Talk:Age Statement

I'm wondering about how international this is supposed to be. Many German archives (at least the bigger ones) either use ID card numbers or display the restricted content only at night. Should I include a paragraph about this or is it irrelevant? -- Rodo 09:42, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Keep in mind that these are more recent developments, especially with regard to YaoiGer it was in reaction to outside forces. Age statements for mailing lists were quite common on German lists too. However, adding the different approaches to age verification (and why it is needed) seems to be a good idea and we could go more into detail once there are pages for the two archives in question. ;) --Doro 09:50, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I think you should definitely add it, and change what's there to specify it's an American tradition etc. This should be an international page. --MegR 09:51, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, I think the redirect may be the wrong way around; perhaps should be Age Statement ->Age Restricted?--MegR 10:02, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I was unsure about this myself, because I've encountered direct age statements less and less. I used to see them mostly on mailing lists, but many archive simply use a click-through method, and LJ communities require a birthyear in the profile but not a special statement for the community. -- Rodo 10:09, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I added ... a lot, and I'd really appreciate it if someone would look over my probably questionable English. And I'd really like a beta for what I wrote about Germany *looks at Doro* -- Rodo 12:32, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Your English looks fine to me, but the page is now basically divded into "Fandom" and "Germany". German fandom *is* fandom; it should be, I don't know, "English language fandom" and "German fandom", or something, so that U.S./English language fandom is not the default. --MegR 12:40, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, the first part isn't necessarily untrue when it comes to other parts of German fandom. Smaller archives often fly under the radar, and many use the automated archive software. And since many fans who maintain archives don't have the know-how to implement something as complicated as this, they simply seem to stick with the easier/Anglo-American method and hope no one will blow the whistle. Mailing lists are pretty similar, especially if you're talking about Yahoo!. I have no idea about zines. Maybe it should be renamed "German peculiarities"? -- Rodo 12:51, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I edited it a bit. Have a look! :) --Doro 13:19, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, from what I read, none of these archives allow pornographic material and are very vocal about it. I think the rule on ff.de says no more than 50% sex scene or the story gets deleted (there's a reason nobody calls their fic porn in Germany). This seems to be more or less about sexually explicit and/or potentially disturbing content. Edited accordingly. -- Rodo 13:27, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I changed it back. The law forbids access to pornographic material for minors (and that line referred to the requirements by law), not to sexually explicit material. Archives are just very nervous about sexually explicit material because it's difficult to determine when it start to become pornographic. --Doro 13:32, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, there is this lovely thing called " schwere Entwicklungsbeeinträchtigung". According to this it includes "[die] Darstellungen sexueller Erniedrigungen unterhalb der Pornografiegrenze, vor allem sogenannte "Sado-Maso"- oder "Bondage"-Inhalte (siehe den "Frauendiskriminierungs-Fall"); nach der Rechtsliteratur auch die Wiedergabe sexueller Handlungen im Zusammenhang mit menschlichen Körperausscheidungen; nach dem OLG Köln auch die Verherrlichung sexuellen Auslebens, wahllosen Partnerwechsels oder sexueller Lust;" So not necessarily pornographic when it comes to young people. This is, I think, what ff.de means when they talk about AVL (which is okay), while pornography is not. I'm trying to find other translations of German lawspeak. -- Rodo 13:57, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

This isn't about sexually explicit material, though. Humiliation, misogyny, excessive promiscuity, sexual acts involving fecal matter, etc. is a different kind of content that is considered harmful to minors and isn't allowed in addition to the ban of pornography.--Doro 14:07, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm really bad with legalese, I'm afraid. And yeah, I know "sexually explicit" isn't really the right term, but I'm really unsure how to phrase it since it can include explicit BDSM and D/s and during the warnings debate some people insisted that this was nothing to "warn" about. Not to mention kinks like dub-con (and non-con/rape) would probably be included as well, and incest. From what I understand, this is really what the archives are most concerned about, hence Animexx's rule against any rape in Harry Potter fanfic unless it is explicitly stated that the raped person is over 18. They're all pretty clear that porn is not okay, it's the "content that's harmful to minors" that causes the problems. Would "adult" instead of "pornographic" be better, since it potentially includes violence? -- Rodo 14:38, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

it can include explicit BDSM and D/s and during the warnings debate some people insisted that this was nothing to "warn" about. Not to mention kinks like dub-con (and non-con/rape) would probably be included as well, and incest. Not generally, no. In some cases yes, but these are usually pornographic too. There is no rule that says X content makes it automatically unsuitable (unless it's explicitly against the law), it's always a matter of how it's done and what it does (the "You know it when you see it" kind of thing), and usually none of these examples are about fiction. Would "adult" instead of "pornographic" be better, since it potentially includes violence? No, I don't think so. On the one hand, some of the examples that are considered harmful to minors are not allowed for adults either because they are against the law. On the other hand, some stuff is considered adult because of its explicit content, but explicit content that isn't pornographic isn't forbidden for minors. There is no easy and short way to explain all the instances that aren't allowed and that don't have anything to do with sexual explicitness. There is a reason why the YaoiGermany page that explains the rules is incredibly long and detailed with a lot of examples. --Doro 15:02, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Reading the Germany section I clicked on the Fanfiktion.de link to see what the acronym "AVL" even stood for because it mystified me, and saw that the FAQ says 'AVL bedeutet "Altersverifiktion [sic] Light".' Is this intentional sarcasm, that they misspelled verification as fiction, to mock it?--Ratcreature 16:04, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Have you looked at the rest of the FAQ? -- Rodo 20:05, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Not really, just the AVL section. It didn't look all that sarcastic, but this is such a great and fitting misspelling that it would be awesome if it was intentional, so I hoped someone familiar with the archive would know. I mean, the German "Jugendschutz" is so overbearing and paternalistic in its effects even on adults that I can't help wanting to mock it.--Ratcreature 20:37, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I doubt it was intentional. One of the users once posted a critique of the help section because of many misspellings, unclear and bad formulations. Some passages are really, really bad. -- Rodo 21:00, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Too bad. I also asked because I think the meaning of these acronyms should be integrated in the texts somehow, so I wanted to make sure about the typo/pun. For some time before going to that FAQ I tried to figure out on my own what the letters could mean, and match to rating codes, like wondering whether they adopted the VL for Violence and Language warnings like the US tv codes, and finally only looked when I couldn't come up with an explantion that would make sense for the whole thing. I'm actually still not sure what the "P" in the label before the age stands for though I've seen that in age labels elsewhere. (I assume the tacked on "light" is supposed to indicate that it this is not actually an in-person photo ID age verification of the kind you need for pornography?)--Ratcreature 22:18, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Page rename/cleanup

This page is currently titled Age Statement and is ostensibly about the glossary term, but the actual focus of the page is more broadly on approaches to age restrictions/requirements in fandom spaces (see inclusion of lying about age, the lead referencing situations where age restrictions exist but there's no statement involved, etc.) — I'm thinking a lot of content on this page could be moved to a new page titled something like "Age Restrictions in Fandom" which would cover lying about ages, other approaches to age-restricting content and so on, and this article can be left for the glossary term? - Castille (talk) 02:38, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm actually fine with the page as is, but your proposal sounds reasonable to me too. Especially if we were to add more content about other approaches to restrictions beyond age statements (like the section about German archives' approaches). I do wonder if "Age restrictions in fandoms" as page would also want to cover the "minors only" discourse that comes up sometimes?? I don't know of any space that literally bans adults but people sometimes talk about wanting/creating one. And either way, I agree with your comment on discord that more discussion of recent practices (and in other languages) would be good! -- Quaelegit (talk) 07:06, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I actually think we should keep this page as is, it an informative glossary page that explains what an age statement is and why there are used. I'm not against a "Age Restrictions in Fandom" page, but I think it should be separate from this one. -- Kingstoken (talk) 08:49, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Kingstoken. The term "Age Statement" has a long history that is not "age restrictions in fandom." --Mrs. Potato Head 01:56, 18 October 2024 (UTC)