Wikipedia talk:Protecting children's privacy/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Uploading personal photos

Should we have any sort of policy on the uploading of personally identifying photographs? NoSeptember 14:27, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Probably. Definitely photos that show more than one child should not go up. I think self-photos of under 13s should probably be banned as well in the spirit of COPPA. Thatcher131 (talk) 14:36, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Only for children. For adults it's a legal and ethical non-issue. Anonymity is a right, not an obligation, at least for those with full legal and mental competence. Captainktainer * Talk 15:03, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

What they said. If the person in the photo is obviously a youngster, I think it should be removed.--Firsfron of Ronchester 23:11, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Substituting templates

I added a reminder that all templates unique to this situation should be substituted. Predators and other unscrupulous people could follow "what links here" from the template to find young users who are not careful with personally identifying information, and pursue unwholesome ends.Captainktainer * Talk 14:33, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that was a concern of mine from the WP:ANI thread. It could also be a problem if people leave messages to a child with a link to this policy page. NoSeptember 14:35, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure there is a good way to completely avoid aggregating, other than policing any template or policy pages related to children. The most sure way would be indef ban every self-identifed child account and tell them to create a new account that does not disclose their age at all and to never refer to their previous name. I don't think that's workable at all. Thatcher131 (talk) 15:20, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

The Black Helicopter For outstanding services to paranoia, this black helicopter is awarded to Captainktainer!

You realise that anyone knowledgable enough to use Whatlinkshere on a template could just do a search for the text it contained, right? Sorry, carry on, don't let me disrupt your fervour of useless activity. Writing a free encyclopaedia has just gotten dull after four years, now you have to spend your time gnawing your nails trying to think up ways in paedophiles could use Wikipedia. Whatever happened to WP:BEANS?

Do you have something constructive to add to the discussion, or are you just going to continue vandalizing project pages? At the very least, it's one more hurdle that must be jumped. Captainktainer * Talk 01:24, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

In what way would indef ban followed by new account not work? It's obviously No Fun At All and would have to be handled sensitively ("You are not being punished! We are happy to have you at Wikipedia."), but if it's implemented before we have too many child accounts it will be much easier than continually patrolling the known ones than for new info - and much more secure for the youngsters themselves. (And will avoid all the probs of dodgy folk searching for warnings.) How about a subhead in the Welcome template :"If you are under 13"? JackyR | Talk 13:44, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I know, I know, WP:BEANS, but what about "if you are under 13 don't do ...", then all the adults do ..., but nobody under 13 ...s, thereby revealing that they are under 13 by obeying the policy? Probably wouldn't happen but I'm just saying... --AndreniW 00:02, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

E-mail and IM names

I'm not sure about e-mail addresses and IM names. Clearly they would fall under COPPA if wikipedia was requiring them. Should we in this policy disallow posting of all direct contact info (e-mail, phone numbers, IM screen names)? Editors could still contact each other via talk pages, and wikipedia e-mail which is masked unless the child chooses to reply. Thatcher131 (talk) 14:38, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Probably a good idea for now, IMHO. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 00:34, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that we need to block email addresses. As stated above, email can be filtered, and if the child has any responsible parent, the parent would screen the email before allowing the child to use it. I do whole-heartedly support blocking IM screen names, that's how a lot of the predators find the children online. --AndreniW 23:32, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Age and Location

You know, some people could just lie about thier age. There's no policy stating you have to be truthful in telling thier age, so people could easily lie around this policy. Another concern of mine is not every editor is in the United States of America and America's guidelines, like COPPA, should not be pressed against editors in Canada, England, Australia, Singapore (a lot of editors are from there :p), etc. so what gives us the right to make people not in America obide by a United States federal laws? 216.78.95.224 14:55, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

If they lie about their age, that's fine; that removes legal liability and helps protect them from predators. Hear no evil, see no evil. Furthermore, the English Wikipedia is headquartered in the State of Florida, and hence must abide by all applicable United States laws. This policy is as much about covering our own behinds as anything. If contributors are uncomfortable editing under the restrictions imposed by United States federal law and Florida state law, they should edit elsewhere. Captainktainer * Talk 15:01, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

So how does lying help protect someone from a predator? 216.78.95.224 15:05, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

If the predator doesn't know that the editor is underage, he doesn't know to target that person. Captainktainer * Talk 15:08, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

An 11 year old who does not disclose his age (or claims to be an adult) will not be targeted for unsavory attentions. On the other hand, we really want nothing to do with someone who posts, "I am a cute 11 year old who likes ponies and teddy bears. If you want to be my friend call me." Even if the Foundation is not strictly liable per COPPA, we do not want some tearful mom going on Greta and saying "She met him on wikipedia. I thought it was an encyclopedia." Thatcher131 (talk) 15:10, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, the law in question applies only to commercial sites, not nonprofit ones like this; also, though some of its provisions are fairly vague, it seems to be aimed at sites that actively solicit personal info from children (e.g., for marketing purposes), not at general-interest sites where a kid might happen to wander by, but is not being actively enticed to provide such information. Since Wikipedia registration does not require providing any personal info, and is not being promoted specifically to kids, we're probably OK. (But IANAL.) *Dan T.* 20:08, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Some people may also be adults posing as children, so what would happen in that case? 02:37, 27 August 2006 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.2.251.102 (talk • contribs)

Treat 'em like children. (Especially as someone claiming to be under 13 and posting personal contact information may be trying to make contact with real children for unpleasant reasons.) Thatcher131 (talk) 05:22, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, and the converse is true. If somebody claims to be 12 years old, they're blocked for a year. If somebody who is actually 12 never reveals this and "flies beneath the radar" nobody is any the wiser and they can go about their wiki business like the rest of us. --kingboyk 08:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

School name

I removed the section on school name, for the following reasons:

• Given that young contributors will usually edit the articles on their schools, the same information could be gleaned from their contributions history
• It would essentially forbid them from declaring an interest in their schools' articles, as that could be construed as declaring attendance at the school
• Given that many schools have a population equal to that of a village or small town, it isn't privacy-compromising enough to fall within the words or intent of COPPA

Anyone disagree? Captainktainer * Talk 15:07, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I think we should discourage/forbid people from putting their school name on their page as: 1) not all schools are large - some are very very small 2) although the information may be gleamed from edits (we can't help that), it may not - not everyone edits their school article. Let's avoid as much personal information as we can. --Doc 15:30, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

FYI my 8th grade graduating class had 19 students. Just so you'll know.--Ed^{talk c E} 19:39, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

My seventh and eighth grade classes each had only 11 students, for the record. I feel revealing school information could be privacy-compromising. --Firsfron of Ronchester 23:15, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

My twelfth-grade class had only one student, but good luck finding the Vernon-Dunlap School to track me down by. --Carnildo 01:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Foundations lawyers?

Has anyone actually talked to the foundation's lawyers about this proposed policy? JoshuaZ 16:28, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I will w-mail Brad later today. However, I think we need to confront this issue for moral and ethical reasons even if it is not a strict liability issue. Thatcher131 (talk) 17:22, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

It's quite shocking that they're not proactive on this issue. There also seems to be no clear definition about whether Wikipedia is a common carrier (in which case we shouldn't censor anything for fear of losing that status) or a publisher (in which case we are currently far too lax). I hope that whoever gets elected to the board shortly can get some answers to these and similar questions. --kingboyk 07:59, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

WP:USER

If this proposal attracts continued interest, maybe we should implement it as a modification of WP:USER rather than a separate policy. That might be logical since it really is a policy directed at user space, and it would have the side benefit of preventing aggregation of children via links to a child-specific policy. (WP:USER has thousands of links already) Thatcher131 (talk) 17:22, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Rationale

And let me say also that the reason for tying this to COPPA is mainly to provide a reasonable basis for picking a cutoff point for this policy. (Although whether the US congress is reasonable may be open to debate). If we are going to prevent self-identified children from including certain things on their user pages, we need to have some cut-off point, and age 13 per COPPA seems as reasonable as anything else I can think of. I wouldn't care if this was entirely decoupled from COPPA and left to stand on its own, but we are clearly to the point where we need to at least think about this issue. Thatcher131 (talk) 17:30, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

It's pretty standard in engineering to "see who's already done it" before reinventing the wheel. I think this applies here when attempting to create policy. Nothing wrong with basing it off of existing policy somewhere else. If the COPPA says "under 13" and you make a policy that uses "under 13" there's nothing wrong with that. People will (and should) start wondering about geo-political balance when COPPA says "under 13" and you say "refer to COPPA". BigNate37_(T) 22:45, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

A few questions

Please feel free to insert answers or comments between the bullet points; I did not want to start a new subsection for each question:

• Shouldn't list of items in the "nutshell" include "real name"? It should probably be the first item (before "e-mail address.") "Real name" is already on the list in the text, but not in the nutshell.

I added it in. --Coredesat talk. ^_^ 23:26, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

• If we are directing editors to delete real names of people who self-identify as being under 13, doesn't there need to be a policy prohibiting self-identified under-13's from using their real names (surnames) as their (or in their) registered user names?
  • I only see one problem with that. Are we to make them sign up again, perhaps using some other form of identifible information (such as Kayla1994)? Or do we not let them on Wikipedia until they are 13? This could get hairy -- couldn't we just remove the fact that they revealed themselves from the page history? I thought there was a way to do that, I just can't remember how (but I'm pretty sure you have to be an admin). --AndreniW 23:42, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
• Shouldn't the term be "personal identifying information" rather than "personally identifying information"? (COPPA itself and the FTC compliance guide (see links from COPPA article) refer to "personal information" and in one instance to "personal identifying information.")
  • No, the government just made a typo.  :) --AndreniW 23:42, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
• The term "self-identify" seems slightly jargon-y to me. In the nutshell and the first time it is used in the text, can we change "self-identify as" to "identify themselves as being"?

• While I realize that this policy is directed specifically at people who do "self-identify" as being under 13, is there any good reason not to specifically prohibit all editors under 13 from posting personal information? (All, as opposed to just those who say they are 13.) My suggestion is to add the following to the nutshell and in the text:

Editors under the age of 13 should not post personal identifying information (such as real name, e-mail addresses, home addresses, school names, and telephone numbers) on Wikipedia. No editor should post such information about any person under the age of 13.

If that is done, the existing first sentence of the nutshell could be shortened to just refer to "such information." 6SJ7 18:08, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

There's no reason to prohibit all users under 13 from posting identifying information, because we have no way of knowing whether or not they are under 13 unless they say they are. We don't collect that information at registration, nor should we be actively attempting to determine contributors' ages. There's a certain amount of anonymity that is vital to our free and open contribution at Wikipedia. Now, once they let the cat out of the bag, they've personally self-identified as under 13 and this policy applies to them. But not before. Captainktainer * Talk 19:14, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Accepting that premise for the sake of argument, it still leaves the "nutshell" (and probably the text as well) without a clear statement of what a self-identified under-13 is supposed to refrain from doing. It speaks in terms of what other editors are supposed to do, and the text does say something about reminding or telling self-identified under-13s what they are not supposed to do, but it never told them what not to do in the first place. How about beginning the nutshell with: "Editors who have identified themselves (within Wikipedia) as being under the age of 13 should not post personal identifying information (such as real name, e-mail addresses, home addresses, school names, and telephone numbers) on Wikipedia. No such information about an editor who self-identifies as being under 13 should be posted by any editor." (And then continue with how it should be removed if found.) And then in the text it could repeat these statements and also add the following: "An editor self-identified as being under 13 should not edit under a user name that contains any personal identifying information, including his or her surname." 6SJ7 21:28, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

That's a good idea. I recommend making the edit. Captainktainer * Talk 21:33, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

The nutshell could say "editors under 13 should not post under their real names or post personal identifying info" and then the main body to clarify that the policy applies to editors who describe themselves as under 13; per the exception that it does not apply to editors who do not disclose. Thatcher131 (talk) 02:31, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Changes made; more changes needed

I have edited the "Nutshell" and the "Overview" section to reflect the changes discussed above, plus a few other ideas in other sections of this talk page that I agree with. I also decided that the Overview section really needed to be reorganized so that it clearly stated what the policy is. I hope nobody thinks I went too far, if so we can talk about it. One problem that already existed, and remains, is that the "Overview" and "Processes" section somewhat overlap. What I really think should happen is that what is now the last paragraph of "Overview" (the bulleted items) should be merged with the "Processes" section, and the resulting section should be re-titled "The Policy" or something like that. This would then be followed by the "Comments" although those could possibly also be worked into the "Policy" section. (I have not analyzed each of the "comments" to see whether that would work for all of them.) Unless there are objections, I will work on this but probably would not get to it for 36-48 hours. 6SJ7 03:23, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Can't really handle parental consent

The current text of this proposed policy says:

In the spirit of COPPA, Wikipedia should not publish personally identifying information provided by children without the consent of their parents or guardians.

I'm not sure we have any resonable means to get parental consent. We can't determine the validity of anything sent to us electronically. We don't have any process that I'm aware of to receive, let alone judge, any physical information. I'm wondering if we need to make clear that regardless of claimed parental consent, we will remove any of the agreed-upon bits of personal information from identified children. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 02:02, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Probably a good idea. I started this off very narrowly tailored, and it seems like people want to expand it. Fine with me if that's how the consensus run. Thatcher131 (talk) 02:28, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe there is little point in including the "without the consent of their parents or guardians" portion since as JeffQ states, we have no way of getting verified parental consent. I also don't think there is a need to complicate this proposed policy: the simpler, the better, in my opinion, so it is more easily understood by all.Firsfron of Ronchester 23:27, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I dealt with this in the current version. Parental consent is referred to as an element of the COPPA statute, but as for Wikipedia policy it is specifically stated that due to practical difficulties in obtaining consent, personal information for self-identified under-13s may not be posted regardless of parental consent. (In fact, I put that part in bold type.) 6SJ7 00:16, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

It looks good to me. I appreciate the bolding, BTW. Firsfron of Ronchester 10:29, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Templates and categories

I'd like to propose that as part of this solution we delete all age-related templates and Wikipedia categories, whether or not they refer to under 13s. --kingboyk 08:01, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I can't agree with that. What possible help can that be in protecting minors? What does a category or userbox identifying elder Wikipedians have anything at all to do with Wikipedians under 13? Forgive me if I don't see the point of censoring Wikipedians' group affiliation (and organized editing) because... umm... well? Captainktainer * Talk 08:14, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

They don't help build an enyclopedia and encourage the use of the site for social networking rather than enyclopedia-building. Most importantly, though, it seems to me unfair to deny young users the ability to categorise by age or publicise their birth year without making a blanket ban. That's my rationale, feel free to disagree :) --kingboyk 08:32, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I understand your reasoning now, though I still strongly disagree. There are many things minors are not permitted to do, because they have diminished reasoning and planning capabilities in critical areas. It's fair to discriminate when there is a legal and moral necessity in discrimination. As for the issue of social networking, that is a separate issue altogether, but briefly, if something encourages Wikipedians with similar interests to collaborate on issues that affect or interest them, I think that's a good thing. WikiProjects don't get enough participants as is, and something that makes it harder to find Wikipedians on the basis of a common interest could choke off a valuable resource in increasing the WikiProject rolls. Captainktainer * Talk 08:49, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

And pray tell me, which WikiProject needs to know how old a member is? :) --kingboyk 09:03, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

A hypothetical WikiProject:Geriatrics, for instance; I haven't been through the entire list, which is fairly extensive. There's a Wikipedian association specifically for youth, not all of whom are under 13; but given the number of templates identifying users as elders, I wouldn't be surprised if there is one. And, if there isn't, there probably should be; Wikipedia's coverage of age-related subjects isn't the best in the world (you get what you pay for, right?). Captainktainer * Talk 09:23, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

OK :) Thanks for the dialogue, let's see what other folks have to say. I'm quite used to being wrong btw :) --kingboyk 09:51, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Why self-identify as under 13?

Can someone explain to me the value of anybody identifying themselves on WP as under 13? Given WP:NOT a social network, there is no need for anyone to do this, or to reveal their current school. It has no value in terms of building an encyclopedia. I know some kids (and adults!) like to post their ages, but WP:USER exists because there are many things users like to post that are unacceptable. This should be one.

A half-way policy of "You can state your age, but, um, is that piece of info enough to ID you? What about that piece together with that piece?" will be enormously hard work to police, will make kids feel continually niggled at, and won't actually have the desired effect of protecting them from undesirables (we can't police their MySpace or personal webpages, and once identified they could still be contacted through WP).

Is there any good reason not to block all accounts identified as under-13? (In the nicest possible way, with lots of forewarning as the policy is brought in, so people don't just log in and find they've been blocked.) JackyR | Talk 14:12, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

NB I'm not an expert in child protection, but as I understand it our problem could be that a paedophile identifies and makes friends with a child through WP, and then begins conversations with them on e-mail, either through Wikipedia e-mail or e-mail addresses / chat revealed elsewhere. Through these private conversations the adult establishes the child's locality and persuades them to meet somewhere, or send a pic and school name, etc. We're having to tell kids not to reveal this info on their WP pages, because many give it out far too easily. I don't think it's acceptable to rely on the child's judgement whether or not to accept e-mails from their new internet friend: that's the whole point about them being kids and not having adult judgement. And for any youngsters annoyed by reading this, think for a moment: you personally might have plenty of common sense, but this policy has to work for the daftest person you know, not just you! JackyR | Talk 14:27, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

As this new century unfolds it seems we increasingly respond to imagined threats in the most reactive ways possible, and this discussion is one such example. (So if a woman hides a vial of now-prohibited Vaseline in her bouffant hairstyle next week and attempts to board a Delta jet, someone will surely advocate a worldwide ban on in-flight bouffants thereafter.) As for children on Wikipedia, so long as we restrict personally identifiable information, and do so in the least restrictive ways possible (i.e., no full names, specific locations, telephone numbers, email or instant messenger addresses, etc.), we have then taken the vigilant steps required to protect children on this site. In fact, some demographic data posted to user talk pages may actually be helpful to understanding how the enyclopedia is assembled: For example it might be useful at some point for someone to understand that the initial editor of the articles on PiHex and Bellard's Formula was an 8-year-old American (who, very incidentally, happens to be my son). Right alongside the largely universal cultural imperative mandating child protection is an equally respected tradition of encouraging and championing our youth in the direction of socially proactive behaviors. For example, in the world of amateur radio of which I am a part, awards are sometimes given to "the youngest ham radio operators licensed this year," and young hams are known to proudly tap out their ages in Morse code, etc., much to their parents's pride. Frankly, a Time Magazine article sidebar on "The Five Youngest Wikipedia Authors on the Planet (So Far as We Know)" would do more to spotlight the democratic differences between this endeavor and The Encyclopedia Britannica than any stale academic piece could ever accomplish. I believe we should as a community (and as parents) not shy away from championing our youthful editors, and neither must we fully strip away their identities in order to shield them from unsavory contact. We should not trade wide swaths of expressive freedom whenever threatened, otherwise those who threaten us will come to control us. For that reason, protective guidelines should be cast as narrowly as possible while still ensuring their efficacy. padawer 15:40, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Happily, no one with a bouffant hairstyle has yet blown up a plane (tho' I think there's a serious case for declaring them a Health & Safety hazard on the Tube :-) ). Unhappily, the problem of paedophiles using "innocent" web contacts to befriend and then meet up with youngsters is not imaginary. The headlines may be breathless: the underlying reality is not.[1][2][3][4][5]

• Wikipedia is NOT a tool for social networking or an exercise in democracy. Actually it has aspects of both, which can make working here more pleasant. But where democracy or free expression hamper the creation of the encyclopedia - Wikipedia's actual purpose - or have a very negative impact on fellow editors, there are guidelines and policies against them. These range from Meta:Polls are evil and WP:USER to WP:CIVIL.

• As WP was not built with children socialising in mind, the structure facilitates free communication and does not include features such as restricting who can read a user page, which are common in sites built for the purpose of young people socialising. (It's possible some could be added.)

• It would be great to have good demographic data for WP. There have been many discussions of this, for varying purposes. However, sufficient users value anonymity that we haven't been able to do more than guess at our demographics. It would be perverse as well as valueless to encourage young users to declare their ages for demographic monitoring when we have no way of getting adult users to do the same.

• Your son made his edits without revealing his age: apparently he did not feel this was a necessary part of participating in WP. The person who revealed his age was actually yourself. It's wonderful that you champion your son's Wikipedia contibutions at home, and he should feel free to boast of them to his friends at school, who already know who he is. He could even feature on the front page of Time magazine as one of WP's youngest editors (perhaps from a WikiMania meet-up), as long as there is nothing to connect him to his WP user id, directly or indirectly.

• Most important of all, the proposal to allow youngsters to declare their ages on their WP user pages as long as other information is omitted will not actually have the intended effect. It can be trivially undermined by youngsters linking to multiple other sites where their info is posted (and which we do not have the resources to patrol), and by the simple use of e-mail (again, possibly through other sites). See Composite case history two.

In this case I believe that the restrictions currently suggested for young users are ineffective, irksome to the youngsters and hard work to police. A clear cut "don't let on you're under X by any method" is effective, easy to understand and simpler to police.

It's very ironic for several reasons that I'm being cast here as a child-protection extremist. One reason is that I'm a "They've gotta learn by experience" sort of person. It's just there are some actions where I think the risk outweighs the benefits, and identifying yourself as very young on an essentially unmoderated website with associated private email - a site which parents might not recognise as having social networking potential - is one such risk. Let youngsters practice assessing whether contacts are inappropriate on websites that are more geared up for social networking, and have big "report abuse here" buttons on every page.

Meanwhile, go young Wikipedians. And when you turn X, you can have a big Coming Out party. All best wishes, JackyR | Talk 19:58, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

External links on under-13 userpages

The policy looks great; I'm glad someone was WP:BOLD enough to do this. Following the User:Cute 1 4 u incident, it became very clear that this had to be done.

However, should there be a statement in the policy that explicitly pertains to the use of external links to MySpace and personal sites? While the general idea appears to be present in the policy's current form, users may disagree with the removal of such links and state (rightly) that as there is no specific mention of this in the policy, it should not be done. There's no point in removing information from the child's user page if the same information (and even more) is available by following an external link on the user's page. I propose we add the following text to the policy:

Users who self-identify as 13 or younger must not link to external websites containing information such as their real name, phone number, home address, e-mail address or photographs. Any editor who sees a link that falls into this category should delete it immediately and place a cautionary warning on the user's talk page.

Feel free to disagree, tweak, and criticize! :) I won't add it unless there is significant approval. Srose (talk) 16:32, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Collection vs posting

The law says collecting the information is illegal, ie they cant fill out the email form in the sign-up. But is the children themselves posting the info illegal? I aggree it's a Bad Idea, but if that is in itself legal, the title should be something other then COPPA -M^ask 00:22, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

The title is not COPPA, that's the first redirect I made since it was mentioned that way on ANI. I actually like WP:CHILD much better and wouldn't care if the COPPA redirect was eliminated. The point is to keep children from posting personal information, which most commenters here seem to agree is a bad idea even if it is not against the law. COPPA simply provided a rationale for picking an age limit. Thatcher131 (talk) 00:49, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Re choice of age limit: info here suggests 13-17 year olds might need consideration. JackyR | Talk 20:04, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree. We shouldn't base our age limit on COPPA, but we should base our age limits on other internet chatrooms. Although Wikipedia is not a chatroom, people can still communicate. Besides, kids under 13 wouldn't edit Wikipedia as much as 13-17 yr. olds, and they're as much as vulnerable to pedophiles. --Ed^{talk c E} 00:30, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I recommend that we change the age limit for complying with this policy be 17.--Ed^{talk c E} 01:48, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I do not see the justification for changing the age to 17 or any other age. There is a reference above to "other Internet chatrooms" but this is not a chat room, and besides, I am not sure what it is about chat rooms that you are referring to. Do they ban users under 17? Do they prohibit users under 17 from exchanging personal information? Personally I think the "age limit" for disclosing personal information that the U.S. Congress has chosen is as good as any -- not because they always make good laws (far from it) but because it is the closest thing to a "standard" that I am aware of. If someone else were to demonstrate that most other English-speaking countries have chosen a different standard, that might be something to consider, but I don't think anyone has even suggested that that is the case. 6SJ7 00:26, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Another problem I see with that -- we had/have a userbox saying "I'm a teen", thereby all users with those userboxes would have to be blocked. Also, even for me, I am self-identifying as being 15. So, uh, would I be grandfathered in? Would all teens be given a one-week or whatever leeway period? Or would all of us (including me) be indefinitely blocked? You see, changing it to 17 or 18 would cause a lot more headaches. Referencing WP:CABAL and WP:ANOT, I understand that it is the community that decides consensus on these things. So maybe we should start something here like they do on AfD? Just my $.02. --AndreniW 00:39, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

WR taking notice of this page

Perhaps this isn't the place to mention this; and this shouldn't have anything to do with whether or not this policy is adapted; but our friends at Wikipedia Review (http://www.wikipediareview.com), the link is in plaintext for a reason) seem to think that this might be a useful attack vector. So be warned... --EngineerScotty 19:29, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I thought I saw a comment there a while back about how irresponsible we were to not have something like this. Just goes to show they'll attack anything, I guess. Thatcher131 (talk) 19:31, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

It's amazing to read that site. On one hand, we've far too many obnoxious admins engaging in rampant censorship; on the other hand, we've no encyclopedic authority because anyone can edit the site. On one hand, many of 'em rant that we need to end anonymous editing of the site, presumably so that users will be more responsible if their real name is attached to their posts; OTOH, many of 'em proudly claim to have armies of (undiscovered) sockpuppets with which to cause mischief. The good news, is nobody other than themselves takes their rants seriously. The bad news is, that doesn't dissuade many of them from attempting to damage Wikipedia. Oh well.... --EngineerScotty 19:55, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Some of those guys are clearly dedicated to attacking Wikipedia on any grounds and by any means they can, even if it means making contradictory criticisms of everything this site either does or fails to do. *Dan T.* 01:03, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

How would we know their age?

How would we know if a user is under 13. When signing up should users be asked to enter in there date of birth?---Scott3 _{Talk Contributions Count: 950+} 01:17, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

That's easily faked. -- Longhair 01:22, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Basically, we don't care if users are under 13; we care that someone who claims to be under 13 might either be a real child or an adult troublemaker, who in both cases should be prevented from revealing personal information. Thatcher131 (talk) 01:39, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Straw poll?

Anyone have objections to a straw poll as a method of gauging community consensus on the idea behind this policy? ~ PseudoSudo 14:56, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I totally and unmovably object. Bad idea. That's not how we do things. We discuss, we do, we try, we reach consensus through action - we don't vote. --Doc 14:58, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Why 13?

There are several issues people might be trying to consider to protect children here.

1. COPPA and similar laws restricting access to childrens' personal information for data protection reasons
2. Responsibility of editors for their own edits: a minor making defamatory comments probably can't be sued
3. Not wanting, for legal, moral and practical reasons, pedophiles to use Wikipedia to find targets.

All of these imply different minimum ages (and, worse, differing in different jurisdicitons).

1. In the case of COPPA (which we aren't legally bound by), 13 in the USA: I do not know of any international comparisons.
2. Responsibility for edits: in English law it is much more difficult to sue someone in tort (e.g. for defamation) if they are under 18.
3. Regarding the 'child protection' point the relevant age is the sexual age of consent (16 in the UK, varies widely).

I would be grateful if people could say which of these issues matters the most. I instinctively think there should be some sort of policy on young/very yong users but we need to be very clear why one would be introduced. The Land 15:45, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

For me, I think it's worthwhile to target for #1 first, especially considering that Wikipedia's legal status with regard to COPPA is not as firmly fixed as we might like. For the second matter, a minor may not be easily sued, but his/her legal guardians may be. That isn't our concern, anyway; what matters is whether the Wikimedia Foundation may be sued. As for the third, at age 13 a minor may, on occasion, be tried as an adult in the United States, which is where the Wikimedia servers are hosted. At that point there's a certain expectation that a minor attains greater responsibility. For that matter, #2 and #3 will never, ever be adopted. We have teenaged administrators. The community will not endorse a policy of that sort.

Basically, 13 is a handy breakpoint that coincides with a law that may or may not apply. Captainktainer * Talk 16:45, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

How is "real name" defined?

The article doesn't define the term "real name". Does this just mean full name, or does it also prohibit a child's first name? I would think the policy should state this, as there's clearly a big difference between a userpage stating the name "Jennifer Corrington", and one which says, "My name is Jenny". Not specifying this in the policy will lead to confusion, as some people will assume first names are allowed, some will assume they're not. --Xyzzyplugh 21:44, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Age removal

I think this is a great idea. I have a question as to what would constitute compliance? If a user identifies as being 13 or under 13 and lists some other identifying info, the info is removed, would the user be out of compliance by reinserting the other info if the age info was not reinserted? - Elliskev 19:14, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, let's say the user never identified as a child, then we don't know. Once we know the user is a child, there are two ways to go about it. If we oversight all the versions that have age info, then one could argue there is no longer a problem, since only a small subset of admins who dealt with it would know. Or one could argue that since we know this user identifies as a child, we have a moral obligation to prevent them from ever revealing personal info. It's a tricky problem. I would tend to favor choice alpha, but others may differ. Thatcher131 (talk) 21:42, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I suppose trusting in the judgement of the admin will ultimately prove to take care of it. --Elliskev 23:57, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Sigh

I guess this is off-topic, but I just wanna say: thanks for this page. Thanks for remarks like "...there are many things minors are not permitted to do, because they have diminished reasoning and planning capabilities in critical areas" etc. Working in WP:PAW, which means constantly haggling over articles like Age of consent reform, Child sexuality, Child sexual abuse, and all the rest, I sometimes get the impression that Wikepedia is composed primarily of editors who would find that statement horribly objectionable.... I agree with this policy. I think it should be 15 and under rather than 12 and under, though. Herostratus 19:37, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. It should clearly be 21. JayW 23:28, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

1) That would disqualify about half of Wikipedia's most prolific contributors, and 2) your edit to the page was not helpful. Furthermore, your most recent edit to your userpage is... really disturbing, and I would ask that you remove it. Captainktainer * Talk 23:52, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

That would disqualify about half of Wikipedia's most prolific contributors. Wikipedia is only MySpace for grown-ups, amirite? your edit to the page was not helpful. Your hysteria is not helpful. Ephebophilic predators mostly use local chatrooms to search for young teens who they can groom anonymously; it's not like children are elusive creatures only to be found on the net. Honostly, why the hell would someone comb through photographs in the hopes of catching a school name? It's a myth. Predators obtain their information by asking. Yeesh. Your policy would only be useful if it banned all mention of being under thirteen. JayW 00:37, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

No, you're not right. Disqualifying adults from editing Wikipedia is far beyond any reasonable standard for participation. For that matter, we're not discussing a policy that applies mostly to possible targets of ephebophiles. We're discussing a policy that applies to possible targets of pedophiles. So far the policy bans editors under 13 from posting personally identifying information. However, you bring up a useful point - we should caution editors against attempting to elicit such information. Captainktainer * Talk 01:20, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

No, you're not right. I disagree. ;) Disqualifying adults from editing Wikipedia is far beyond any reasonable standard for participation. This policy doesn't disqualify anyone from editing. For that matter, we're not discussing a policy that applies mostly to possible targets of ephebophiles. k - remove the word "ephebophilic." Tada! Brand new argument. We're discussing a policy that applies to possible targets of..predators, kthx. So far the policy bans editors under 13 from posting personally identifying information. A ridiculous policy which won't solve shit, cuz it's based on a myth. Remove private communication and you remove predators. Simple enough? However, you bring up a useful point - we should caution editors against attempting to elicit such information. Yup... child molesters are definitely known to be sticklers for the rules. :p JayW 01:46, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

So what do you suggest? Thatcher131 (talk) 01:59, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I doubt anyone would actually use Wikipedia to find children, so this is needless PR... But as for much more reality-conscious policy? "Don't say you're a preteen." Simple and actually effective. JayW 02:09, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree completely with JayW - the single sentence "Don't say you're a preteen" added as a guideline to WP:USER would be at least as effective, if not more so (it is clear, simple and to the point), than all the complicated policy proposals elsewhere. This realy is a solution in search of a problem. Thryduulf 00:04, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

With the news about Xanga you don't think it'd be a smart idea for Wikipedia to have a specific policy? I realize that COPPA doesn't apply, but tell that to the investigative reporter that comes knocking to expose all the "Websites without child protection policies." --Elliskev 00:14, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I've just had a long reponse swallowed by my browser crashing, but to summarise:

• I can see nothing relevant to us in the Xanga article (I know nothing else about the site, I'd not even heard of it before reading your comment).

Relevant in that it's topical. Elliskev 13:24, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

• We do not need a child protection policy for many reasons, inlcuding that everything everybody submits to the site is voluntary - including a username; and everything that we can do to protect users of any age (including children) we already do through existing policies.

Need as in "inability to survive without"? No. Need as is "silly not to"? Yes. It's the way the world works. As an analogy, every company needs a diversity policy. Sure, they could survive without it, but they'd be crazy not to have one on the books. Re: voluntary. That doesn't apply to preteens. That's why there is thing called age of consent.Elliskev 13:24, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

• Blocking a user for self identifying as under 13 costs us in time and effort to block, explain, delete, restore selected revisions, deal with autoblocks, handle alegations of sockpuppetry, etc. and we gain nothing.

Sorry, but I call Baloney! (or Bologna ... whichever). I don't foresee wholesale hordes of kids attacking Wikipedia with age self-identification. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's the future of vandalism. I doubt it. Elliskev 13:24, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

• Identifying the reincarnation of a user blocked for the crime of being too young is trivial. Just search the block log for mentions of this policy, look at the user page and contributions (articles, time, writing style, etc) and use the techniques we've proven work in detecting sockpuppets to find who the reincarnation is and bingo you have a target. They've lost all of a couple of days at most.

There is no crime of being to young. Preteens are welcome. Let them create a new account. Just as long as they don't say "I'm 11 and live in ..." Elliskev 13:24, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

• Trying to contact someone through wikipedia is pretty pointelss given the lack of information available and very low population of children under 13 (compare Category:Wikipedians born in the 1990s with Category:Wikipedians born in the 1970s), particularly compared to other less secure sites.

What is the point in adding instruction creep and paranoia for zero benefit.

The point is to have a policy in place to protect the privacy of preteens. It's a pretty small thing to ask, think. I don't see any paranoia anywhere. I see measured and appropriate concern. Elliskev 13:24, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Thryduulf 02:30, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree that there is such a thing as the age of consent, but if you read the article you will see that it is a very nebulous concept. I completely disagree that preteens do not understand voluntary - nobody anywhere here is asking them any questions, therefore they are not being prompted to provide any information. Any child who does not understand this should not be allowed to use the internet without adult supervision, but this is completely outside of anything we have any ability to detect or enforce - we cannot (not will not, but physically can not) act in loco parentis or take any other parental responsibility for anybody.

You say that we need to have policies in place to protect preteens - we already do. The Foundation's priviacy policy, WP:USER, and other policies that already exist already protect people regardless of their age. We do not need this policy because everything that can be achieved is already being done elsewhere, and there is no point anybody issuing policies for things that cannot be achieved - it wastes everybody's time and effort that would be better spent writing an encyclopaedia. Thryduulf 18:20, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

WP:USER is a guideline, not a policy. There is not policy that specifically addresses this issue. I think the proposal is a good idea. However, I'm leaning more toward a simple policy that says No user is allowed to identify as being under 13 years old. I don't see any time or effort wasted there. --Elliskev 19:21, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Template:User Child is up for deletion at WP:TfD

Template:User Child is up for deletion at WP:TfD, the lister cites WP:CHILD as deletion reason. Your input (should children be allowed to self-identify as children, if so, with an userbox?) would be welcome, since this is closely related. CharonX/talk 19:48, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I have also nominated several categories for deletion. Wikipedians_born_after_1992 categories and Category:Child Wikipedians. Elliskev 20:03, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

People are using this proposed policy as a grounds for their contribution to the deletion debates. While this might advance discussion of this proposal somewhat it is also a recipe for confusion for users unfamiliar with this proposal. The Land 21:18, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I apologize if my noms came across that way. I would hope that people would check the link... I've added comments clarifying (maybe?) that I chose the word incompatible over per to keep my reason in line with the fact that this is a proposal. Anyway, discussion is good. Elliskev 21:33, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Yes, discussion is good. The Land 09:03, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Objection

I object to this proposal on the following grounds...

1. Unless there is indication that this is actually problematic, it is m:instruction creep as we should not build rules upon hypotheses or speculation.
2. Any legal issues should be dealt with by the Board, not non-lawyers such as ourselves (the proposal claims the legal arguments aren't essential but uses them anyway).
3. It is not our duty to protect people from themselves; blocking people if they want to post their personal details sounds like a bad idea.
4. The proposed policy is too easily gameable since anybody affected can just claim to be 14 instead (hey look, yesterday was my birthday!)
5. Telling people that it might not be wise to post contact information is just being nice and doesn't need any rules; and blocking people for posting other people's personal details is already covered by harassment policy.

• >Radiant< 00:51, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
  • It's is your duty to protect children. Even if you don't have kids, hate kids, avoid kids -- you still have to protect them. That's one of things that just is. You don't cease to be a moral player in the world when you put your hands on a keyboard. Herostratus 07:42, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Distraction tactics do not protect children. It might feel good to fight your imagination, but.. I don't consider it a duty. JayW 21:19, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
      • Some of us are a little obtuse. Can you put that into terms that are .... uhhh .... meaningful? Elliskev 21:27, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
        • Captainktainer, and thousands of people across the world, are tilting at windmills... this policy is designed to protect children against a situation which does not exist - that is, one where predators sift through the internetz to find kids' personal information. Promoting this idiotic and unresearched myth is a crime against children and distraction from CSA. JayW 22:18, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
          • Bearing in mind that we have self-identified pedophiles or *gag* "childlovers"on Wikipedia, and others who probably are pedophiles but don't self-identify as such due to the pedophile userbox war, better to remove the temptation. While those external to Wikipedia may not specifically scan Wikipedia for children, those already on Wikipedia - who know Wiki markup some, who know how categories work, who know about userpages - are what I'm worried about. The less they have to work with, the better. Captainktainer * Talk 22:45, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
            • Bearing in mind that we have self-identified pedophiles or *gag* "childlovers"on Wikipedia, and others who probably are pedophiles but don't self-identify as such due to the pedophile userbox war, better to remove the temptation. Similarily, I advocate all adults on Wikipedia remove their personal information, lest you rape them. Gotta remove the temptation. While those external to Wikipedia may not specifically scan Wikipedia for children, those already on Wikipedia - who know Wiki markup some, who know how categories work, who know about userpages - are what I'm worried about. HELLO SIR I'M HOPING YOU CAN SEE THIS TEXT HERE! IF YOU NEED ME TO PUT IT IN BLINKING 80PT RED JUST ASK. YOUR ENTIRE FUCKING PREMISE IS A MYTH, AND YOU HAVE NO GROUND TO STAND ON. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME JayW 23:29, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Nice. And civil, too. --Elliskev 23:33, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Captainktainer's hate speech was not civil in the least, so I don't know what the fuck he expects. JayW 23:45, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think this is the place to debate the respect due to pedophiles and their ilk. The premise of this discussion is that they are BAD for preteen Wikipedians. If you disagree with that premise, say so. Otherwise, your shouting of BIGOT is off topic. --Elliskev 23:50, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

No, the premise of this discussion is that predators search the net for personal information so they can find children. Pedophiles are not relevant. I wasn't the one to bring the subject up. JayW 23:54, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Pedophiles are not relevant? Hmmmm. Okay. I guess there's not a whole helluva lot left to discuss on this. --Elliskev 00:08, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

..seeing as the vast majority of child molesters are nothing more than plain-vanilla heterosexuals, yeah, it's not relevant. JayW 00:21, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Hate speech? Hate speech? Pointing out that there are pedophiles on Wikipedia is hate speech? Did you miss the entire pedophilia userbox war? Also, you're really toeing a line here- people have been banned for less. Captainktainer * Talk 23:58, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Accusing a genetic class of individuals of having tendancies towards rape is, indeed, hate speech. JayW 00:21, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

That presumes that pedophilia is genetic. Unlike homosexuality, for instance, or GID, pedophilia shows little to no heritability in either individual heritability studies or meta-analyses of such. For that matter, pedophiles are indeed more likely to rape children, even if you discount the Harmann (?) model which renders all rape of children by adults an expression of pedophilia. Given that situational factors are irrelevant to a discussion of sex classes who could abuse or stalk children, the sole remaining class of interest is pedophiles. Declaring that a class with a sexual interest in children and who do not consider age of consent laws are more likely to engage in harmful behaviors is not hate speech. It's fact, and given the threat pedophiles pose to children, it would be best to act to defend children, who are, unlike adults, less capable of recognizing coercion and stalking behavior. Note that this policy does not ban self-identified pedosexuals who do not engage in sexual activity with children from participating in Wikipedia. It merely places a barrier in front of those who do and removes a source of temptation. Captainktainer * Talk 03:54, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

...pedophilia shows little to no heritability in...individual heritability studies... ..such as Gaffney et al. (1984), who concludes that "[our] data suggests that pedophilia is familial?" For that matter, pedophiles are indeed more likely to rape children Fucking prove it. Given that situational factors are irrelevant to a discussion of sex classes who could abuse or stalk children, the sole remaining class of interest is pedophiles. Situational offenders do abuse and stalk children, so your point doesn't make any sense. Declaring that a class with a sexual interest in children and who do not consider age of consent laws are more likely to engage in harmful behaviors is not hate speech. ..and it's not what you said. In fact, I don't see any mention whatsoever of the age-of-consent. You're smearing a sexual orientation, not an opinion, with the nonevidenced and hurtful implication that all paedosexuals have some sort of primative, uncontrollably urge to rape everything in sight. Meanwhile, you're pretending the many heterosexuals who rape children just don't exist. Why are you specifically targeting paedosexuals? JayW 17:31, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

• • • While that may be true, this policy does not actualy protect anybody from anyone else any more than our existing policies do, so your comment is irrelevant. Thryduulf 08:44, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, JayW (and Thryduulf), I understand what you're saying and it makes no sense to me. How in the world would the lowering of the profile of a group that has the potential of being targeted in any way be detrimental or even not helpful? It simply doesn't make sense to me. --Elliskev 23:24, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, JayW (and Thryduulf), I understand what you're saying... ..no, you don't. How in the world would the lowering of the profile of a group that has the potential of being targeted in any way be detrimental or even not helpful? It simply doesn't make sense to me. ..Allow me to repeat myself. It makes (a little) sense to ban someone from claiming to be a preteen, and this would completely solve the issue of predators. However, instead of investigating reality, Captainktainer and friends have based their entire policy around a lie. Promoting that lie is harmful, as it distracts from the actual issue; banning child vanity isn't. The people he is fighting do not exist, simply, and I'm offended so many people would blindly agree with this useless shit. JayW 23:43, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

First, explain the lie - please. Please do so in a new section. I want to know where you're coming from. Second, I've come around to the belief that this policy should concentrate on age. I wouldn't ban preteens, though. I'd ban discloure of preteenhood. Third, you'll catch more flies with honey... --Elliskev 23:55, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

• • • • Copyright violation is a legal problem, but we don't wait for people to sue the Wikimedia Foundation to form a clear policy to avoid it, note it when it appears, and get rid of it if necessary. Having a policy that keeps us within legal boundaries is not incompatible with Wikipedia's purposes. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 13:49, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
        • Our policy on copyright, however, is largely dictated by the Board and its Lawyers, who have the distinct advantage of having legal expertise. Since the community as a whole does not, we should not base policies on our vague guesses on how the law might be interpreted. >Radiant< 15:34, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

This is not a legal issue and shouldn't be. If the foundation wants to dictate things for legal reasons, they can, but that's not our goal. This proposal exists because some people think it is generally a bad idea for kids to be sharing personal information on Wikipedia. That's really the only point that should be in question. Dragons flight 21:37, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

• Can I just point out that only COMMERCIAL sites are covered, because, according to the project page, "In the United States, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) applies to commercial sites collecting personal information from children under 13 years of age." So unless someone can prove to me that in the United States there is a piece of legislation prohibiting non-commercial sites from hosting personal content related to under 13s, this is going nowhere, because Wikipedia is non-commercial. --Christhebull 17:56, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Unidentifying yourself

Hello!

If you take all information that you are under 13 off talk pages and any other user page or article page in Wikipedia, can you then become a person with an unidentified page again (giving the freedom to add email addresses, etc. to pages)?

Auroranorth 08:27, 8 September 2006 (UTC) Please reply on my respective talk page.

• Given that this is just a proposal and not actually policy or anything, you shouldn't be overly worried about it for the moment. But yes, if for whatever reason you want personal information on yourself removed, we are generally glad to help (for instance, administrators can remove items from page history). >Radiant< 15:34, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Suggested addition to proposal

Based on some of the discussions above, I suggest that the proposed policy be ammended to prohibit self-identifying as under 13. I'd also add language to discourage (not prohibit) any identification of age by anyone. Elliskev 14:15, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Why discourage users from declaring their age? I've got a couple pictures of myself on my userpage, I don't see what difference disclosing my age would make. Perhaps you mean to exclude the possibility of looking for people who don't delcare their age as a sign of pre-teens. If this is the case, I think it's a little unreasonable to go to these lengths. In any event, I recommend against discouraging adult users from disclosing their age for two reasons: it is outside the scope of WP:CHILD and it will lead to a bloated and thus less-effective policy, and it is bad for the project in general to add guidelines which have no benefit to it. BigNate37_(T) 15:19, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Simply put, we do not prohibit people from talking about themselves. >Radiant< 15:34, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm all for leniency in userspace. However, WP:NOT is policy. This policy says:

Personal web pages. Wikipedians have their own user pages, but they may be used only to present information relevant to working on the encyclopedia. If you are looking to make a personal webpage or blog, please make use of one of the many free providers on the Internet. The focus of user pages should not be social networking, but rather providing a foundation for effective collaboration.

I can't think of any reason why a Wikipedian's age could be relevant to working on the encyclopedia. I can think of a good reason why a declaration of age should be discouraged. Elliskev 16:04, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

There is nothing in the proposed WP:CHILD that actually adds anything to that. To paraphrase, "Wikipedia is not a social networking site", so why are we attempting to write a policy that attempts to deal with problems that might potentially exist if Wikipedia was one? All that is needed, as myself and others have said, is to add one sentence to WP:USER saying that users are discouraged from disclosing their age. Thryduulf 18:30, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I think if you prevented users from disclosing an age under 13 (and allowed admins to remove such declarations), that would do away with the need for this entire policy proposal. The problem is that no matter how much we say wikipedia is not a social networking site, some people treat it as such. Users like Cute 1 4 u have demonstrated the need for some way to prevent children from being contacted by predators through this site. If, rather than allowing age disclosure and then trying to keep all sorts of content off user pages, we simply prevent users from self-identifying as children, (per JayW) (and I mean prevent, not discourage; but what non-children say about themselves is their own business) that simplifies matters considerably. Thatcher131 (talk) 19:08, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with that. Elliskev 19:16, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Okay Elliskev, if we can't have anything that isn't currently useful to the project on userpages, then obviously since my personal likenesses are not relevant to the project you should remove them from my userpage and nominate the images for deletion as orphans. But first, make sure to pull the picture of Jimbo down from User:Jimbo Wales, because his likeness on his userpage does not advance this project. This absurdity is to illustrate a point: don't wikilawyer your way around the fact that discouraging adults from disclosing their age would be a useless bloating of policy. If you disagree, please address the point directly and explain why adults should not declare their age. Your comment advocates a roundabout way to justify an unnecessary addition to this proposed policy. Pre-emptively prohibiting the disclosure of certain attributes about users because you don't see a reason why they would be helpful is harmful logic. Moreover, you are demonstrating why this proposed policy is laregly redundant, which weakens any position for its inclusion into Wikipedia proper.

Consider Paraguay: there was a point where Paraguayans had been largely bilingual, speaking Guaraní and Spanish. This has shifted recently (in the last two-ish generations) almost entirely to a one-language people (I don't remember if it was away from or towards Guaraní). If I wanted an expert on a Paraguayan topic to translate an article from Guaraní, I'd need to find one at least 40 (60?) years old. So I check the Paraguayan Wikipedia for editors born before 1950, or 1970, or whatever, and arrange to show them the material. Now, I have probably goofed some of the details (my memory is foggy on this), but how can one person presume to know conclusively what information will never be useful? It's an arrogant assumption. BigNate37_(T) 20:13, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh, Dear!

I think you're going off a bit.

What in the world do 50-year-old Paraguayans, your photo, and hyperbolic huffi-puffiness have to do with a suggestion to keep Wikipedia user pages free of age advertising by preteens?

My comment about discouraging any mention of age was made off-hand. I don't expect it to be adopted as policy. I still think it's a good idea. For the record, I hereby formally discourage any Wikipedian to mention his or her age. That and a dollar will get me a bus ride to the mall. Elliskev 20:26, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I quite liked my 50-year-old Paraguayan point... perhaps you're right. I've made my point and I'll let others make theirs. BigNate37_(T) 20:40, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Heh. I hope you took it as light-hearted (as intended). Elliskev 21:15, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I would think that the Babel boxes (the original form of userbox, before the huge, controversial explosion of them later) for Spanish and Guaraní (a language name that always seems to make me think of American Idol runner-up and From Justin to Kelly co-star Justin Guarini) would give a better indication of who would be capable of such a translation than anybody's age. *Dan T.* 00:30, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

A new section.

I apologize for the monotony, but since I was asked...

Contrary to popular belief, predators do not operate by scanning the internet for partial school names or birthdates. This is, as I have said, a ridiculous myth and a harmful distraction from the actual tactics used by predators... ..let's see. In general, they will groom the child through a more private venue until the s/he agrees to meet and provides personal information. The use the internet only because it allows them to stay anonymous during the grooming process (sometimes their targets aren't as stupid as they presumed). Although FOX would like us to believe different, predators tend to live in normal neighborhoods where there would be no need to trace internet children. They just perceive the internet as a safe grooming environment.

Online contact information is easily found even if we ban its mention. Clearly, we should just ban saying you're a preteen. It is the only answer to predators.

Understand? JayW 00:13, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

How and where are first contact made? How is the victim selected? Would a pedophilic predator likely choose a random target where age is unknown? --Elliskev 00:23, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

How and where are first contact made? Outside of Wikipedia, probably? My guess is as good as yours. How is the victim selected? From what I've seen, it seems to be an opportunity-based thing. Would a pedophilic predator likely choose a random target where age is unknown? No. Pedophiles tend to be attracted to very specific age range. A situational offender, on the other hand, probably wouldn't care that much. JayW 00:33, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I think there is a strong argument to be made for dumping 90% of the draft policy and simply stating that users may not identify themselves as children. I do think it needs to be in policy form, so that the information may be removed (and the revisions deleted) by admins, and persistent offenders may be blocked until they get the point. (Right now, if WP:USER is really a guideline and not a policy, does that fit the bill?) Thatcher131 (talk) 00:51, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

A good way of describing guidelines is that they are there to assist in interpreting policy. Guidelines form from common interpretations, thus you might say that WP:USER is a specific set of (albiet common) interpretations of the part of WP:NOT relating to userspace. BigNate37_(T) 02:12, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Nevertheless, it's used as a loophole (or could be). I agree with your assessment, though. --Elliskev 02:24, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree. It needs to be enforceable with consequences. I think a scaling back to prohibit self-identification as under the age of XX is reasonable and, from the objections I've seen, likely to reach consensus. I feel strongly that a policy is needed, for many reasons. Can we solicit objections and support? --Elliskev 00:58, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Please see WP:CHILD2

Please see WP:CHILD2. It proposes disallowing any user from claiming an age under 13, but places no other restrictions on their user page content. I think this is actually less restrictive than allowing children to post their ages and then having to watch for a whole list of banned content. Thatcher131 (talk) 01:31, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

What it boils down to is, do we allow kids to say they're kids, and then police their contributions indefinitely, or do we require them to keep silent about their age, and allow them to say anything else they wish? There still could be issues with kids posting their real contact info and getting in over their heads in a dispute or contact with the wrong person, but the original policy always had the exception for kids who didn't say they were kids. Thatcher131 (talk) 01:42, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Would it be bad faith if I nominated this proposal for MfD?

Seriously, how much time are we going to waste and how many editors will argue violently with one another before the dust settles here? This is hurting the project. We're getting further from any consensus, and I'm beginning to get embarrassed just through having partaken in this discussion. We're better off without this page. BigNate37_(T) 05:45, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

It would not be bad faith, but it would be very wrong. There is an active attempt - spanning two pages - to try to determine what restrictions, if any, we will place on young editors. WP:CHILD2 is an interesting new proposal; to forestall development of this page and/or that one would be premature. Captainktainer * Talk 05:55, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

The normal course of action is that failed policy proposals are not deleted, they are just marked as {{rejected}} and inactive. This is a good thing because it saves us having the same arguments time and time again - if someone proposes the same or similar thing in future we can point them at the page so they can see why we don't already have that policy. If their proposal isn't the same they can reference that to explain why it is different, but if it is the same we needn't generate any acrimosity. See Wikipedia:Content labeling proposal for example. Thryduulf 08:18, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I think it is obvious from this talk page that there is no consensual support for this page. Hence, {{rejected}} would be appropriate. Per WP:POL, if something is counterconsensual it is rejected even if people are still discussing it (which I suppose should be called the Dead Horse Clause). >Radiant< 10:15, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

It's only been up for three days... that's a really short time to dismiss a policy. Captainktainer * Talk 10:52, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

It's been here for two weeks, which seems plenty. Proposals for disclaimer templates get shot down faster than that. >Radiant< 11:01, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Before you trash it you might want to take a poll or something. There seemed to be a lot of supporters at first, who were mostly working out the details but not objecting totally. Only in the last 2 or 3 days have some strong objectors shown up. Thatcher131 (talk) 12:36, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I correct myself: I had not checked the proposal creation time. It has only been actively commented on over the last three days. Captainktainer * Talk 13:06, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Maybe I should un-archive the talk page. There has been active discussion since August 26, and over 150 posts to this talk page. Up until 3 days ago there was near-universal agreement that this was a good idea and the talkers were working out the details. I archived it because I thought it was settled discussion. Now there are two or three vocal objectors and suddenly its a dead proposal? Whatever. The ways of wiki are mysterious to me. Thatcher131 (talk) 13:28, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I think there should be a vote or a poll on this, with some notice somewhere that people can see. How many people even know that this proposal exists? Quite frankly, if I were the board of trustees I would impose a policy such as this in the best interests of the project, on the theory that self-protection of the project and the protection of youthful users does not require community consensus. But for the moment at least, community consensus seems to be required, and there has been no consensus that this policy should not exist. The discussion should go on, and the subject should be opened to wider participation. 6SJ7 03:06, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

• Well, that's precisely my point. It is the duty of the Board to impose (or not impose) such a policy on us. We are not sufficiently competent in legal matters to judge the need and ramifications. Legal matters are the domain of the Board. >Radiant< 10:21, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
• Oh, and by the way, we don't vote on proposals. >Radiant< 10:21, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Except, of course, when we do. I have been trying to figure this out for months. I think the truth is that we sometimes do vote, but we say we don't, then we try to ignore the results when we don't like them, by saying we don't vote. And what is the point of citing to an essay, when it is not a policy? 6SJ7 03:31, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Essays are useless if they're never used... and when an essay is used, it is to express opinions and ideas, as outlined on {{essay}} which is at the top of WP:VIE. BigNate37_(T) 04:19, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I didn't ask about MfD'ing this page because I actually intended to get rid of it (though at the time I thought that's what happened to failed proposal pages). I wanted to make people stop and think about where this proposal is headed and hopefully realise that the situation was degenerating on this talk page. Since this talk page is calming down and per Radiant's dead horse comment above I don't see any consensus forming, does anyone object to putting the {{rejected}} template on this proposal? If they do, maybe we should have a poll to see if consensus is for it (before you quote WP:VIE, check out the other essay, WP:VINE). BigNate37_(T) 23:17, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Small nitpick

I agree with almost this entire policy proposal, but I'm confused about one particular thing: the inclusion of "E-mail address and IM screen name" under "personal identifying information". How is someone's e-mail address, or IM screen name, personally identifiable? As far as I know, it's impossible to trace someone's identity that way. CameoAppearance 02:22, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

The COPPA statute defines "personal information" as follows:

(8) PERSONAL INFORMATION.—The term "personal information" means individually identifiable information about an individual collected online, including—

(A) a first and last name;

(B) a home or other physical address including street name and name of a city or town;

(C) an e-mail address;

(D) a telephone number;

(E) a Social Security number;

(F) any other identifier that the Commission determines permits the physical or online contacting of a specific individual; or

(G) information concerning the child or the parents of that child that the website collects online from the child and combines with an identifier described in this paragraph.

As you can see, Congress includes as "personal information" information that would allow either the physical or online contacting of a child. Regardless of whether the statute applies to Wikipedia (and the assumption here seems to be that it does not), I believe Wikipedia should define "personal information" the same way. Wikipedia allows users to contact each other as a means to encourage collaboration on the encyclopedia, but when user is a child below the age of 13 (and I would probably have made the age a couple of years higher if I were Congress), the "balance of interests" changes. Wikipedia should not provide a means for potential predators to contact young children, even if it interferes slightly with the usual operation of the "community" that edits the encyclopedia. 6SJ7 03:01, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

If all methods of online contact are prohibited, then we must disable the user talk page, as this is a method of contacting the person. AFAIK it is not technically possible to do this. Thryduulf 09:44, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Of course it is technically possible to disable the user's talk page, using the "Protect" tab. BTW, I am not proposing this; I am merely stating it definitely can be done. Firsfron of Ronchester 19:41, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

It may be fine to use COPPA as a guideline, but I think care is needed to not blindly start to follow it. How does an e-mail address make the person identifiable? Because COPPA says so is not good enough for Wikipedia. Perhaps if the user has their name and birthdate in their e-mail address, but then that falls under other parts of the proposal. BigNate37_(T) 16:23, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

As has been said before, though, COPPA is not applicable to Wikipedia, as Wikipedia is a not-for-profit site, so we don't have to go by what COPPA says. Plus, you can't identify anyone by their email address, unless it has their first and last name in it. --CFIF ☎ ⋐ 20:41, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

If you want a strict interpretation of that list, then there is no way that anybody under 13 (in the US) can legally use the Internet. Even if you don't have an email address or username anywhere, you have to have an IP address (which can give the physical location and is easy to find out). Even if they are not in the United States then they cannot do anything that generates traffic between their computer and the United States. If the law is interpreted the way age of consent laws often are, not knowing that somebody is below the age limit is not an acceptable defense. Thryduulf 09:54, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Except for the IP address, the other data listed may not be disclosed by children without their parent's consent, per the law. Since we have no practical way to verify a parent's consent, I wrote the proposal as a blanket prevention of disclosure. However, I have since had a change of heart, and think it would be easier and better to prohibit users from identifying themselves as children which will obviate the need to police content. Thatcher131 (talk) 15:53, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Is everyone but me nuts?

I'm going to put this above the current discussion, because I don't expect anyone to agree with me and anyway it's off topic, but I just want to say: is everyone else nuts, or is it me?

Man, forget about editing, we shouldn't be encouraging children to read Wikipedia. I mean, Wikipedia is expressly not censored for minors, yet at the same time we're having this discussion about kids editing Wikipedia, whether or not they should be using the site is not at issue, it's taken as a given.

My personal opinion is that at the very least the main page should have a reasonably prominant notice that Wikipedia is not intended for minors. Either that, or censor it. Which I am decidely not in favor of (although there are occasional images etc. which are just too far over the top IMO).

I think any school or parent that lets their 12-and-under kid use Wikipedia is out of their mind. What's more, I think our failure to at least make a clear advisement that Wikipedia is not for children is going to come back and bite us big time, someday.

My reasoning is along these lines: If you're talking about 12-and-under, you're talking about people who are just beginning to deal with what it means to be a sexual being. Maybe they're just kind of beginning to notice a special person of the opposite (or same) sex, wondering if they should ask her (or him) to a movie, maybe getting up the nerve to kiss her (or him). That sort of thing. Exposing the kid of graphic images of a woman in a Gokkun flick spewing a load of cum into a vat already filled with same, or the close up an an anus with cum burping out (both images now deleted, but only after a long slog, and I'm sure there are others) is not a good thing for the kid's psychosexual development. We are not talking about Playboy here. Trust me, this is not healthy. Yeah I know this stuff is on the web anyway, but did you ever notice that those sites expressly state NOT FOR UNDER 18! or whatever - presumably for their own protection, and anyway Wikipedia is surely far the highest-rated site that includes graphic shots of kinky sex.

Meh, I know few if any editors care about that, so I'm done, return to your discussion. Herostratus 16:20, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you 100%. I do not allow my kids to read Wikipedia. If they want an article, I'll print it out - after checking it.

This is my biggest gripe about Wikipedia. I don't really care if academs deride it as unscholarly or whatever, but it really bugs me that it's not suitable for children. Kids love to peruse encyclopedias. This one is not good for them. And the fact that there is opposition to a policy proposal to try to make it a little safer for kids (without addressing its suitability) makes me even more steadfast in my refusal to allow my kids to use Wkipedia. Kinda sad... Elliskev 17:53, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

It is up to you whether Wikipedia is not for your children. For other parents, their children may be allowed to read Wikipedia or be editing Wikipedia without their parents' permission. These are the children this is aiming to protect. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 21:51, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Being BOLD, let's consider the alternative

I created an alternative proposal which doesn't seem to have attracted much discussion, so I replace the original policy (temporarily if necessary) with the new one.

I have come to decide that allowing users to identify as children still allows them to be contacted by predators (which was the whole point in the first place), while also requiring admins to police all sorts of possibly identifying content. Too much beauracracy and instruction creep. And I realize now, thanks to JayW, that if an editors claims to be a child, and is contacted by a predator on the basis of that claim, all the harmful contact will occur off-wiki where we can't do anything about it until it shows up on CNN or FoxNews as the latest disappeared little girl. If on the other hand, we simply prevent users from claiming to be children, we solve the problem without having to police content at all. With no way of knowing editors' ages, predators will have no way to identify someone to initiate a harmful off-wiki contact. Also, this will prevent predators from claiming to be children as bait.

This brings me back to my original purpose in creating this proposal. I don't really care if the Foundation is violating COPPA by allowing children to post identifying info; that's the Foundation's problem. I simply don't want to see Wikipedia used by predators to find and initiate inappropriate contacts with children. I don't want to see some mother on CNN crying about she thought Wikipedia was just this encyclopedia and then her daughter started talking to the wrong people.

So basically I simply want to prevent users from claiming to be children: No birth year, no age, no self-portraits, and no back-door hints (like attending an elementary school). That's it. Anything else they want to put on their user page is none of business (subject to WP:USER of course). Thatcher131 (talk) 16:12, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

In theory, I still think the other proposal is better. However, it would be somewhat cumbersome to enforce, and even in the "proposal stage" it got somewhat bogged down concerning the details. Some policy to make it somewhat more difficult to use Wikipedia to contact children is better than no policy, so I would support this. 6SJ7 20:33, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

As before, I object to this. Knowing that an editor is a child is helpful to working with them, and hence that information serves a valuable purpose on wiki. In contrast, knowing a child's real name, address, phone number, etc., serves very little useful purpose on Wikipedia and hence can be reasonably removed in the interest of safety. Don't throw the baby child out with the bathwater. Dragons flight 20:42, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I can't see any way that a child's (or an adult's, for that matter) personal information is necessary or helpful either for them to edit or for other people to work with them; simply knowing that a user is a child, on the other hand, can be useful if you believe young contributors should be treated differently from everyone else. And besides, while we may have a handful of pedophiliac editors, I don't think predators would come here, of all places, to search for victims; if they just wanted a child, any child, snatching them off the street seems like it would take a lot less effort than combing through Wikipedia. CameoAppearance 01:09, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I am happier with this idea than I was with the original version. It's clearer about what we are trying to achieve and less irritating to enforce. The Land 20:47, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Please be careful not to presume to prohibit all mention of name/age/picture, only those of children. I'm not sure what your intent is with the wording, but I've seen other editors assert that age is a useless bit of information which should be prohibited regardless of adult/child status. I for one prefer to have the right to disclose information about myself at my discretion, being an adult. BigNate37_(T) 01:38, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I remain of the opinion that this is a patently bad idea and amounts to biting newbies. Also, this proposal is not solving any real problem, only a hypothetical one. >Radiant< 23:52, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Dragons Flight; it is extremely helpful to know when a wiki editor is a pre-teen or early teen. Powers ^T 13:58, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

A solution seeking a problem?

How many users currently actually self-identify as being under 13? I would imagine that the number is very, very small. Most kids on the Internet want to appear older than they are, and anyway most under 13 year olds are probably not terribly interested in an encyclopaedia (yes, there will be a few, but not the average 12 year old). The fact is that 1. Wikipedia seems an unlikely venue for paedophilic grooming to being 2. There are not many under 13 year old editors on Wikipedia anyway and 3. If we institute this policy, surely all the under 13 year olds will just pretend to be older? This is a solution seeking a problem, so in my opinion should not become policy. Batmanand | Talk 21:43, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

If they pretend to be older, that's fine. Then pedophiles won't find them. Powers ^T 21:21, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly how much it would change the way I behave when in contact with some hypothetical child (I prefer to form an opinion of an editor based on what they've contributed, how they act, and how long they've been on Wikipedia; their age isn't really a factor), but knowing that they are a child could be useful for others to know (so that they'd watch their language, for example, or be more willing to tolerate screwups or whatnot). However, knowing someone's real name, home address, the school they go to or their telephone number won't help anyone except stalkers. And, in my opinion, a child (or anyone) who divulges that kind of sensitive information without any prompting is far, far too naïve and trusting to be allowed on the internet unsupervised. CameoAppearance 22:20, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Completely agree with CameoAppearance on naïveté, especially for adults, but we have no ethical responsibility toward foolish adults, of course. ☺ ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:30, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Rejected

Per the above discussion, it is obvious that there is a lack of consensual support for this proposal (see also perennial proposals section on legal issues), and as such it is rejected (see WP:POL if you must). Proponents of this proposal are advised to contact the Wikipedia Board, who is our authority on legal matters. >Radiant< 11:13, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I took the liberty of quoting some text from WP:POL:

A rejected page is any proposal for which consensus support is not present, regardless of whether there's active discussion or not. Making small changes will not change this fact, nor will repetitive arguments. Generally it is wiser to rewrite a rejected proposal from scratch and start in a different direction.

I'm reverting CameoAppearance (talk · contribs) back to the version where Radiant! (talk · contribs) placed the {{rejected}} template on the page. Lack of consensus is indeed not indicative of a lack of support as per CA's edit summary. This policy is rejection-worthy because it has degraded to repetitive arguements (irregardless that it is still actively being discussed) and shows no signs of gaining any consensus per prior comments by Radiant! et al. I encourage other editors to revert undiscussed removal of the {{rejected}} template, bearing in mind edit summaries are not a discussion forum. BigNate37_(T) 22:48, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

This is just nuts. "Wikipedia rejects policy to protect children's privacy." Erk. Not good. I mean, why would anyone want to tag this as rejected if there was any possible way to avoid it... at least let it stay forever a proposed policy... or can't there be a straw poll or something? I hate to be Cassandara here, but there's a waterfall around the bend. Why row towards it? Herostratus 02:26, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

• Sorry, we don't keep pages permanently in the "proposed" stage for reasons of political correctness, and neither do we vote on proposals (but see the suggestions for a rewrite below). This proposal isn't named very well - it sounds a lot less bad if you make your newsflash "Wikipedia rejects policy to ban people who claim to be children", which is what the proposal actually argues for. >Radiant< 16:11, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
• We are not writing policy to save the face of Wikipedia in the media. Period. How about the headline "Volunteers at Wikipedia outlaw children"? Pandering to imagined headlines is silliness when writing an encyclopedia. Please address the comments that have used policy to assert why this is in fact rejected, and do go ahead and argue for reopening it as a proposal, but only for the right reasons. BigNate37_(T) 17:23, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

• Bah, this is not for political "correctness" but for political common sense. "We are not writing policy to save the face of Wikipedia in the media. Period." Why the hell not. Would you rather see Wikipedia smeared in the media. How does that contribute to the encyclopedia, pray tell. "How about the headline "Volunteers at Wikipedia outlaw children." I'm good with that. Who in their right mind thinks that children should be using Wikipedia? Wikipedia is expressly NOT censored for minors, remember? Isn't the obvious corallary of that that children shouldn't be using the Wikipedia? Isn't it? Herostratus 17:57, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • No, as proven by the fact that some of our better editors and admins, and even a bureaucrat, are children. >Radiant< 18:04, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
    • That "proves" nothing. Either the Wikipedia is censored for children or it isn't. It isn't. It's nuts to assume that that has no meaning or repurcussions, that the decision to be uncensored constrains us in no way. Furthermore, as shown by.... wait a sec... we have 12-year-old bureacrats and admins? Sheesh. That does explain a lot, though. Herostratus 19:09, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
      • You're getting out of hand. I'm not interested in arguing the same points over and over; you do not count as consensus regardless of whether your point is logical or not. Let it go, you need to take a breath and look at the bigger picture—this is a policy proposal which, according to established policy-making policy per WP:POL, has been rejected. I don't care whether you think it should be a policy, I care about whether you can show by WP:POL that it isn't ready for rejection. BigNate37_(T) 20:10, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
        • By what exact process has it been rejected? How many people on Wikipedia even know this is here? 6SJ7 01:40, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
          • In response to 6SJ7's question about how many people know about this proposal, this talk page has 236 edits spanning the last 22 days. There are 43 unique usernames (and three IPs) listed as having contributed to discussion here. Now, I'm not sure whether that's more or less discussion than other rejected policies, and frankly it's too much work for me to take a sample of them to check. I used some copy-paste stuff and simple Excel formulae to get this; I can e-mail the 500KB XLS if anyone wants to confirm, but it was quick and dirty and not very elegant. I'm sure it can be done in a JS script, but that's beyond my skill and this scope. As far as your question about why it has (or had) been tagged with {{rejected}}, let me break out into a couple sub-sections so this section doesn't get unwieldy. BigNate37_(T) 05:13, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Why this has been tagged as a "rejected" proposal

Well, to rehash what was said at the top of this section, let me start by quoting the WP:POL definition of a rejected policy proposal:

• A rejected page is any proposal for which consensus support is not present, regardless of whether there's active discussion or not. Making small changes will not change this fact, nor will repetitive arguments. Generally it is wiser to rewrite a rejected proposal from scratch and start in a different direction.

Now, some of these points may be a bit less valid since others have renewed attempts to move this discussion forward. At any rate, this proposal lacks consensus and has not had any significant changes as a result of any of the recent discussion. Essentially, the proposal has yet to reach consensus agreement and as it has stagnated, will not be able to reach a consensus. Discussion continues with no fruitful progress in the proposed policy itself, which is a sign of unreconcilable disagreement. This is why the WP:POL snippet above says it is wiser to rewrite from scratch in a different direction, which has actually been suggested here. It was met with a good response from both supporters and critics of this proposal.

I know there are connotations of the word rejected, but that really ought to be disregarded because we have a clearly and explicitly specified definition to use—if we acknowledge the word's connotation at all, it should be in clarifying the capacity in which we are using the word, on the {{rejected}} template. BigNate37_(T) 05:13, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Not sure if my comment should go here or somewhere else...

I disagree with the inclusion of the rejected tag at this point. It seems that all policy proposals begin life as rejected. Tagging them as such is redundant and biases the proposal to late-coming interlocutors. --Elliskev 00:32, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Why this is not really a "historical" proposal

For completeness, let me explain why this does not constitute a historical proposal, which is also described in WP:POL:

• A historical page is any proposal for which consensus is unclear, where discussion has died out for whatever reason. Historical pages also include any process no longer in use, or any non-recent log of any process. Historical pages can be revived by advertising them.

In this case, it is clear that there is disagreement, the discussion has not died, and simply going around saying "I'm going to start enforcing this historical proposal" would be entirely inappropriate, i.e. this should not become revivable. So this proposal does not match the description of a historical one. BigNate37_(T) 05:13, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Rewrite as a guideline?

Right now I don't see any protection policy as likely to gain consensus. As a result, I would like to encourage people to rewrite this a guideline discouraging children from revealing personal information. I think everyone agrees that children posting personal details online is usually not a good idea, and that we can plainly say so, even in the absence of a policy for deleting all such details. Dragons flight 17:00, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

• That sounds reasonable, as long as it focuses on advicing people not to do something, as opposed to threatening them with blocks if they do. >Radiant< 22:07, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it makes more sense to me as well. CameoAppearance ^orate 03:56, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

My reasoning

Wikipedia shouldn't request personal information from children under 13. In fact, it should NEVER request personal information from anyone. Currently, the proposed policy would be impossible to enforce since you are not mandated to provide your age. --Ineffable3000 21:31, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

The proposal states that

This policy applies specifically to those who self-identify as being under 13. No Wikipedia user is required to disclose their age.

The proposal doesn't apply to children under 13 who don't identify themselves as such. John254 21:40, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) It's a good point, and one that has already caused some supporters to favour changing the proposal to a guideline which merely encourages editors not to disclose that their age is below 13, regardless of whether the information is correct. I'm not sure why that movement lost momentum—see WP:CHILD2 (nevermind, that one's dead and now redirects here). In my observation, the policy proposal is hotly contested and lacks consensus because it is a textbook example of m:instruction creep. I might add that there may also be a WP:BEANS arguement here, but probably only because I like to refer to WP:BEANS. (Declaration of bias: I support rejection of this policy.) BigNate37_(T) 21:44, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Just to clear one thing up, Ineffable, Wikipedia already never requests personal info from anyone (even giving an e-mail address is optional). For some reason, however, Wikipedians enjoy elaborating on personal trivia on their user pages, generally with brightly colored boxes. Oh yeah, this proposed policy would apply to any older user who claims to be under age (that's another reason why it's ins.creep) - for instance, it would be a blockable offense for me to state that I'm two and a half years old. >Radiant< 21:47, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
    • I've blocked you for seventeen milliseconds for that. --Carnildo 00:14, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Proposed restoration of "proposed" template

I re-posted this issue on Template:Cent and WP:RFC, but as references to the discussion here, with no mention of voting whatsoever. While this issue is being discussed, perhaps we should restore the "proposed" template. John254 22:09, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, if discussion picks back up and it's not just a rehash of what's been said several times over by the same three or four editors, I've no issue with someone removing the {{rejected}} tag. BigNate37_(T) 22:30, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

An excellent reason to enact this proposal as policy

The theory underlying this proposal is already widely accepted by the Wikipedia community. In one case I am familiar with, a self-described minor created a subpage containing personally identifying information, which was nominated for deletion through the MFD process. I tagged the subpage for speedy deletion, along with the MFD discussion itself -- both pages were speedily deleted, by different administrators. I can provide links to the deleted pages to an administrator with oversight privileges. Quite simply, it appears to be widely accepted that personally identifying information from children under thirteen serves no legitimate purpose, and is potentially dangerous to the children providing it. John254 22:52, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Have you read m:instruction creep? I'd be interested to hear your slant on the arguement that that's what this is. BigNate37_(T) 23:01, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Administrators may be unwilling to act on the basis of reasoning contained in a policy proposal that has been explicitly "rejected." If no policy specifically treats a given issue, one could have a WP:IAR justification for, say, the speedy deletion of pages containing personally identifying information about children under the age of 13, even though the pages don't meet any CSD, since the CSD simply don't contemplate this particular situation. However, if we leave this proposal as "rejected", administrators who speedily delete pages containing personally identifying information about children under the age of 13 will be open to the criticism that they are somehow acting against the wishes of the community. Given the views of the Wikipedia community on this matter, marking the proposal as "rejected" is rather misleading. If we must end the consideration of the proposal without enacting it as policy, template:Historical might be a more accurate description. John254 23:45, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, that's a dangerous and backwards arguement which effectively handcuffs us into not rejecting any well-meant but ill-fated proposal. There are better solutions, perhaps, but we can't be afraid to use {{rejected}} the way policy mandates—it amounts to violation of real policy to prevent misuse of failed policy proposal. Aside from that, your indenting suggests you are replying to my last comment but you said nothing about what I asked. Have you read m:instruction creep? I was hoping to hear your reply to what I feel is a very valid reason why this proposal in its current form can never gain consensus required to avoid rejection. I could use a similar fallacy of logic to imply that your point is weak and defenseless because you're avoiding my question and answering your own. BigNate37_(T) 00:25, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

WP:IAR is a very shaky foundation upon which to rest the safety of the children using Wikipedia. The need to protect these children far outweighs concerns about the modicum of "instruction creep" that might result from the enactment of a single policy. Furthermore, the argument of "instruction creep" could be made against any policy proposal. However, a claim of "instruction creep" is only a valid objection to a proposed policy when the policy relates to an uncommon situation or insignificant problem that doesn't merit its own policy. I think that the protection of the safety of children using Wikipedia definitely merits its own policy. John254 02:09, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Thankyou for taking a look, I feel better knowing you as a supporter of the policy have heard this particular objection to the proposal. Regarding your response to it, I tend to disagree on a few points. Specifically, this policy picks an arbitrary age cutoff rather than addressing children without specifying an age—that's a sign of instruction creep. I suppose that could be easily fixed, if others agree with me in leaving definition of a child to common sense. The other part of your assertion that I am curious about, is when you say instruction creep "is only a valid objection... when the policy relates to an uncommon situation or insignificant problem..." which implies that this is a significant problem and/or happens often. Granted, it is important to protect children but is their lack of protection resulting in problems right now? I don't know, but I would be surprised to hear if any child has been stalked by a predator more than once or twice through Wikipedia since it's started—and I mean stalked, as in found through Wikipedia and pursued off-Wiki—please correct me if that is not what this policy is trying to prevent. I suspect opinion on this is rather polarised, and I don't think we're going to agree with eachother any time soon, but I appreciate your taking the time to respond to the instruction creep arguement. BigNate37_(T) 04:23, 19 September 2006 (UTC)