/Note the following proposal is not my own and I am actively against it, I am saving the moderators name, however I feel the discussion should be left to the public/

e621 has a current policy of banning users for being underaged. However there is no law against that, and as such there is no reason for e621 to legally enforce this. It is common practice for websites to post a disclaimer, but the current proposal wants to remove it.

e621 has (or will have again, why it was removed I don't know) a disclaimer, and has banned all users found to be under 18. The current proposal will change this and let anyone of any age be allowed on the site freely, and to openly be able to be here without fear of being punished if found out.

As an open admin, users should have the right to discuss such large policy changes, and as such I'm giving you the option, instead of hiding it in some dinky staff chat.

So there. Discuss.

silly aurali forgot to log out of her pony account~~

Personally, I'm fine with underage users being here... as long as they're not dumb shits like some of our users. Or are stupid enough to give out their age.

So pros are that userbase will get more 17-year old teens that act like twelve years old (e621 does not explicitly check your age, so to get banned for being a child you should act like one) and other people will get a reason to bash e621 for. Oh wait, all of these are cons, so what's the point of the change then?

Going to agree with Riversyde, aslong as they aren't stupid and obvious by giving out their age.

Jazz said:
So pros are that userbase will get more 17-year old teens that act like twelve years old (e621 does not explicitly check your age, so to get banned for being a child you should act like one) and other people will get a reason to bash e621 for. Oh wait, all of these are cons, so what's the point of the change then?

Well, age doesn't have very much to do with conduct...many underage users on the site have acted more mature than some of our over-age users.

I have a bad feeling about this.

tony311 said:
Well, age doesn't have very much to do with conduct...many underage users on the site have acted more mature than some of our over-age users.

Yeah and I guess that they have enough common sense not to get banned

If the person is obviously under aged or that person admits that they are under aged, that person should be banned.

Riversyde said:
Personally, I'm fine with underage users being here... as long as they're not dumb shits like some of our users. Or are stupid enough to give out their age.

Wait, so are you against lifting the age restriction?

Personally I vote we keep it. I'd venture to say a majority of content on e621 is sexually explicit, despite the site not being pornographic by design. I think the age restriction gives the the site an element of professionalism and shows responsibility on the management's part. However, I don't think it should be enforced heavy-handidly (is that even a real word?).

Let me clear something up.

As I understand it, the way e621 handles age right now is a little unconventional. There is no page requiring the user to confirm their age like most porn sites, and you don't have to log into an account with a given date of birth to view explicit material (such as with FurAffinity or DeviantArt). However, if a user openly admits on the site to being under legal age (18 years), they will be banned until they reach said age.

Correct?

I hate being able to put it like this, but the current "don't ask, don't tell" policy works well when it comes to users' ages.

As Riversyde says, the most important thing is that the users act maturely and responsibly. A user might be underage, but if they're mature and responsible then they'll understand the rules of the site and acknowledge that the management is responsible for enforcing the rules.

If an under-aged user withholds their age then they're acknowledging that rule of the site, and they're more likely the kind of person to obey other rules. That's the kind of user we want. If an under-aged user goes around spouting "lol im 14 but i can fap here cuz no age limit," then they're an annoying, irresponsible twat that deserves to be booted from the site (and preferably the entirety of the internet).

I say keep the current system we have going. It's a good initial test of a user's integrity, while covering e621's own ass in terms of liability.

Idea: Aurali, reaching into the new anonymous blacklist system, if you do implement a default blacklist that filters explicit material, you should put a disclaimer on the "save changes" button that states that by editing the list, they acknowledge that they may be able to view sexually explicit or obscene material and are aware of the legal implications of the country in which they reside.

This of course, would only apply to anonymous users. Anyone who is logged in will have already agreed to the ToS.

But yeah, this issue is a can of worms and I see the thread turning ugly very quickly.

Isn't viewing porn illegal if you're under eighteen in the US? So isn't e6 removing the age limit illegal in itself and just begging for a lawsuit?

ExplosiveBlaziken said:
Isn't viewing porn illegal if you're under eighteen in the US? So isn't e6 removing the age limit illegal in itself and just begging for a lawsuit?

Is e621 based in the U.S.?

I'm not trying to be snarky, I actually don't know. I remember back in the days of v1.0 the server was in the States (the midwest, I think). But I don't know what Varka's setup is.

KloH0und said:
Is e621 based in the U.S.?

I'm not trying to be snarky, I actually don't know.

I think it depends on where the user is from, not where the site is based.

ExplosiveBlaziken said:
I think it depends on where the user is from, not where the site is based.

Isn't it that the user is liable for the laws of their country, and the site owner(s) are liable for their country's laws?

That is, a user could get in trouble in their country for being underaged, but the site owners won't if they're in a country that doesn't have the same regulations, and vice versa.

ExplosiveBlaziken said:
Isn't viewing porn illegal if you're under eighteen in the US?

Yeah, there are special prisons for children who've been caught visiting porn sites.

I think you're confusing sides. If in some Arabian country people get their hands cut off for bipedal dog porn, should e621 delete everything?

Riversyde and KloH0und said it better than I can and I agree with them anyway. I think the disclaimer should be put back in place though, so everyone knows what's what. (and to prevent <whine>but you didn't say you couldn't be under eighteen...</whine>)

Oh, if only we could ban based on mental age.

KloH0und said:
Wait, so are you against lifting the age restriction?

I'm fine with the method we have now, actually. It's like saying "You can be under 18 and use the site, but if we find out you are under 18, we will block your accounts and any subsquent ones you use until you reach that age.", y'know?

As I understand it, the way e621 handles age is a little unconventional. There is no page requiring the user to confirm their age like most porn sites, and you don't have to log into an account with a given date of birth to view explicit material (such as FurAffinity or DeviantArt). However, if a user openly admits on the site to being under legal age (18 years), they will be banned until they reach said age.
Correct?

Yes, this is correct.

Eh, I think of the site as an image archive over a porn site, so I don't see any problems with underaged users as long as they are being responsible. As a middle ground proposal, I suppose you could restrict their ability to see adult artwork (or at least default a blacklist for underaged users that they can then choose to alter), but I've never seen porn as an evil thing. Besides, they'd still be able to see the site without an account, right?

If an underager is dumb enough to reveal his status as an underage, than he is an immature little shit who deserves to get banned.

On the other hand, underagers are going to sign up here regardless of what you do (short of draconian methods of identifying users) and as long as they keep their mouths shut you will never know the difference.

In short: Pointless change is pointless.

ExplosiveBlaziken said:
Isn't viewing porn illegal if you're under eighteen in the US? So isn't e6 removing the age limit illegal in itself and just begging for a lawsuit?

Contrary to popular belief, there is NO US mandated law requiring someone to be 18 to view porn on the internet (state and local regulations may apply)

COPA never went into effect. It should stay 18 or higher to avoid community backlash.

I think Kloz's idea about the save settings thing having that should be implimented if it's changed. Otherwise, it's rather fine as it is.

And for the record, there is no (as yet) legally binding US law regarding it being illegal to view porn if you're a child (child porn on the other hand...); There has been pressure put down in regards to cub imagery before, and in Australia it is, in fact, actually illegal. However, all laws are done internationally on the basis of the location in which the service resides, not the location of illegal activity; Thus, so long as there are no state laws at the location of e621's servers that affect viewing pornography, there shouldn't be an issue either way.

Although they lost their case (until the appeal is finished), Pirate bay was tried under a similar method, with it being an international issue that only called for Swedish law. This can also be seen in laws dealing with international incidents, or with extraditing fugitives to the countries that they commited the crime in for trial and sentencing.

123easy said:

And for the record, there is no (as yet) legally binding US law regarding it being illegal to view porn if you're a child (child porn on the other hand...); There has been pressure put down in regards to cub imagery before, and in Australia it is, in fact, actually illegal. However, all laws are done internationally on the basis of the location in which the service resides, not the location of illegal activity; Thus, so long as there are no state laws at the location of e621's servers that affect viewing pornography, there shouldn't be an issue either way.

Actually I looked up all this info last night, in Europe drawn child porn is illegal, in Australia DRAWN child porn is in mirky grounds.. not yet officially illegal. However (in auzzieland) normal sized breasts cant be seen in real porn, only ultra large stereotype breasts.

This site is meant for adults and should emphasize that with a warning that the user needs to be at least 18 years old. Not for any legal reasons, but just simply because adults are who this site caters to. No, it won't prevent minors from accessing the site at all (and I'm not going on a witch-hunt), but it will at least get the message out there that this site is NOT intended to be used by them.

Aurali said:
However (in auzzieland) normal sized breasts cant be seen in real porn, only ultra large stereotype breasts.

I'm... I'm sorry. Am I reading that correctly?

In Australia, you're only allowed to make porn featuring women if they have stereotypically large breasts?

KloH0und said:
I'm... I'm sorry. Am I reading that correctly?

In Australia, you're only allowed to make porn featuring women if they have stereotypically large breasts?

Yeah, off the top of my head, I think the reasoning behind it was that smaller breasts could suggest child-porn? ?_?

Char said:
Yeah, off the top of my head, I think the reasoning behind it was that smaller breasts could suggest child-porn? ?_?

I'm familiar with that issue, but this is their solution to it?!

Smaller breasts suggest child porn, aye. In fact, they claim that a woman with a-cup breasts in her 20's is promoting pedophilia. WTF?

And my apologies; I haven't slept yet, so I thought some details to be listed... and didn't type it out. Any form of child pornography, "even one which departs from recognizable human forms in some significant respects" is illegal. They have a zero-tolerance policy, and as such purely fictional representations will get people sentenced and jailed- there have already been cases of this happening with non-anthro cartoon pornography, and I highly doubt that cub porn will be viewed any differently.

123easy said:
Smaller breasts suggest child porn, aye. In fact, they claim that a woman with a-cup breasts in her 20's is promoting pedophilia. WTF?

And my apologies; I haven't slept yet, so I thought some details to be listed... and didn't type it out. Any form of child pornography, "even one which departs from recognizable human forms in some significant respects" is illegal. They have a zero-tolerance policy, and as such purely fictional representations will get people sentenced and jailed- there have already been cases of this happening with non-anthro cartoon pornography, and I highly doubt that cub porn will be viewed any differently.

Isn't it fine that e621 creates such a facility as a blacklist? I'm surprised FA didn't create such a trite measure as such, it isn't hard to impose on a system.

Er... what? If you'll notice, that is in discussion of Australian law, not my own opinion (other than the wtf at the "promoting pedophilia" crap). I only care about the legalities and the community viewing of the site as it is currently run. It took heavy hits by Arcturus and staff, and Varka and staff ahve been really quality-ing up the place. I want that upwards trend to continue, and honestly see this as a step back, thus why I agreed with kloz's idea about the notification for anon users modifying the default blacklist, without changing the rules to overtly allow minors access.

Note there are strict laws in the US regarding negligence in handling matters regarding children that could be called upon. Looking up the pertaining laws for the state where the servers are located in would be a good idea.

Nothing good will come out of allowing kids to create accounts here.

ippiki_ookami said:
Nothing good will come out of allowing kids to create accounts here.

Nothing has stopped them to create them before.Why would that be a problem now?

Also,I find "drawn porn not for anyone under +18" funny.
I'm pritty sure that every 12 year old has already seen real porn,and that kid,finds our drawn porn ... well...childish.

BranislavDJ said:
Nothing has stopped them to create them before.Why would that be a problem now?

Do we really want to be known as the furry porn site that allows minors?

My two cents:

The system now is ok. There's no point in a disclaimer, because anyone under 18 will either a)already know there's porn and not give a shit about age, or b)not yet know there's porn but not give a shit about age upon finding the porn. The main reason I'm for banning under 18's when they out themselves is that yes, SOMEONE could find out that e621 lets just anyone view all kinds of "depraved" pornographic images and file an injunction to shut it down. Even if the law favors e6, as far as I know it's not exactly a cash cow and court could bankrupt it. If there is at least a policy of banning people if they are found to be under 18, that's decreased. I mean, requiring a user to input their age or date of birth when signing up? Puh-leeze, I think we all know that's a system that is pretty much the opposite of foolproof.

ippiki_ookami said:
Do we really want to be known as the furry porn site that allows minors?

Gawd. How many times to we have to say this.
e621 is a furry art site. It just happens to have a lot of porn on it. Like mellis once said, e621 was not meant to be geared towards porn.

Riversyde said:
Gawd. How many times to we have to say this.
e621 is a furry art site. It just happens to have a lot of porn on it. Like mellis once said, e621 was not meant to be geared towards porn.

I know that. But people who don't have an intimate understanding of the site don't. And if we start allowing people of all ages browse the site, it won't help our reputation.

ippiki_ookami said:
I know that. But people who don't have an intimate understanding of the site don't. And if we start allowing people of all ages browse the site, it won't help our reputation.

People of all ages already can browse the site. It's not that hard to make an account, or search tags and posts. It's only if we find out users that have used an account are underage that we have to ban the account, and any subsequent ones they use.

personally, I think we're too light on underage users here. I vote going the opposite direction and enforcing harder rules on underage individuals. much like second life's age verification system, I think we should implement an ID verification (i.e. ID number, last four ss # or credit card #). if second life as a virtual world video game has to have such rules, it's only natural that an image dump with primarily pornographic images do the same.

cookiekangaroo said:
personally, I think we're too light on underage users here. I vote going the opposite direction and enforcing harder rules on underage individuals. much like second life's age verification system, I think we should implement an ID verification (i.e. ID number, last four ss # or credit card #). if second life as a virtual world video game has to have such rules, it's only natural that an image dump with primarily pornographic images do the same.

This, although not necessary, would be preferable to the alternative, in my opinion.

Demanding ID verification would be a fantastic way to drive people away. Though I will definitely agree that we don't want to drop the age restriction.

wouldn't

ippiki_ookami said:
Nothing good will come out of allowing kids to create accounts here.

This. ?Due to the graphic nature of much of the content I would vote to restrict access by minors.

ID verification = no. No, no, no, NO. Second Life has such a system because the Lindens you earn in game are actually tradable to real life currency. Since you could potentially scam someone out of their Lindens, that means that you could make out like a bandit, basically scot free (since the laws are a bit vague/loopholish with virtual currency > RL currency transactions). We do NOT need a system where someone can hack in and get personal information- Or a mod can go rogue and abuse it, too (not saying one of you will, but the POSSIBILITY).

That said, Ippiki is basically saying what I and Kloz have been saying but in a more blunt way. Letting underage people onto the site willfully will not help our image at all, and will significantly hurt it, even WITH a disclaimer. The disclaimer would be for waiving any and all legal rights to prosecute because the child was exposed to material on this site through a signed up for account or being anonymous and changing the preset blacklist.

Because we have that adult content on the site we can be held accountable if we don't take appropriate methods to keep that content away from the hands of minors. Opening up the site to minors unilaterally would be a really bad move. The best thing I an recommend is, if you really feel this would be a good move, find a lawyer, and hire him for a consultation regarding this. And I'm sure he'd say something along the lines of no too, but at least then you'd have it from a source knowledgable on legal matters.

Tl:dr; Please for the love of my sanity and stress levels, don't open E621 to kids outside an anonymous account that has the porn covered up in a preset blacklist that they'd have to agree to/lie about a disclaimer for, or to lie when signing up for an account as they do already, as in both cases we aren't liable. If anything, stricter rules, not looser. While I might raise my kids with knowledge of sex and stuff, not trying to hide it, I don't want Puritans breathing down our collective necks.

123easy said:
find a lawyer, and hire him for a consultation regarding this.

Alright, someone go out and find a furry lawyer, because being exposed to what the entirety of e621 is with no background knowledge of the furry community would drive a sane man to suicide.

KloH0und said:
Alright, someone go out and find a furry lawyer, because being exposed to what the entirety of e621 is with no background knowledge of the furry community would drive a sane man to suicide.

I've consulted a lawyer on this matter before. Legal, moral, and community requirements are all different things entirely. We simply cannot consider a lawyer a good source for the other two darling.

Rarity said:
I've consulted a lawyer on this matter before. Legal, moral, and community requirements are all different things entirely. We simply cannot consider a lawyer a good source for the other two darling.

Of course the lawyer's consult is only applicable to the former, the other two fall entirely within the decision of the site administration.

Also, my comment was more of a joke than anything.

I have an idea.
How about:
8-14 only safe pictures are visible
15-17 only questionable pictures are visible
18- ∞ all pictures are visible.
Anyone under 8 shouldn't even use the internet.
^
Only if we put the "age check on registration" thingy.

I think we should implement an ID verification (i.e. ID number, last four ss # or credit card #)

I'm so having shivers on this one. :<
Due abuse,hack etc.

The problem with that Brani is that that shoehorns the US age catagories into play. And remember; the default rating is questionable, so if someone is too lazy to change it- then that'd mean that it'd be visible to the 15-17 bracket without issue.

Then, there's the age brackets by themselves; how would you enforce that? the same way as the disclaimer? Then why not just use the more simple disclaimer?

Lastly: By making anons only able to see safe material when they haven't yet played with their session's default settings for the blacklist, it then renders E6 a SFW site assuming you haven't logged in. That's actually rather useful, esp. if we're sticking to the "art archive" story (even if most of the stuff is porn :P).

123easy said:
The problem with that Brani is that that shoehorns the US age catagories into play. And remember; the default rating is questionable, so if someone is too lazy to change it- then that'd mean that it'd be visible to the 15-17 bracket without issue.

Well,how about "Upload Failed" if user didn't select rating when uploading pictures.
I think "tick box" system is better than one we have,so if user didn't tick Safe,Questionable or Explicit,upload will fail ,and he will be redicted to upload page to try again,by rating pictures.

Because there are always going to be lazy people who don't give two shits about where they place the image, they just want to dump it and move on. making it a required field to tick just means that it's harder for those who do an art dump in large quantities and then go tag/rate them properly, while the people who don't care will... continue not caring.

Implement the thing that only rating:s stuff shows up for unregistered users. When a user is registering require him to confirm he's 18. If someone's stupid enough to go "HEY GUYZ I'M 14" - ban them. TBH, like mentioned before, letting everyone know this site lets minors on this site without punishment is pretty bad for reputation. Yes yes, everyone can lie about their age, but letting such things slide is well.. bad.

-1 from here. I'm against encouraging minors to use the site because of the amount of porn, and specifically the amount of cub porn.

Granted, it can't be prevented because some users lie about their age or do not disclose their DOB. Date of birth is personally identifying information so it's understandable, but not requiring an age statement and not having a ban policy might be seen as encouragement of minors by some observers.

cookiekangaroo said:
ID verification (i.e. ID number, last four ss # or credit card #)

This is a terrible idea. TERRIBLE. For a whole bunch of reasons that other people have spelled out. Also the last four digits of SSN prove nothing about age, given the way SSNs are assigned (the first five can let you make an educated guess, although not all that precisely), not to mention excluding everyone who isn't a US citizen. Moving on:

cookiekangaroo said:
if second life as a virtual world video game has to have such rules, it's only natural that an image dump with primarily pornographic images do the same.

There's a whole bunch of porn sites that don't require anything like that. They seem to get along fine with just a splash page with "Don't enter if you're underage" in legalese on it.

BranislavDJ said:
How about:
8-14 only safe pictures are visible
15-17 only questionable pictures are visible
18- ∞ all pictures are visible.
Anyone under 8 shouldn't even use the internet.

I like how 15-17 year olds aren't allowed to view safe pictures.

Those responses out of the way, here's my thoughts: I basically agree with Kaik. Have a statement about being over the age of majority being a requirement to register (should probably be phrased in terms of over the age of majority where the server is hosted, or if their laws are different, over the age of majority where they live, whichever is greater, but it's best to get a lawyer for these things), make a checkbox to agree, and if someone is being obvious about being underage, break out the banhammer.

Snowy said:
I like how 15-17 year olds aren't allowed to view safe pictures.

-.-
Me=moron
here is fixed version.I was rushing to go to supermarket,so it kinda slipped.

How about:
8-14 only safe pictures are visible
15-17 both questionable and safe pictures are visible except explicit
18- ∞ all pictures are visible.

The issue here is that even admins on this site do not TAG PROPERLY.
Many many images depicting explicit sexual activity are "Questionable".

Young users & SFW Users should not be allowed to,
1. View explicit and Questionable images.
2. View images with tags like "Rape", "Sex", etc. A imposed un-editable tag BLACKLIST. The rating system may fail, but a rating system + tag blacklist (sexually explicit tags like "cum_inside") will be very nice.
3. Newly uploaded images should NOT be viewable in Safe For Work mode. Just as a precaution.

NOW, there CAN also be a mode for TEENAGERS,
1. Can view SAFE and QUESTIONABLE IMAGES.
2. There still should be a tag blacklist, but less focus on minor sexual content (full nudity is NOT minor for those here that have lost touch with reality).
3. Newly uploaded images should NOT be visible.

Also not FA bullsh__ where you can change your age back and forth 100 times.

EDIT: Anonymous surfing is another issue. New visitors to the site should only see SFW images until they choose to view erotica.

If the above is way to much, keep e621 a furry pron site.

Aerah.Eleganta said:
The issue here is that even admins on this site do not TAG PROPERLY.
Many many images depicting explicit sexual activity are "Questionable".

It's... kind of unfair to point out admins in that regard.. we're all human, here and we all do make mistakes... by default, all images are questionable, a user must click to rate it up or down. It's EASY to forget to click on this, especially if you're uploading a lot of images, or are busy thinking about tags. Normally, someone else catches the mistake, and fixes it quickly. --to which point, thank you for fixing the ratings that you've been adjusting!

But you DO raise a decent point, here...

Maybe we should make the 'default' rating on a picture explicit, so that not as much "harm" is done when someone forgets to change the rating tag.

Well we have decided to not change a thing, thank you all for a rather interesting discussion

Aurali said:
Well we have decided to not change a thing, thank you all for a rather interesting discussion

coolbeans