Thank you for the feedback. I do know how to make a moderator application. I have submitted two, but I do not feel as if I made them to the best of my ability. The reason I don't spend more time on them is that I am afraid they will not be looked at.
When people bring this up, the Mods/Admins say that they can be under 13 with parental permission. But seeing as how the Terms and Rules state "You are at least 13 years of age." Most people think this means "Oh I'll be banned for being 12" and lie about their ages. Some members who are under the "required" age sometimes behave just as well/better than those the age or higher. http://empireminecraft.com/help/terms
What I'm getting from what you said is that you'd like more "feedback" and you'd like to be able to see your application after you've submitted it, am I right? If so, then I see a few problems. 1) As it already says "we don't have time to reply to reply to every application" so moving it isn't exactly going to solve that. 2) If you apply, you're supposed to just forget, and I mean forget, about it. Of course, that's not possible for some but then it's a characteristic that the person reading the application will look at most likely. 3) What would be new if there was a forum for applications already? Changing the format would be pointless, it works great as it is so all it would be in the end is the same application in a different place. It's not bad idea at all, but we don't do stuff because other servers do it and it works great - we do things that we do, and that works.
This idea isn't such a great idea. In truth people will just start trolling and hassling applicants because they don't like them or they could just go and spam the thread saying "LOLZ Hat Mmbr isa spr noob. Ima bn hr waaaa lngr pk meh cuz Ima wayz betttttteerzazzz dann dat derpface". The truth is a Mod isn't just super popular. They aren't just popular members but members that are responsible and mature people who follow the rules and will enforce them no matter what even if they have to against friends and family because that's the right thing to do. If they have to deal with family I think its perfectly acceptable just to give the case to another mod because they feel that personal feelings will cloud their judgement. Mods can be popular members but they also have to be mature and willing to enforce the rules.
The only reason that this is is because of US law. Which, I think, states that you must be over 13 to be apart of an online community or something similar. I can be pretty certain of this as in Australia there are no age limits on online communities, other than age appropriate content.
Yep - and even if you couldn't play if you're under 13 and with parental permission, I'm 95% sure that they wouldn't be banned on EMC
Practically every other server does not have the quality professionals that we have as staff (not to toot my own horn or anything--I'm talking about the rest of our staff. )
With the little research I did, I can tell you the following. The law that governs this is called the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, and it basically says (mind you, IANAL) that you can't collect or disclose personal information (defined as name, address, e-mail address, phone number, social security number, "any other identifier that the Commission determines permits the physical or online contacting of a specific individual" and " information concerning the child or the parents of that child that the website collects online from the child and combines with an identifier") from a child (defined as a person younger than 13 years old) without verifiable parental consent, i.e. "ensure that a parent of a child receives notice of the operator’s personal information collection, use, and disclosure practices, and authorizes the collection, use, and disclosure, as applicable, of personal information and the subsequent use of that information before that information is collected from that child." Again, IANAL, but I don't think the person saying "my parents say it's okay" is sufficient under this definition. Also, the website has certain responsibilities, some of which I'm fairly certain EMC does not follow. For instance, there's this requirement: "require the operator [...] to provide notice on the website of what information is collected from children by the operator, how the operator uses such information, and the operator’s disclosure practices for such information." To best of my knowledge, such a notice does not exist. Yes, the rules says that persons under the age of 13 are not allowed to sign up, but this is not enforced when people admit they are younger, so that makes for some murky legal waters, in my opinion. Now, apart from an e-mail address, I don't think EMC collects anything else that can be used to contact a specific individual, and that information is also not disclosed to anyone. What's lacking then is getting verifiable parental consent (at least apparently so) and a notice on the website about collected information. Or, they could actually exclude people who are younger than 13. Then again, considering how small and niche EMC is, unless an irate parent actually decides to go to the step of a lawsuit, EMC will get away with doing what they're doing anyway. No, it's not directly illegal for children to be members of a website, but it puts a lot more responsibility on the site operator, which is why most sites simply disallow persons under the age of 13 to join, as that relieves them of the provisions of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act entirely.
Amazing post! As far as I know IcC will allow parents to email him concerning the use of personal information etc. But you'll have to ask him. And do the terms not state anything about age limits and parental consent? But who can be bothered to read terms and conditions . The only ones I have seen that are even readable are the Mojang ones. I find that with a lot of things. Governments never actually seem to explain things properly. And the rules do not actually say you have to be 13. It is just part of the form verification in the sign-up form.
You see that is the difference EMC is not every other server. It is EMC, better, faster, stronger All items including the Moderator's chosen on EMC are fully discussed but the admin and other moderators, these tend to be mature ppl if not Adults very well capable of choosing the right ppl and this is why EMc is so great. I hope it never changes, but simply gets better.
Right on, Silk. I, too, wondered about my application...as a lot of folks do on here. But, if you wonder too much, there's probably a reason you want to be a staff member...
Just notice an error the "but" is meant to be by as in "by the admin and other moderators" but you got the meaning
