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You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2014 11:40 am
by Psyentific
This is the best thing.
Or, really, it would be, if we had a way to enforce it and keep all the underage b&s out. It's my experience that most of the shitlers you'll find online are under eighteen (And the ones that aren't are high-effort), so now you have a reason to ban them even if they don't give you a technical reason to.
Don't BYOND accounts have a birthdate function?
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2014 1:59 pm
by cultist-chan
Eh... Skovolid and Sawge were under 18 before the policy was passed and were playing. There's always some people out there who are good despite their age. That being said its a well thought policy legal wise.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2014 2:33 pm
by Psyentific
cultist-chan wrote:Eh... Skovolid and Sawge were under 18 before the policy was passed and were playing. There's always some people out there who are good despite their age. That being said its a well thought policy legal wise.
Well, yeah. I'm not saying that all the underage are shit, just that the majority of shit are underage. Trust me, I run two facebook pages, I know what I'm talking about with regards to Underage and Shitposters.
You selectively apply it to keep the low-effort shitters out.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2014 3:02 pm
by Zelacks
lets not actually blindly enforce the age restriction. Is there anything anywhere that even cares about age really?
Even porn sites just have a button before entering, its probably terrible to force anything more than that.
Of course people under 18 have to understand that they are going to be treated as if they are over 18? When I say that in a sense, it may not be terrible to
make the age restriction more strict, because lets face it, its probably best not to have people hitting on underage people.
Also saying that people under 18 are shitlers is a low blow. I am sure there is a massive proposinate of people above 18 years of age who are also just as shitty.
And of course there are people who are under 18 who are 20x more mature then those people.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2014 3:08 pm
by Stephie
I do like this policy as a "maturity restriction", of sorts. But, I agree with the point bgobandit made before - this better not turn into the GameFAQs age policy, where mentioning that you are underage is an automatic ban until you manage to provide a proof of otherwise.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2014 3:18 pm
by Psyentific
Stephie wrote:I do like this policy as a "maturity restriction", of sorts. But, I agree with the point bgobandit made before - this better not turn into the GameFAQs age policy, where mentioning that you are underage is an automatic ban until you manage to provide a proof of otherwise.
I was always in favor of this - Don't act like a child and nobody will care if you're 17 or 14 or 8.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 6:47 pm
by SergeantSkread
why not just put a box that says "You must be 18 or older to play on this game server. If you are older than 18, close this box and enjoy the game. If you are younger than 18, please close out of this game server.". As far as I know it's not your responsibility if minors lie on their age, because otherwise a lot of porn sites would be closed by now (if not all of them)
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2014 4:56 am
by Jordie0608
SergeantSkread wrote:why not just put a box that says "You must be 18 or older to play on this game server. If you are older than 18, close this box and enjoy the game. If you are younger than 18, please close out of this game server.". As far as I know it's not your responsibility if minors lie on their age, because otherwise a lot of porn sites would be closed by now (if not all of them)
There is a message to this effect in the MOTD that appears every time you log onto the servers.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2014 12:45 pm
by SergeantSkread
Jordie0608 wrote:SergeantSkread wrote:why not just put a box that says "You must be 18 or older to play on this game server. If you are older than 18, close this box and enjoy the game. If you are younger than 18, please close out of this game server.". As far as I know it's not your responsibility if minors lie on their age, because otherwise a lot of porn sites would be closed by now (if not all of them)
There is a message to this effect in the MOTD that appears every time you log onto the servers.
Oh okay, I wouldn't know
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 9:20 am
by paprika
People who actually care about enforcing these policies are typically underage or extremely bitter about age which really does not matter all that much. We've had plenty of good teenagers who aren't horrible and all the real idiots are college dropouts anyway.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 7:34 pm
by Lovecraft
The existence of the rule alone is great, but the fact that admins will dance circles around it makes me question a lot of things.
Yes, we need to have it for reasons, but by God if it's a rule treat it like a rule. I'll never have a more clear example of how this rule is useless than once specific thread on the old forums where admins flat out implied
"Just tell us you're 18, stop lying." when the guy kept stating he was 15. He eventually got the hint and said he was 18 and the ban was lifted, but that's just ridiculous in my opinion. It felt like a parody of a ban appeal.
I don't have any beef with any admins or the player involved with that case, I can't even recall them, it just irritates me is all that we feel the need to keep the rule around but tons of people are eager to do leaps and bounds to get everyone stupid enough to be caught by it unbanned.
Either crackdown or ditch it, if ditching it is at all a possibility.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 11:34 pm
by MisterPerson
Can't ditch it as long as ERP is allowed.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Thu May 01, 2014 9:27 am
by SergeantSkread
MisterPerson wrote:Can't ditch it as long as ERP is allowed.
It's never getting ditched then because MUH 2D SPACEMEN ERP
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Thu May 01, 2014 11:18 am
by Pandarsenic
ERP isn't the only issue with it, I'm told. Otherwise it'd be gone to protect SoS for simple liability reasons.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Fri May 02, 2014 11:51 am
by Spacemanspark
Maybe SoS just doesn't want little kiddies on his server in general? Maybe it's not about the law? It would be fairly understandable.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Fri May 02, 2014 6:04 pm
by SergeantSkread
Spacemanspark wrote:Maybe SoS just doesn't want little kiddies on his server in general? Maybe it's not about the law? It would be fairly understandable.
It was previously said that it indeed was about the law though. You raise a good point however, who likes kiddies on their game servers?
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Fri May 02, 2014 7:01 pm
by Skorvold
From what I've heard it would only bump us down to 17+ anyway if we banned ERP.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Fri May 02, 2014 11:44 pm
by bandit
Yeah, I was always under the impression that the ERP excuse was a flimsy excuse put forth to try to persuade people to ban it.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Sat May 03, 2014 4:30 am
by paprika
[errorage intensifies]
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Sat May 03, 2014 11:20 pm
by Apsis
Age limit doesn't matter, since most people here act below 18 anyway.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Mon May 05, 2014 5:36 pm
by AseaHeru
Just a note, removing ERP would indeed simply lower it to 17+, as you have drugs, booze, violence, gratuitous swearing (afterall, this is the nation that rated a movie R for saying"fuck" twenty-odd times in a row, although some other movies that do the same thing are still PG-13...)
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Mon May 05, 2014 11:46 pm
by MisterPerson
I'm not a legal guy, but I think the only case where it's illegal for a minor to access content (and for content providers to be liable for the minors accessing such content) is with pornographic material. You'd probably want to look up the law for wherever MrStonedOne's server is, though.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Tue May 06, 2014 12:05 pm
by Deuryn
Alright so. The official policy is to ban any users who are under 18. We have a warning up to inform under 18s that they should not be here. Obviously we have no way to tell whether or not someone is or is not 18, but we hope you're all being honest.
That being said. Because we can't tell, and it's more than a little invasive to ask every single person, we have to rely on your honesty to accurately enforce this. We may not want to enforce it, but like COPPA, it must be done for legal reasons. (COPPA is a law that regulates how much websites can collect information from children without express parent consent (IIRC it's pretty much written consent). This is why a lot of websites have a "I'm over 13!" button. Just in case you're not familiar with it)
The official method for handling cases of potential underage users is thus:
-No witchhunting. Asking about age ist verboten.
-If a player says they are under age, and an admin has reasonable suspicion to believe them (In case of "I'm 12 years old and what is this?") they should confirm the player age
-If the player is still insisting they are too young, the admin should inform the player about the policy, and apply a permaban (Or just one that will last until they're 18)
This has been approved by SoS as to how he'd like these cases handled, as this is one of the few rules that he implemented himself. If there's suggestions you have for it though I can always take it up with him.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Tue May 06, 2014 11:04 pm
by Stephie
Deuryn wrote:-No witchhunting. Asking about age ist verboten.
Is that a policy for admins? Or does intentionally asking someone's age count as ban baiting? Because, after all, you don't really have a reason to know someone's age unless you're trying to score with the topless medical doctor IRL.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Tue May 06, 2014 11:10 pm
by Psyentific
Stephie wrote:Deuryn wrote:-No witchhunting. Asking about age ist verboten.
Is that a policy for admins? Or does intentionally asking someone's age count as ban baiting? Because, after all, you don't really have a reason to know someone's age unless you're trying to score with the topless medical doctor IRL.
Age is completely irrelevant except as a soft indicator of maturity. On the internet, everybody is mid-twenties cishet white males. Being otherwise outside of discussion-relevant instances is varying degrees of attention whoring. There are no girls on the internet, because girls get cut slack for being girls. There are no children on the internet, because the children get cut slack for being FBI agents.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Wed May 07, 2014 12:56 pm
by Deuryn
I can't really hold players accountable to the same standards I hold admins but I think somewhat obviously I'd rather not see players trying to bait the age out of people, because yeah, it's kinda ban baiting, and annoying. So, the short of it is, don't do it. If you see a player admitting they're underage, tell an admin, so we can look into it, and resolve it ourselves.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Sun May 18, 2014 8:52 pm
by paprika
What if an admin admits they're underage?
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Sun May 18, 2014 9:17 pm
by danno
this is one of the dumbest and worst handled policies ever seen, with admins quite blatantly and terribly encouraging people to lie about their age to circumvent it (you know what you did, bluespace.)
if admins just go "tell me you're 18" every time someone is suspected of being underage, what is the point. if the point of the policy is for legal reasons (ERP), you're voiding that by doing this shitty "i'm 15... no you're 18... but i'm 15... no, you're 18... ok i'm 18..." shit anyways. not even subtle.
all in all ban erp
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Sun May 18, 2014 9:27 pm
by CreationPro
The point is it's not OUR choice to ban underaged people. It's just that the server's hosted in MURICA with it's stupid laws, which force us to uphold such a ridiculous policy.
Any questions?
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Sun May 18, 2014 9:35 pm
by Munchlax
paprika wrote:What if an admin admits they're underage?
Apparently, he is obviously kidding.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 9:00 am
by Deuryn
danno wrote:this is one of the dumbest and worst handled policies ever seen, with admins quite blatantly and terribly encouraging people to lie about their age to circumvent it (you know what you did, bluespace.)
if admins just go "tell me you're 18" every time someone is suspected of being underage, what is the point. if the point of the policy is for legal reasons (ERP), you're voiding that by doing this shitty "i'm 15... no you're 18... but i'm 15... no, you're 18... ok i'm 18..." shit anyways. not even subtle.
all in all ban erp
The only time I've seen it happen to this extent, was the event that brought this issue to light, and since then, I've condemned that behavior. It's okay to ask once in case of typo/ someone being all "I'm 12 and what's this?" but after that, it's a paddlin
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 10:13 am
by Stickymayhem
As someone who comes from 4chan, I'm happy enough with this policy.
I don't need to hear about 14 year olds whining about how hard school is and how their parents suck. A nice side effect of this rule is that annoying shit like this doesn't get talked about, and that makes me happy.
Legally the rule itself is utter madness.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 11:39 am
by Kangaraptor
policies like this exist in a lot of places for no other reason than legality.
I'm convinced that the COMMUNITY doesn't give a flying fuck how old you are, but as a legal formality the administration is REQUIRED to apply age restrictions. This is hardly worthy of a thread.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 2:32 pm
by AseaHeru
danno wrote:
all in all ban erp
Wont do much. The drugs, booze, violence and (probably) comic mischief would probably just make it a 17+ instead of an 18+
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 2:53 pm
by danno
>people who think this rule actually deters anyone underage
ha
ha ha ha
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 2:54 pm
by AseaHeru
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 4:48 pm
by Lovecraft
danno wrote:>people who think this rule actually deters anyone underage
ha
ha ha ha
I like having it because it banishes all discussion of underage things from OOC, and because it's a nice little safety net to capture those really stupid people who haven't learned to just lie about it.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 9:22 pm
by MisterPerson
AseaHeru wrote:danno wrote:
all in all ban erp
Wont do much. The drugs, booze, violence and (probably) comic mischief would probably just make it a 17+ instead of an 18+
18+ is solely because it's criminal in the US to knowingly distribute obscene material (porn) to minors. There is, as far as I know, no such law about drugs, booze, violence, blood, implied sex, prostitution (as long as you don't actually show the act!) and discussion of sexual acts. I'm not a legal expert though.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Tue May 20, 2014 9:23 am
by paprika
Parents can show their kids horror movies or any movie with sexual shit in it because movies are art but 2d spacemen roleplaying is not.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Tue May 20, 2014 1:14 pm
by Helios127
Do you see any kids on the station? No?
Thats because this game is too DIRTY for kids!
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Tue May 20, 2014 1:24 pm
by AseaHeru
I do think that some servers let you have 15 year old people, but then we arent one.
But dont we also allow 17 year old ones?
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Tue May 20, 2014 3:03 pm
by Munchlax
We even allow 15 year olds.
The main point is that nobody really cares about the agerestriction, we just have to pretend.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Tue May 20, 2014 3:06 pm
by Bluespace
geilebeer wrote:We even allow 15 year olds.
The main point is that nobody really cares about the agerestriction, we just have to pretend.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Tue May 20, 2014 3:29 pm
by AseaHeru
I meant characters, not players...
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Tue May 20, 2014 5:28 pm
by danno
Bluespace wrote:geilebeer wrote:We even allow 15 year olds.
The main point is that nobody really cares about the agerestriction, we just have to pretend.
And I repeat, this is why the rule is so fucking pointless because you void the point of it with your negligence in the first place
Is ERP really this important to you
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Tue May 20, 2014 10:33 pm
by paprika
The rule exists for liability reasons and making a huge fucking fuss about removing it is a really shitty thing to do because if you're trying to sound like a smartass and say 'oh heheh i get it the rule exists but nobody will be banned for it!' you're being a fucking idiot and completely missing the point of it existing in the first place and I think you're just trying to find something to argue about anyway.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Wed May 21, 2014 6:03 am
by callanrockslol
Look, this rule exists for liability issues, and most of the people that play are under 25 or so.
If you are under 18, shut up about it.
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Wed May 21, 2014 6:50 am
by Munchlax
danno wrote:Bluespace wrote:geilebeer wrote:We even allow 15 year olds.
The main point is that nobody really cares about the agerestriction, we just have to pretend.
And I repeat, this is why the rule is so fucking pointless because you void the point of it with your negligence in the first place
Is ERP really this important to you
So, you just want ERP banned and don't care about the rule just like everyone else?
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Wed May 21, 2014 5:49 pm
by danno
the rules are related
also yes
Re: You must be 18 or older to play on the game servers.
Posted: Fri May 23, 2014 8:50 am
by Mat13295
If you are under the age of 18, or it is illegal for you to view the materials contained here, leave the server immediately.
or it is illegal for you to view the materials contained here
or it is illegal for you to view the materials contained here
Guess we gotta ban Australian players due to Hyperzine and spess drugs.
