Coalf

Both examples feature mistakes, yeah, you can fix them with Photoshop, but that's exactly my point. It takes effort. Like, the first example doesn't have the state of Indiana in the top left, and the second example garbles the word commissioner. Sure, those can be fixed in Photoshop. Maybe even running it through an AI more than once can fix it. But again, it takes effort. And the more someone has to edit something, the more liable they are to overlook mistakes in it. Not to mention, I acknowledge again and again, a 100% foolproof system does not exist. Cannot exist. Without breaching privacy to an insane degree. like yeah, I can go fake a discord message right now. Does that mean that discord messages should just never be trusted and it's never justified for someone to show their DM's since it's a breach of another person's privacy? Like, admins still make judgments on those. Also, it would concern lettering, not faceswap ID. Showing both birthdate and face ID would, I think, be too much information. If the team wants it, they can. The point is, the more information is available about an individual, the easier a judgment becomes. Yes, some 15-year-olds can show up with their dad's ID that says he's 35. Now we know he's supposed to be that age, does he behave that way? Do his linked accounts corroborate that? Maybe there have been messages in the past where he said he's 23 or 25. Younger people are not very likely to try and claim they are above 25. Again, it's more info, it's more effort, it adds to the admin arsenal. And again, this will be used on a very limited pool of users is what we have to remember. Two admins in here already claim they can, with 100% certainty, claim they know everyone in the team is above 18. As Zelm pointed out, we thought this too back in the day and ended up with mods that were as young as 13. If we had this system, I am confident some of them would have either not even tried to get on the team by faking it. Or would have made faulty fakes. I do hope nothing like this happens. But it did. It can again. And if it does, I hope the bravado and jokes get y'all through that one, too. Anyways, I'm just kind of answering the same questions in circles at this point. So I won't really reply unless a new one shows up.

I have no idea what makes your anecdotal claim more valid than mine. Yes, you are a unique case. As am I. We cannot account for each individual; we can, however, reduce the pool to very specific cases. Having more information about a person/situation generally leads to having an easier time making a decision, yes. This is like claiming that gamelogs are worthless, because having extra information about the round doesn't matter, since the admins are making the judgement calls anyways.

Again, much harder to steal your parents ID and take a photo of it in secret with a snippet of paper, unless your parents also allow you to just take photos of their IDs. At which point, like I said, eventually it's not on the staff, it's on the parents. As I said, there is just a line we have to draw on how far we can take internet safety. Full ID? I don't trust admins enough for that. No ID? I don't trust the admins on that. Date of birth? I believe this is the best compromise. To counter anecdotal evidence with my own. My parents did not let me just grab their IDs william nilliam. When I was at home without them, they worked, and their IDs were with them. When they were home, they would have spotted me doing that. So I never considered doing it. Even though I was in situations in which I wanted to buy alcohol over the internet and an ID verification was required. Of course, I live in Eastern Europe, so I simply approached the clerk and bought alcohol at the store by telling them I am 18, and I did not look 18. We call this a literary parallel. Outside of that, it's just more likely that a parent is going to be around 30-40 (Statistically, average age of a parent in Europe/North America is around 30). This age is a lot harder for a teen to fake than 18, doubly so if they have some kind of an existing internet footprint. It increases the chances of other admins spotting if something is sketchy. If someone indeed has very inattentive, very young parents who allow them to have full access to their IDs, take photos of them, and they are so inclined as to get into our admin team. Well, that is simply something we'll have to accept might happen. But it is much less likely to happen and requires quite a few more conditions.

I typed up a really big and handsome post but it logged me out. Lightning Round: "My government ID" - Repeatedly conflating a fully blacked-out ID card except for one window, with posting the whole ID card is, at this point, a malicious misinterpretation meant to ellicit an easy "And then the whole bus stood up and clapped". As Stripes suggested, I think a slip of paper with a Ckey, current date, and a completely blanked ID except the date of birth is a perfect cross of private, secure, and hard to fake. Not to mention, it would allow admins to no longer admit their age to the whole server, as that field could be taken out. Which would help prevent cases of cyberstalking. "It's easy to fake" - No, no, it really isn't. It IS easy to grab a fake ID off of an internet, it is much harder to photoshop a convincing physical timestamp into it. And if a child is stealing their ID from their parents, well at that point that's a family issue not a server issue. There are limits to all systems. We can put a warning not to put forks in microwaves, but we cannot anticipate putting grenades in it. "People can get through this with effort" - There is a gap 3 miles wide between the effort it takes to fake a photo with a timestamp and the effort it takes to go "I am 18 I just look 15" on an application. "UK law and 18+ sites" - This is irrelevant. I am not asking for an entire ID. The issue for them is mostly traffic, as mass traffic requires mass identification, which requires bots to simply identify basic signs of an ID. I assume the staff team does not have the traffic of pornhub, so checking should be a lot safer. Not to mention, they've admitted in 2023 to hosting illegal content knowingly and accepting money from advertisements. So I do not give a shit about them. "We are friends and we trust each other" - Okay, that's a perfect environment for such a system then. Arguments I agree with: "This is uncomfortable" - Valid reason to oppose this, and no way to argue against this. It's emotional, yes, but it's a video game, and those should not make you uncomfortable. It's why it is a policy suggestion. I simply urge you to consider whether this comfort offsets the potential ramifications that might come of this right now, or down the line. "The other suggestions are laughable." - Yes, I already said they're flawed in the proposition. Because they were alternatives. Because I am not trying to "le ebin goddem trolge XDDD" the admin team. I am trying to meet them all down the middle. I admit my responses had been snippy and curt yesterday, because the first two posts were already trying to poison the whole discussion. The date of birth idea is simply, I believe, the best cross between security and anonymity. Yes, other alternatives are easier to fake, but I believe ANYTHING is better than nothing. If the administration does not consider that a concern. Well, I hope nothing happens in the future. But I would at least like to suggest that the moderator sign-up rules be updated to include that rule enforcement staff should be above 18 years of age.

Stripes usefully pointed out, nobody is demanding the whole ID. You can just black out the whole thing except for the date. Something I already said in the initial proposal. So I'd like to use this to ask the staff team to respect the rules of this forum and read the whole thread before posting in it. "Someone can edit theirs or check metadata." 1) The point is to complicate the process, not to make it impossible to bypass. The more steps there are, the less likely someone is to put in the effort to bypass it. It's important to acknowledge there is a limit to what the team can do. My point is to be a tiny bit more strict than a checkbox that goes "are you over the age of 18?" 2) You would be sending this picture to literally 1 person, an existing admin (or a headmin). If you do not trust an existing admin not to datamine a picture and dox you, then genuinely, why are you applying to be a moderator on such a server.

As demonstrated in this application, there are many ways to show one's age without revealing their ID. The point isn't to doxx admins, but rather to simply complicate the sign-up process for someone who would potentially be a teenager and to better check the current team. Which is why I included two other alternatives to showing ID. An ID is simply the most objectively provable, and came to mind as the simplest and most obvious solution.

The rule enforcement team investigates (presumably, maybe this has changed) not only people saying naughty words or posting a bad picture. SS13 is a game full of very odd people, and historically, there have been many more serious cases that required genuine long-form investigation, which also meant long-term engagement with the inappropriate content. Not to mention the many times a griefer will simply harass an admin or spam them with death threats. To simplify it. While everyone can have their house burn down, a fireman is going to be exposed to much more fire than the average person. So I believe it would be good if the firemen were adults. I would rather be secure in knowing the person who is volunteering to deal with some of the worst things in SS13 is an adult. This isn't to prove a point or be an ageist. It is simply an increased degree of assurance. As I said, a written confirmation of age would be the best and safest. But there are other (more flawed) ways of doing this. Lastly, entering a thread saying "I don't know if you are being serious or not," then completely misreading (misunderstanding?) what I said, does not make me feel very assured that you have any idea if someone is an adult over text or their application alone.

Staff have been talking and enforcing the rule of "This server is 13 up" on the server and Discord a lot more. I believe this has left a blind spot, which is the staff itself. Adminstaff and Modstaff, in particular, enforce these rules, which means they're the most likely to get exposed to NSFW, graphic, violent, or illegal content. ( I am excluding Lore/CCIA/Coders as those aren't required to view harmful content for rule enforcement.) Logically, minors should not be on the rule enforcement team, and as of now, the only thing stopping them is a single question that asks how old they are. This is easily lied about, and there wasn't a ruling on underage admins before. I started when I wasn't 18. Thus, I believe that Adminstaff/Modstaff and other staff which deals with OOC rule enforcement should provide legal proof of their age within the confines of privacy laws. I believe the current existing staff should go through this check if this passes. And from then on, every applicant should provide proof before they are added to the team. I would propose an ID card with all identifying information censored except the date of birth. Logically, only shared with a Headmin or the admin who is doing the interview. Alternatively, more hacksawed solutions could be taking a picture of themselves buying an alcoholic drink, with a date. Doing a voice check in VC (although this is faulty, but better than nothing). Or simply showing their face (Again, flawed, but it's better than just asking).

Hello, I am an aurora artist and this is my art. I posted this piece of art in the discord, I was not warned or told it was inappropriate for the server. At a later date, I was approached by Weezy who asked me for some images, I gave him this one as well as others, since I believe it reflects the Tajara lore well. Mainly in regards to how dark it can go. (After all I wrote some of it!) I personally disagree with the assessment that it's too gorey. However, I understand if people are feeling squeamish over it and don't enjoy seeing it. Thus, if the admin decision comes to it being too much, I'd be fine with editing out the blood splatter and simply leaving in the implication of the bullet.

This is enough of a justification to suspend their usage. As you said, Wiki has always erred on the side of caution since time immemorial. And as you said image creation is not a requirement for the wiki, nor to join the staff. So there won't be a big loss for suspending them. We've always banned the use of images from Google specifically because we cannot guarantee we have permission for their usage. Similarly, we cannot guarantee any of the images Cael generated on the Port Antilla page were made by him. There is no signature on the artwork itself, besides it being obvious it was generated. He does not have any files proving he made it, nor can we ask the artist. And I doubt he has screenshots of himself generating that content. For all we know he found these AI generated images on Google, put them on the wiki, and said "made by Dreamjourney" or whatever the software is. I am not saying he did so. But it's an unnecessary risk we're setting up ourselves for. This is a huge vulnerability, mainly now when copyright bots are rampant. As you said, the server owners are the ones who are going to face legal trouble, not the person who uploads these. Outside of that, to re-iterate others points, insane aura loss. It's at this point proven that most people attribute obviously AI generated images to scams, grifters, and lazy/cheap businesses. The fact that none of the ugly-ass mangastudio images I made for Taj lore were ever the center of this many controversies speaks volumes about how little people value AI images over the shittiest artworks made by humans. Not to mention we have previously removed images because they created bad associations even if they were legal to use. As a Taj writer, I distinctly remember removing the WW2 propaganda images of nazis and soviets portrayed as cats, because it created a bad association with the species. Even though those images were by that time in public commons and thus allowed. For flavor, this is a conspiracy theory and I have no way to prove it. But ever since the playerbase has started enaging more and more with AI art, AI articles and AI generated whitelist applications. There has been an exponential increase in bots that prowl this forum. There have always been "waves" of bots. But now they stick around and obviously read anything we post here. I frankly think it is absolutely bizzare that aurora is batting for this at all. It's already had an internal discussion on this in the past, it was decided to not allow it for reasons stated above. Cael was told multiple times not to do it, it's disappointing he had done it by the time I quit. It's my fault for not writing that down as head wiki dev at the time as I could have prevented this entire frankly stupid headache. But I suspect it would have been ignored anyway even if I had written it down. And to put things in context. The entire face of the wiki was created from scratch by Kyres. The aurora lobby flashes images made by artists, commissioned or free, from the community. The wiki is littered by works from me, for lore I wasn't even part of or after I had left staff. The entire Unathi page glistens with Wolfies art. Hell, the heads of Idris? Zavod? NT? Made by Lancer in mspaint using mouse and keyboard. Not to mention the numerous small artworks and graphic designs people have made in gimp or photoshop. And of course, the innumerable sprites made by volunteers from every part of the world, dedicated spriters. Hell the code itself! Generations of coders building off of each other's backs to make this server what it is. All of this was made voluntarily, donated voluntarily. I think it's hyena-like behavior to continuously take from a community and then refuse to simply remove a few images you yourself claim are "unimportant". Finally, if you haven't read any of the above. I don't hold it against you. Shits long and boring. But I want you to read this lower part. In Unathi lore there is a page called "Unathi Guilds". On top of that page, is one painting that Wolfie made. I watched her make it in a stream. It's not her best work, and she'd be the first to admit it. But it's hers, it is there, and it will always be hers no matter what names you change on it. Writer, artist, very controversial figure, and roleplayer, nevertheless she contributed what she could. Beneath it is the Heph logo, made by Nursiekitty, an iconic logo for an iconic company. She was a moderator, admin, and contributor, and the name of her character is still immortalized as the first person to ever encounter Vaurca. Beneath these two images rest three more. The first one made by "StarryAI" is large, but kept very small, I assume so it is harder to notice the vague nonsensical smear square shape in the middle of it. I guess the free trial ran out before it could be generated out. Even lower, two images by "NightCafe", 200x200 pixels large. Did the free version not provide bigger ones? Or were they shrunken this way? Maybe they're just thumbnails saved off of google images, and that's why they're so small and low quality? I don't know, I can't talk to the computer. But neither of these AI's ever was in the community. Noone here talked to them. Neither of them know what Aurora is. I doubt anyone here even knows these two companies existed (or if they still exist). I think I'd be on the side of the first two rather than the latter two.

Not related to Aurora, I'm just proud of these Mike Mignola studies:

Uploaded all art into gallery since I forgot my password lol.