18+ and older Agreement Page

[China J]

You all my days of using IPB the concern about 13 years old and the coppa thing is something that has urked me. I would really like to see a "I am 18+" / "I am Younger" page.

One of my sites is about clubbing and there is no bars that I know of in the States that allow minors entry. I like to keep the same principle with my site, but how can I accomplish that with a coppa for 13 years and younger?

I would really like to see something that the user must agree that they are 18+ and if they can't agree to it they will be redirected to see ya later page.

I understand the reason for the coppa but the 18+ is a serious issue too these days with minors/underage mingling with mature adults.

I think a setting in the acp could be added for both to work together in steps or individually chosen. Such as enter your birthday will cause a system check on the fly and if you choose anything under the age of 13 will prevent you from further proceeding with a notice of why and untill they complete the coppa access will be locked to them and IP recorded. Above 13 will allow you to continue to the I agree I am 18+/I am under 18 fields. Under 18 will generate a notice of see ya later or whatever.

[kablam]

For a quick solution, couldn't you just add "You also agree that you are at least 18 years old..." to the registration terms? They can only register if they click the checkbox that says they agree with those terms anyway...

[sychn]

I think the easist way is to change the coppa line in the language file to the line below:

"I am 13+ with a psychological age 18+."

[China J]

For a quick solution, couldn't you just add "You also agree that you are at least 18 years old..." to the registration terms? They can only register if they click the checkbox that says they agree with those terms anyway...

Yeah you can do that as a cheap method... Who reads the TOS ever completely or even at all? I would hardly think webmasters would be opposed to a small security addition added for their protection as I said, I am concerned about any person under the age of 18 and not just 13 and below. Right now there is a big gap in the signup for 13 - 17 year olds who can potentially cause great harm to you or to themselves.

I think the easist way is to change the coppa line in the language file to the line below:

"I am 13+ with a psychological age 18+."

The coppa asks you for a born before and after which is hardcoded and choosing after presents a fax info page... I hardly would compare coppa to verifying you are at least 18+

And 18 under error would simply say "Error... Sorry you are not old enough. Please come back when you are old enough. Goodbye" Coppa would not apply. It would be the same as I'm not old enough to enter the bar but here I have a signed coppa by my parents.

Adult content which in the USA is law in all 50 states that you must be 18 to view and participate. I'm worried about all minors and not just limited to 13 and younger. If a person is 16 they can make it past coppa and now they are in a porn.com site thus from the moment they created their account and gained access laws are broken and ultimately it will bite the site owner in the rear end.

You say add it to the TOS? I have seen many attorneys argue that TOS is not clearly visible in terms of pointing out certain things for example all our public roads, cities and businesses have TOS's and if you injure yourself or attacked on someones property let's say a tattoo parlor that requires you to be atleast 18 to enter and you are really 16... Who is ultimately at fault? I'm sure the TOS was posted somewhere. The correct answer is the property owner. The tattoo parlor needs to document the age verification outside the TOS not simply relying upon that maybe the client read it fully.

We all know consenting adult is minimum 18 years old as well we know a ton of people that could pass for 22 when they are really 16... Everyone knows the TOS in this situation including the older person of age 23 but if you get manipulated and you have no proof lol you know how the story goes. :lol:

[kablam]

Hm, was thinking about what you said about proof / the terms not being noticed - think I may have an idea.

Create a custom profile field called "Age Verification". In the description you could say something like:

In order to sign up here, you must be 18 years old or older. To verify that you are 18, you must type "I am 18 years old" in the text box below

And so if the user does not manually type in those words, the registration fails. This can easily be accomplished in the custom profile field settings. You can also set the field to be viewed by global mods/admins only. That way, you have a permanent record from each user based on what they typed in the field -- which would obviously be them acknowledging they are over 18. If they were lying about their age, they still had to manually type the words in before they could register - so they can't say they weren't aware of your rule. :)

[China J]

Hm, was thinking about what you said about proof / the terms not being noticed - think I may have an idea.

Create a custom profile field called "Age Verification". In the description you could say something like:

And so if the user does not manually type in those words, the registration fails. This can easily be accomplished in the custom profile field settings. You can also set the field to be viewed by global mods/admins only. That way, you have a permanent record from each user based on what they typed in the field -- which would obviously be them acknowledging they are over 18. If they were lying about their age, they still had to manually type the words in before they could register - so they can't say they weren't aware of your rule. :)

Nice alternative fix, but I think a more professional way is for it to be built into the software by default to overcome any issues about custom fields authorizations and security issues. There is no real proof the minor actually completed that field or the site owner themselves altered it to get out of the line of fire. At least if the software is designed this way out the box removes the question about software alterations or how reliable a custom field is especially ones that instruct the registrer what to input :)

I mean if that was the case coppa could have been done and left as custom fields a long time ago but it wasn't I believe because of potential harmful effects using such a method.

[kablam]

Yeah, I get what you're saying - and I'm not against a future default feature included in IPB for such scenarios.

But in the meantime, I'm not so sure I'd dismiss the custom field solution either...

There is no real proof the minor actually completed that field or the site owner themselves altered it to get out of the line of fire.

Actually the proof is obvious. It's not so much about the contents of the field, but rather the proof lies in the actual existence of the account. If you think about it, the user wouldn't have an account in the first place if they didn't type in that text when registering.

So if you're defending yourself, you probably wouldn't even need to provide the field contents for that specific user - you'd really only need to show that in order for someone to successfully create an account on your website, they must enter that age verification field themselves. You could also post a news topic saying that "As of this date, signing up requires you to manually acknowledge that you are over 18" - that way you'd have a record of when you implemented the "software modification". If users comment and reply to the topic, even better as it helps to confirm the legitimacy of the post.

Also, there's no logical need for an admin to edit or forge the custom profile field, because there would be no text apart from "I am over 18" in the first place. If there were, the user wouldn't have an account. :P

[zigs]

I never see the point of this. If a user wants to join your forum, they will just lie about their age anyway...

[kablam]

I never see the point of this. If a user wants to join your forum, they will just lie about their age anyway...

100% agreed - no doubt. I think site owners also know this, which is why they would want to implement steps that cover them from any complaints arising from a member lying about their age.

[SnakEyez02]

I'm really surprised that this has never been brought up before. Maybe you should suggest this to IPB directly especially while version 3 is in development. I would think that this would be a good feature especially if the forum is all the site is.

The only script I could find mentioning advanced age restriction is here:

http://resources.invisionpower.com/index.p...mp;showfile=855

However, I have not personally used this, so you may want to try it on a test board just to see what happens.

[Morrigan]

I think it would be nice to choose an age level, not just COPPA and 18 and older. It would be nice to have an age entering, then have special instructions about joining the site from there for those age levels.

That, I think would be more helpful.

[China J]

I think it would be nice to choose an age level, not just COPPA and 18 and older. It would be nice to have an age entering, then have special instructions about joining the site from there for those age levels.

That, I think would be more helpful.

That sounds great & even better to the idea. Perhaps you as admin choose the age from a small dropdown menu and lets say it's 13 the next option would be next

• "Do you wish to enable coppa for this age?"
  

Or if you choose the age 21 + the next fields would be

• "Age Requirement not met redirection" (Url to redirect underage persons)
• "Would you like to use a generic message age requirement not met notice?"
• "Create your own message"
  

If you choose create your own then a html editor would be there to write your own wording.

Just a thought really feel free to improve the methods ;)