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ToE Junior - An End Run round the problem?

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Voronwë_the_Faithful
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Posted: Wed 14 Sep , 2005 8:09 pm
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Good. :)


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satch
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Okay you know what, I just want to apologise.

Yes, I continued my participating (albeit rarely) in ToE even after the rule of under 18's was agreed, and even though I am not 18 or older.

I don't know if you guys will care much for my explanation, but I feel I should give it anyway because that's been my intention for a while.

I didn't come out and proclaim my age mainly because I just didn't think it was all that important. I never lied about my age. I never came out and said "Yes, I am older than 18", but to be honest I thought people pretty much knew anyway. My birthday was in the birthday thread and although I accept that not everyone looks in there, it was still there for people to see.

As I was a part of the forum before the rule was in place, I didn't particularly think it would be fair (selfish? so what) that I would have to be forcibly removed from a place when I had already settled in. Plus the fact that it's a mere few months until my birthday, I didn't see it would be such a big deal.

Part of the rule that was put into place in the forum said something along the lines of people in the forum do not know of any under 18s who are posting (I can't quite remember but I'm not going back into the forum so I can't get it... if someone else could for me, please) so I figured that even if someone from out of the forum/boards did find out about me being there, it would be my fault and mine alone - because everyone else agreed that they did not know about it.

(If I had known that this was such a big deal for some of you guys, things would be different - but if you don't realise that there are "underaged" posters in a forum, what's the likelihood of someone who has barely posted or seen the forum to know?)

I agreed later that if anything did come up about it - which I seriously did not think would happen, mainly because I did not know about all this job/legal stuff (your country works a hell of a lot differently than mine does...) - I would step down immediately. I might question things or argue, but I would step down and leave the forum. As I have done now.

It seems to be different for you guys in the US, but people here don't tend to go around suing people for this that and the other. Sure, some people do sue, but it's mostly either the really rich or the really pompous. Usually a mixture of the two.

Also, I didn't really see how an underaged "child" seeing discussions of a sexual nature is all that bad. As I said earlier in the thread, subjects in ToE are all things that you can read by picking up a magazine in a newsagent. There is not an age limit on magazines, nor books - and you can read a lot more pornagraphic things in some books.

Parents may not like their child reading things like that, but it's nothing they're not gonna hear about anywhere else - school for example - and they're gonna hear a hell of a lot more bullshit at school than they are here or some other places.

Fair enough some of you could find your jobs at risk if you posted on the boards when there's people under 18 posting in forums, I'll stay away if it is so much of a problem for you, but I won't be happy with it. Like Pips said, by our laws we're free to have as much sex as we like. But because of your laws, we're not allowed to talk about it.

We never suggested letting any old aged person in - whether or not they'd had sex - because if they've done so and it's illegal then fair enough they shouldn't talk about it in public places!

So yeah, I never set out to decieve people, and I never meant to cause this trouble. I know some of you don't think it's fair that I/we did this - but there you go. It's done. I don't particularly think it's fair that some people who's jobs are at risk if they post here from work - when the "underaged" post in ToE - continue to post here from work. That kind of sounds like "I want you to stop what you'd like to do so I can slack off at work and do what I want". It might not be like that, but it's kind of how it sounds.

Last edited by satch on Wed 14 Sep , 2005 10:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Pippin4242
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Posted: Wed 14 Sep , 2005 10:14 pm
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Agreed.

I think the main thing which offends me is that it seems to be a case of your law being worth more than ours, and having more of an impact on what we can and can't do on this board.

*~Pips~*

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Primula_Baggins
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Posted: Wed 14 Sep , 2005 10:27 pm
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It's not something that's done as an offense, Pips, or even done at all. The situation doesn't exist because anyone wants it to or because anyone thinks it's fair. However, it exists, creating a problem that can't just be ignored.

Satch, you got caught in the middle. I don't think anyone blames you for this situation. I don't think there's any point in trying to place blame anyway—let's just fix this.

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satch
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Posted: Wed 14 Sep , 2005 10:38 pm
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Prim, she's not saying that it's you guys that are offending - it's your laws.

How did I get caught in the middle? I was in ToE when I wasn't supposed to. People are feeling a little pissed off that they were decieved. I deceived you!

I'm not trying to stop people blaming me, I just wanted to say what I wanted to say earlier.

And how can we fix this? There is nothing that can be done to fix this. Some of you cannot post on the boards if we post in ToE, regardless of where the boards are situated. So we just have to get over it.

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Primula_Baggins
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Posted: Wed 14 Sep , 2005 11:05 pm
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I don't know, satch. :(

I'd say you were "caught in the middle" because you had no reason to believe anyone would be bothered by your being under 18. You thought we all knew and had no problem with it. You can hardly be blamed for accepting the situation as you understood it.

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tolkienpurist
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Posted: Wed 14 Sep , 2005 11:31 pm
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Post removed.

Last edited by tolkienpurist on Sat 29 Oct , 2005 3:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Voronwë_the_Faithful
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tolkienpurist wrote:
I'm 19 1/2 years old ... . ... almost seven years now - since I started college
Does basic subtraction. :Q

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Primula_Baggins
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Posted: Wed 14 Sep , 2005 11:46 pm
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I've been :Q about tolkienpurist for a loooong time.

Even before I had any idea of her age. Tolkienpurist would induce :Q if she were forty.

:Wooper:

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tolkienpurist
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Yikes. Perhaps this is a vain hope, but I'd hoped not to derail the thread entirely with that...if I could have made the point without bringing in age/grade, I would have, but I couldn't think how to do that and still have the point make sense.


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Primula_Baggins
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Posted: Thu 15 Sep , 2005 12:04 am
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Sorry about that, tolkienpurist. :oops: Your post provides a valuable perspective on this discussion, and I would like to see others' response. I can't respond usefully because I don't want to appear to dismiss the feelings of the younger ToE members.

That's why I find this whole situation so distressing, in fact. I have had to take a position and urge action that is going to hurt people, because I believe that inaction would hurt still more people and cause more lasting harm. It doesn't mean that I see anyone, or anyone's feelings, as expendable or unimportant. :(

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Impenitent
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Posted: Thu 15 Sep , 2005 1:41 am
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Satchie :hug:

You are not to blame for your course of action. You believed (and most others who knew also believed) you were doing no harm.

There is no blame; there is only discovery that a particular situation could cause harm. We now have to fix the situation.

No one - NO ONE - is looking at you or Leafy or Pips - any differently. You acted in good faith, in accordance with your perceptions of what was going down.

If I had known that you were under 18 I suspect I would have raised the issue with you privately. As it was, both you and Leafy have participated on this board with such a level of maturity that I never actually thought about your ages beyond thinking you were 'young' (but then, I'm 45 and anyone under 30 is young to me. :D )

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Eruname
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satch wrote:
I don't particularly think it's fair that some people who's jobs are at risk if they post here from work - when the "underaged" post in ToE - continue to post here from work. That kind of sounds like "I want you to stop what you'd like to do so I can slack off at work and do what I want". It might not be like that, but it's kind of how it sounds.
Just out of curiousity, how many people at this board only have internet access through their work? How many people who post from work are actually allowed to do so and aren't "sneaking" on? I guess I kind of agree or sympathize with satch here. I've never given much weight to people protesting they couldn't post from work since generally that's not supposed to be happening anyway. (Though I do understand some are saying that their job would be in jeapordy just by being associated in a private manner with a forum that had minors in ToE.)

satch, I would have done the same as you if I were in your position. Honestly, I did think you were 18 though. I think it's just because you act at least that age and I've been around you while you had a drink in your hand. ;) :P

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Thu 15 Sep , 2005 2:31 am
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Does it really take a Ph.D. in philosophy to understand my posts? :scratch:

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

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Eruname
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Posted: Thu 15 Sep , 2005 3:07 am
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Jnyusa wrote:
Does it really take a Ph.D. in philosophy to understand my posts?
Maybe that wasn't the most fair thing to say, considering this:
Jnyusa wrote:
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?
Eru wrote:
In the past people have threatened to leave to get what they want and as I said I'm highly sensitive to this now. I'm not trying to say that's what is being done here. I'm just explaining my reasoning for such a high burden of proof. This threat has been abused in the past (IMO) so I cannot take it lightly.

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Thu 15 Sep , 2005 4:12 am
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Maybe that wasn't the most fair thing to say, considering this

Eru, I was referring to your statement that I would be leaving immediately, and your interpretation of my earlier post as a claim that my children have a right to join B77. I could not figure out what I had said to give rise to either of these interpretations, unless I am really starting to babble.

Jn

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Eruname
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Posted: Thu 15 Sep , 2005 5:28 am
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Jnyusa wrote:
Eru, I was referring to your statement that I would be leaving immediately,
I didn't make that statement. :scratch:
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your interpretation of my earlier post as a claim that my children have a right to join B77.
:scratch:

Huh? :confused:

Your Ph.D statement can readily be interpreted as a negative comment about those you feel have misread your posts (ie, me). Considering you misread one of my posts, that's why I don't feel it was very fair.

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Voronwë_the_Faithful
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Jnyusa wrote:
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.
I believe that is true, Jn. I specifically remember one teacher speaking up in the previous discussion when it was decided to include that rule.
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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.
Yes, I agree. Not to put the blame on anyone, because I believe it was an honest misunderstanding, but it is unfortunate that the communication failed here.
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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.
That's mostly correct, Jn. Ironically, I dropped out of leading the discussion and Impy picked up the slack when it became clear that people in ToE were not willing to consider the kind of protections that I wanted to see in place and that the committee is now considering in the Jury Room.
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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.)
As I said in the other thread where Eru crossposted part of this, I would have no objection to this solution, as long as I was not working on incorporating the site. I don't think that would be a problem, as there is no urgency to get that done (if it even ever happens). But that still would leave us with the problem of the under 18 year olds other then the two who currently already have ToE permissions. Is it fair to make an exception for those two, but not the others?
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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.
Yes, I feel the same way.
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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.
I must admit, I had this exact thought when I saw this statement, but I was not brave enough to post it myself.


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IdylleSeethes
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There seem to be several issues interleaved here.

1. Fixer's explanation of IP addresses is correct, assuming it pertains to a given instant. I think the explanation ended up in another thread.

2. I know about a dozen people who lost their jobs because of personal use of the internet at the office, in the last 5 years. Only 2 were related to content. I fired one. 3 of my wife's former co-workers lost there jobs after ignoring a warning. It is a constant IT management topic. Some employers hunt for personal destinations and block them. THere is a small software industry built around tracking and controlling employee behavior on the internet. I lost access to TORC from an office I managed. I know indirectly of other instances of firings related to internet usage.

3. I'm repeating myself. Ignoring the consequences of one's actions on the lives of others is an aspect of immaturity. It doesn't matter what reasons or excuses are created to justify underage participation in ToE. The fact that underage posters are allowed prevents some of us from participating. This isn't something that can be resolved with a poll of the membership's feelings. It doesn't matter that you consider ToE private. Nothing can solve the problem, other than stopping it. I know people who investigate these things for the purpose of prosecution. As I said a few weeks ago, I have been advised by attorneys who know (prosecutors), that it is imprudent for me to participate. This is also true for attorneys, like Voronwe, teachers, and others for whom their professional licenses could be at risk. As a police lieutenant said to me recently, the advantage of the internet, for investigations, is that its use leaves so many traces. Even he is oblivious to NSA.

By the way, I passed for my wife's security clearance. It will be a while for my own. The bad side of that is that she is now working in Boston.


All of this is disconcerting. Voronwe and I know more than a little about the risks here. Of course I know attorneys who do illegal things, but there is always the risk they will get caught. I know several attorneys who use drugs, but they know the risks and have made a choice. However, they are very discreet about it. A chief deputy prosecutor I knew very well got caught with a plane load of pot and spent a few years in jail. So yes, you can ignore the law, but sometimes you get caught. The problem with the internet is that it does leave a lot of evidence, as my friend said.

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Crazycosh
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I still do not understand why having minors in ToE affects people logging in from work. The fact that you were visiting ToE would be enough to get you fired anyway, especially if the content isn't suitable for those under the age of 18 - anyone that does is taking a large risk in doing so.

But anyway I am bowing out of the argument, simply because it is going in no real direction, as few of those against are prepared to listen to reason, and I will be leaving the forum I think - just because I think that being disallowed access to a board is restricted by my age, for the benefit of the few is rather incredulous.

Still I stress that you guys really are making a mountain out of, well not even a molehill, maybe a pebble that happens to be in your path. Many, much larger, far more mainstream forums have these kind of threads in open boards, many with pornographic material on - quite dangerous you may think, seeing that the min age without parental consent is 13. But not one have I heard of being sued by an angry parent, and no one in their right mind would visit a board with adult orientated material, on a work machine. I know this last statement will probably offend some of you, but you guys need to seriously get some perspective.

In case you were wondering, I'm 17 - hence the apathetic passion.


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