Wikipedia currently does not have any guideline or efforts to protect children online. I am offering this as the start of a guideline propsal. The last proposal, WP:CHILD, failed ARBCOM in 2006. Although Wikipedia does not collect information and is a non-profit organization and is so exempt from COPPA, it does offer the ability for children to put themselves in dangerous situations. Facebook and MySpace have both been strongly targetted by the media for lack of decent policies concerning minors [1] [2] [3] [4]. This proposal avoids putting the responsibilty on Wikipedia to protect children while encouraging editors to help; but most importantly, it details the proper steps to take to avoid helping the predators in an editors attempt to protect the children. The result of the Arbcom was that members should continue to try to develop a policy or guideline on this subject, however efforts died shortly after the close of the Arbcom. The goal here is not to put responsibility on Wikipedia, but to guide editors in the proper handling of these cases.

I recently had an experience ( User talk:Bloochubby) with an 11-year-old who wanted to know how to upload a photo of himself -- into article space, as it happens, but it could easily have been into user space. I attempted to discourage this young man from revealing personal information about himself by declining to assist him but explaining why. I see the potential dangers here for children (I'm not absolutely sure what use a predator could make of a photograph or a phone number, but I know it's strongly discouraged that children provide this information publicly). Unfortunately I have not thought of any way to protect them. At present, any user who opens an account can upload any information about him/herself without restriction, to the best of my knowledge. I can't figure out how to differentiate children from adults, if that's even possible, and treating them differently/separately opens up the whole "Wikipedia is not censored" can of worms. I'll look forward to hearing the views of others. Accounting4Taste: talk 22:50, 12 October 2009 (UTC) reply

I definitely would not want to censor or treat younger members differently. I hope I have worded this potential guideline to only affect those who are under 13 AND have posted identifiable information. And my intent is to encourage them not to, not restrict them in any way. I welcome any opinions on wording to meet that intent or a better intent.-- TParis00ap ( talk) 02:48, 13 October 2009 (UTC) reply

Awhile back I ran into an editor who posted PIM that indicated he was 12 or 13. I notified an admin and shortly thereafter the edit was gone. I think this was before revision-delete was in place but I could be wrong. I also emailed the person the reason why and let him know if he really wanted to put it back he could but I strongly recommended against it. He did not. davidwr/( talk)/( contribs)/( e-mail) 20:38, 3 December 2009 (UTC) reply

Another thing to consider is the way some children may be participating in articles about school violence. I encountered this a while ago when I noticed some teenagers were editing these articles. These children may in some cases be directly involved in bullying and potential real life violent situations. I have tried to address this with the preventing school violence article. Unfortunately there was a lot of dispute over it. I intend to get back to it before to long. If you or anyone else is interested I included something about it on my user page. Good day Zacherystaylor ( talk) 18:20, 14 October 2009 (UTC) reply

Thanks, I'll take a look.-- TParis00ap ( talk) 22:41, 14 October 2009 (UTC) reply

Even though WP:CHILD isn't an official policy, it's been operating as an unofficial policy for some time, in my experience ... I sometimes edit articles about children's books, and there I run into a lot of under-10 editors, some of whom are naive enough to post their name and birthdate online, and sometimes their whole family too. When I find a page like this I let an administrator know and they delete it, or at least delete the revisions of the page that contain that information. Oversight isn't really necessary unless they put something outside their userspace, so long as we can trust our administrators (which I would certainly hope is true). -- Soap ^Talk/ _{Contributions} 15:44, 21 October 2009 (UTC) reply

Wikipedia generally treats people as an adult unless they act like they aren't. It's not meant to be specifically kid- and teenager-friendly but if a 13 year old wanders in and by all appearances acts like he's an adult, i.e. doesn't act immature, he's welcome.

Please consider re-tagging this as an essay and moving it to Wikipedia space.

Things I like:

• Regarding What should you do? You got this right on the money. This is the heart of any resulting essay.

• The bot is a good idea but the oversight committee may be too small to handle the output.

Things that may need additonal thought

• As far as legal requirements are concerned, unless the team from WP:LEGAL has input, this should be couched not as a legal requirement but rather as "it was good enough for Congress, so it's probably a good idea for us even if the letter of the law does not apply."

• For what it's worth, I agree that categories, userpage templates, and the like which identify someone as a minor should not be encouraged, but because of overall privacy reasons that effect everyone, not because of child safety reasons per se. Most children, many teenagers, and some adults do not appreciate that "once something is out there, it's out there forever." All editors should be discouraged from revealing personal information about themselves unless they understand the risks and make a deliberate, informed, mature decision to publish that information. A few preteens, some teenagers, and many but not nearly all adults are capable of making this decision eyes-wide-open, and Wikipedia should not prevent this.

• With respect to "children are not always children" - that goes for any "X are not always X" - I can be 13 and claim to be 18, or I can be a college drop-out and claim to have a Ph.D. If all editors are generally aware that off-wiki, non-verifiable claims may or may not be true, that is enough. As far as police go, I wouldn't be surprised if there are a few "fake 15 year olds" here who are police, acting as bait. The same is probably true for Facebook and any other web site with a large number of public contributors.

• The "Don't help predators" page is all but mooted by the fact that editors are free to edit their own user and talk pages. Having said that, it's bad form to put any "identification" templates on anyone's talk page but your own. One way to "not help predators" is to put some no-include text at the top of all user-page templates that says something like "These templates may reveal personal information about you. The Internet can be a hostile place and once you put this on your web page, may will be there "forever" in archives not controlled by Wikipedia or the Wikimedia foundation. Think carefully before putting this on your user page or user talk page."

• With respect to PIN, we do need an essay or guideline that says new editors shouldn't post PIN and if they do, any other editor may remove it ONCE and request by off-wiki email to admin-l that the edit be deleted, and once it is deleted, notify the editor to suggest that if he really didn't want that information up, it can be oversighted. If the editor insists on putting it back up, or the editor is established, it should stay up unless an administrator determines that this person's obvious naivette, regardless of age, requires its re-removal. Your exclusions cover most of these issues.

• Regarding parents: Remember, some parents may be okay with their kids putting up personally identifiable information. That information might be available with the kid's name on the parents' own web site. It is a bit presumptuous of us to assume we are in fact helping parents in all cases, when in fact, we are doing so only in a super-majority of cases. Your exclusions cover most of these issues.

One thing that is missing

• A specific referenced to WP:NOTCENSORED and an accompanying brief statement that certain parts of Wikipedia are not kid-friendly, even if those kids are readers, not editors. On that note, if I had a kid under say, 13, I would be far more worried that their best friend's big brother would show them File:Virgin Killer.jpg than that they might get approached by a predator after posting their cell number on their user page.

davidwr/( talk)/( contribs)/( e-mail) 15:52, 21 October 2009 (UTC) reply

Leaving a public message can be counter-productive, especially if the edit in question is pending deletion. See Streisand effect. Its best to contact the editor privately. On the other hand, we don't want to give young people the idea that anyone who communicates with them through Wikipedia is safe to talk to off-wiki. davidwr/( talk)/( contribs)/( e-mail) 20:43, 3 December 2009 (UTC) reply

Good call. What do you think about email?-- TParis00ap ( talk) 21:18, 3 December 2009 (UTC) reply

For adults email is generally the best way to communicate privately. When minors, especially those not in high school, are involved, you risk:

• Giving anti-Wikipedia groups the impression that Wikipedia encourages off-wiki interaction between minors and adults. Its an unfortunate reality that appearances do count for something.
• A well-meaning editor may risk himself being called "perverted" for emailing someone who claims to be 12, no matter what the circumstance. Such an accusation can drive a good editor away. Again, this is a sad reality. While this isn't likely to come out through the normal course of things, it might come out in an RFA or similar discussion.
• Just my personal opinion, but non-public communications between adults and younger teens or kids should not happen behind parents backs, particularly if it is ongoing.

If we combine "anonymized" email addresses like username-randomtemporaryname@wikipedia.com with an archiving feature that logs all email sent to or from that address, it would allow editors to send non-public mail to youth without it being really private - oversighters would have access to the archives - and without any means for the youth to reply back except on-wiki or through a oversighter-visible email. Such a feature would have value outside of adult/minor communication as well. Having the email be "not totally private" gives accountability and respectability and eliminates the "OMG Wikipedia facilitates harm to children!!!" that might come if we encouraged adults to use the existing email function of Wikipedia when talking to minors.

Note: Wikipedia email does include boilerplate at the bottom reminding people to be safe. That's a good start but the above suggestion goes much further.

davidwr/( talk)/( contribs)/( e-mail) 21:59, 3 December 2009 (UTC) reply

I like the idea but that brings me to Policy_reform_treadmill which I just litereally read. I would like to propose something that doesn't quite change people's way of doing things but rather informs new editors and sets the current consensus in stone. That may be worth evolving into later (because it actually would be really useful and hits the points you make), but for now I think I'll just take that part out and leave it like it was. Although I do not want to cause the Streisand effect, that may be the best way to do it. I think it'd cause more of this effect if it were published on WP:ANI or WP:Vilalge Pump but it is less risky on the user's talk page.-- TParis00ap ( talk) 22:10, 3 December 2009 (UTC) reply

The ones in column 2 and 3 don't necessarily have to be combined in the "one from col. a one from col. b" to be PIM.

A unique enough first and last name can amount to enough PIM that anyone on the Internet can find the person, especially if combined with a photo, unique nick name, or unique physical features.

There is also the less serious problem of being recognized by those who know you. Your nick or writing style and topics you edit may "give you away" to people who know you. This is generally a problem for people who know they are being stalked or who know they are in hiding, not your run of the mill net-citizen. davidwr/( talk)/( contribs)/( e-mail) 21:30, 3 December 2009 (UTC) reply

I was actually considering adding something about a unique name to column one; although I understand your point. I'm not sure I can account for every instance of PIN but I wanted to give a few good ideas about how a few non identifiable peices can be put together to identify someone.-- TParis00ap ( talk) 21:33, 3 December 2009 (UTC) reply

WP:USECOMMONSENSE may be your only way out of this. Perhaps presenting a few examples, like "these, alone, are typically enough to make it very easy to find someone" and "these, either in combination or in combination with information obtained off-wiki, may be enough to make it very easy to identify someone." You may also want to caution that "information obtained off-wiki" may be information posted to the Internet a year or 5 years from now. Does a kid really want to be getting ready for a job interview at age 20 and have the boss say "I see you were a big Yu-gi-oh fan when you were 13?" or asking the head cheerleader out when you are 17 only to have her reject you because of some edit you made when you were 12. davidwr/( talk)/( contribs)/( e-mail) 21:39, 3 December 2009 (UTC) reply

I added a little bit but I didn't want to strive too much into censoring folks.-- TParis00ap ( talk) 21:48, 3 December 2009 (UTC) reply

Rather than an image of children, an image of "protection" might be better.

The image of a "family restroom" with a male adult and a female adult stick-figure on either side of a child holding hands comes to mind.

Another possibility is a logo based on the phrase in loco parentis or something similar. davidwr/( talk)/( contribs)/( e-mail) 03:58, 7 December 2009 (UTC) reply

Good idea, I'll look around. Thanks!--v/r - T P 14:54, 7 December 2009 (UTC) reply