Changes to the website I feel like need to made for the safety of minors

[AliynMiko]

There is no way of telling if anyone your erotic roleplaying with on this website is a minor or not, and that needs to be changed for the safety of other minors.

I have a solution I propose, we create a place whether it be a discord server or some part of the website where (And before I continue I wanna say, that as a rule to this, no one is allowed to post it without their face, name, and location blurred) people post a picture of the part of their ID with their Date of birth on there (maybe next to the name of a given oc as well). And they are only allowed access into the chatrooms after providing said required image.

There is no “just using common sense” or “Reporting anyone who is sus” that can solve this issue. Back when me and some of my friends were minors, we used to erotic roleplay in Chatzy rooms like Pokemon After Dark and Furry Sex all the time, and no moderators nor admins ever found out.

I want a place to erotically roleplay at, but I wanna do that without unknowingly potentially inflicting the same trauma onto other reckless minors like what happened to me and my friends when we were minors.

Please greatly take this into consideration for the safety of both minors and adults who want to avoid minors.

-Aliyn Miko

[Yhapatch]

If someone wants to enter the site illegally, they will. This measure won’t prevent minors from using Wolfery, but will stop most new players that are unwilling to share any information about themselves.

What I believe is necessary is a confirmation of age on the first entrance. Disclaimer on a blank screen and two buttons, ‘It is legal for me to use this site’ and ‘Leave’.

[AliynMiko]

How will it not prevent minors? Minors don’t have ID’s.

And sure it will scare off some new people, but the safety of minors and the concerns of adults who don’t wanna erotically roleplay with minors is far more important than new people.

Bars and clubs ask for ID, so if you don’t wanna show your ID even when instructed to conceal everything outside of DOB, then you are obviously not an adult.

That disclaimer won’t work at all, I used to lie and select “It is legal for me to use this site” on other websites all the time as a minor, that will literally do nothing.

[Yhapatch]

First, if I were a minor and had even a compulsion to enter Wolfery regardless, it would take me less than 5 minutes to fake my ID in one of many ways I can imagine.

Second, I’m sure even a blurry image of my ID could be enough to doxx me. Your proposal involves creating a database of personal information, and not only it can lead to some legal issues, it will be hacked and used by malicious third party.

Third, I can imagine adding this extra step leading to massive drop in playerbase among legal adults, especially new players that don’t yet see this site worth that much effort and sharing their information.

Your intentions with this idea are good, but it simply won’t work as you suggest. It will only be an obstacle to real adults, while minors would find it extremely easy to bypass.

Unfortunately, the only real option is to trust the site users’ honesty and reasonability.

[AliynMiko]

Trust is not an option, I’ve engaged in erp since the age of 14 (21 now). So for four years total, multiple numbers of adults out there have erp’d with a minor. This is where trusting the users “honesty and reasonability” gets you.

[Yhapatch]

Unfortunately, this is as much as a website as small as Wolfery can do to prevent minors from using it.

Age verification system you suggest to use would be both useless and detrimental to this community.

Until either someone comes up with a solution that is technically implementable and can be applied to this site or Wolfery becomes big enough to sustain itself despite all the problems that ID verification will bring, we can’t help but trust users. And I really doubt the latter will ever happen.

[Serina]

Under no circumstance whatsoever would I ever post a picture of my ID here, not to a moderator, hell not even Acci himself. If I am correct, I believe this matter has been discussed before and nothing has come from it, the whole point of Wolfery is anonymity, it is the part that a lot of people enjoy on the site and unfortunately due to that fact there is a chance that yes, minors will be present. It is an unfortunate reality that cannot be changed unless one of the core precepts of wolfery itself is changed, and even then, all one has to do to bypass that is look up a picture of an ID.

I also agree with Yhapatch as ID verification would cause a significant drop in player base and lead to nearly no new players period. HOWEVER, I do think it is still a relatively decent problem that needs to be tackled, just without the help of sharing anyone’s ID or super personal information.

[Noah_BabyFurFluffy]

I have encountered several maybe like 3 or 9 people who are like 16 and still are not 18 or something like that and im like "bruh your like 9 years old you are wayyy too young to be on here because bad and naughty stuff happens on here and others

[Accipiter]

Hi @AliynMiko, and welcome to the forum!

Yeah, this IS a tricky one, quite commonly discussed among the staff as well.
And I think quite commonly discussed in regards of Internet services in general.

Two of our previous discussions on this topic:

[Suggestion] Age verification on sign up
>18? (Not sure how Ico made a topic with such a short title)

I agree with @Yhapatch, that a required age verification using photos of ID on registration is to go over the top, and can still be falsified by the more cunning teens. But I think such verification requirements can be used in those cases when we have good reasons to believe someone is underaged.
I know that places like TikTok users similar methods: Underage appeals on TikTok

So, the rough plan is currently:

• Explicit disclaimer on Registration, where you have to explicitly lie by clicking “Yes, I am 18+”, just like Yhapatch is suggesting.
• A way to set an account as “Requires age verification”, which may prevent the user from waking up any character while showing them instructions on how to verify their age.
• Continue to encourage the community to report underaged players.

EDIT
And to respond to @Serina’s comment; yes, the process for verifying age should be a more strict process, where it is VERY clear to the user on things like:

• who will see this personal information
• how will this personal information be stored
• for how long will this personal information be stored

That means, I would want to build such a system myself, so that we don’t end up with personal information on places like Discord.

[Yhapatch]

I’d like to note that I specifically worded it ‘It is legal for me to use this website’ (or anything similar really), and there are 2 reasons I’d like to point.

First, I’m sure there are countries where using Wolfery would be illegal for hosting drawn pornography. Thankfully it is small enough to be under the radar, but it’s better to avoid responsibility. Just in case.

Second, one of imageboards I use was once targeted by ‘Internet paladins’ who deemed its contents immoral. Nobody asked for this, but they have caused enough problems to force the site to change its hosting service. I really don’t want anything similar happening here.

[Accipiter]

Yes, I see your point.

But I think both “18+” and “legal” should be stated.

After all, hosting this in Sweden where age of consent is 15, it is perfectly legal for a 15 year old swede to ERP here. Grooming also only applies to contact with those younger than 15, by Swedish law.

But yet I still want 18+ as “default”, because a lot of other countries have higher age of consent, and would be excluded,

So, both “legal” AND “18+”

[WakuWaku]

Are there other systems in place already been built to do age verification? I’m happy with just explicit disclaimers. I agree with Serina I don’t want to post identifiable information to mods.

Just talk about movies games and books. Never fails to make me feel old. @Noah_BabyFurFluffy, please report people!

[Accipiter]

@WakuWaku

Are there other systems in place already been built to do age verification?

Not anything built yet.
But also, the Underage appeal system (for lack of a better name) is for those cases when we have good reasons to be believe someone is underage. And Waku, we have good reasons to believe you are not underage, so it will not affect you

The current system for players to appeal an underage ban is by sending the relevant proof, in accordance to given instructions, to me on support@mucklet.com, where it will only be seen and reviewed by me. The only info shared with the mods is whether the player has proven to be 18+ or not.

[Noah_BabyFurFluffy]

ah k sorry late responce! im sorry but yeah i will

[Jagrabbit]

Please be mindful about Wolfery’s core tenets in regards to privacy too. Don’t collect information to share with other users without explicit consent or there will likely be trouble if somebody in charge hears about it.

Users absolutely do not need to be running data/info collection on one another for the sake of public record of any sort.

[Asahi_Kaneko]

I second that, some of us ((ahem, me.)) are the type that reaaalllyy don’t like what we look like, and we don’t have enough trust for people to see, and such.

[AliynMiko]

Again, your supposed to either blur, crop, or cover that part out

[Shinyuu]

This is actually a solved problem – there are companies that offer services for the id verification. They are commercial, of course, so acci won’t be able to provide wolfery access completely for free to cover the cost of using them, and I’d imagine it’s a crazy overkill. It might be need for finance, as they have very strict know-your-customer laws, but of you don’t need your passport to watch porn, why do you need one on wolfery?

[AliynMiko]

Cause this isn’t like watching porn. This is a place where people can sexually interact with other people. And on top of that, you do need ID when it comes to Bars, Clubs, and even shops that sell adult toys. So I don’t mean to sound mean at all when I say this, but that argument you provided hardly holds up.

I wouldn’t have provided this idea had it not been in place in lots of establishments already.

[Shinyuu]

You know, ‘people can sexually interact with other people’ on a whole lot of places.

I spot-checked a couple and it’s trivial to get into the sex talk. I don’t see why you’d expect Wolfery to make more expectations. No one asks your ID on FA or f-list. No one ever asked my ID in a bar or a sex shop for that matter (gee I must be old. Now I’m sad).

Some countries have laws to handle this specific situation, but those laws vary widely by country and Wolfery pretty much has to respect its operation jurisdiction (and block access from some places if they aren’t happy with what Wolfery does). Pornhub blocked the whole US state recently because of a similar thingy.