MIN age for Dinks

**KaptainLes** · 08-09-2021, 02:32 AM

So the steam minimum age is 13 and for some time If I hear a voice that is a little young I ask how old they are and if they respond with an age under 13 I have been kicking.

Recently I was told we don't enforce this...

So I'd like some feedback if we do or not. Obviously, there is no way to verify age and if they lie we just gotta let them be.

If it's not something we enforce should it be?

As conversations in chats are often not good for a young child's ears.

#Protect the kids from this cespool

**dan** · 08-09-2021, 04:01 AM

we gotta expose them to chaos while they’re young

**ratty**

Steam has a User Agreement which states all Steam "Subscribers" (basically, anyone who purchases a game on the steam store) must be at least the age of 13. Which is honestly probably just for various legal reasons.

However, I think its a good guideline for the server to maintain an age rule ourselves to the best of our abilities. Obviously I'm strongly against asking every player that comes on here their age as that would be really unnecessary. But I think it would be a great idea to not make our server become a place where children can become impressionable by the players on here. (no offense, but some of y'all say some mad inappropriate shit.)

Currently we have no rules on our !motd or forums that say a player must be 13. This is totally fine in my opinion. Many things should go without saying and the !motd should be kept brief. I think any staff with some decency though should stay aware if they hear someone really young using the voice channel. There has been times where I've heard players that sound no older than 11, and I've kicked them without the smallest warning. This seems like common sense to me at many times at night when players are talking about god knows what, drugs, crimes, mental issues, the latest deviantart trends, chris chan, the list goes on... (on the other hand I've heard some children curse out our players harder than any adult ever could)
I personally think that if we are unsure of a players age, but they seem mature enough or keep to themselves enough, we should allow them on the server without intervening. We should never second guess or question what age a player says they are. This age rule should be loosely enforced in a sense, just pay attention to the obvious and never dig.

So in my opinion staff should kick children whenever a bell rings off in their head that they can avoid causing any trouble or letting someone get trolled. Even if this rule is never formalized I'm going to keep enforcing it loosely because frankly I am uncomfortable with the way some people treat really young players that pop into the server and I just think it's best for everyone. I can even recall back to my days of being a Regular and seeing Upper staff kick children when it was obvious they didn't have a clue what was going on in the game. So I've always just upheld a similar ideology

**jax** · 08-09-2021, 10:54 AM

Anyone over the age of 25 should also be kicked and banned

**JesseTheUndeadCowboy**

I honestly think not many people follow the age rule on steam tbh. I seen so many young players on steam lol. Technically it’s a steam issue so I do understand why someone said you don’t enforce this I guess. Still… could just report them on steam I guess but not many people would do that either.

**La Flama Blanca** · 08-09-2021, 11:23 AM

That sounds like a good policy, Les. TTT especially is not a good place for very young kids. Obviously, we won't be able to keep it entirely kid-free because many won't use their mic or will lie about their age, but that shouldn't stop us from doing what is within our ability.

I don't think the rules need to be amended for this, either. Just like how our Community Discord follows the Discord Terms of Service, our Garry's Mod server on Steam should be expected to follow the respective Terms of Service for those platforms.

**pluto** · 08-09-2021, 11:32 AM

i totally agree with limiting the amount of younger players on the servers. yesterday there was an actual child it sounded like in PH and people were activity calling them out and bothering them to the point they left. but limiting ages won't always do it, cracking down on others for also harassing the minors/younger players should also come to fruition. the server could easily be a little more restrictive on its rules for member behaviour and age restrictions.

making sure players are mature enough to play, whether based on age or how they behave in the server with other members is important to have a healthy and enjoyable community. so placing a possible restriction on ages allowed to join the servers should help clear this up, and make the server more enjoyable for people. yeah so, making a min age req for playing on the server is totally cool with me.

**matt_st3 (Strongrule)** · 08-09-2021, 12:05 PM

Surely I’m not the only one who’s mind is boggled on why we are asking ages in server, kicking for the age despite no ruling or steam guideline to do so, and the whole basis is because the community (not the players in question) is too toxic? Much less how to actually implement this? The community jumps on anyone who says a 14-15 year old can’t be staff but 13, nope that’s the line can’t even play.

**Agent Barton** · 08-09-2021, 12:24 PM

(08-09-2021, 12:05 PM)matt_st3 (Strongrule) Wrote: Surely I’m not the only one who’s mind is boggled on why we are asking ages in server, kicking for the age despite no ruling or steam guideline to do so, and the whole basis is because the community (not the players in question) is too toxic? Much less how to actually implement this? The community jumps on anyone who says a 14-15 year old can’t be staff but 13, nope that’s the line can’t even play.

Wholly agree here on this. There's absolutely no way this could be implemented, short of asking for proof of age of every player that wants to join Dinks.

Surely it'd be a better idea to crack down on the people who are acting inappropriately in front of minors? You can't control who comes and goes from server, but can control how people act when here.

**Battons**

This is one of the few times I will ever say this outright this sounds stupid. How do I prove their parents didn't buy it for them? If you wanna go by legalities then technically any kid can play any rated game with parents supervision. Now I can enforce not saying inappropriate things around children but online interactions aren't rated by the US standard ESRB where dinks server is hosted.

Short answer no. I won't make any rule regarding age and it will be handled on a case by case and we shouldn't be kicking people based on their age.