False Underage ARs - A suggestion

Following a current thread on this topic, and seeing that there are many others in the archive, and knowing that this has happened to at least 3 friends of mine....

It seems to me that the only person who could report someone for being underage is a person who knows that person in RL (correct me if you think it is possible solely within SL).

I think that anyone who ARs someone as being underage, should themselves be subject to the same punishment if the report is held to be false.

That should cut down on an awful lot of heartache, especially as LL tend to act first, ask questions later, and do not tell the accused exactly what they are being accused of.

Rock

There's also the possibility (probably most times) when something is said is SL that indicates a person is underage; e.g. "I'm 14". So RL knowledge isn't the only time that an AR is warranted.

However, I do agree with the idea that a malicious AR should suffer the consequences. That would be an AR without any evidence - no chat logs - only an accusation, or an alleged reason to believe but wiothout any supporting evidence.

It doesn't work like that, Rock. I have ARd two people because they have declaimed in public chat that they were under 18 in rl. I feel no remorse as I figured that if they were over 18 they wouldn't be stupid enough to make that sort of claim. In both cases their prior behaviour had been suspect as well.

Pep (One pointed out that she was entitled to have sex in rl at 16 and couldn't understand why she was in the wrong . . . but that is a different thread)

In those cases, you could have supplied some supporting evidence to show that your ARs weren't malicious.

I offered copies of the chat with their admissions.

Pep (Flouting the ToR which says you shouldn't copy logs, of course)

I think we all feel that way. Our sense of justice is outraged when people can make malicious accusations, accusations that can do genuine harm (in the case of victims who can't transact necessary business while being investigated)---and yet face no consequences whatsoever.

But I doubt that LL will institute any 'you must offer evidence' rule for age-related ARs...because their lawyers will advise them not to.

My guess is that the lawyers will say: You can't place ANY restrictions on those making ARs, or tell them that one false accusation will pass but a second will subject the accuser him/herself to being banned, or anything that would tend to discourage people from making the accusations. Because if we are sued for allowing an underage person into SL, we have to be able to show that there would be NO reason for a person to think twice about making an AR.


I wish this weren't so. But I strongly suspect that it is the case.

LL won't really read chat that you include in an AR. It's just too easy to fake and, according to a Linden at one of the Governance office hours, they see people trying to fake chat all the time.

Best bet is to know that they'll go to the server logs to see what was actually said and to just include 1-2 lines of chat so they know who was involved and the time it was said.

Doesn't really apply too much to this thread but it's good to know anyway.

A reasonable person would not have second thoughts about filing a legitimate AR.

False ARs of any kind are a form of harassment, and should be treated as such.

Ya know, something that SL needs? An IC/OOC toggle on all speech.

I mean, back when I was a newbie I was talking to someone who claimed they had a way to "hack" the devices around the houses they were in, to disable parts of them or fool them. I had the AR form already mostly completed when I asked them to show me; and they started emoting like crazy. And then I realised they'd been RPing all that time and cancelled it.

I've said on here too that AR's for suspected under-age membership should only be acted on if they are from people who are age-verified or are prepared to provide proof that they are also over 18.

I (or rather a rarely-used alt) witnessed a very nasty griefer attack in th form of threats to AR an innocent person yesterday. This was not to do with under-age, it was basically to do with nothing - the greifer picked on someone, hurled abuse at them and as soon as they got a reply they said they were ARing the victim.

Sorry, double post - trying to delete

I quit asserting an age altogether... RL, SL, RP or not. (>_<

I'm "old enough"... End of bloody story. (=_=)

I looked at the incident report to see if the griefer I saw was mentioned. It seemed they weren't. But most of the infringements seem to get warnings or a 1-day ban - including people getting 1-day bans for ageplay and for 'identity confirmation', which I presume means giving away another residents RL details.

OK for whatever reason if a false AR is filed, let's just say age, and the accused is banned or whatever happens, what recourse would the falsely accused have? I guess there is some way to contact LL?
I keep hearing about people filing false A.R.s and kind of wonder when it will happen to me for whatevr stupid reason. So I am guessing someone could just pick out ANY avatar at random and file AR? I know most people would not do that but there area few true trolls on SL just like any other chat, forum, RPG, whatever...
For the record, my age is over 30

What would be the recourse? How to contact LL on that matter?

If you want to make the legal analogy, filing a false report of a crime with police is a punishable offense.

However, the fact that the report turned out to be merely wrong, or unsubstantiated, does not make the report a false report. There has to be proof that the person filing the report made a knowingly false report.

Conceptually, I would agree that any SL resident filing a false AR should be punished. However, it's hard enough to prove a TOS violation by a resident. It will be just as tough to prove that an AR is filed knowlingly falsely or maliciously.

I imagine people who file ARs know what they are doing.
There are tons of threads on this forum about SL misrepresentaion, so unless RL friends, how would one know age anyways? Unless someone just talks like an underage or has a habit of griefing.
Even with the chat patterns, someone could be using English as a second language, E.S.L. speakers tend to make weird mistakes.

Yeah...if somebody says in open chat that they're under 18 in RL, I'm going to AR them, and send the chatlog to LL with the AR, and not feel bad about it at all. And, if this person who claimed to be a minor later manages to convince LL they are adults after all, I should not be punished for sending that AR.

But there certainly are some people who don't think that way. There was an incident just a couple of months ago, on a private sim, where Person 1 allegedly claimed in open chat to be a RL minor, and Person 2 AR'd them. Being a private sim, the AR went to the sim owner, rather than LL - and the sim owner banned Person 2 from his sim and announced a new policy that anybody who AR'd somebody else as underage on his sim would be banned from the sim permanently. There were a few contrived rationalizations given for the decision, but the underlying reasoning was that the sim owner disagreed with LL's policy disallowing minors on SL, and so refused to help enforce it.

That's all I did.

Pep (KISS)

If someone told me they were underage, I don't think I'd bother AR'ing them, I don't really care.

WTF - that sounds totally screwed up.

ETA - So before ARing anyone, I need to figure out where I am and then if it is a private island, I should submit a ticket instead. Yep, totally screwed up.

Sadly, this is only true for some private SIMs, where the estate owner put in his mail addy in a short time frame. Shortly later LL deactivated this feature again and it is on hold right now. Personally, I would very much prefer having ARs sent to the estate owner instead to LL.

BTW, the estate owner in this example is close friend to some victims of false underage ARs that put his friends into long trouble with LL to get back their accounts. Including damage to established businesses.

So why the vigilant asshatery?

Oh yeah it makes life feel like it has a purpose hm?
You can't prove someone is underage in SL, period and filing a frivolous AR that threaten to ban an innocent should get YOU banned.

Just for the heck of it i shall create a few alts that claim being underage, maybe LL will be pissed enough by so many false positives they might take actions against ARfrenzies.


And yeah, i share the feel of this Sim owner, his sim ,his rules.
I believe i still have my email in the AR system of my sim, maybe i should put an automatic ban routine if the mailbox ever get an AR

Shoot the messenger? Bad idea. Better idea: Have your friends age-verify, thus preventing the problem in the first place.

Ok, so I understand why underage people shouldn't be on the grid, but why do people care, I mean what effect does it have on you? Are you concerned you may end up having cartoon sex with some zitty teen, what's the big deal?

its the same way I used to /appeal stupid names on the roleplay server in dark age of camelot mmorpg. someone named pwnedj00 would get /appealed and within a day or 2 they would be booted. Course I could care less about names here. But underage can be a bit creepy. It's what the teen grid is for I thought.

I see no problem with it though, heck other games are way more strict, you get your ass booted off a rp server for using leet speak aka being a d00d in a couple ive visited.

keeps the d00ds from getting out of hand, boot there ass before they become a problem imo.