[Wikia-l] Why is DOB required for registration?

[Jesús Martínez]

We're having some reports from users that can't create an account, as
I reported on <http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:Account_creation_problem>

I could reproduce that, but I didn't find any relation between that
"Unable to create registration" and the DOB. Now there's a clear
relation.

Whenever i put a DOB upper than 24 sept 1996 i get this error. If i
put a lower DOB, the registration is successful.

There's no explanation of why of that error.

I edited [[MediaWiki:Userlogin-unable-info]] adding a link to our
forums so people could tell us that tere's a problem here, but it
could be annoying for us if we receive several complaints and I
couldn't explain why they couldn't login.

I could add something like "You are under age of X and you can't
create an account here because US laws doesn't allow that" in
[[MediaWiki:Userlogin-unable-info]], but it's hard to tell that to
users that don't edit from the US.

We are also affected by that f*ing laws?


Prevent people under certain age from registering, and we couldn't
tell them the real reson for that? This is *seriously* annoying.


2008/9/23 sannse <sannse at gmail.com>:
> Hi,
>
> It's a legal thing.
>
> As we have universal login for 9000+ wikis, it's considered safest for
> us to ask for a real date of birth.  That way we ensure we do the
> right thing for all our varied communities while complying with
> federal regulations.
>
> I've posted the same thing in reply to the forum thread
>
> -- sannse
>
> Lisa "sannse" Carter
> Wikia Community and Technical Team
> http://www.wikia.com
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 3:29 AM, John Beckett <johnb.beckett at gmail.com> wrote:
>> A user has complained that when he used "Create an account" on our wiki, he was
>> required to enter his birth date (he did NOT register, and emailed me privately).
>>
>> On "create account", I don't see a link to a privacy page, nor any hint why Wikia
>> would collect DOB. If it is to determine identity when a password is lost and email
>> doesn't work, I think there should be a hint in some additional text under "Real
>> name is optional". If the DOB is for statistics (like age of users), surely you
>> should just ask for birth year?
>>
>> Why is DOB required? I notice that someone else also wants to know:
>> http://www.wikia.com/index.php?title=Forum:Birthdate
>>
>> John
>>
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