Can I point out the obvious if you don't mind. Up until this point under 18's were "banned" from using WCG under your updated T&C's (and that includes the forums). Therefore anyone reading this post that is 13-18 shouldn't be here!

That being the case, if they are here and already breaking the T&C's, why would they be bothered jumping through hoops just to keep your lawyers happy? And wouldn't they be admitting to breaching the T&C's if they did contact you? After all, they'd have to have read this thread to know to contact you.

If they have already adhered to the new T&C's and left WCG because they are under 18 they will never know of the change, so it won't matter to them.

All these countries & child protecting laws, are a good step for WCG to have! That only proves that WCG is serious about their commitment to the causes here. So in my humble opinion this step is a step forward for WCG, even if some of the members don't see it that way...

I'd like to post a little suggestion for WCG, for next steps, to make...to make WCG easier to use & accessible to many more families & adolescents world-wide...so here's a suggestion:
- parent can ask for opening a "parents account", which WCG enables for some users which have to prove that they are over 18 years of age. With that parent account he/she can open child's account(s) & supervise all the posting of a children on this forum & the work that they contribute to WCG...that way a child is protected & supervised by a parent at all time on WCG!
- those child accounts does not calculate towards recruitment badges, so that we might not see overuse of that benefit.

Keep up the good work!
;)

Corresponding to your idea, just making one other suggestion...to get the idea, first quote from 1st post:



I'd suggest to ask your legal dept. about having non-binding adolescents on site & forum...so, even though I'm not a lawyer, my suggestion is to go with text:
This exception applies to all World Community Grid members between the ages of 13 and 18 who registered before July 18, 2016. They have by 01 Jan 2017 to get a written consent of their parents or guardians or they'll be removed from the site.

It's maybe a harsh thing to do, but it's a good thing for & a protection to scientists, community (that includes us), WCG, IBM, etc. - practically everyone!

Few questions:
1. How do you know that anyone on this forum is under 18?
2. What makes anyone think that someone is going to go through "certifying" or "proving" they are 18 or over just to run a DC program?
3. If, and this is a big IF, you actually removed an account, what would prevent someone from creating another account and continuing?

Unless someone admits to being under 18, there is no way for WCG to know. I'm sure somewhere in this process they'll add a button during the JOIN process that says "I certify that I'm over 18 years of age". If I'm 14, just check it and move on. I wish they would put this much effort into making the site and backend more robust instead of putting hours of tech time into something with very little payback.

The Terms of Use applies to volunteers. The forums can be read by anyone, including non volunteers. Also, when we announced the new policy, we notified people that we were already working on an exception process for existing under 18's.



I want to be very clear why these efforts aren't about keeping our lawyers happy. An agreement is intended to lay out the rights and responsibilities of both parties, i.e. this is to set volunteers' expectations and protect their rights also. If we ever disregard one of these rules (e.g. about how we handle your email addresses), then under 18 volunteers in some countries would have no legal recourse - because the agreement wouldn't be enforceable for them and therefore cannot protect them.



True. We recognize that there is no fool-proof way of enforcing the policy, but we hope that 13-18 year old volunteers who joined us before the new policies were introduced would want to continue participating and seek parental consent.



You're right, we have no mechanism right now to allow a parent to setup a different kind of account for their child. We will continue to look for ways to expand participation, within the confines of the relevant laws.