Talk:Age of consent in North America

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This article is part of the Age of consent series of articles project.

In the interest of accuracy and quality it was decided by consensus^* to hold these pages to a high standard of verification and to avoid ambiguity through the use of prose (not dot points) discussing the relevant statutes, case law or other authorities.

To this end all information must be properly referenced. Where writing about legislation or other law, the appropriate statutes and similar must be cited. Where appropriate, portions of the legislation can be quoted. Where possible, a link to an up-to-date online copy of the legislation can be included (preferably, but not necessarily, in English). It is preferable to include any such references in-line, rather than in a separate <ref> section at the bottom of the page. This is to make it easier for readers to find the references in context.

The unfettered age of consent should be in bold text, in order that it stand out. No other ages should be in bold text. Any exceptions to should then be discussed afterwards (close in age exceptions, same sex relations etc).

For an example of a properly formatted article see the Ages of consent in Australia and Oceania.

*(The original age of consent formatting discussions began here)

The articles in this group are	Helpful repositories of legislation
Age of consent Age of consent reform Ages of consent in Africa Ages of consent in Asia Ages of consent in Oceania (including Australia) Ages of consent in Europe Ages of consent in North America Ages of consent in the United States Ages of consent in South America Age of consent in Brazil List of countries by age of consent	Worldlii: Global Austlii: Australia Bailii: Britain and Ireland Canlii: Canada Commonlii: Commonwealth Cylaw: Cyprus Droit: French HKlii: Hong Kong	Juri Burkina Cornell law NZlii: New Zealand Paclii: Pacific Islands Saflii: Southern Africa

Please note that ageofconsent.com is not an acceptable reference as it has not been updated since 2002.

Colour palette doesn't match the map

The map of North America in the infobox seems to have more colours on it than are described in the key. Can anyone who is clever with images figure out what is going on? Girth Summit _(blether) 16:06, 30 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 12 December 2023

This edit request to Ages of consent in North America has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Remove the line "The federal age of consent in the United States is 16." from the opening section.

Not only is the cited source questionable, this statement is directly contradicted by the "United States" section of this article, which states "There exist several federal statutes related to protecting minors from sexual predators, but none of them imposes an age limit on sexual acts". I have been unable to find any other sources suggesting a federal age of consent at 16.

The only federal laws on this regard inter-state grooming or trafficking of minors, which themselves impose an age of consent of 18. The line should be fully removed (not replaced/edited) and instead readers should refer to the United States section which explains this information in detail, unless someone can come up with a suitable replacement. Checkraisefold (talk) 10:27, 12 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Done Hyphenation Expert (talk) 22:13, 12 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Dangerously misleading information

Click here to see the edit of 8 November 2023 regarding the age of consent in the State of Washington (and said content is currently still present in the article).

The information is misleading as to the applicable age of consent in Washington, specifically when the person is not a teacher. And when I say misleading, I mean that relying on this information can land somebody in jail. Fabrickator (talk) 05:06, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I have provided the wrong "diff". Please check back later. Fabrickator (talk) 14:32, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Remove claims based on "ageofconsent.net" redux

I'm bringing this back from the 18 January 2023 entry, now in the talk page archive, that all claims based on ageofconsent.net should be removed:

It is not an academically valid source. It is a simple blog and many of its publications disagree with the penal codes.

They admit it themselves "AgeOfConsent.net is a free public resource site, and cannot offer legal advice. All information provided AS-IS with no warranty of accuracy".

All the information is in very simple tables, so there's no attempt to provide significant details, and there are no citations to sources. Fabrickator (talk) 20:39, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]