Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 21:13, 19 September 2006

The following is a proposed Misplaced Pages policy, guideline, or process. The proposal may still be in development, under discussion, or in the process of gathering consensus for adoption.

Overview

In the United States, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) applies to commercial sites collecting personal information from children under 13 years of age. Similar laws exist in other countries. Though Misplaced Pages, as a non-commercial enterprise, is not technically bound by the restrictions of COPPA, this site does wish to act in the same spirit to protect the interests of young editors. Generally, these laws prohibit the release of the child's personal identifying information, such as their real name, e-mail address, home address or telephone number, without the consent of their parent or legal guardian. Although Misplaced Pages does not require that any user provide personally identifying information, users may choose to provide this information on their User or User talk pages, or on the User talk pages of other users.

Some editors identify themselves as being children under the age of 13, and these users sometimes post details about their personal lives to their user pages. While Misplaced Pages is not collecting this information, this site is clearly publishing the information to a wide audience. Misplaced Pages wishes to act in the spirit of the COPPA statute to protect those users who choose to identify themselves as being under the age of 13. Therefore, Misplaced Pages has adopted this policy, and due to the practical difficulties of obtaining parental consent, applies this policy to all children who self-identify as being under the age of 13, regardless of parental consent. It also applies to editors who continually attempt to elicit such information from children self-identifying as under 13.

The basic policy:

• Misplaced Pages should not publish personal identifying information about children who identify themselves as being under the age of 13.
• This policy applies specifically to those who self-identify as being under 13. No Misplaced Pages user is required to disclose their age.
• No self-identified under-13 editor should post under their real name, including any user name that includes their surname.
• No editor should post personal identifying information about a self-identified under-13 user.
• Personal identifying information added by a self-identified under-13 user shall be deleted, and any editor is free to do so regardless of where on Misplaced Pages the information is located.
• A user who posts such information should be cautioned that Misplaced Pages is not a social networking site.
• In cases of repeated posting of personal information, child editors may be briefly blocked, escalating to a ban under extreme circumstances.
• In cases of repeated attempts to knowingly elicit personal information from a child or several children, editors may be blocked and possibly face further sanction.

Comments

• Misplaced Pages is not MySpace.
• Self-identified children could be children, adult predators, adult privacy-watchers testing our policies, or law-enforcement. Not only should Misplaced Pages not facilitate predators finding new victims, it should not place itself in a position to be criticized in the press for allowing children to post personal information. While we do not want to hinder law enforcement, neither are we required to enable them by allowing Misplaced Pages to be used as bait.
• Personally identifying information should include any information that a 3rd party could use to discover the real world location and identification of a child. This includes real name, telephone numbers and home addresses. It also includes personal photos that include other identifying information (such as a street or school name in the background). Photos submitted by children should not include other children.
• Although long-term blocks or bans are undesirable, it should be considered that a self-identified "child" who persistently and repeatedly posts personal contact information is either so unaware of the dangers of doing so that he/she needs to be protected from their own actions, or may be an adult troll, or even a predator.
• While legal guidance should be sought from the Foundation, it is not required to implement this policy. The Foundation is mainly concerned with legal liability. Even if a child's publishing of identifying information does not expose the Foundation to liability, it should still be discouraged for moral and ethical reasons.

Proposed processes

1. Personal identifying information posted by self-identified children under the age of 13 may be removed by any editor. The child should be advised on his/her talk page to avoid posting such information (perhaps via a new, properly substituted template). Such information should be removed by Oversight.

   For purposes of this policy/proposal, personal identifying information includes (tentative in italics):

   Real name

   Telephone number

   Home address

   E-mail address and IM screen name

   Identifiable photographs

   Date of birth

   School name

2. Child editors who persist in posting identifying information after multiple warnings may be blocked. This is intended to be a preventative measure to prevent further disclosures.
3. Blocks should initially be brief, to avoid biting the child, whilst getting the message across that children should not not post personal information.
4. In persistent cases, long blocks or bans may be appropriate.

Exclusions

• This does not apply to child wikipedians who do not self-identify as children, as we have no way of knowing anyone's age except their own statements. In other words, we don't care about how old someone is, just about whether or not they say that they are younger than 13. If they do this, then they will come under the force of this policy.

• Misplaced Pages proposals