A Question....

[libgirl.livejournal.com]

Has there been any consideration about age restrictions at the suggested archive?

As a long-time, multi-fandom participant and talking with another one this week over the issue at LJ and with fanlib, two things came up:

1. As long as we're paying someone else to host our things, they can decide not to host specific things. Also, people will attempt to make a profit off of us in any way possible. The best solution is to host our own site with a dedicated server than can house us all.

2. We were talking and we both agreed that if there was a multi-fandom fanfiction hub, we wouldn't want it to be along the lines of ff.net. Everyone I know cringes when a news source goes to ff.net to talk about the "fandom phenomenon". That said, admitting fic.'s based on quality is tricky and subjective. If we create something, for ourselves, then I hope that we would both cover ourselves legally and present ourselves professionally. There is a legal issue involving minors and NC-17 material than can only really be remedied by not allowing minors. The easiest solution seems to be creating a panfandom archive for underage readers either in association with or as part of the larger archive, requiring a age statement to sign up and logged-in-only access to adult material. Also, if there are no underage readers allowed, then there is less likelihood of creating another ff.net.

I know that this will probably not be a popular opinion. I know that many people in fandom, particularly on LJ are underage and "passing" or "socking" in order to read adult material. I'm not saying that some underage readers cannot handle adult material or aren't already participating in adult activities; however, from a legal standpoint, it seems more responsible to take precautions.

Additionally, in light of the recent LJ events, it's obvious that much of what gets archives, websites, journals and fic.'s shut down is a perceived danger to the "childrenz". If this is a site by adults, for adults it's less likely to come under that sort of negative fire. After all, we're going to have to deal with the legal ramifications of intellectual property and copyright laws already.

I'm truly not trying to rock the boat or ignore the many and important contributions of underage fans to fandom. I'm just trying to ascertain how the issues of liability will be dealt with.

Comments

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

IIRC this was discussed in the original post in astolat's journal and thought was leaning towards having a theoretical but not actual system of age-restricted material - where everything is hosted on one archive but if you're not logged in you have to click a button saying you're over 18 and if you are logged in you have to be over 18 - or say you're over 18 - to see R18(NC-17) material.

My thoughts on this are pretty mixed since I've been reading "adult" material for many years, since well before I was technically of age to do so, and I don't and never did feel particularly disturbed. (Although I'm aware that the notion disturbs some authors...!) OTOH, I understand the desire by people running things to cover their asses. The only thing I do feel strongly is that under-18s should not be ghetto-ized away. And I wonder what the response is to under-18s writing the porn...!

Additionally, in light of the recent LJ events, it's obvious that much of what gets archives, websites, journals and fic.'s shut down is a perceived danger to the "childrenz".

Yeah, but on an indirect harm principle - that something about the content will lead to children being harmed - as opposed to a direct harm principle where children are actually harmed by the existence of porn/the reading of porn. the latest kerfuckle - as I understand it, and comments on CNet aside - was that the interests function allowed paedophiles to network. Not that anything paedophiles were doing on LJ was harmful to children. the veracity of this is obviously debatable but I do think that was the underlying principle there.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

where everything is hosted on one archive but if you're not logged in you have to click a button saying you're over 18 and if you are logged in you have to be over 18 - or say you're over 18 - to see R18(NC-17) material.

Yeah. If there were any sort of age restriction, it shouldn't be anything more than that. Most people are not going to be keen for a new archive if they can only post their adult fic locked to members only, and a lot of people will refuse to link, rec, etc. fic that's locked or passworded in any way, so it's just a bad situation all around, especially when there are plenty of other archives that don't make you jump through hoops (a new archive is going to attract people by offering more options, not fewer!).

[libgirl.livejournal.com]

IIRC this was discussed in the original post in astolat's journal and thought was leaning towards having a theoretical but not actual system of age-restricted material

I must have missed that; I'll go look for it, thank you. The proposed 'theoretical' system would work and is essentially one of the option I foresaw.

My thoughts on this are also mixed. I didn't really get into fandom much before I was 18 and in my first fandom, I wasn't really interested in adult material so it was non-issue. However, my friend, who's been in fandom for almost 15 years was definitely underage when she got involved. I don't know what the answer is. The library isn't going to restrict books to children based on their perceived appropriateness for the age; they expect the parents to do that.

Unfortunately, for some reason, parents seem to think that they aren't responsible for what their children see online, the website is. It's an unfair double standard, but it's one we have to deal with.

And I wonder what the response is to under-18s writing the porn...!
I considered this, but I have no idea as to the answer. You can't stop underage people writing things based on age-appropriateness, but if you let them post them and don't let them read it seems hypocritical; I know. Search me on how to deal with it.

Yeah, but on an indirect harm principle - that something about the content will lead to children being harmed - as opposed to a direct harm principle where children are actually harmed by the existence of porn/the reading of porn.

I agree in relation to this latest issue, but I do think that a group of "concerned parentz" could hit an archive based on the "providing pornography to minors" principle. Which could and almost certainly would shut down an archive. That's why I wanted to know what was being considered.

he only thing I do feel strongly is that under-18s should not be ghetto-ized away. I agree as well. No one wants to be someone's ugly step-child and I wouldn't want to make underage fen feel that way. I don't know what the answer is, but I hope it's one that is respectful and safe for everyone.

I'm really not truly to be a big bad bully, I'm just trying to see what the consensus is and what we're considering.

[red-eft.livejournal.com]

My thoughts on this are pretty mixed since I've been reading "adult" material for many years, since well before I was technically of age to do so, and I don't and never did feel particularly disturbed.

Hell, far from being disturbed, I think being exposed to fandom from the age of twelve probably saved me from all sorts of self-hatred by providing me with somewhere where sex and gay people weren't seen as, you know. Evil. Which is probably not an argument that'll get us anywhere with the "protect the children!" folk, but it does make me feel rather strongly about letting the underagers have access, even if it's just the "don't ask, don't tell" method that underage fans have been using for years.

[tejas.livejournal.com]

I think providing a simple "Yes, I am of age to read this in my country" in the user profile should be all the due diligence the archive requires. That flag would then open any fics rated over the appropriate level without continuous click-throughs. For users who don't want to have a profile (and there will be many - people can be very paranoid about such things), then they'd have to click the same age statement before they could open a "restricted" fic.

As a parent, I get very irritated by other people trying to restrict what my child can access. That's my job, thank you very much. This is something I could easily help her work around, should the need arise. It would, I'd think, also absolve the archive of liability.

[abbylee]

I thought that this is what the people who have legal experience are being contacted for. (1) To figure out which country to physically host the servers, so that it will not break the local laws of the hosts. (2) To figure out how to make sure that material is best labelled (etc) to make sure that those who have local laws against specific material will not accidentally break them.

[libgirl.livejournal.com]

Which is a great idea, I was just curious about the alternatives/ideas/suggestions that were being considered.

Dutch lawyer?

[bloodrebel333.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly sure we (in the Netherlands) have more flexible laws re: these kinds of things. It'd be helpful if we had a Dutch lawyer here. *looks around hopefully*

[faith-girl222.livejournal.com]

i didn't think there was an actual legal ruling saying it was illegal. no one stops underage kids from buying books from the romance section of a bookstore (and a lot of those books are pretty graphic), nor are they barred from certain sections of libraries. or have things changed since i was a kid?

and then, there are and have been kids under 18 writing "adult" fanfiction - what do we do about them?

[libgirl.livejournal.com]

But there are laws, in the U.S. at least about pornography. The line between erotic fiction and pornography in the U.S. is a bit blurry on the internet.

I was just trying to find out what people were thinking about on this issue.

[franzeska]

The law (in the US anyway) treats the internet and bookstores differently.

[rez-lo.livejournal.com]

Also, if there are no underage readers allowed, then there is less likelihood of creating another ff.net.

If this is to be a panfannish archive it makes little sense to exclude fans on the basis of age. Nor would I as a fannish writer/reader want to participate in an archive that did so. The underlying ethos, as I understand it, is one of inclusion, legal necessity notwithstanding.

[libgirl.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying that they should be excluded and I don't want to be involved in an elitist or exclusionist archive either. I just wanted to know how the issue of adult material was going to be handled.

[bluevsgrey.livejournal.com]

In my opinion not allowing fen under 18 into the archive is ridiculous. Isn't the whole point of the archive to be a place for all of us? How, may I ask you, is it supposed to be a place for all of fandom if you plan to completely throw out the younger subset of it? And to say that denying them posting access will somehow vastly improve the quality of the fic at the archive is counterproductive because not only are you generalizing that most badfic come from younger fen, your not actually creating any solution to the fact that any author can and probably has written badfic.

I just think that instead of staying, "You kids get outta my lawn," we should be thinking more along the lines of, "The pool is dangerous for young kids/those with sensitive dispositions, because you can get in over your head, however their is plenty of other things for you to play with, like the swing set. Isn't swinging fun?"

For an example of this, I believe(and correct me if I am wrong because it has been forever since I have been in the hp fandom) that schnoogle only allows up to R and that all of the NC17 fic goes into Dark Arts.

[libgirl.livejournal.com]

"The pool is dangerous for young kids/those with sensitive dispositions, because you can get in over your head, however their is plenty of other things for you to play with, like the swing set. Isn't swinging fun?"

Which, actually, is what I was trying to suggest/ask. I'm not saying that underage fen should be excluded, I just wanted to know what the options were for protection as well as inclusion on this matter.

I think doing something along the lines of fiction alley or schnoogle would be fine. I just hadn't heard any discussion of this and wondered what the consensus was.

Not all fen are members of the HP fandom and not all fandoms are as organized as either the HP or XF fandoms. They don't all even have major archives dedicated to that fandom.

I didn't want to assume that solutions that are used in HP fandom were going to be applied in this case (I don't even know if all the people here are part of the HP fandom).

I apparently haven't worded my question as carefully as I hoped to.

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

Last time I checked, that wasn't now FA worked at all. DA is for angsty fic, Schnoogle is for novels, and you can't post NC-17 material anywhere at FA.

I am not in favor of excluding younger people in any way, except (as suggested) in a "click this button!" sort of way. I got into fanfiction at 15 and yeah, I sucked, but didn't we all, once upon a time? I didn't start reading adult material until I was of age but I know plenty of people who did (and who wrote it too) and they remain unharmed as far as I can tell, and way more comfortable with themselves and their sexualities than a lot of people I know.

That said, I get what you're saying and I'm sorry you feel attacked.

[viverra-libro.livejournal.com]

This is going to sound mean, and I don't mean it to be that way, but frankly, no, the archive is not "for all of us". It is my understanding that the entire premise of the project is to create a place in which controversial content can be safely and securely hosted in a manner that is very unlikely to result in anyone getting sued, served with a C&D letter, or publicly profiled as a pedophile or incest-promoter. This necessarily means greatly restricting or prohibiting access to minors -- as JKR's lawyers will send C&D letters to anyone that doesn't have age verification and password protection.

People who are underage can go to one of the many many already-existing archives to read fiction that is appropriate for their age. It's a big internet. There are lots of places for underage fen to congregate. This archive will be useless if we can't ensure that minors cannot access the material -- why would we even bother?? Five minutes after we get it up, we'll have to shut it down.

Yes, this means a lot of hoops. If people don't like it, then they don't have to participate. They can stay with LJ and get their journals deleted, lose their content, and be profiled by vigilante groups as promoting pedophilia and incest.

[airawyn.livejournal.com]

I think it's something to take into consideration. This would prevent a large amount of potential legal trouble. I know it seems terribly unfair to people under 18, but fandom will still be around when they come of age.

[libgirl.livejournal.com]

Thanks....

[kerravonsen]

Personally, I'd rather restrict access to adult material than lock out underage fans! Part of the reason for wanting this archive in the first place is that we don't want poor naieve new-fen to be deceived by the blandishments of FanLib.com.

[libgirl.livejournal.com]

I age with you. All I was suggested was that there are only two ways I know to handle it, some sort of restricted access for fic or some sort of restricted access for membership.

Personally, I'm of the force disclaimers or logins to access adult material opinion, but I wanted to know what options the community was considering.

[xenacryst.livejournal.com]

So, a few bits of info here, but not much in the way of opinions...

One of the things that seems to give people pause is the "child pornography" argument. According to 18 U.S.C. § 2256 (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00002256----000-.html) (US federal law), child pornography involves visual images. While people have certainly discussed the idea of including fan art or vids in the archive, the first focus, I believe, is text. It's been my experience that erotica story sites don't explicitly require an age statement, but they do tend to have a warning page.

There's also COPA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Online_Protection_Act) (Child Online Protection Act, not to be confused with COPPA - Child Online Privacy Protection Act). Courts seem to think that COPA is unconstitutional, and so enforcement isn't happening. However, various state laws may have similar intents. Still, on a brief read-through, I'm not sure if this covers textual material.

There's also COPPA, but that applies only to the collection of personal information about children under the age of 13, and not about whether they can access "adult" material.

And finally, just a note of observation: some libraries do actually try to keep kids in the kids sections. It really depends on the library and the community. And the librarian, kid, and parents in question, too. YMMV, of course.

[libgirl.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the information :D.

I haven't been in a library that restricted check-out (I've worked in 5), but I have been to libraries where someone might say "Does your Mother know you're checking that out?". Also, since most libraries now have videos and music, they're beginning to enforce the "if it's over g, a parent must be present to check it out" rule (obviously taking age into consideration. A 16 will probably not be confronted on the issue of checking out a PG-13 movie for example.)

[bluevsgrey.livejournal.com]

Well I changed what I was going to say in the middle of the first sentence, mainly because what I originally planned to write sounded very condescending. You can disregard the sentence if you like, but all I was trying to say was that if I were starting this discussion? It would probably not go so well.

IMHO, I'm truly not trying to rock the boat or ignore the many and important contributions of underage fans to fandom. I'm just trying to ascertain how the issues of liability will be dealt with. , from your original post read like and apology and a disclaimer. Was I reading into something that wasn't there?

I don't think you have anything to apologize for, and was advocating that you don't apologize? I guess, I don't know it is all a bit fuzzy.

[quivo.livejournal.com]

Like you've mentioned in comments, I think that unless we end up hosting the archive in a country with more permissive laws, we'll probably have to go the login or 'click if you're 18' way. It sucks, but if we want to keep the archive up and running and (fairly) legal in nature, we'll need to cop to at least the clicking option. The only way I can think of to soften the blow is saying it could be worse - that underage readers and writers could just not be allowed in, but that doesn't help when you're on the other side of the arbitrary line between adulthood and childhood.

As far as the quality thing, I can't remember exactly who suggested it, but someone talked in the earlier comments about some sort of two-tier judging system that would depend on ratings and so on. I actually quite like the idea, especially if it wasn't literally just six people doing the final vetting of fics. What could make it even fairer could be switching around the vetting group every so often, or mixing up its membership or composition or something. Of course, people would probably try to game the system at the rating end, but one can take actions to stop that kind of thing, e.g. everyone getting only a certain amount of votes, and maybe only getting to vote every so often, and the process having a captcha or other anti-bot mechanism bolted on, etc.

The tiered quality system would probably work even better if it was organised along fandom lines as well. Say, you submit a fic to the normal pool, where everyone starts out. People rate it/vote it up, and it gets enough votes and comments or whatever to be in consideration for reviewing by people in the fandom. The reviewing process can be quick and straightforward - mostly rooted in form and, er, spelling instead of bringing people's opinions of plots and kinks into it - and then the fic goes into the 'fandom vetted' pool or something, and is then eligible for any contests or competitions or 'featured fic of the week' spots or whatever, just like every other fic out there.

What might also help (and god, I know this is long) is if all fics were pretty much treated equally. Except for being eligible for bigger contests and featured fic bylines or whatever, the fandom vetted pool of fics would be displayed and treated the same as everything else. There could even be columns for stories close to becoming fandom vetted or just starting out - like an undiscovered fic of the day, or something? And the authors wouldn't be treated differently (well, in theory) either - all fics could begin as non-fandom-vetted, with each author's work standing on its own merit in the process.

And I think I'll stop there :P.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Say, you submit a fic to the normal pool, where everyone starts out. People rate it/vote it up, and it gets enough votes and comments or whatever to be in consideration for reviewing by people in the fandom.

Um...no? Like, seriously, no, no, no? Any system whereby the quality is judged by the amount of feedback is just majorly sucky. What about new authors? Small names who've been plugging away for years? Rare pairings? Non-mainstream themes? Small fandoms? The idea that a lot of good fic could be dismissed as bad simply because it has a small audience just does not sit well with me at all.

[korilian.livejournal.com]

I liked the idea someone had (Shallot?), about having to put in your date of birth when you sign up, so that you don't get constant warnings, though that would require a lot more vigilance from the people who really don't like slash/adult (catagories?).

Supposedly you could automatically bounce minors from adult stories as long as they're signed in, though that might be a little extreme (but whether or not teens should be allowed to read about sex and violence is a whole other discussion).

Of course, that raises the point: Do you need to sign in before you can read? LJ can keep you logged in. It wouldn't be to much hassle like that.

As for the quality thing... That's a tough one, especially if you're going with a massive archive. Only allow beta-ed fic? (not that, that necessarily helps *shudder*

[thedorkygirl.livejournal.com]

Supposedly you could automatically bounce minors from adult stories as long as they're signed in, though that might be a little extreme (but whether or not teens should be allowed to read about sex and violence is a whole other discussion).

That way, we don't get a logged-in under 18 reviewing a fic -- we get an anonymous under-18 reviewing a fic.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I have an idea for the quality issue.

The problem with ff.net is not that they don't have good stories, but that the good stories are lost in the mix. What we need is a place where authors can have rec-lists.

ff.net sort of has this option, in the "favorites." What we need is to:

a) call it "rec-lists"
b) not have it buried in the author's profile, but front and center, one of the first things you find when you come to the site
c) have a field where the reccer explains what they liked about the story

Icarus

[libgirl.livejournal.com]

The problem with ff.net is not that they don't have good stories, but that the good stories are lost in the mix

I agree completely, it's just so difficult to wade through ff.net to find anything that I'd want to read. And, at least in the larger fandoms, most of the more popular authors (today) don't even post there anymore because of the content restrictions.

[quinara]

Hello! Thought I'd wade in... I agree with icarusancalion that recs need to be a lot more central, but I think it could be a lot more fluid than just having centralised rec lists for fandoms.

The way I would suggest is that people would personally collect fic that they like (similar to the ff.net system of favourites), but you would also have a secondary list where, like the 'friends of friends' thing on LJ (does anyone use that?) you'd have a list of all the things recommended by your recs. It wouldn't represent itself as definitive, so people would still be encouraged to check out newbies, and also there wouldn't be any sense of objective quality, because the whole thing would radiate from you - yet at the same time, it would still grow quite large and introduce you to lots of fic.

I mean, there could be a few options, so you would still be able to rec a story but avoid the author's recs (if you thought they had dubious taste!) - say buttons at the bottom of each fic saying 'rec fic', 'rec author', 'add author's recs to list' or whatever. That would also allow for a more automated central list as well if people wanted one.

I think I'm probably sounding far too eager, but it's the sort of system I've always wanted from a website, because it's the process I always go through trying to find more fic anyway.