closed What can be done to make this section better?

[Spider]

DCG said as of tommorrow no one under 18 will be allowed in this section. Guess we will see how it will be implimented tommorrow.

Jason

 

[SlashRoot.Com]

jh3,

My comments are inlined below.

Originally posted by jh3
If you have Paypal you can get an account.

That is true, but it may fall into gray area at the very best. It's like a vendor saying if you have some money on you, you can get liquor here regardless of your age.

I believe that is how a couple people got memberships, they used their mother. Also you could buy a membership for someone.

This may be true, it does not make it legal or appropriate for buyer as well as seller to do so. Especially when such memberships are allowed to continue knowingly. How is this any more lawful than adults buying cigarrettes or alcohol for minors? Adults buying memberships/access that exposes minors to "adult/porn" type content can be held liable for their actions. They can claim "I did not know...", but ignorance is not a valid defense in most cases. Everybody is doing it is not a valid defense either.

A forum that allows this to continue -knowingly, right under its nose -could also possibly attract some liability by knowigly allowing minors to access adult related content.

As for the age issue, it it still being discussed. [/B]

While you are at it, you may also want to look into any implications of allowing underage members to enter into a contract that they are clearly not allowed to under the law.

Sure, members are resposible for their actions, including the minors. However, when someone allows unlawfull activities to continue in their parking-lot (or a forum for that matter), there could be implications. Think about it!

I have absolutely nothing against enterprizing youngsters. I respect and admire them for their desire to succeed early on. However, the adults involved in decision making at DNF (and other fora) may explose themselves to unintended liabilites/implications if these kinds of issues are not addressed a priori. Especially for a commercial/business entity such as DNF, not addressing this promptly/decisively could expose them to risks that many may not realize right now. I am not sure, but Admins/Mods may also have a possible exposure to some risks stemming from their paricipation in such transactions/activities. I think it would only be prudent to look into the legal implications (if there are any) of doing all this stuff with active participation by underage members.

IANAL, but I do own some legal domain names though! It may be a good idea to get an opinion from a competent attorney.

jh3, I commend you for getting the ball rolling.

SlashRoot

 

[SlashRoot.Com]

I would like to point out that this forum does not just involve adult words or domain names only. There are links to porn sites as well as I just found out in the following thread.

http://www.dnforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=36836

I am sure there must be more.

I strongly suggest all such links be removed/prohibited until such time that these fora are equipped with child-safe locks.

Sorry, I am very concerned about having kids around these openly adult fora.

By expressing these concerns and by requesting immediate remedy thereof, I am trying to be part of the solution.

 

[Jernet]

This section needs more recognition. It is way down here in the gold section, and is overlooked by probably most domainers. I have a hard time even finding it to this day.

 

[adoninet]

1. major legal problem anyone selling or buying anything from anyone under 18

2. you need to cancel the memberships here of any under 18

If you buy a domain name from them they can automatically get back for many years down the road, since they had not legal right to sell it, the sale of a domain name implies a contract and any kid can sell you a name today and say tomorrow, I was a kid, I didn't know the value of the asset I gave away

It should be MANDATORY that to trade/buy/sell on DNF you have to be 18 end of subject

If you have kids here saying I'm underage and DNF is letting them do anything here, then everything they touch is open for litigation down the road

3. as to adult, if you have 18 and over ONLY on the front door as it should be (I will not buy or sell any domain name to anyone under 18 period adult or not adult name) then you can not worry about having a so-called dirty word in this thread, I can see you wanting to keep dirty names for adult businesses in a seperate place, but there are names that should not be here

For instance, I'm new here and didn't read the adult section thing in for sale, so I posted a long list of names, each dom was in a category, I put in a sex cat and used the * for V's, the mod deleted the sex names, no problem, they have a rule I didn't read

what I object to a little is that in my category I had titsdoctor.com and titsdr.com

hardly "adult" and those names should be in the normal section, since they are not adult and a plastic surgeon with a sense of humor would love either of the names

I don't see how titsdr.com will offend anyone in the domain section

I don't see how anyone looking for adult domain names to develop will want it as an adult name

if you lock down the front door to you must be 18 here, then everyone that joins has to say they are 18 DNF is pretty much protected

some kid sues you for having a dirty word in any section you say you lied, you said you were 18 and you shouldn't be here

people over 18 here tits and worse on most programming today

now I can see putting F*ck or C*nt in general areas but to knock out the whole words in an adult section is extreme

maybe the suggestion about making a whole different site for it is best

many people come here with adult names in their portfolios and I'm sure many would like to add a major adult name to their portfolios

but if you are knowingly letting under 18 here use this place that opens up major lawsuits down the road for everyone dealing with them

I guess I'll have to ask everyone in any deal here if they are over 18

I didn't know they let minors in here

 

[USARN.com]

adoninet,
welcome to the forum and thanks for the input. I couldn`t agree with you more. As you may have noticed I was the one or the members to bring this whole issue to light,("making trouble ever since I came here" i think is what one moderator called it) especially the issue about minors being in the adult section, which also opened up the "can of worms" about doing business with the minors here. Up until that point it was business as usual on dn forum. Apparently either it was purposely overlooked or someone was just too busy editing much less important posts to notice. It`s good to see that someone else here also can see and speak out on what is happening and has been happening for quite some time.

Not to beat a dead horse but, just to serve to let you know; there is still at least a few minors on this forum trying to sell names and most all the moderartors don`t seem to have any problem with allowing this to happen. Needless to say, this is Hardly what I`d call "professsional", as they love to claim this site to be.

The way they said the minors were allowed to join was using their "mothers" credit card. Nice huh? The moderators did make a half arsed attempt to keep the minors out of the adult sections by asking members to put in a birthdate to some "prove" they were 18. This is a joke.

The only reason I can see for even thinking this was good enough was to somehow cover their own ass by at least asking. Devildude, just to name one member, but there is a few more, is admittedly 16+/- yrs. old (dnforum moderators are also well aware of this) but has a birthdate of 1975 listed on his profile. More than once if seen This KID`s threads bragging about doing doing business with other pornsite owners! So I`m not sure your idea about "having to ask everyone in any deal here if they are over 18" will do much you good really.
I guess all I can say is buyer or seller beware

Anyways, the long and short of it is that still not much (of any real value) has been done about it. This leads me to believe that it is unfortunately, mostly falling on deaf ears. Apparently hoping it would just fade away or be swept under the carpet. . Bottom line is: If DNFORUMS were truelly the professional site they would like us all to believe, none of this would even be an issue in the first place.

 

[Domagon]

My view is that domain names are domain names. Profanity alone does *not* automatically make it "adult only"...self-censorship is often far worse than government censorship (a.k.a. regulation).

If profanity alone automatically makes something "adult", which it appears DNForum operators believe, then explain why kids can see PG/PG-13 movies, buy books with profanity in them (some are included on school reading lists!), etc...?

In short, age restrictions really aren't necessary...and if anything, having age restrictions may actually increase DNForum's liability - yes, you read that correctly, but I digress.

Categorizing domains is one thing, but having totally separate areas does a disservice for both buyers and sellers who make up a large portion of DNForums paid members.

And anyways, if DNForum is so concerned about "underaged" visitors, then go all the way and make the entire website "age 18+" only, since let's face it, how many 16 year olds are making large domain name transactions - and sellers dealing with minors should be aware such contracts may not be binding in some jurisdictions/situations...

Ultimately it's upto DNForum to choose the policies that best meet the needs of visitors/customers and themselves.

Ron