not quite sure why you have to comply. I'm not a lawyer though.

[Cameroi]

if there could be some standardized way of testing for emotional maturity, that would be infinitely preferable to age based limitations.

[Daistallia 2104]

Why don't we wait until or unless we get an actual ruling from the Moderators?

Personally, I'd rather not have a hard and fast minimum age rule, but I'm not aware of precedents, protocols and laws involved.

In order to be COPPA compliant, I believe we're obligated to remove anyone under 13. Obviously we can't tell for sure who is 13 and who isn't, but I believe it's in the ToS and if someone publicly admits to being younger I suspect we have to remove them.

Are we obligated to be COPPA compliant though? Every mod, IRC, and M/A discussion on the subject I've seen has been inconclusive. Kryo intimated that we'd need to know which province the servers are hosted in. Parthenon suggested in NSG that our use of personal information may not fall under that rule. Et cetera.

I'm not sure if we have a fixed policy on this kind of thing or not, but if we don't, we probably should.

Indeed. I thought the policy was already established, as I said earlier.

[Melkor Unchained]

I remember being instructed to enforce COPPA in the past, but it was long enough ago that the servers (this was before the Jolt move) have changed. I don't know whether or not that explicitly changed our policy, but I've always kind of assumed that the order to enforce COPPA was still standing. There was a case this summer where a poster revealed his age and we were subsequently contacted by his parents citing privacy concerns. Normally we don't change the contact information on accounts for any reason, but special circumstances arose and we handed the nation over to the kid's parents. There is no age stipulation in our ToS, but a COPPA-esque mentality does appear to be something we're mindful of, whether we enforce it rigidly or not.

[Daistallia 2104]

I remember being instructed to enforce COPPA in the past, but it was long enough ago that the servers (this was before the Jolt move) have changed. I don't know whether or not that explicitly changed our policy, but I've always kind of assumed that the order to enforce COPPA was still standing. There was a case this summer where a poster revealed his age and we were subsequently contacted by his parents citing privacy concerns. Normally we don't change the contact information on accounts for any reason, but special circumstances arose and we handed the nation over to the kid's parents. There is no age stipulation in our ToS, but a COPPA-esque mentality does appear to be something we're mindful of, whether we enforce it rigidly or not.

Perhapse it needs to be made more explicit and added to the ToS?

[Sarzonia]

Well, my suggestion would be the following:

IF the Moderation team establishes that it will strictly follow COPPA and prohibit anyone under 13 from creating a nation in the future, it would need to explicitly state that in the terms of service and include coding that asks a prospective nation creator to verify that he or she is 13. That is not foolproof, but there may be ways of preventing future participants from being under age 13.

HOWEVER, anyone who is currently under the age of 13, or was under that age before the effective date of the new policy should be allowed to remain, grandfathered under the less explicit ruling or the non-existent ruling we have now. There are people at age 11 or 12 who have contributed to this community, and deleting their nations or forbidding their participation in this game because of their age just doesn't sit too well with me.

And, I'll note that I don't have a dog in this fight either way. I'm well over the age of majority and I'm looking rather ruefully at several grey hairs I've managed to accumulate in the course of my 36 years on this planet.

[Picklepoo]

As long as there not drasticly under age I think its fine.

[Turanbirligi]

I am 19, quite old

[Consaria]

Considering most kids start watching South Park at 10 or 11 nowadays, I don't think it is much of an issue.

[Ardchoille]

It's not really an issue of whether the kids can cope with NS, or vice-versa, Consaria. We all know nine-year-olds who'd be a gift to these forums and folk in their 40s who should grow up a bit before they log in. Legality's the problem: what action is Max obliged to take, under which nation's laws? And I don't think that's something we can answer by debating it here.

I'm not locking the thread, though, because there are obviously other concerns players have, such as Sarz's, which brings up the question of posters already here. Just, please, no "I am Spartacus! nine!" spam.