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- Nov 27, 2005
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This is a thread I never thought I would have to write, but I owe you all an explanation about an unfortunate incident that happened today. Earlier this evening, it was discovered by another member (who will remain anonymous for their own privacy) that one of our administrators, Gaba (also known as Ruthless), is under the age of 13. Her true age will be protected for her privacy, but she admitted to this member that she was under 13. When she was confronted with this admission after the member revealed it to us, she confirmed it was true and that the stories she had told about herself were a lie. As such, we had no choice but to demote her as an administrator and ban her from The Star Wars RP.
You may be wondering, why did we ban her due to her age? There is a law in the United States called the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). It was signed into law in the 1990s by Bill Clinton, and the law became effective in 2000. Put simply, we can't have people under the age of 13 registering on our site, as the site collects and stores personal information from them (date of birth, email address, etc), unless they have parental consent. We do not have a mechanism for collecting or storing parental consent, nor do we intend to as it is too burdensome of a process for a site of this size.
This isn't something we can change either. This is a United States federal law, and SWRP's servers are hosted in the United States. Because of that, although it's not 100% clear if a site like SWRP has to follow it, we feel compelled to follow it in order to stay on the right side of the law. If you want this changed, you will need to contact your representatives or your senators (or your embassy if you're not in the US) in order to urge Congress to change this law. That sounds really scary, as it's the civic process, but I say that to highlight how out of our control this situation is.
I'm not happy about this either. But we can't change the law, and we can't change the fact that Gaba a) lied when she signed up and b) chose to divulge this information to a member who had the good sense to report it to us.
Obviously we're still in a bit of a state of shock, but over the next few days we will be working on finding a new administrator to take on her role, as well as a new Jedi faction leader.
Normally I wouldn't keep a thread like this open, but this was about an administrator. So, if you have any questions or concerns about this, I can address them. Thank you.
You may be wondering, why did we ban her due to her age? There is a law in the United States called the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). It was signed into law in the 1990s by Bill Clinton, and the law became effective in 2000. Put simply, we can't have people under the age of 13 registering on our site, as the site collects and stores personal information from them (date of birth, email address, etc), unless they have parental consent. We do not have a mechanism for collecting or storing parental consent, nor do we intend to as it is too burdensome of a process for a site of this size.
This isn't something we can change either. This is a United States federal law, and SWRP's servers are hosted in the United States. Because of that, although it's not 100% clear if a site like SWRP has to follow it, we feel compelled to follow it in order to stay on the right side of the law. If you want this changed, you will need to contact your representatives or your senators (or your embassy if you're not in the US) in order to urge Congress to change this law. That sounds really scary, as it's the civic process, but I say that to highlight how out of our control this situation is.
I'm not happy about this either. But we can't change the law, and we can't change the fact that Gaba a) lied when she signed up and b) chose to divulge this information to a member who had the good sense to report it to us.
Obviously we're still in a bit of a state of shock, but over the next few days we will be working on finding a new administrator to take on her role, as well as a new Jedi faction leader.
Normally I wouldn't keep a thread like this open, but this was about an administrator. So, if you have any questions or concerns about this, I can address them. Thank you.
