Hello everyone. Once again, Yuan appears out of nowhere to talk about policy. This issue has been discussed on the IRC, but the participants felt that we needed a wiki discussion before calling consensus.
As you may be aware, Hexedmagica recently blocked two users with the justification that they are under the age of thirteen. The users are:
This is in accordance to Wikia's rules: that children under the age of 13 are not allowed to register their names with the wiki. However, Hexedmagica did not block any others under that age until a discussion about it took place on the IRC. Additionally, it is known that he dislikes both users, and has taken op action against them before. Therefore, blocking some users for this reason, while ignoring others, seems like an act of prejudice. He has now unblocked the users, returning the situation to the status quo until a new consensus can be reached. [1]
Hexedmagica's behaviour does call our policy on this into question. Doing a little research, I discovered that, each Wikia being separate from each other, we are free to create our own age policy (or lack thereof). We are not obligated to block users under the age of 13. I stress that this is not a discussion about Hexed's actions, but of our age policy.
We have a young userbase, with several users under the age limit. We cannot choose to block only some of them for breaking the age limit - thus, if we choose to enforce the age limit, we must block all of them, helpful contributors or not. The following options were considered:
- Enforce the age limit of 13 years old, and block all users under that.
- DoorToNothing's suggestion: We lower the age limit to 12, and block everyone under that.
- My suggestion: We remove the age limit, and block people based on their behaviour.
Hexedmagica supports the first option. This is the policy held by Wikia and Freenode. "While you may use this Service without registering for membership, membership in the Service is void where prohibited by law, and is intended solely for users who are thirteen (13) years of age or older. Any registration by anyone under 13 is unauthorized, unlicensed and in violation of these Terms of Use. By registering the Service or the Site, you represent and warrant that you are 13 or older and that you agree to and to abide by all of the terms and conditions of this Agreement." [2]. However, quoting Sannse: "...COPPA applies to Wikia and not to you, our users (including admins). That means that you are not responsible for enforcing any restrictions on those under 13, and don't need to block people who claim to be younger than this."[3].
Now on to DoorToNothing's position on this. Like most of us, he has no wish to see helpful users under the age of thirteen blocked. However he has noted the following concerns:
- Users under the age of thirteen are likely to be more immature.
- They would do nothing but edit forums or vandalise.
- If we let them in, we would have to spend time educating and disciplining them.
- They have bad grammar and spelling, and are near incomprehensible.
Hence, he suggests that we block anyone under the age of 12 from editing the wiki (and presumably the IRC as well). He feels that this is a fair solution, and anyone below that age is unfit for editing this wiki.
I, however, believe the following:
- Restricting one's ability to edit on the basis of age is contrary to the spirit of a wiki: that anyone can edit one.
- Amongst our young users, there are also those who contribute constructively. (DoorToNothing's reply to this is that there are few of them.)
- Blocking young users would discourage them from joining the wiki at a later age.
- Any age limit would be arbitrary and solve little.
We are well aware of users who can act maturely despite their youth, and users who display immature behaviour belying their relative seniority. Therefore, my position is that a user's age should not affect their editing rights: instead, we should judge them on the behaviour that they display. I see nothing wrong with allowing a mature, helpful twelve year old user edit the wiki. In contrast, if a fifteen year old user displayed immature behaviour, it would be swiftly recognised and they would be banned due to that. This would apply to all users, regardless of age. I feel that this would be the fairest option, but I also recognise DoorToNothing's misgivings about it.
A few other users voiced concerns, including:
- Users may lie about their age, escaping detection and blocking.
- It would take effort to block all users under the age of 13.
- Vandals will take advantage of our lax policy. (My rebuttle to this is that vandals wouldn't care about our age policy either).
- We shouldn't be posting personal information anyway.
- We should follow Wikia's suggested policy.
I apologise if I have mischaracterised anyone's views on this, and stand corrected if I have done so. Please add your opinion on the discussion, taking care to remain civil and on-topic. I also have the logs of the discussion, and will post them if requested.
References
