Board Thread:2015 - A Year of Community/@comment-4897796-20150303214044/@comment-4050367-20150304032702

@Ahmad  ---> Paper addressed the COPPA aspect for the most part, so I'm going to address our wiki's policy on underaged users following November 2012.

Since then, the stance has been this: If you joined before, you could say you were underage and not be blocked. If you joined after, you had to keep quiet until you reached the appropriate age. Don't tell, don't get blocked. That has how it's always been. Most users who reveal their age post-2012 before they're 13 aren't normal members of the community, usually what most people call "noobs". The only reason why our community has enforced COPPA more then other wikis comes down to two reasons: A) As a Ben 10 related wiki, we may potentially draw in underage users due to the fact that whether we like it or not, Ben 10 is a children's animated show. B) The two major conflicts concerning underaged users in March and November 2012.

Now to be frank, I'm somewhat confused by the intention of this thread. However, what I do understand is that there's this fear that some action will be taken on, in the form of a block. I'm not sure why this fear is coming, because we've never blocked users who reveal that when they joined, they were underage. If that were true I wouldn't be here. I want to make this extremely clear: If you reveal that you are just turning 13, or reveal that you were underaged when you joined (but no longer are underaged), you will not be blocked. So Ren and Street will not be blocked or punished, which apparently is what you're concerned about. I don't even know where this came from or why they were scared. Unless some other user (w/o rights, mod, admin, or crat) said they should be blocked or threatened them, which if that was the case, then that's for another dicussion.

If you're underage right now, the best advice is to just not tell what your age is. Some users have used this as an excuse to lie about their age, saying that "they're 16" or "they're 14". You don't need to lie about your age. You can say "I'd rather not say, if you don't mind. I still want some privacy left on the Internet". If you're a casual user to this community, and are considered one of the main members, you can wait it out until you're 13. Street and Ren are perfect examples. They didn't reveal that they were underage until after 13. Nothing has happened to them afterwards. As long as you don't reveal you're underage before you reach 13, you aren't going to be blocked.

I'd like to end with two last notes.

First, I'm not sure if this was what you were trying to get at, but I've recommended once or twice to change the "all users joined during/before November 2012 who are revealed to be underaged to not be blocked" to "all users who joined during/before November 2013/2014 who are revealed to be underaged to not be blocked", and no decision was made on it.

Second, you stated "Now, of course, you will say that regular users are not allowed to check the Adminstrator Discussion topics, but in my own defense, I think that hinders the democratic role of the users in a better wiki". The actual rule is that regular users aren't allowed to respond/say something on the Administrator Discussion threads, because they're for admins. This doesn't mean that you can't bring something up that's on the admin threads in a 2015 Year of Community thread.

@Paper --> I think we block depending on how many years away they are from 13 (so for example, if they were 12, a one year block), rather then permablock underage account (unless fellow administrators have done the later option).