Operation Audacious Phoenix

Imagine that you are just browsing rp characters and you come across as one that is just perfect for a romance with one of your anons. Problem is that the character's owner won't accept rp with anons since they can't verify their age. Now I suppose that the anon could make a random post on AO LFRP board, but that would just be clutter.

So perhaps there could be a toggle option for anon characters to click that would make a badge saying "This anon belongs to a member who is 18 or older."

Now while another idea is just making a topic for people to post in so they can prove they are over 18, but that would probably get pretty cluttered eventually.

Finally another idea is to make a badge for people who don't want to reveal their exact age, but would like an easy way to show that they are at least 18 or older.

This.... is a wonderful idea!

I could not agree more.

Considering it is a criminal offense to RP mature content with minors, everyone (characters and profiles) in RPR should have a generic age badge (-18 / +18) displayed based on the profile DOB to prevent adults and minors unwittingly breaking the law

It's not just adults role-playing with minors, in fact, at the moment, nothing stops a minor RPing adult content with another minor using anonymous characters and they both would be breaking the law too.

It is not really breaching anyone's privacy given the badge does not give away the exact age but... it cannot be reasonably expected to put the responsibility on people to ensure they do not RP inappropriate content with minors without giving any means or indication to know the age group the character/profile belongs to.

If minors have lied about their age when registering the account, then give them a short period of grace 1 week / 1 month or whatever is reasonable to contact moderators and rectify this mistake and put a warning on new account creations to double check they are telling the truth when registering by entering the DOB twice or something

As we are creating a new site / re-launching RPR it would be a good idea to make all users re-enter DOBs when the re-launch takes place (this will ensure we all start on a good footing without overloading Kim with update DOB requests)

I think that this a great idea! I love browsing through charaters and I understand why some players prefer for their characters to be anonymous but I think all players are more likely to approach others if they are completely sure whether or not the other player is 18+. Maybe it could be displayed on our profiles as well, in case that some people are not comfortable displaying their age on their profile (and it would help prevent adults from accidentally roleplaying 18+ stuff with minors, in case said minor doesn't want to give their exact age)?

Also in support of this idea. There are a lot of cool anon characters, or profiles with no age, and I'm just not comfy reaching out without being sure.

As a minor I would like to pitch in and say that I think the over 18 badge for anons would be helpful in making sure that they do not/do mind interacting with minors. I know some have the play style charts but some don’t and it would make it easier for them to be aware and us as well. Just so they don’t expect anything out of us.

I am all for it. This is a reason I don't roleplay with anyomous characters.

This brings to mind the "Verified 18+" badge discussion that was brought up by Kim a while back. In short: Providing proof of identity verifying age.

I heavily supported that idea back then and I still heavily support it now. Perhaps such that could be folded in to this idea in regards to the anon profiles specifically?

My issue with the verified 18+ badge idea was the requirement for actual identification to get it. Not everyone has identification and if they do, they are not willing to provide it online. I belong to the latter group. It's nothing against Kim, but I just like keeping such things off the internet.

So I would really prefer this idea not be folded in with the verified badges.

I get the desire for privacy, but I think the +18 anon badges would provide a good level of protection for those who want to know they are RPs’ng with 18+ writers. I wouldn’t think it would be mandatory to have the badge, so those like yourself can have anons without a badge and verify ages as it’s done now.

The problem is that verifying one's age the way we do now brings us right back to the problem I mentioned in the opening post.

"Now I suppose that the anon could make a random post on AO LFRP board, but that would just be clutter."

And

"Now while another idea is just making a topic for people to post in so they can prove they are over 18, but that would probably get pretty cluttered eventually."

Part of the point of the badges was that it provided a nice clutter free solution.

I thought you had a problem verifying your age on your account for a badge for anons. Maybe I misunderstood. That said, any 13 year old could register and say they are 50 so there is no real guarantee anyway. A badge would just signify the anon is ceated by an acount that says they are over 18. The badge idea isn't really complicated as birthdays are given as part of registration.

The idea was for a badge that could be on an anon's profile that says that the account's owner is 18 or older. Thereby eliminating the need for having to use the LFAO forum to do so.

Obviously people can still lie about their age when signing up. That part wouldn't change and short of going with the rejected verified age badge idea, there isn't much one can do about it. Besides I believe Kim has ultimately decided against that idea, but perhaps she would be willing to clarify.

I think a widget that shows what age group the character's owner is registered as in is a fine idea. We can likely do that with little trouble.

I'm also imagining that adding filters to searching for characters that let you peruse only characters registered to people in your age group would be useful as well for the scenario described.

Finally, in regards to the verified age idea; we stalled out on that as I wasn't sure how to verify IDs from countries all over the world, and I didn't really want to limit it to only US and Canada (or whatever.) The idea isn't completely dead, just sort of in limbo at the moment. But it's quite different from what's being discussed here, so I'll not go into too much other detail here.

Moving this to planned, as adding such a widget would be quite simple.