Mr Lucky
Well-known member
No they won’t. Not just the 50p cost but the extra steps of going through the process.
UK Online Safety Regulations and impact on Forums
- Thread starter lazy llama
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Alpha1
Well-known member
I'm thinking that maybe Patreon could be a good partner in regards to age verification because they are creator oriented, the platform is really easy to use for paying members and Patreon already does age verification for 18+ content. IME their support is very responsive. They have an API and many xenforo webmasters already use Patreon as a source of income.
@Alvin63 it may be a good idea to contact them and see if they can provide age verification on donation. I believe if you mark your content as 18+ then members will be age verified. Patreon also has free membership, which might offer an interesting opportunity if these get age verified as well.
Patreon offers 0Auth login so that users can register and login with their Patreon account:
XenForo 2.3 supports 0Auth.
So if there is a way to only accept logins and registrations from Patreon that are 18+, then that would offload the whole age verification to Patreon.
@Alvin63 it may be a good idea to contact them and see if they can provide age verification on donation. I believe if you mark your content as 18+ then members will be age verified. Patreon also has free membership, which might offer an interesting opportunity if these get age verified as well.
Patreon offers 0Auth login so that users can register and login with their Patreon account:
XenForo 2.3 supports 0Auth.
So if there is a way to only accept logins and registrations from Patreon that are 18+, then that would offload the whole age verification to Patreon.
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So that leaves me with that option - which would probably knobble the forum membership. Or knobbling the forum to comply with a Child Risk assessment so it's very dumbed down (and extra pressure and time).
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chillibear
Well-known member
Was that not as an OAuth server? I don't think you can define a new XF OAuth client in the Admin UI - you'd have to write an add-on to add another "Connected Account provider" - although given they are all going to be OAuth presumably that wouldn't be too complicated. I expect there are already a few examples around.
It's a neat idea if you were starting over with a forum. Harder to work with an existing membership. Still an interesting solution.
Alpha1
Well-known member
Getting an existing member base age verified will be extremely hard as it will mean getting them to go through an external service when they login to the forum again. It seems to me that Patreon could be a solution because it's very easy for members to use. Yes, it would mean that UK members would need to create a Patreon account and get age verified. It still beats asking your members for a copy of their passport lol.
I think that Patreon has the benefit that it will result in donations.
I think that Patreon has the benefit that it will result in donations.
I like the idea - but - if all members had to create a patreon account, I think that would be more offputting than a quick face scan with their phone. And just as offputting as having to make a 50p payment.
Essentially this act has "put me out of business". Because I don't have profits to pay for the Age ID without charging. Just to keep the forum as it was before.
webbouk
Well-known member
I'd like to see how anyone can age-verify an existing member base of 31,000+, let alone the costs involved.
From a user perspective, anyone who wants to use a forum regardless of it's nature is not going to jump through hoops and pay to do so. It also negates the purpose of a quick reply box for guests, which encourages registration.
From a user perspective, anyone who wants to use a forum regardless of it's nature is not going to jump through hoops and pay to do so. It also negates the purpose of a quick reply box for guests, which encourages registration.
eva2000
Well-known member
OFCOM knows this - hence why they made exceptions for their own government sites
sport_billy
Member
What would you have to 'knobble' on your forum do you believe?
The site i help admin, we are removing the PM feature to make complying with Child Risk Assessment a little more easier and mitigating the risk of unsavoury unmoderated discussions . It was not a particularly used feature according to logs and really only used by staff and the community have understood the need for it's deactivation.
I mentioned that earlier in the thread - I would need to mitigate for a child risk assessment as it's a site that would attract children (pets) so a lot more to change than just removing DM's. If I had the age verification software then no child risk assessment needs doing.
Mr Lucky
Well-known member
But would you not then be losing a lot of members? With something like that having children as members is doing good for the hamsters because children may get properly educated and advised on looking after an animal.
Surely your only main issue is to check all current hyperlinks.
sport_billy
Member
the forum i admin on has a similar niche to yours. We do ask people to declare they are 18+ on sign up because kids can be unruly as members but know this is circumnavigated and if found out they are removed.... Our site is not used to generate money and is purely hobby/welfare based in its nature.
My understanding and it is limited from my reading of the guidance is as long as the risk assessment is taken seriously and we put down all mitigating factors e.g. moderation, report system, community guidelines on content, automated scanning for CSAM, NO DM's, tighten up on off topic chat... then that is really all we can do.
I am pondering what other things you would need to change?
Without age verification and this looks impossible to get for forums reasonably - then forums like yours and ours will attract children and we'd have to do the Childrens Risk Assessment
sport_billy
Member
Is there any way of checking hyperlinks on a forum? Or making sure if someone posted one it would hit the approval queue? The only way i could find was to add https etc... to spam phrases
Actually we didn't even have any children as members! In the past we had the occasional teenager - maybe 16 or 17, but they are still classed as children. With this site, the vast majority of members registered to read and follow and I'd have no idea how many of those were children - it wouldn't be possible to do a retrospective check. I think even with all the below stuff, as a site that could attract children, you would need 24/7 moderation. I don't think I'd enjoy the forum or the extra pressure and the loss of videos would be a big thing on that site. For the Child Risk Assessment, Ofcom don't accept self declared age - it can't prove anything - so you have to then mitigate for all the Primary Priority harms and also all the "Priority harms" - which are wide ranging. And constantly watch for anything posted that could be conceived as bullying or inappropriate for kids.
This is my list from the earlier post:
"Ok my conclusions so far.
If no age verification software, then to mitigate for a child risk assessment I would need:
1) No DM's
2) No embedded youtube videos (or any other video option due to server overload)
3) Any hyperlinks posted to go for manual moderation
4) Wide ranging key word auto moderation set up
5) New registrations prevented from posting links
6) More moderators
And I have also added:
7) Addon to remove exif data from photos
8) Already had CASM
9) No photos of sick or injured animals (would need constant monitoring unless all photos went to manual approval)
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10) Remove all sharing links (eg to X, Facebook etc which give access to other sites).
Which would dumb down the site a lot. And I think it would put a lot of people off posting at all, everyone would be nervous about what they might say. But maybe your site is much busier than mine anyway.
To avoid all this and to have age verification software I would need:
1) $500 to $2000 to pay a developer to integrate the API into Xenforo
2) Charge 50p on registration to cover the 35p per age verification check
3) Everything else could stay as it is now except maybe one more part-time moderator
4) No DM's (not a great loss on this particular site)."
Age verification bit has changed - it would now be
1) £500 to £2000 to pay a developer to integrate API
2) Charge 50p on registration to cover age verification check
3) Find $700 upfront (initial requirement for block of credits)
4) No DM's
This is my list from the earlier post:
"Ok my conclusions so far.
If no age verification software, then to mitigate for a child risk assessment I would need:
1) No DM's
2) No embedded youtube videos (or any other video option due to server overload)
3) Any hyperlinks posted to go for manual moderation
4) Wide ranging key word auto moderation set up
5) New registrations prevented from posting links
6) More moderators
And I have also added:
7) Addon to remove exif data from photos
8) Already had CASM
9) No photos of sick or injured animals (would need constant monitoring unless all photos went to manual approval)
Edit
10) Remove all sharing links (eg to X, Facebook etc which give access to other sites).
Which would dumb down the site a lot. And I think it would put a lot of people off posting at all, everyone would be nervous about what they might say. But maybe your site is much busier than mine anyway.
To avoid all this and to have age verification software I would need:
1) $500 to $2000 to pay a developer to integrate the API into Xenforo
2) Charge 50p on registration to cover the 35p per age verification check
3) Everything else could stay as it is now except maybe one more part-time moderator
4) No DM's (not a great loss on this particular site)."
Age verification bit has changed - it would now be
1) £500 to £2000 to pay a developer to integrate API
2) Charge 50p on registration to cover age verification check
3) Find $700 upfront (initial requirement for block of credits)
4) No DM's
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sport_billy
Member
I do understand the pressure you are feeling, it is a shame the law is quite blunt in its approach to how it is affecting smaller forums and wont really impact the main players of big social media to any degree. I hope you can find a way to keep your community together in another form and promote animal welfare
Not really because all known members were actually adults! Either adult owners or parents. We did have a teenage member once. The site "may" attract children but predominantly it was adults who joined. But as it could be classed as attracting children then it has to comply with a Child Risk Assessment. I left all the guides online so anyone could read those for educational purposes. Which benefits others but not me or those who actually want to chat and share or ask for tips.
Yes - I think they don't care about smaller, non-profit-making sites going down, as long as the online rules are met. To comply easily you need money IMO. No videos and watching out for photo content would be a big thing on this site. I think people would just go away. It's also too much extra work and ongoing responsibility for me personally. Free age verification software would be nice! Anyone under 18 could ask a parent to join up. Then the site could be as it was before predominantly.
It did have an unsuitable link posted by a spammer overnight once, but spam was virtually nil latterly as I increased spam protection.
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I guess it could be via censored word moderation partially, along with manual approval for any links posted and restricting new members to not posting links. Also to make links non viewable to guests. My site was/is heavy in youtube videos - which are a direct link to absolutely anything on youtube. So they would have to go. I would think even a direct link to X or Facebook would come under that same issue as well so I would have also had to remove all sharing links.
So how would you be meeting the child risk assessment on your site? More moderators helps I guess.
sport_billy
Member
We'd be undertaking the risk assessment and state the mitigating measures we have in place. We have a team of one owner, myself, 4 mods and several mini mods who can remove posts from view were they to contravene laws. DMs was ,my huge concern.
Pondering making all posted links hit approval queue using spam phrases.... posts containing these need approval - unsure how could retrospectively check a link posted over past 14 years is safe though.
Don't think there is a way of putting photos into approval - sadly
Have turned off unfurl URLs to avoid them showing anything dodgy on screen.
i am hoping as long as ofcom can see you have tried to mitigate risk as much as possible then they would be cool...
Post counts are slower than many years ago the community is very good and they do report anything slightly 'off'
I used to own the site but a fellow admin took over 3 years ago. So i still feel quite invested in the community...