Forums » Help » Questions about age group settings?

I’m thinking about posting a LFRP on the all ages section, maybe with clauses for 18+ users, for a number of reasons - one of them being that it’s slightly bothersome to manage near-identical ads.
Is there an easy way to show someone else you’re over 18?
I can stop the wrong age group from initiating with me, but can/does it go the other way around so I don’t accidentally friend someone who is under 18?

This is not a thread asking for the site to put in checks for actual ID or to achieve the difficult task of proving the user behind the screen isn’t lying.

Some folks check ages on user profiles. Some folks ask people to post in the adult area (only those registered on the site as 18+ can access it). Some just trust a person if they state they are over 18.

I'm not sure if there are any other means folks use.

The RPR disallows people to change their date of birth (because your date of birth is not something that changes). This means that people can not register, realise they cannot get into the adult areas of the site, and then change their age to circumvent it. Unfortunately there no way you can be certain whether somebody is lying at the time they registered.

Also by going to your settings (under Dashboard) in the second called Privacy Settings you can restrict people under the age of 18 sending you PMs and friend requests.

There is no site feature currently that disables you from interacting with minors if they didn't change their own settings to block contacting you. But as long as you have it set so that only adults can contact you, you should be able to avoid them interacting with you.

I know having two separate ads can be bothersome, but it's the only way to really separate who sees what and responds accordingly to their age group.

I'm not sure what you mean with 'showing someone else you're over 18'? You'll have to display your age on your profile (under Dashboard > Your Profile). For 2.0, Kim's planned to allow anonymous characters display a badge somewhere that they're 18+.

That’s too bad, I was wondering about those other methods. I’m already aware of the above, but some people don’t/won’t show it via their profile since it makes it public and the chances we’d be on at the same time to make it quick are kinda dicey. If I put a LFRP in all-ages I’d like to make a small comment in the AO section but all the threads are someone else’s LFs.
Not to be rude but I said in the OP that this isn’t what I’m addressing. That setting was something I already mentioned and I wanted the reverse because sometimes I just don’t want to start a conversation with a user only to find they’re in an age group I don’t want to be friends with.
I think that it should’ve been available to go both ways, if minors can exclude interactions with adults then we should be able to vice versa (because of 2.0, I’m more or less looking for workarounds until that time). I wonder if the badge can be applied to user profiles? There’s quite a few people I’ve seen who write something on their profiles like ‘won’t RP with minors, it makes me uncomfortable’ outright so I think there’s a demand for something to help adult users only find other adults.
By ‘showing someone else’ I was looking for a way to tell a person my age in case it’s requested due. I don’t know how likely this is but I imagine putting up two separate LFRPs and having people PM me directly where I wouldn’t be able to tell their age or which thread they came from.
Might edit later for clarity

There seems to be a little confusion.

The setting to restrict who can contact you is for 18+. Although it's worded as "People in my age group," I think it was previously mentioned that that option is NOT available to those under 18 because it can break a game in a player turns 18 after the game was started. (I might be wrong.) It's in the Privacy Settings dropdowns under Your Settings under Dashboard.

The option currently available for display on user pages is to show your age. Yes, something to simply mark 18+ would be appreciated by those who don't want to reveal their specific age or clue about their birthdate, but having age displayed on a profile is an option.

That's what the Looking for RP - Adults Only forum is for. This is exactly why it was created, so that you can find only other adults to roleplay with. Minors can't access it, so if you stick to that forum, or groups with age restrictions, you essentially guarantee that you won't interact with accounts aged under 18. (And while it's normal to assume that users on LFRP-AO are adults, we still very strongly encourage you to ask them their age before you engage in any kind of discussion or RP with them that exceeds PG-13 ratings, just so you know you did everything you reasonably could to cover your butt.)

If you have the same ad posted in both areas, you can encourage people to leave a comment on that particular thread so you can get in touch with them and keep them separate, or ask them to include specifically if they're responding to the 18+ version.

Just by posting on the LFRP-AO forum, you can show that your account says 18+. So you can have someone post in your LFRP-AO topic, or you post in theirs, and that counts as a "I'm over 18" without revealing anything else. The badges will be another optional way to mark a character as an adult so that this is a non-problem in the future!

I made that suggestion about those Adult Badges as not only being an option for anon characters, but also an option on the User's profile for those people who don't want to reveal their exact age. However I have no idea if Kim is going to implement this part of my idea.

I had no idea that's how the option worked because of (as you said) the wording but this clears up my assumptions, thanks.
Thanks for the reminder, to be honest before I read this I don't think I'd remember to ask, especially because I'm usually the one answering LFRP rather than posting them.

edit: This is less related to age group settings but it slightly confuses me whenever I keep seeing AO threads where OP asks minors to stay away or, conversely, regular threads where the OP is a minor stating they don't play 18+ content. Doesn't this go without saying? Maybe it's just me but if people are saying this so often maybe the rules could be put in a more obvious place so people know where it all stands? I know it's only a through clicks via the Help tab but a lot of times I keep passing right over topics that answer my other questions, or maybe that's only my problem...