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RuneVillage - Removed as gold status because owner is a sex offender


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Because of how Jagex has handled this and misused the information they've received their collaboration with the existing communities may be taken into thought as a way of lording over them like they've just done here.



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Only one thing bothers me.

 

This is a past crime. From what I understand, it was a decade and a half ago. The man in question has by all appearances since repented and salvaged what he could of his personal honour.

 

The lynch mob doesn't surprise me. The sharks smell blood - well, there'll be a feeding frenzy.

 

Airing the dirty laundry in public is in poor taste.

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According to the article he distributed child porn. Maybe for money. He might not even be into that stuff. That's a whole different thing than say, being caught feeling up children. Jag is overreacting. Funny anyhow :lol:

 

They aren't overreacting. Any old right-wing nut could have made the link that Lagex gives gold fansite status to a website run by a sex-offender. Now, whilst being an absolutely rediculous straw-man argument that follows (well, if they give gold status to a website run by predators, they must be ok with predators) you have people out in segments of the media and society who will a) say it and b) believe it. They have to cover their arse as a business, because to have a game that is marketed to children (even though we say it's meant to be geared towards an adult audience), they can't have such things said - false or not. It will tarnish their reputation and this particular mud sticks.

 

The problem with sex offender registries is that everyone from rapists to the guy who had sex with his 17 year old girlfriend can end up on them. That said, this guy surely must have been aware of the restrictions, fair or otherwise, placed upon people in such a position and should have known better than to start up a fan site for an online game at a point when the majority of it's player base was underage. I'll agree that sometimes people make mistakes, and sometimes they go to prison simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and once you've done your time you deserve a second chance but this is one of those crimes that follows you for the rest of your days.

 

Could you explain to me in the legislation at hand, where it says he cannot run a fan site for a game which may have or may not have kids involved? I'm not in the US so I don't know the law there like I do here.

 

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According to the article he distributed child porn. Maybe for money. He might not even be into that stuff. That's a whole different thing than say, being caught feeling up children. Jag is overreacting. Funny anyhow :lol:

 

They aren't overreacting. Any old right-wing nut could have made the link that Lagex gives gold fansite status to a website run by a sex-offender. Now, whilst being an absolutely rediculous straw-man argument that follows (well, if they give gold status to a website run by predators, they must be ok with predators) you have people out in segments of the media and society who will a) say it and b) believe it. They have to cover their arse as a business, because to have a game that is marketed to children (even though we say it's meant to be geared towards an adult audience), they can't have such things said - false or not. It will tarnish their reputation and this particular mud sticks.

 

Well, if he did his time, maybe they should just let it go. Then again, committing a sexual offense will haunt you forever, and this is only one of many of the consequences this man will face.

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According to the article he distributed child porn. Maybe for money. He might not even be into that stuff. That's a whole different thing than say, being caught feeling up children. Jag is overreacting. Funny anyhow :lol:

 

They aren't overreacting. Any old right-wing nut could have made the link that Lagex gives gold fansite status to a website run by a sex-offender. Now, whilst being an absolutely rediculous straw-man argument that follows (well, if they give gold status to a website run by predators, they must be ok with predators) you have people out in segments of the media and society who will a) say it and b) believe it. They have to cover their arse as a business, because to have a game that is marketed to children (even though we say it's meant to be geared towards an adult audience), they can't have such things said - false or not. It will tarnish their reputation and this particular mud sticks.

 

The problem with sex offender registries is that everyone from rapists to the guy who had sex with his 17 year old girlfriend can end up on them. That said, this guy surely must have been aware of the restrictions, fair or otherwise, placed upon people in such a position and should have known better than to start up a fan site for an online game at a point when the majority of it's player base was underage. I'll agree that sometimes people make mistakes, and sometimes they go to prison simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and once you've done your time you deserve a second chance but this is one of those crimes that follows you for the rest of your days.

 

Could you explain to me in the legislation at hand, where it says he cannot run a fan site for a game which may have or may not have kids involved? I'm not in the US so I don't know the law there like I do here.

You have a valid point and truthfully thats the problem with the world today. People are too damn sensitive when it comes to situations like this.



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The problem with sex offender registries is that everyone from rapists to the guy who had sex with his 17 year old girlfriend can end up on them. That said, this guy surely must have been aware of the restrictions, fair or otherwise, placed upon people in such a position and should have known better than to start up a fan site for an online game at a point when the majority of it's player base was underage. I'll agree that sometimes people make mistakes, and sometimes they go to prison simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and once you've done your time you deserve a second chance but this is one of those crimes that follows you for the rest of your days.

Could you explain to me in the legislation at hand, where it says he cannot run a fan site for a game which may have or may not have kids involved? I'm not in the US so I don't know the law there like I do here.

Generally, people who are convicted of crimes that would require registration as a sex offender come with restrictions relative to their crimes. The most common of which are things like being prevented from working around children (like in a school), volunteering for groups that work with children (Boy Scouts/Girl Guides, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, etc...), not living within a certain distance of school or playground...that kind of thing. Considering one of the things he was convicted of was distribution of pornographic pictures of minors, I'm sure he has similar restrictions placed upon him.

 

While starting up a fansite for a game aimed at minors might not be technically violating any of his restrictions, I'm sure it easily falls into a grey area that a man of his age should have known well enough to avoid. Especially if he is simply trying to put such things behind him and move on with his life as a law abiding citizen (a commendable course that we should all be supportive of).

 

Edit: I just realized he may have restrictions against him forbidding him from initiating contact with minors, or communicating with minors who are not family over the internet (not unreasonable considering he distributed the offensive pictures via email). If so, then starting up the fansite would easily fall under the list of things he shouldn't be doing.

 

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The difference is huge so comparing the two is nearly pointless, however I will humour you and explain them. A Jagex worker in their role as staff generally has no links with the public, bar the community management team. This means there is no need for them to know such details, as once somebody has served their time, unless in a role which brings them into contact with children, it should remain in the past. Staff are also not often know, again, bar community management and high profile developers. When one leaves, very few people outside of Jagex know. The Runevillage Admin on the other hand, in his role as administrator had very close contact, and a responsibility to have close contact with the public, of which a major portion could be children. The Admin also possibly has unrestricted access to personal details of users of the forum. Unlike Jagex staff leaving, when Runevillage loses it's gold status, it is very public and people notice. Due to this, Jagex had to either give reasons or be subject to wild speculation which could possibly give them very bad publicity.

I'm referring to a Jagex member that would be apart of the community side of things. I assumed that would be a given. All i'm saying is, is that Jagex could have left it to something general, calling the owner out as a "sex offender" wasn't necessary in the situation.

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So basically, we have no idea whether or not he was in the wrong starting a fansite.

Pretty much. That said, I still agree with Jagex's decision to pull support from the site, just not the way they did it.

 

Although, the fact that they gave us information into their decision was a refreshing change.

 

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Don't really agree with the way Jagex executed it, though I can understand their reasoning for wanting to distance themselves from a site owned by a sex offender since Runescape is billed at a pre-teen audience.

 

Still, I think that people tend to go out of their way to make the lives of sex offenders harder than it should be. Yes, they committed a crime; it doesn't devoid them of their humanity, though. Surely they deserve a peaceful existence like the rest of us, right?

 

Now people can easily look up the guy's information (address, etc) and harass him. Is that really fair?

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If it were up to me, SteveW would be out on his ass tomorrow heading to the unemployment line. This is what Jagex has come to? Publicly shaming people in stickied threads on their forums? I have a hard time explaining to people at my job that their credit card was declined, what kind of a thuggish [wagon] does SteveW have to be to condemn an entire fansite to endless harassment for the sake of making some kind of [cabbage] statement about protecting the children, a disproportionate response to an imaginary threat.

 

Agreed 100%. I don't get why he had to post this in a public forum. This has hardly anything to do with Runescape or fansites in the first place. Just demote their fansite and be done with it. Who even cares about these superficial fansite ratings anyway? All they really get is a mention on some RSOF thread that I've honestly never seen, and gets some "exclusive concept art" once in a blue moon, which is then posted everywhere else on the internet. I don't understand why Jagex Community Management suddenly pulls the character assassination card over an irrelevant crime commited by some guy who runs a Runescape faniste.

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Child pornography? He should be shot.

 

The guy claims to have sent a friend of his a few pictures of teenagers. Could mean they're 15. Could mean they're 16. Or it could mean they are 17. It doesn't specify.

 

Regardless, there's a hell of a difference between looking at pornography of 5 year olds and pornography of teenagers (refer to above example).

 

 

Should he be shot? No. Even if he did look at nude pictures of five-year olds, I don't think the offense condones capital punishment unless it involved the rape and/or murder of the child.

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If it were up to me, SteveW would be out on his ass tomorrow heading to the unemployment line. This is what Jagex has come to? Publicly shaming people in stickied threads on their forums? I have a hard time explaining to people at my job that their credit card was declined, what kind of a thuggish [wagon] does SteveW have to be to condemn an entire fansite to endless harassment for the sake of making some kind of [cabbage] statement about protecting the children, a disproportionate response to an imaginary threat.

I'm not sure that's fair. I doubt SteveW just decided this on his own; I'm sure at least a few people were involved. For all you know he could just be the messenger. Maybe someone else told him "Post this on the RSOF."

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Understandable considering they (Jagex) probably don't know the full story and there always is a FULL story to this sort of thing. However, the way they publicly handled it is sorta [cabbage]ty for poor Thomas.

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At what point do we stop chastising people convicted of sex offenses, and allow them to integrate back into the community, albeit with controls. I mean, if we are going to go out and say "well he's set up a website based around a game that children play, thus is attracting teens..." is there anything we can't apply a round-a-bout logic to, in order to pull the same argument? Lagex have every right to protect their interests, but to publicly out him - again - after doing his time, well, I don't see that to be a moral action at all.

 

All they had to do was say "we have removed Gold status from RV for a breach of terms" or some legally vague pile of rubbish like that. Instead they have unleashed a lynch-mob.

 

Hmmm.

This pretty much sums up my sentiments on the matter. Hopefully everything can get resolved over at Runevillage.

 

Now Jagex, how about removing all those bots?

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Not that I agree with how Jagex handled this, but if they hadn't explained why and people found out, especially parents it could have done more harm to them as a company. Similarly if they hadn't done anything and by chance someone found out I wouldn't be surprised to see an article somewhere saying something like "Jagex gaming company supports fansite for a children's game run by a sex offender!". It would have been much better for everyone involved if Jagex just took him to one side and asked him to step down, rather than publicly humiliate him though especially given how long ago this was.

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Am I dense or is Jagex hypocritical when they speak of a "moral and social obligation" to remove the gold status of a site run by a convicted sex offender (whatever that really implies) who has apparently done nothing to harm the users of his site, and who could have stepped down freely if this had been handled privately instead of openly in a very degrading and impolite manner? This company removed the censor on harmful words and so enabled immoral contact between its players. They aren't doing all too much - visibly - against autotalkers promoting real-world trade in a game played by children. And so forth.

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I think it is normal for jagex to do this and sure they could have first talked to them in private but they didn't have to, altough it would be nicer if they did I am already glad they didn't hide it why they removed the support for them. And remember it is not Jagex that is to blame it is those "kids" that flame and troll etc. that are the problem. Altough I think it is a problem that his name in reallife is known and people are so stupid to harras him in reallife which he does not deserve, (he doesn't deserve it on the internet too but that is less a problem then in reallife) no matter how big the offence was, he has already been punished for that in a legal way there is no need for people to harras him more.

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The problem with sex offender registries is that everyone from rapists to the guy who had sex with his 17 year old girlfriend can end up on them. That said, this guy surely must have been aware of the restrictions, fair or otherwise, placed upon people in such a position and should have known better than to start up a fan site for an online game at a point when the majority of it's player base was underage. I'll agree that sometimes people make mistakes, and sometimes they go to prison simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and once you've done your time you deserve a second chance but this is one of those crimes that follows you for the rest of your days.

Could you explain to me in the legislation at hand, where it says he cannot run a fan site for a game which may have or may not have kids involved? I'm not in the US so I don't know the law there like I do here.

Generally, people who are convicted of crimes that would require registration as a sex offender come with restrictions relative to their crimes. The most common of which are things like being prevented from working around children (like in a school), volunteering for groups that work with children (Boy Scouts/Girl Guides, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, etc...), not living within a certain distance of school or playground...that kind of thing. Considering one of the things he was convicted of was distribution of pornographic pictures of minors, I'm sure he has similar restrictions placed upon him.

 

While starting up a fansite for a game aimed at minors might not be technically violating any of his restrictions, I'm sure it easily falls into a grey area that a man of his age should have known well enough to avoid. Especially if he is simply trying to put such things behind him and move on with his life as a law abiding citizen (a commendable course that we should all be supportive of).

 

Edit: I just realized he may have restrictions against him forbidding him from initiating contact with minors, or communicating with minors who are not family over the internet (not unreasonable considering he distributed the offensive pictures via email). If so, then starting up the fansite would easily fall under the list of things he shouldn't be doing.

 

Keep in mind while I write this, that we'll never be in full possession of the facts concerning this case, as per Hiker's words. I only comment with absolute certainty on what I know to be true. I speculate on the basis of what I know to be valid assumptions.

 

The Facts:

 

Hiker started RuneVillage in 2002. He was convicted on obscenity charges concerning the distribution of child pornography in 1995; at this time, Georgia's pornography distribution laws did not require registration of the offender because they were classified as obscenity offenses rather than sexual offenses. He moved to Tennessee in 2000, and in 2003 at the latest, TN changed its pornography distribution laws to constitute a sexual offense, requiring him to register as a sex offender. He was arrested on a warrant in 2005 for 'failing to register' as an offender although he was not legally required to register at the time he left; nor did he know that the laws concerning this had changed. Because of this, the charges were initially dropped.

 

When it turned up that he didn't register in Tennessee either, he was charged again for failing to register, but this was reduced from a felony offense to a misdemeanor (albeit he was still required to register as a sex offender). This was in 2005. In short, Watson was legally registered as a sex offender no earlier than 2005; he created RuneVillage in 2002; and hence he wasn't subject to the stipulations of said conviction at the time he created the site. Hence, the claim that "he should have known better" is of course, false, since nothing was legally preventing him from creating that site at the time. That being said, your points are still valid, if predicated on the false assumption that he was a sex offender at the time. He's likely prevented from establishing sexual contact with children now that he is registered as an offender.

 

My Speculation:

 

So, where does the gray area come into this? Well, it's certainly not involved in the creation of the site, but arguments can be submitted regards the continued operation of the site circa 2005 onward from the time he was first registered as an offender. Determining whether the site's continued operation is against his terms or within his rights is hard. In this case, we can deliberate into the intent of the owner to gauge whether or not he was engaging in activities that violated the terms of his restrictions.

 

I think it's a fair statement, that we're perhaps broadening the scope of what's considered illegal via contentious definitions, and hence part of this gray area arises. That he has established communication with and had access to minors is not a fair grounds for assessment into the legality of his actions. I think to make a fair statement, we should determine whether he has engaged in any sexual conduct with minors, and not merely established communication with them. I would think he would long ago been punished had he not been allowed to establish any communication with minors in the first place, so this is why I forward that definition for this hypothesis.

 

The owner has said that, while he had access to information about minors, he had not acted on this information maliciously or had made any sexual advances toward minors in his time there. So, the least we have to corroborate the claim that he hasn't engaged in such activities are his own statements. It's likely that any advances made by him onto minors would be reported to authorities, and hence the information would be held on the public record, and that this would factor into the reasoning Jagex gave for demoting RV.

 

Jagex demoted RV because of offenses concerning distribution of child pornography (which he did not produce or physically possess, and the content itself likely being of a questionable nature regards its legality) and other offenses, not sexual advancement onto minors. I'm not saying it's not possible that he hasn't done it, but that there's no observable trend in his criminal record (as far as known fact) that we can defer to in order to support the claim that he intended to engage in sexual relations with minors.

 

Furthermore, he also stated that he wished to start over; and that his past offenses did not represent who he really was (see first page). So he seems remorseful of what he has done and I argue from this that it's unlikely he would engage in these activities for the fact he wishes to move on. Further, he last committed an offense in 1995, though he thought his actions could be excused. Keep this in mind. If he thought his actions were innocent enough to be excused, can you say he really intended to break the law? One must have the relevant knowledge (of a particular law) to have intent (to break that law), as a rough outline.

 

He stated regards this that although he knew it was illegal, he assumed it wasn't yet socially despicable, as the relevant legislation had just recently been signed into law. The content itself likely wouldn't be objectionable to many people at that time, since we are not given details into the nature of this sexual content, and such parameters denoting legality (law conceptually being an extension of society) can be vague.

 

Were the photos depicted consensual or abusive, for example? How about the age range of the minors depicted compared to legal adulthood? I thus argue that he thought his actions would be excused because he evaluated them on a social basis and not a legal basis. Despite this, he was convicted in 1995 for distributing child pornography. He was charged again in 2005 for failing to register as an offender. He didn't register because he didn't know the law concerning this had changed. Thus I argue he had no intent to break the law this time either.

 

Thus meaning his last real offense was in 1995, sixteen years ago, and no incidents aside from the one in 2005 have been reported then. Considering much time has passed with no incident, and considering his statements, I think those are sufficient reasons to establish that he most likely did not have the potnetial to engage in sexual conduct with minors. I'll note that in 1984 he was accused of engaging in sexual misconduct with a minor. He maintains he is innocent of this crime. These charges were later dropped in exchange for one year of supervised release on unspecified charges of sexual battery, which he maintains he is also innocent of.

 

Given what I've examined, I take the position that he was easily swept under the long arm of the law. He admits he made a foolish mistake by assuming his 1995 offense would be excused because he found it socially tolerable. He maintains that he is innocent of the 1984 charges although he pleaded to a lesser charge, which I'll note one is more likely to plead to if you're innocent. I do not present this as proof of his innocence; it's merely an observation based in common sense.

 

Finally, he was arrested in 2005 for failing to register as an offender, which he maintains is because he did not know the relevant laws had changed to require him to. This is not a new, separate offense caused by deliberate, malicious action. This is a new offense predicated on the fact that the law itself had changed. Granted, he should have kept himself updated with the legal changes, considering he did so when he moved to Tennessee. However, he likely made the understandable assumption that such laws are slow to change, and did not bother checking after he had moved in.

 

My end position on this issue is that he's a person with good intentions, but he failed to check the consequences of his actions (and inactions). He also may or may not be currently be violating the terms of his restrictions. This conclusion is reliant on whether he's monitored for sexual contact with minors, or totally restricted from establishing any sort of contact with them.

 

I've exhausted what I can say in regards to the legality of his interactions with children here. Moving on to what Jagex could have done.

 

In my opinion, I think Jagex could have handled the situation better. Tripsis and Killerred have eloquently woven together a better solution that Jagex could have taken in handing the issue. That said, I dislike how Jagex seems to be acting like a moral crusader. It's unnecessary. The man presented no danger, to the extent that we are in possession of the facts supporting that assertion. I also think, that while they have a legal obligation to keep the community safe, that their actions were confused, considering the alternatives they could have taken. They could have quietly dealt with the issue instead of vilifying the man and reinforcing, in my opinion, the likely erroneous perception that this man is a dangerous offender (that is debatable, of course).

 

They could have asked RV to post an announcement on their forums regards what Jagex had learned about the administrator, and then plan how to reorder management if possible in the name of public relations without having to revoke its gold-status. The issue is no longer community safety since the community seemed to be safe even under this man. It's simply about preserving Jagex's reputation as a friendly video game developer to parents and children. I suspect they chose to deal with it loudly because they wished to give the impression that they were actively fighting this issue (despite it being largely superficial as no real reports of abuse were recounted from this man, aside from the court case in 1984).

 

IMO this side of the issue seems like an entire PR stunt. They 'enforced' the rules the wrong way. Nothing was actually done that protected the community. They just demoted some fan-site because it harbored some guy who admits he should have known better about his actions, and seemed remorseful and ready to move on. He was harmless, in my opinion. How is removing a harmless person protecting a community? Now RuneVillage has attracted negative publicity. It's endured a scar it likely won't recover from anytime soon, thanks to Jagex's lack of ability to negotiate with people.

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The thing is fair enough up until 05, but given the restrictions legally arising from being on the register he should of stepped aside from runevillage in 05 when he registered and was thus presumably subject to restrictions about interaction with minors.

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Child pornography? He should be shot.

 

The guy claims to have sent a friend of his a few pictures of teenagers. Could mean they're 15. Could mean they're 16. Or it could mean they are 17. It doesn't specify.

 

Regardless, there's a hell of a difference between looking at pornography of 5 year olds and pornography of teenagers (refer to above example).

 

 

Such as a someone who might have made a sex tape with his 17'yo girl 'x' years ago, shes posts on web in revenge, some poor sap downloads it, doesnt realize they're 17.

 

Before anyone says it, there are PLENTY of teens who make sex tapes under 18, some are just stupid to keep them

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The thing is fair enough up until 05, but given the restrictions legally arising from being on the register he should of stepped aside from runevillage in 05 when he registered and was thus presumably subject to restrictions about interaction with minors.

 

The issue isn't so black and white. Your assertion presupposes that he should have stepped aside because those restrictions would interrupt his operation of the site. The hard part about determining what's legal and what isn't in a 'gray area', to quote Kaida, is that a) we don't know the terms of his restrictions regards his status as a sex offender, and b) we're speculating what is and isn't illegal based on assumptions of these terms.

 

You'll note in my earlier post, I had reason to believe that the terms of his restriction aren't so strict as some would assume. This is because he has been managing RuneVillage for the last six years he was legally classified as an offender, i.e. he is subject to certain restrictions. It's also naive to implicitly assume that he isn't being monitored for this potential danger, or that he's somehow clever enough to bypass these restrictions without being noticed, for six years straight. Hence why I said, had he been subject to no contact at all with minors, as per his status, he'd long ago been punished. This makes the concept of a 'gray area' much less feasible because that assertion predicates itself on condition b).

 

What we don't know is what those restrictions specifically entail, which is condition a). We presume it entails the restriction of contact with minors in some way. That's a valid presupposition. However, we don't know to what extent he is allowed contact with them, of what nature this contact, and hence what he is restricted from doing, and hence what makes such actions illegal. So I argue that it's ultimately pointless to argue the legality of his actions in a 'gray area' when we aren't in possession of facts that we could use as markers to form a probable conclusion. This is why I when I formed my speculation, I predicated it on the valid premise that the restrictions likely aren't as strict as many would think. We have the premise, now we can use the relevant evidence to support a conclusion following from a question I wished to answer. That question is, Does he have the potential to engage in sexual conduct with children?

 

So I admit in fact, my speculation in the last post was largely irrelevant to her question, since Kaida was simply asking whether or not he'd be restricted from all contact with minors. This question however, presupposes that he has a range of potential to engage in sexual conduct with minors; not just any form of conduct, specifically sexual conduct. Why would you restrict him from all forms of contact, unless you think he will, without fail, seek every opportunity to sexualize a child? So I sought to prove that he had little potential to sexualize a child. This is what the question was implicitly asking.

 

This is still an important question, even if it's not the one Kaida posed directly. To answer directly, no, he's not restricted from all contact with minors. Why do I say this? Because if he's been restricted from all contact with minors, we would not see him running the site for the last six years, as it's home to children. If he hasn't been totally restricted, we can rule out that possibility. Had he engaged in sexual conduct regards this, he would have been punished. That he hasn't been punished lends credibility to my point, along with the other evidence I supplied, that he had little potential to sexualize a child. Thus the heart of this matter lies in the nature of the contact between the minor and the adult.

 

So my selection of the final outcome, to finally answer your question, Kaida, is this. He's punished for sexualizing a minor, or he hasn't been punished and hence hasn't been sexualizing any minors. I base this outcome on the assumption that he is monitored for this exact type of behavior. It's ludicrous to assume that he's been engaging in this kind of behavior, because that raises the question of why he was allowed to operate the site for so long. If he's been engaging in sexual behavior regards minors for so long as a sex-offender, he either hasn't been monitored enough, or he's clever enough to bypass the restrictions. I find both of those assertions laughable, considering the severity of the crime. Hence, I supplied evidence that he likely hasn't been engaging in such conduct in line with my rejection of these absurd outcomes.

 

To Sy_Accursed, I hope you can see now why it isn't so black and white as simply 'stepping aside'. :P

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The law and what we know about his precise status. may or may not be black and white.

But the issue of stepping aside is very black and white: you do it or you don't.

 

Even assuming he wasn't restricted in interaction with minors legally one can question whether it is wise to maintain a fan site and communication with minors knowing you have this status over your head and that it is quite likely on a moral ground many would find it iffy and object and thus the fact he probably should of stepped aside in 05 when he became a sex offender. After all irl off the internet he wouldn't be likely to get a job with minors due to the moral implications and the objections of parents etc. so why should the internet differ.

 

I mean the issue was bound to come up at some point, so to me the obvious thing to do would be to step aside quietly in 05 when it developed potential to become an issue and thus avoid any mass drama due to the "secret" being stumbled upon and causing such ructions from the fairly justified moved of jagex bringing it attention.

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I fully support their actions.

 

I will not judge anybody, including the owner of the website, however, I do not believe a sex offender should have support to be in control of a site which can potentially give them the ability to get in contact with thousands of children, especially one which has a large child-based user-base.

However you are not the one judging in the case:

rule enforcement and punishment are up to the countries goverment (and in effect the citizens as they support the goverment). Once somebody has filled his punishment it is time to look forward and don't keep old problems coming back, if you think a punishment isn't severe enough, set the punishment higher. But don't keep the old facts against people: people deserve chances.

 

Furthermore: jagex is no official instantion which can determine whether somebody is guilty or not: there are people educated for this. People who are trained and won't change opinion by the media, who can objectivelly decide guilty or not.

 

So I don't think this is a "correct" move. But in the end: who cares -.-

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A good starting point for information is the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation's own website on the subject: http://www.tbi.tn.go...ender_faq.shtml

 

A thorough list of Statutory Definitions of Tennessee Sexual and Violent Sexual Offenses with Related Codes is found in this document: http://www.tbi.tn.go...Definitions.pdf

 

The Board of Probation & Parole enforces what is allowed contact-wise and what is not, “grey areas” or not.

 

For example, consider Operation Compliance 2009: http://news.tennesse...e.org/node/3205 (Halloween & harvest festivities). The specifics of this operation are not spelled out in Tennessee Code Annotated, yet they are enforced.

 

I suggest that for the definitive answer, we need contact the TNBOPP for the answer. It may even be that they are not aware of the situation, seeing as it was dredged from a small local newspaper.

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