Is stating age ranges against the rules now?

[nickjr]

Whoops I edited as you were posting. For convenience here's what I added:

"The straight solution of disallowing sharing of zodiac signs would probably have a lot of backlash. It's fun to share our signs and compare ourselves to the supposedly common traits of our animal. And it's not instantly incriminating. But in my opinion it's incriminating enough for a LOT of CS posters that I really feel that it is an issue"

Security usually comes at the price of stuff like politeness, convenience, and fun (because those are exactly what malicious people target lol). I'm used to this by now and have embraced it, so I wouldn't mind if we just disallowed zodiac talk entirely. But it's always been a PITA for security people to get the general public to accept security measures, and I bet that'll be the same here.

A lot of the problem is that we're talking about CS users, not the entire world. If you're on CS I bet you're in a developed country and have followed traditional education age rules or whatever they're called. So with that restriction, stuff like grade level and zodiac sign are just... too much, more than they already are. I'm already seeing in my mind people pulling counterexamples from the people that I doubt would be on CS in the first place (e.g. adults in underdeveloped countries who are finally getting access to ed and tech) to argue that they're not that bad when they actually are because we are on CS

Edit: or maybe I'm just being really cynical lol

[Shian]

We can have fun with all the common traits of the astrological zodiac calendar. It's way more secure, dosen't pinpoint your exact age and has all of the benefits of chinese zodiac sharing, dosen't it?

Let's make up a quick example. Say I'm a rabbit. This fictitious calander puts me at 20, 32, and 44.
Look through my posts for 20 seconds and you see that I've been in the military and college since I talk about both. Military dosen't accept people at 44 and I'm pretty sure all of that can't be finished by 20. This puts me at 32, no questions.

This goes for every single CS user. All you need is one post that talks about school, their job, their mom being naggy or other pinpoint in life that tells a large but specific age range. All you need is 12 years of difference and every milestone in life has that.

[nickjr]

Now that you mention it, that seems like a good compromise to me: "If you'd like to have fun sharing a comparison of your traits against those of a zodiac sign, please use your astrological zodiac instead to reveal less about your age" or something. Most people on CS seem to stick with the surface level of the Chinese zodiac, so yes, sharing the astrological zodiac instead should be a good substitute.

Something else that really gets me is that if a user posts their birthday without the year (since that's allowed and posts their zodiac sign elsewhere... Bam. Exact birthdate, hands down. At least with grade levels you have a not-insignificant chance of being off by a year, especially for people born in August/September/October (but still a really small chance, so still a no-no).

Something I just remembered: We have Chinese zodiac stamps. I love them but... we probably should remove those... As soon as you see someone post their birthday or something that signals their stage in life, if they've got a Chinese zodiac stamp on their profile, BAM. No extra effort even necessary. I'm fairly certain that most people who put Chinese zodiac stamps in their signature are not like me and decide to put two different ones in. lol

[PikaPerfect]

I just wanted to quickly drop in on this zodiac sign discussion and say that I’ve seen several users who, just by stating signs, months, and days in their signature, made it possible to guess their age almost exactly. Not to mention that if you REALLY wanted to get around that, there is enough information present in the stamps section to narrow down someone’s birthday to both year and month fairly accurately.

[Seasonal]

Unfortunately, we cannot prevent every single situation from occurring, and if someone wants to do enough investigating, then they can easily figure out another user's age. However, this is why we take so many precautions, and I always thought that the zodiac sharing was a bit odd myself. Hopefully we can make a lot of these rules more clear to our users. Warnings are useless if a user didn't even know that a rule existed in the first place.

I have only been a moderator for a bit over a year now, and while I cannot speak for everyone, I definitely learned a lot of the protocols by watching other staff and asking about what to do in certain cases. That being said, it becomes very easy for a certain case or situation to not be known by all staff. Some things have to be taken on a case-by-case basis and it is impossible to make a rule for every single situation that will inevitably pop up. We can take extra measures to ensure that our age rules are very clear to both users and staff.

We allow users to state that they are teenagers/adults and we allow users to state that they are high school/college students. I personally would not have an issue with someone stating that they are driving age in the US. I think the context and wording that the user provides can also make a difference; there is a fine line between "I am legally old enough to drive" and "I'm finally able to legally drink in the US as of today!"

[Eaglespirit]

If you pay attention you can literally find out a COPPA's exact birthday when they become un-COPPA'd. If they gave their true birthday like they were suppose to.
I've had a few times where ones traded me, then a month or so later they're old enough to leave a message.

I understand why a minor might not be allowed to reveal age, but adults should be able to decide for themselves :p by then you are responsible for yourself and its your own fault if you give away to much

[Burrito Bunny]

Actually there are other methods for COPPAs to remove their status, such as sending in a permission slip signed by their parents or guardians, so there is no gaurentee that they are 13 just because the status has been removed recently.

While adults may be responsible for themselves irl, CS does not wish to deal with any sticky problems or grey areas which stem from them revealing their info here, especially if something terrible were to happen, since the site could be drawn into the legal fallout. Stating you are an adult or such is helpful because many adults and children don't feel comfortable casually interacting with each other. However, allowing anyone to state specific ages creates double standards and a sense of unfairness for kids who don't fully understand why giving away personal information can be bad. It's better to have everyone follow the same rules.

[Metallic Dragon]

This clarification is now reflected in the rules