Locked comm poll

[miera_c]

I'm curious, given the newest set of circumstances, what people think about how to proceed. I've been considering putting all the adult fic on lostcityfound under lock, but I'm wondering if maybe this should extend beyond just LCF. So, a poll:

Poll Locked comm?

Comments

[anonymous]

With the state of US child porn laws, you'll want to be careful. Consider if you really want to set something like this up, and what may happen to you, personally, if you do so. Then act.

Proof of age would need to be required - not implicitly agreed to, but it needn't be overly bureaucratic. Something as simple as how Yahoo Groups does it, where you check that you are over 18 and then you can see the forum, would likely work. Minimum age has to be 18, the age of majority in most of the US, although you may want to look into that, because if any states say it's 21 in terms of sex-related acts, you may want to be more restrictive and say 21.

I think it should be NC-17 or above, but thing is, some authors put what I consider NC-17 content in a story and consider it R, so that's why I said both: R and NC-17, depending on content.

[miera_c]

True, but porn laws pertain to visual depictions, which this theoretical community wouldn't have. Text falls under issues of obscenity.

Something as simple as how Yahoo Groups does it, where you check that you are over 18 and then you can see the forum, would likely work.

That's not actually proof of age, though, it's a way to put the responsibility on the user and meet requirements for reasonable protection. If you say "You can only join this/see this if you are over 18. If you are over 18 click the link" that doesn't require proof of age that gets verified by anyone.

[roaringmice]

I think your other option was "anyone who joins implicitly agrees they are old enough". I take that to mean that if they show up and read, they're saying they are 18. I disagree with that. I think they need to explicitly agree.

Weird, the above post went up as anon. That was me. I wasn't trying to be anon. Weird. Sorry. Hi!

Proof of age would be burdensome, and would place the liability on you. I'm not loving that.

[miera_c]

I'm not loving liability either. I had only been thinking about this since this morning, but I imagine what would happen, given the way lj works, is that there would be a statement on the profile page saying "If you click the link to join, you are stating you are XX age or older" which is, as you said, how Yahoo does it.

If the membership were moderated, though, the mods could examine the profile pages of applicants and if anyone was so thick as to list their DOB as being after 1990, for example, making them under 18, then the application could be refused.

This is all theoretical at this point anyway.

[havocthecat]

I don't think we need to leave LJ, but I do think that a backup/mirror comm elsewhere is a necessity. As is regularly backing up comms and journals on one's hard drive.

[miera_c]

I don't really want to pick up stakes and move myself. I do backup everything, but I'm more concerned with staying below the radar of LJ/6A in the future. We're not in their sights right now, because SG fandom doesn't have many underage characters. Also they seem this week to be (understandably) looking at visual images rather than text.

Though, that being said, we had to decide in stargate_ren what to do about Laura and Carson's wedding night, whether it would be "spelled out" or not and one of the reasons we didn't go there was because Laura's 16 in that AU.

[havocthecat]

Yeah, I'm big on staying under the radar. I would rather keep Stargate fandom that way, at least enough that we're not targeted rampantly. And I'm glad to hear you back things up. I figured you were the careful type, but I also thought I'd be obsessively completist and mention it.

[ficsoreal]

Some of the deleted journals were completely friends locked. At this point, I'm not sure how much of a help that would be.

[miera_c]

are you referring to what got deleted this week? Cause that's a clear case of child porn (by which I mean the company went after visual images, not text).

[ficsoreal]

I was referring to what happened this week and you are correct in stating that they were turned in for visual images. This was just posted about the situation by the mod of .

These entries both included drawings of minors engaged in sexual activity and are in violation of our policies. It is our policy to remove such content when it is reported to us; due to the severity of the violation, individuals who post such content risk permanent suspension

[ficsoreal]

pornish_pixies

[anjak_j]

Given the age of consent in the UK is 16, the fact that you commit a sex act at that age, but can't watch someone else doing it until you are 18 has always boggled me a little.

Anyways, though I said 18, since it seems to be the standard age at which you can purchase porn, I think the age thing would be better dealt with by making a person confirm they are old enough to read said fic by the laws of the area they live in.

I don't think demanding proof of age is a good idea - too much liability at your end.

[fishbaum]

I know the "old skool" email lists generally asked for an age statement, so that the onus was on the subscriber for lying, not the list owner. But it has been a hassle for the list owner to keep some 'proof' of these emailed age statements (especially as we all upgrade computers, suffer crashes, etc, etc.).

My feeling has always been to try to keep the maintainer's job as easy as we can, so as to facilitate fannish forums like these.