I had an account on here for years. I was called GameAddict on the Arqade Stack Exchange site. I would like to have my account back, but you removed AOL OAuth. Since I was not around for a long time I wasn't here to see if you warned us before removing. Not only that, but AOL also deleted my acco...
@Catija Speaking of which, is there a plan for updating the relevant FAQ with the actual text? Right now, it just says "employees, please add text here" to the heading asking why users in the EU specifically have to be at least 16.
How do I use Stack Exchange if I'm under 13 (16 in the EU)?
Unfortunately, children under 13 (under 16 in the European Union) are not allowed to sign up for Stack Exchange accounts. If you are underage, and are trying to participate, first off, we're sorry. It's awesome that you're already tryin...
@Catija An employee wrote the existing rather elaborate text for the COPPA 13+ restriction, so a similar elaborate description should be written for the EU 16+ one.
I don't fully understand the GDPR and don't know why exactly that clause showed up in the ToS, so it's best if an employee clarifies it.
The 16 years of age thing is because for people < 16 special protections and extra duties of due dilligence as well as sometimes requiring parental consent applies
@SonictheInclusiveHedgehog (IANAL - not legal advice) Article 8 of the GDPR defines anyone under 16 (individual countries can lower that down to 13) as having special protections, namely that consent to data processing given by such minors is subject to a harsher standard of understandability and needs to happen at least with the informed consent if not entirely by the parents or legal guardians
It's best if someone with the inside knowledge edits it. Someone who knows why exactly SE decided to add that clause to the ToS. In the same manner that another employee who clearly knew why exactly SE added the 13+ global restriction elaborated it.
My guess is SE doesn't want into the can of worms that is verifying parental consent (That is a pure guess btw. I have no idea of their actual motivations)
@JourneymanGeek For any other FAQ I'd go ahead and edit based on what I see. But this is the law. If one of us non-lawyers edits it in, there's a chance it may be incorrect.
@JourneymanGeek But FAQs shouldn't have an unsightly "employees, please add text here" notice either. (The problem can't be resolved by omitting that subheading entirely since it'd no longer answer the question which specifically asks about that.)
that's to say, if it can't be fixed from what you know, just leave it
@SonictheInclusiveHedgehog did it to start with?
so, now...
the smart way to deal with this would have been to ask a seperate question on the rules for EU
then fold it in
not edit it, then complain its missing things
so you basically edited, it, and are now worrying about an incomplete answer... after the edit, since the original answer never had that...
I'm seeing a certain... lack of planning here.
so the smart thing to do would be to roll back, ask a seperate question, and just get it closed as a dupe once answered (which is useful!) then roll it in
@JourneymanGeek That's precisely why I made the decision at the time to not ask a separate question about it. It'd be closed as a dupe, and thus get downvoted.
@ShadowWizard Still looks a bit weird to me now, with the references to being 16 in the EU but only american legislation. I think what Geek suggested, to just remove the entire '16 in the EU part' everywhere, ask about that and only then merge it in, sounds better to me?
@ShadowWizard @JourneymanGeek At the time, though, I thought that questions whose answers were later edited into the FAQ were eligible to be closed as dupes, but I later learned that they're not.
@SonictheInclusiveHedgehog I was talking with Shadow about their edit to the answer part. Which needs an edit now too, as it's even stranger if the question doesn't mention the EU anymore.
I noticed this new paragraph in the Terms of Service:
If you are located within the European Union, you must be at least 16 years old to access or use the Network or Services, including without limitation to complete a Stack Overflow Account Registration. By accessing or using the Services or...
I noticed that each site in the network has its own copy of the Terms of Service, e.g. https://stackoverflow.com/legal/terms-of-service, https://meta.stackexchange.com/legal/terms-of-service, https://travel.stackexchange.com/legal/terms-of-service, etc.
But the link to the terms in the footer of...
Pretty sure that I will get mad in about 5 hours when I realize that if the votes on the Frodo answer came just a little later, I probably would have already got 2-3 hats just from that.
oh wait.... most mail clients won't actually delete messages when you delete them, but rather send them to "Trash" folder. Empty that one and try again.
@SonictheInclusiveHedgehog While I can't provide an official answer (and didn't try to), I hope you don't mind me having added an answer with the respective GDPR articles.