User blog comment:Semanticdrifter/Updates to COPPA/@comment-5691231-20130624194032/@comment-1216259-20130624195926

I disagree, on several counts:

1. It arbitrarily discriminates between Wikis based on some vague qualifier of "high risk." "Fair" would be making everyone adhere to this. That also leads me to:

2. There is not enough information on the selection criteria to dispute your placing on the list, or indeed any suggestion that such a thing is possible.

3. No matter how you slice it, it's unfair to anyone who would prefer to comment anonymously. Maybe I don't want to use my account that day, I don't see how that's any of your business. I've been trying to avoid specific examples, but here I think it's fitting, the Avatar Wiki expects that something like 0.03% of its users are below 13, but they still have to comply with the policy.

4. It doesn't really keep children safe, it's just kind of a legal hurdle to pass through. This isn't going to prevent children from getting online when they're technically not allowed, it just makes it harder to get their IP address, but the thing is (A) that's still not too hard for the type of person who could actually use it to cause problems for them & (B) when have you ever heard of someone being harassed because someone tracked them through their IP address on Wiki? But this isn't about whether or not the law is valid, but about Wikia's reaction, which leads me to:

5. There have been other solutions, compromises proposed by the Wikis that will be affected by this, all of which have been flatly dismissed. Again, I question how you consider this "fair."