Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-3026053-20130621001540/@comment-4772526-20130621194210

Just gonna post a copy of the message I left on the Avatar Wiki thread here as well, so more people can see it, and hopefully respond:

''@Semanticdrifter - if I understand the issue here correctly, the law requires that Wikia restricts the information they collect from someone if there is a (high/medium/reasonable) chance that said person is underage. As I also understand it, if a user states by their own accord that they are 13 or over, then Wikia is covered legally, whether the user is telling the truth about their age or not, and can collect information from them as normal.''

''So here is my question; if an explicit statement from a person that they are 13 or over when they create an account is enough to satisfy any legal requirement, surely something that requires an anonymous user to state that they are 13 or over before they can publish an edit or post a comment also satisfies said requirement. What I am thinking of is that, taking editing as an example, the anon can write their edit as normal, but when they press publish, a box pops up asking them to verify their age; if they verify themselves as 13 or over, their edit is published as normal, but if they state they are not, their edit is cancelled. If the edit is not published, then surely information from the user (such as their IP address) is not collected, and thus no law is broken. Similarly, if they by their own accord say they are not underage, then Wikia has not broken any law, regardless of whether the user is truthful.''

''Is this not a viable alternative to a blanket ban on anon editing, and one which also, from my understanding, complies with the law as stated. I don't know whether this is technically viable, but what about from a purely theoretical viewpoint?''