While talking about whether or not users of e926 should be allowed to have an account even if they are underage, I came to realize how e621 currently does a pretty poor job at showing its age restriction. Just for fun, I decided to make a little walkthrough of the account creation process for a new e621/e926 user.

To me, this makes 2 things clear.

Number 1, we could definitely use a splash screen, some bright red warning on the registration page or literally anything to make it clear that minors are not supposed to be there at all.

Number 2, is e926 actually supposed to be forbidden to minors? Nothing really makes that clear anywhere and there's no explicit or questionnable art that would be unappropriate for them to look at. Yet since we can't distinguish between e621 and e926 accounts, I feel like there's some kind of contradiction with the rules going on here. So what will it be?

Yeah, it's kinda odd with two ToS pages with contradicting points.

https://e621.net/static/terms_of_service ^{<- caters to both sites}
https://e621.net/wiki/show/e621:terms_of_service ^{<- specifically e621}

Most adult oriented sites will also prompt you with a warning upon a first visit, which e621 doesn't appear to do. Granted, these prompts are pretty easily ignorable and are more legal ass-covering than anything, but it is a bit unusual.

I'd think that since there's no difference between accounts on e926 and e621 the 'no minors' rule would still apply. Since I'd assume most peoples' interest in the site is in browsing rather than uploading and commenting anyway, it's not like not having an account is a big obstacle.

Fifteen said:

While talking about whether or not users of e926 should be allowed to have an account even if they are underage, I came to realize how e621 currently does a pretty poor job at showing its age restriction. Just for fun, I decided to make a little walkthrough of the account creation process for a new e621/e926 user.

It's a long little walkthrough

• The home page
• No warning yet, aside from one or two somewhat lewd mascots that are selected at random.
• The post index
• e621 users will immediately notice that at least some of those images are somewhat sexualized.
• e926 users can't see questionnable or explicit posts, so there's still no indication that the website is unsuited for minors
• The login page
• Nothing special here, it's your average login page and you need to get through it to signup.
• The sign up page
• Still no warning about the age limit, although the paragraph above the form does say that you're agreeing to the terms of service. Let's assume the user is reading those (nobody is, but we've yet to see any sort of indication that this is supposed to be an adult site aside from the possibly hidden explicit posts in the index).
• The Terms of Service
• This one is interesting :
• "If you are a minor, then you need parental permission to continue here."
• So we're saying it's ok for users to be underage so long as their parents agree, both on e621 and e926.
• Also : "[You agree that] You have read The Rules."
• The Rules?
• The Rules? But this is the wiki home page. Erm...
• Well, there is a "Rules" option and... is that a second terms of service agreement?
• The Rules
• e926 users should be starting to wonder if those "e621 Community Code of Conduct and Site Rules" are supposed to apply to them
• Finally, we get to our first indication that this site is not meant for minors. The 3rd element in the code of conduct cites that "Any persons under the age of 18, or as determined by local laws" and "Any comment or evidence of being under the age of 18" are offenses punishable by a permanent ban. Whether or not that contradicts the terms of service and whether it means that you can still browse the site while underage so long as you don't leave evidence that you might be is up to interpretation at this point.
• And you thought we were done with the ToS, but wait! There's more!
• More Terms of service?
• The label in the wiki home says "New users, read this!", so is that something I'm supposed to read after I made my account?
• Those seem similar enough to the first ToS, although now, they say this":
• "If you are under the age of 18, you will not use e621."
• This is clear enough, then. Aside from the contradictory statement in the first terms of service, this makes it clear that you can't use e621 unless you're 18 years old or older.
• That being said, none of the last two pages applied to users of e926, unlike the first terms of service.

To me, this makes 2 things clear.

Number 1, we could definitely use a splash screen, some bright red warning on the registration page or literally anything to make it clear that minors are not supposed to be there at all.

Number 2, is e926 actually supposed to be forbidden to minors? Nothing really makes that clear anywhere and there's no explicit or questionnable art that would be unappropriate for them to look at. Yet since we can't distinguish between e621 and e926 accounts, I feel like there's some kind of contradiction with the rules going on here. So what will it be?

I know that Paheal has a screen before you see the search screen, although Paheal is an exclusively porn site, while this site is a furry art browsing site, that just happens to be mostly pornographic artwork. I also know that Twentypercentcooler, a My Little Pony website very similar to e621/e926, blocks anything that would be explicit or questionable unless you had an account yourself. I feel like the screen would help a bit better, since it would warn people who are younger than 18 that this site has explicit artwork, as well as make e926 not redundant.

I also didn't even know that e926 had another Ratte mascot in place of the Evalion mascot, as well. That's nice.

regsmutt said:
Most adult oriented sites will also prompt you with a warning upon a first visit, which e621 doesn't appear to do. Granted, these prompts are pretty easily ignorable and are more legal ass-covering than anything, but it is a bit unusual.

I'd think that since there's no difference between accounts on e926 and e621 the 'no minors' rule would still apply. Since I'd assume most peoples' interest in the site is in browsing rather than uploading and commenting anyway, it's not like not having an account is a big obstacle.

I have been thinking about this as well, because it will also serve the purpose of someone accidently clicking link here and not knowing what the site even is, then suddenly getting core or realistically portraied human childs on their screen.

Also should be easy to code a cookie that remembers not to prompt you the warning every single goddamn time you get to site.

And yes, accounts are shared between the sites, so even e926 will require you to be legal age to register, altough viewing content legally is fine on e926, but not on e621.

I wonder, if the site can differentiate between e926 and e612 for the purposes of what content is listed, could it potentially flag an account as being limited to e926 vs. having the full e621 content, at the time of registration?

Maybe that's not what e926 was meant for, and that's cool with me. It would probably be a fair amount of work to take that idea to its logical conclusion, either filtering comments or providing some sort of flair on comments to indicate users on e926 that wouldn't necessarily be immediately banned for being under 18.

If the policy is that all users on both domains should be 18+, then the multiple ToSes should be made consistent with each other, at the very least.

ikdind said:
I wonder, if the site can differentiate between e926 and e612 for the purposes of what content is listed, could it potentially flag an account as being limited to e926 vs. having the full e621 content, at the time of registration?

I've been told by Chaser that the current system doesn't make any kind of distinction between accounts from e926 and those from e621. The content only changes based on which of the two websites you're on.

ikdind said:
If the policy is that all users on both domains should be 18+, then the multiple ToSes should be made consistent with each other, at the very least.

That, and possibly only keep one of them instead of one in the wiki and one as a static page.

yes, it is

Might as well make the disclaimer, we already nuked all paid content regardless of it's age so might as well add a tiny disclaimer

FurryMcFuzzball said:
Might as well make the disclaimer, we already nuked all paid content regardless of it's age so might as well add a tiny disclaimer

Read the actual comment instead of just the headline, this is talking about sites age resrtiction which is that under 18yo aren't allowed to browser the site legally nor register account here.

Alright, so I've spoken with a few admins about this and the official stance seems to be that both websites have the same rules and that both e621 and e926 require you to be 18 or older to use.