KFA Mailing List age limitation

[Elizabeth Synclair]

The KFA group was marked as 'adult content' upon its creation and, as such, people who have stated their age to be less than 18 cannot view or comment on the group. I think this is a problem; how about you folks?

[maymay]

On Aug 13, 2012, at 4:01 PM, Elizabeth Synclair wrote:

> The KFA group was marked as 'adult content' upon its creation and, as such, people who have stated their age to be less than 18 cannot view or comment on the group. I think this is a problem; how about you folks?

I agree, it is a problem. I also do not know how to address it. I just want to say I'm *very* eager to hear from others on this issue, and thanks for bringing it up, Elizabeth.

Cheers,
-maymay
Blog: http://maybemaimed.com
Talk show: http://KinkOnTap.com
Community: http://KinkForAll.org

[Michael C. Toren]

On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 04:03:24PM -0500, maymay wrote:
> > The KFA group was marked as 'adult content' upon its creation and, as
> > such, people who have stated their age to be less than 18 cannot view
> > or comment on the group. I think this is a problem; how about you
> > folks?
>
> I agree, it is a problem. I also do not know how to address it. I just
> want to say I'm *very* eager to hear from others on this issue, and
> thanks for bringing it up, Elizabeth.

I'd be happy to provide mailing list hosting.

-mct

[James Sheldon]

Probably our best solution is to host the list on a private server.

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[Michael C. Toren]

On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 04:03:24PM -0500, maymay wrote:
> > The KFA group was marked as 'adult content' upon its creation and, as
> > such, people who have stated their age to be less than 18 cannot view
> > or comment on the group. I think this is a problem; how about you
> > folks?
>
> I agree, it is a problem. I also do not know how to address it. I just
> want to say I'm *very* eager to hear from others on this issue, and
> thanks for bringing it up, Elizabeth.

[Rebecca Crane]

Hey folks, 

Thank you, Elizabeth. :) I've been digging around in the settings and Google help forums to see what our options are. The issue isn't with Google Groups as a whole, just with the existing KinkForAll group. Its Group Content Classification was set to Adult Only at some point and "Once set to 'Adult only', this setting can not be changed."  

Here are a few options:

1. We could simply start a new Google Group with a Content Classification setting of 'Everyone'. This is my first choice because I'd like to get this sorted out ASAP. The downside is that we won't retain the existing 100+ person membership list. However, there's both a Direct Add feature that would allow us to re-add members by hand and an Invite feature that could be used to prompt people to re-subscribe. This would be time-consuming but perhaps doesn't have to happen immediately.

2. There's some evidence that we could contact Google directly and ask them to change the Adult Content setting.[0] I'm happy to try sending a request but, like I said, I'd like to get this sorted out ASAP. I don't want to spend time waiting for a reply from Google and tangling with Google employees over the definition of "kink" before we can start talking about KinkForAll Las Cruces logistics. The benefit is that we'd keep our membership list and maintain continuity with the old group.

3. We could host on a private server. (Thank you for the offer, MCT!) I'm not sure what the benefits of this would be over a new Google Group. One possible concern: Google might somehow designate us Adults Only even if we don't change the setting ourselves? Other thoughts?

My main concern here is speed. KinkForAll Las Cruces is happening in two months and it's super important to me that it be accessible to youth from the unorganizing stage on.

Thanks! 

- R

EXTERNAL REFERENCES

[0] https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/managing-your-group/xeWF7rZ_g48%5B1-25%5D 

[maymay]

On Aug 13, 2012, at 6:05 PM, Rebecca Crane wrote:

> 1. We could simply start a new Google Group with a Content Classification setting of 'Everyone'. This is my first choice because I'd like to get this sorted out ASAP. The downside is that we won't retain the existing 100+ person membership list. However, there's both a Direct Add feature that would allow us to re-add members by hand and an Invite feature that could be used to prompt people to re-subscribe. This would be time-consuming but perhaps doesn't have to happen immediately.

Just FYI, we can export the membership contents of the Google Group as we wish. Google offers instructions for this.[0] Once we do that, importing the names and email addresses into another system is likely to be trivially easy.

Cheers,
-maymay
Blog: http://maybemaimed.com
Talk show: http://KinkOnTap.com
Community: http://KinkForAll.org

EXTERNAL REFERENCES:

[0] https://support.google.com/groups/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=46398

[Rebecca Crane]

Cool. Thanks for looking into that! In that case, I'm going to start a new Google Group right now and move conversations about KFALC over there. I'll let this mailing list know as soon as it's up and running. :)

[maymay]

That's very generous. Thanks, MCT.

Since the original concern Elizabeth raised was that "people who have stated their age to be less than 18 cannot view or comment on the group," and since this group is simply an email list, we could also subscribe our own archiving bot to this list and funnel those messages to a public web page not hosted by Google such as, say, MCT's offer. The issue I see here is one of fragmentation; messages would be sent to one but not necessarily both lists, unless the mirror were expressly designated read-only.

There is also the option to scrape existent content out of the group ourselves and migrate the remainder to a new group. Code exists to make this task easier than it would likely be otherwise.[0] And, as mentioned, Google provides a facility for us to export and migrate names and email addresses elsewhere.[1]

That all being said, I am wary of making changes right now. We (and I, especially) have very limited resources that may be better off spent on planning for KFALC.[2] Also, the fact that the group is "Adults Only" and the *absence* of any of our attempts to change that is a useful legal protection.

Bluntly, there is no technical hurdle I know about to stop a person from creating a Google Account while stating they are over the age of 18, and then subscribing to this group. That is obviously not an optimal solution in an ideal world. But we do not live in an ideal world and there is a pragmatic part of me that feels this is a very important fact to remain aware of.

Cheers,
-maymay
Blog: http://maybemaimed.com
Talk show: http://KinkOnTap.com
Community: http://KinkForAll.org

EXTERNAL REFERENCES:

[0] http://saturnboy.com/2010/03/scraping-google-groups/
[1] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/kinkforall/VK2P52ENFz8/Tqe-ICmoArYJ
[2] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/kinkforall/G96Uvs4Jpy8/9efczucLMzgJ

[maymay]

On Aug 13, 2012, at 7:05 PM, Rebecca Crane wrote:

Cool. Thanks for looking into that! In that case, I'm going to start a new Google Group right now and move conversations about KFALC over there. I'll let this mailing list know as soon as it's up and running. :)

Wait. Please think through the following[0] before you do that:

The issue I see here is one of fragmentation; messages would be sent to one but not necessarily both lists[…].

[…]

I am wary of making changes right now. We (and I, especially) have very limited resources that may be better off spent on planning for KFALC.[2] Also, the fact that the group is "Adults Only" and the *absence* of any of our attempts to change that is a useful legal protection. 

Bluntly, there is no technical hurdle I know about to stop a person from creating a Google Account while stating they are over the age of 18, and then subscribing to this group. That is obviously not an optimal solution in an ideal world. But we do not live in an ideal world and there is a pragmatic part of me that feels this is a very important fact to remain aware of.

We need not be unduly hasty.

Cheers,

-maymay

Blog: http://maybemaimed.com

Talk show: http://KinkOnTap.com

Community: http://KinkForAll.org

EXTERNAL REFERENCES:

[0] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/kinkforall/VK2P52ENFz8/Fr30pnu99UUJ

[Rebecca Crane]

Hm. Okay. Fair points all. :) It would be nice to keep the original group for the sake of continuity if nothing else. I have created a new group[0], so if do we decide we want to use it, it exists. But I'm happy to continue having this conversation here before making further decisions about that. I'd be interested to hear more thoughts from folks for whom the 18+ rule creates a barrier.  

- R

[0] https://groups.google.com/group/kinkforallgroup

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