Steven.Furber@legion.fidonet.org (Steven Furber) (01/16/90)
WWIVnet: Legion (MailOnly) [503-223-1314] - Node 5300
> You don't need to know if I was born on May 1 to know I'm over 18.
No, but you do need to know what year the person was born in. If someone
calls up my BBS and leaves me their MM-DD-YY birthday instead of a simple age,
my BBS will know how old they are 90 days from now, 120 days from now, or
whenever I want to look. I know with as much certainty and truth as the
original data is how old someone is. In a court of law, the DD-MM-YY is what
matters, not a simple age.
Your choice to not call back BBSes that ask for ages is fine-- it's a choice.
You may have all the right answers, but your reasoning is on par with racism.
Have you ever stopped to think that some of us ask your age to protect you
from going to jail for posting pornography in an area where someone that is
not 18 or older can see it?
Quite often these little annoyances you have to suffer once when entering your
information into a BBS database is for your own protection. I really don't
care what the real name is, the phone number, or where people live. All I care
about is that they have a name to be addressed by, and an age so I can protect
my other users-- and myself.
--
Legion EchoBarf Cafe/Pet Cemetary BBS
Steven Furber - via FidoNet node 1:105/50
UUCP: uunet!m2xenix!legion!Steven.Furbergl8f@astsun7.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) (01/17/90)
In article <277.25B28846@legion.fidonet.org> Steven.Furber@legion.fidonet.org (Steven Furber) writes: > > > You don't need to know if I was born on May 1 to know I'm over 18. > >No, but you do need to know what year the person was born in. If someone >calls up my BBS and leaves me their MM-DD-YY birthday instead of a simple age, >my BBS will know how old they are 90 days from now, 120 days from now, or >whenever I want to look. All you want to know is that I am over 18. 90 days from now I will still be over 18. You don't need to even know my birth-year. >Your choice to not call back BBSes that ask for ages is fine-- it's a choice. >You may have all the right answers, but your reasoning is on par with racism. No no no! When you're conducting a Usenet flamewar, you're supposed to compare people with Hitler before you compare them to racists. Please keep such comments to email, thank you. >Have you ever stopped to think that some of us ask your age to protect you >from going to jail for posting pornography in an area where someone that is >not 18 or older can see it? I have been a sysop. I am well aware of this. >Quite often these little annoyances you have to suffer once when entering >your information into a BBS database is for your own protection. I really >don't care what the real name is, the phone number, or where people live. >All I care about is that they have a name to be addressed by, and an age so >I can protect my other users-- and myself. As I said before, I am over 18. If you want something that will stand up in a court of law, you'd better ask me to mail you a notarized letter or something. By your own reasoning, once I'm over 18, you have no need to know my exact age unless you have an under-30 area or something. Which I bet you don't. So let's stop assuming I don't know why you might want to know my age, and start discussion what personal information is reasonable to ask. Name, phone number, address? Not driver's license or social security number. Personally, I think forcing someone to reveal their true name and gender in public on the board can be a big minus for some people's participation. We've heard talk of lack of responsibility among "anonymous" users, how about lack of participation of "known" users? Greg Lindahl gl8f@virginia.edu Astrophysicists for Choice.
ritchie@hpldola.HP.COM (Dave Ritchie) (01/18/90)
I always thought that birthdates, mother's maiden name ad nauseum were for verification that a unknown person calling the BBS operator was who he claimed to be (if someone calls a BBS trying to get my password, the sysop asks the caller some of these items as a verification). Dave Ritchie
Steven.Furber@legion.fidonet.org (Steven Furber) (01/19/90)
WWIVnet: Legion (MailOnly) [503-223-1314] - Node 5300 I said your method was on par with racism, not that you were a racist. If I was born on April 11, 1972 and I called a BBS on April 5, 1990, how old would I be? 17 years old. If I called back 10 days later (April 15, 1990) how old would I be? 18. >All you want to know is that I am over 18. 90 days from now I will still be >over 18. You don't need to even know my birth-year. See the second paragraph of this message. Some BBSes, like WWIV, plan for the future and plan on `growing' with the user. I really don't care how old someone really is, in fact I'd rather not know how old someone was-- IF (and get this-- there is an IF) my BBS database had their age. You suggested discussing what information was really warrented for BBSes. You need to split that into three groupings (at least): * What is warrented for the public to know about user X ? * What is warrented for the sysop to know about user X ? * What is warrented fir the dBase to know about user X ? To begin with, the public only needs to know a username and/or number. The discussions (should there ever be any, after all: BBSes seem to be more oriented towards who has the latest k-rad warez these days) will give everyone chances to `get to know' one another. Users need to know the usernam and/or number of other users so it is possible to identify who wrote what message and to leave E-Mail. The sysop needs to know what the public knows (username and/or number) as well as information on what that user has done (ie: logons, d\load k, u\load k, time spent on, messages posted, etc..). The dBase needs to have a bit more information if security is one of the features you wish to implement on your BBS; some people really don't care, and a lot of BBS programs completely overlook this. A birthday is useful to know how old someone is at a given time. This also allows the user to have more age restricted areas as they get older, instead of always being the same age or having their age increment every 365 days of their original call regardless of their birthday. The dBase should also contain all of the information the sysop has. There is no need for a drivers' ID, SS#, address, or many of the other worthless pieces of information required by sysops these days. I don't even care about phone numbers. If someone *wants* you to know their phone number then they'll E-Mail it to you. That's how non-sysops do it after all. .... .... It is true that sometimes `anonymous' users will be obnoxious, but then the same percentage of people using `real names' seem to be engaging in the same amount of behavior. My primary network is WWIVnet, where anything goes when it comes to names. I have seen more slamming and flaming done by the `real name' people than the `anonymous' people, in comparison to one another. This is an example where anything goes and goes well. There is no reason why BBSes can't work the same way. When users learn to have respect for BBSes they will either go away or use the BBS in way appropriate to the different areas on the BBS. Restrictions are censorship are not needed when people can learn that appropriate behavior provides mopre possibilities than just being an obnoxious jerk. -- Legion EchoBarf Cafe/Pet Cemetary BBS Steven Furber - via FidoNet node 1:105/50 UUCP: uunet!m2xenix!legion!Steven.Furber