Thread:Avalair/@comment-4845243-20150503040818

So, this is about http://legomessageboards.wikia.com/wiki/Thread:215310.

There are a few problems that I see with both the vote itself and the way you word things.

Let's talk about the most important thing first - COPPA. The way you word this section indicates that you misunderstand what COPPA is. COPPA does not say that people under 13 cannot have wikia accounts. In fact, I am fairly certain that COPPA, the law, makes no mention of wikia whatsoever. Rather, Wikia has decided to comply with COPPA by banning users under the age of 13. Because of the misinformation contained in your vote I cannot consider it a legitimate vote.

Another issue with the COPPA thing is something that Ajraddatz brought up. We cannot and will not locally block underage users, because this would be revealing personal information about them, and thus violates the ToU. The only appropriate action to take is to report them to wikia staff via Special:Contact. For this reason, again, I cannot consider this vote legitimate. I will not allow this kind of block to take place as reveals personal information about minors.

Now lets move on to the problematic, but slightly less problematic, issue of the global blocks. Local blocks are only put in place for violations of local policy. Local blocks are completely inappropriate for dealing with global issues for several reasons. First, they may not have actually violated our local policy. If you actually want a proper vote on this you need to propose adding a clause that says users who identify themselves as globally blocked should be locally blocked from the wiki." However, this is still problematic, because it doesn't solve any problems. If the user never violated a local policy then they have not created any problems on LMBW, and we are blocking them for a non-existent problem. Also, they are still free to access the rest of wikia. If anything, a report should be sent to wikia staff so that another global block can be instituted. Or, if the global block was not warranted in the opinions of LMBW users, we have no obligation to report it.

'''In conclusion: The vote about COPPA is not legitimate and, regardless of the outcome, we will not locally block users who say they are under 13. I also urge you to reconsider the global block vote, considering that local blocks are ineffective and it is not our job to enforce global blocks.'''

Thanks for reading! 