Does it really take a Ph.D. in philosophy to understand my posts?
Cerin is correct: I did NOT say I have to leave B77 right now; I said that I would leave IF ToE admitted people who are considered 'children' in the U.S.
Eru:
... didn't you, Jn, argue ... that our responsibility was only to the members here? If so, then your daughters or whoever you may want to show this site to have absolutely no bearing on this situation whatsoever. I'm sorry but it did irk me to read that we have to consider the rights or needs of people who haven't registered here yet. If we start down that path, it will never end.
Yes, I said that in the Wilko thread. But I did
not say here that my children have a
right to post on this board. It would make me happy if my children also enjoyed the same discussions and online friendships as myself, and as B77 exists now, I have been encouraging themto come here. (They haven't done it yet, but I haven't given up hope.) But if ToE admits minors then I will have to give up on this idea. I know that my kids cannot have their names appear on the memberlist of a board with an adult-teenage sex forum.
I brought this example not because it reflects some right of mine or theirs but because there are other teachers on the board and I presume they will be in a similar situation if ToE goes teenage. They will have to leave.
The rights of our young posters supercede the rights of non-members, but they do not supercede the right of other current members to continue being members.
Satch said:
Plus the fact that it's a mere few months until my birthday, I didn't see it would be such a big deal.
and
TP said:
Other friends ... have been similarly willing to take some risks of this sort, however slight, to allow me to have a good time and make me feel comfortable ...
Since the flare-up in ToE I've been thinking a lot about what I would have done if I had known there were posters in the ToE within a few months of the 18th birthday. I have come to the conclusion that I
would have been willing to turn a blind eye under the right circumstances, if only people had discussed this honestly.
IIRC, the impetus to write Article 6 from the Business Room came from Voronwe, because he felt the protocols for ToE needed to be done before we opened the board. Imp ran the thread and did all the leg work for drafting the Article, but it was the imminence of becoming public that caused us to do it that particular way, with direct input from the members and an immediate vote.
ToE is not readable by the public, but the protocols we adopted do make the ToE accessible to the public after 3 months and 100 posts. We could alternatively have drafted into Article 6 the provision that no new members would be admitted to ToE until after the date at which those few existing underage members had passed their 18th birthday. The 3/100 provision could have gone into effect only
after the 18th birthday of all existing ToE members.
I don't know how Idylle, Voronwe, TORN and others feel about this, but if ToE is not accessible to the public ... meaning that no one I know can register here and become a member and join the ToE and see that underage persons are active in it ... I would not have minded leaving those posters alone until they turned 18. There is some very slight risk associated with this but it is a risk I am willing to take for the sake of online buddies, just as some of TP's friends are willing to take certain risks on her behalf, within reason.
(We can still pass a provision like that, in fact - simply close the forum to new members until the existing members are all of age. The committee working on the revised access rules may want to consider this.)
Why it would matter to me that the board had a permanent adult-teen sex forum open to anyone who fulfilled the requirements ...
If I were browing the web and came upon a site that interested me, but then discovered that they had an adult-teen sex forum, I would never join that site. Never. I just wouldn't do it. I can anticipate consequences that a 16 year old cannot in a million years anticipate and it does not sway me that others are willing to risk those consequences. I would not join a site with such a risk potential. So why would I remain a member here if this site acquired the same risk potential? I would not.
Pips:
And if you think they will, then you should probably consider switching your employers.
A perfect example of the difference between the reasoning of a 16-year-old and the reasoning of an adult.
Eru: I'm very sorry that you consider this manipulation by guilt. However I can see no justification whatsoever for pretending that there is no cost to B77 if it has an adult-teen sex forum. There is a cost. What would be gained by suppressing that information?
Jn