Safeguarding at and around co-events

[Marc Meakin]

Can you make online payments using fake ID, I have no idea?
Going back to my idea of having a membership for Focal with a nominal annual fee to cover event costs and running potentially a data base giving every player a rating, based on average game score or games won against ranking like in Scrabble.
Then it could help with weeding out anonymity.
I dont know enough about Co events to know if people can just turn up on the day and pay or if advance payment is required.

[Graeme Cole]

Can you make online payments using fake ID, I have no idea?
Going back to my idea of having a membership for Focal with a nominal annual fee to cover event costs and running potentially a data base giving every player a rating, based on average game score or games won against ranking like in Scrabble.
Then it could help with weeding out anonymity.
I dont know enough about Co events to know if people can just turn up on the day and pay or if advance payment is required.

Rolling ratings for players based on event results has been suggested before, but it never took off. We could do that anyway without requiring ID, it would just need someone to maintain the list of ratings.

Most people pay their event entry fee in advance by Paypal or similar, but sometimes people do turn up on the day and/or pay cash. I don't think we should go down the road of requiring players to pay an annual fee in addition to the event fee. Even if the annual fee is small, it still represents a further barrier to entry for new players.

Signing up for your first event, already a daunting step for newbies, would go from:

• Paypal money to the organiser
• Turn up

to

• Paypal money to the organiser
• Get told you can't just enter the event because you're not a member
• Oh, right, how do I become a member?
• You have to send extra money to this other person you don't know, and ask to join
• Sigh, I didn't know that when I decided to enter... OK, done, can I enter now?
• Your name's not on the member list yet
• But the event's tomorrow
• You'll have to message the person in charge of the member list and ask them to check their Paypal
• But I don't even know them
• ... etc

See what I mean by a "barrier to entry" - even if the membership fee is just £1, the extra hassle will put off many newbies.

I get why you might want this if we'd identified a real risk of players turning up pretending to be other people, but I don't think that's one of our concerns at the moment. And if someone did try to do that, then there would be nothing to stop them paying the membership fee under another name. Also if a known troublemaker really was determined to disrupt an event, they wouldn't need to pay any entry or membership fee to do that.

[Marc Meakin]

Can you make online payments using fake ID, I have no idea?
Going back to my idea of having a membership for Focal with a nominal annual fee to cover event costs and running potentially a data base giving every player a rating, based on average game score or games won against ranking like in Scrabble.
Then it could help with weeding out anonymity.
I dont know enough about Co events to know if people can just turn up on the day and pay or if advance payment is required.

Rolling ratings for players based on event results has been suggested before, but it never took off. We could do that anyway without requiring ID, it would just need someone to maintain the list of ratings.

Most people pay their event entry fee in advance by Paypal or similar, but sometimes people do turn up on the day and/or pay cash. I don't think we should go down the road of requiring players to pay an annual fee in addition to the event fee. Even if the annual fee is small, it still represents a further barrier to entry for new players.

Signing up for your first event, already a daunting step for newbies, would go from:

• Paypal money to the organiser
• Turn up

to

• Paypal money to the organiser
• Get told you can't just enter the event because you're not a member
• Oh, right, how do I become a member?
• You have to send extra money to this other person you don't know, and ask to join
• Sigh, I didn't know that when I decided to enter... OK, done, can I enter now?
• Your name's not on the member list yet
• But the event's tomorrow
• You'll have to message the person in charge of the member list and ask them to check their Paypal
• But I don't even know them
• ... etc

See what I mean by a "barrier to entry" - even if the membership fee is just £1, the extra hassle will put off many newbies.

I get why you might want this if we'd identified a real risk of players turning up pretending to be other people, but I don't think that's one of our concerns at the moment. And if someone did try to do that, then there would be nothing to stop them paying the membership fee under another name. Also if a known troublemaker really was determined to disrupt an event, they wouldn't need to pay any entry or membership fee to do that.

All valid points but to put a positive spin you can have entry fee £10 for members, £12 pounds for non members though if you sign up on the day you save the £2 and every Co event that year.
Maybe Apterites get the discount and it could help grow Apterous, I'm just riffing here as Apterous is great vfm
Admittedly The ABSP gives good value for money for a £13 annual fee you get a monthly online magazine 3 pound ratings Levy waived, a decent ratings system and access to a comprehensive database.

Though the Scrabble community is a lot larger than the Countdown community but I'm sure it's growing

[Fiona T]

Can you make online payments using fake ID, I have no idea?
Going back to my idea of having a membership for Focal with a nominal annual fee to cover event costs and running potentially a data base giving every player a rating, based on average game score or games won against ranking like in Scrabble.
Then it could help with weeding out anonymity.
I dont know enough about Co events to know if people can just turn up on the day and pay or if advance payment is required.

Rolling ratings for players based on event results has been suggested before, but it never took off. We could do that anyway without requiring ID, it would just need someone to maintain the list of ratings.

Most people pay their event entry fee in advance by Paypal or similar, but sometimes people do turn up on the day and/or pay cash. I don't think we should go down the road of requiring players to pay an annual fee in addition to the event fee. Even if the annual fee is small, it still represents a further barrier to entry for new players.

Signing up for your first event, already a daunting step for newbies, would go from:

• Paypal money to the organiser
• Turn up

to

• Paypal money to the organiser
• Get told you can't just enter the event because you're not a member
• Oh, right, how do I become a member?
• You have to send extra money to this other person you don't know, and ask to join
• Sigh, I didn't know that when I decided to enter... OK, done, can I enter now?
• Your name's not on the member list yet
• But the event's tomorrow
• You'll have to message the person in charge of the member list and ask them to check their Paypal
• But I don't even know them
• ... etc

See what I mean by a "barrier to entry" - even if the membership fee is just £1, the extra hassle will put off many newbies.

I get why you might want this if we'd identified a real risk of players turning up pretending to be other people, but I don't think that's one of our concerns at the moment. And if someone did try to do that, then there would be nothing to stop them paying the membership fee under another name. Also if a known troublemaker really was determined to disrupt an event, they wouldn't need to pay any entry or membership fee to do that.

All valid points but to put a positive spin you can have entry fee £10 for members, £12 pounds for non members though if you sign up on the day you save the £2 and every Co event that year.
Maybe Apterites get the discount and it could help grow Apterous, I'm just riffing here as Apterous is great vfm
Admittedly The ABSP gives good value for money for a £13 annual fee you get a monthly online magazine 3 pound ratings Levy waived, a decent ratings system and access to a comprehensive database.

Though the Scrabble community is a lot larger than the Countdown community but I'm sure it's growing

It may or may not be something Focal want to consider for other reasons, but I just don't see how it helps with the safeguarding arguments. Scrabble players can and do register for events with pseudonyms. There's no identity check or anything like that.

[Gavin Chipper]

The other question, which I don't think has actually been explicitly addressed, is what would we do if e.g. Jim applied to enter anther CO-event? Because realistically, refusing him entry would be more about not wanting to play with / associate with him than an actual safeguarding issue. The same with some, but not all, of the other offenders.

[Marc Meakin]

The other question, which I don't think has actually been explicitly addressed, is what would we do if e.g. Jim applied to enter anther CO-event? Because realistically, refusing him entry would be more about not wanting to play with / associate with him than an actual safeguarding issue. The same with some, but not all, of the other offenders.

Good point there are probably a few here still offended by me and my crazy antics, circa 2010
Truth be told my embarrassment has prevented me from entering previously

[Fiona T]

The other question, which I don't think has actually been explicitly addressed, is what would we do if e.g. Jim applied to enter anther CO-event? Because realistically, refusing him entry would be more about not wanting to play with / associate with him than an actual safeguarding issue. The same with some, but not all, of the other offenders.

I mean personally speaking it's a problem I'd rather not have - but if he were to apply for my event, I'd have a chat with Callum of course, but my instinct would be to allow him if and only if no children were attending.

[Graeme Cole]

The other question, which I don't think has actually been explicitly addressed, is what would we do if e.g. Jim applied to enter anther CO-event?

That's easy. "No."

Because realistically, refusing him entry would be more about not wanting to play with / associate with him than an actual safeguarding issue.

This may be so, but I don't see a problem. "Convicted sex offenders are not welcome at our events" seems like a pretty reasonable policy to me. If we're serious about demonstrating that new players can expect to come to events and have a good time without fear of their day being ruined by the one-out-of-forty, this is pretty much the lowest the bar can go without burying it underground.

Long ago, one organiser temporarily banned a group of people from his events because it emerged that they'd been talking about him and others in a private C4C subforum. I humbly submit that people known to be on the sex offenders' register should expect a harsher response than that.

I mean personally speaking it's a problem I'd rather not have - but if he were to apply for my event, I'd have a chat with Callum of course, but my instinct would be to allow him if and only if no children were attending.

I'm sorry but I can't agree with your instinct at all. Suppose we were to allow a known sex offender to play at one of our events. What does that look like to newbies and people outside the community? Would you step up to defend that decision if someone asked about it on the Facebook group or the Focal Twitter account? What if an accompanied child signed up on the day? "Twelve quid please. Thanks. One moment while I get you a pen and paper and tell the paedophile to go home."

[Fiona T]

I mean personally speaking it's a problem I'd rather not have - but if he were to apply for my event, I'd have a chat with Callum of course, but my instinct would be to allow him if and only if no children were attending.

I'm sorry but I can't agree with your instinct at all. Suppose we were to allow a known sex offender to play at one of our events. What does that look like to newbies and people outside the community? Would you step up to defend that decision if someone asked about it on the Facebook group or the Focal Twitter account? What if an accompanied child signed up on the day? "Twelve quid please. Thanks. One moment while I get you a pen and paper and tell the paedophile to go home."

Yeah fair enough! I doubt it's gonna be a real issue in any case.