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I have been wondering how age takes a role here on the forums and on NUMA. Do the older members of our community show any discrimination towards a younger person's reasoning? It is well know that there is a large teenage body on both of these sites, and if your are a parent does this make you feel awkward in anyway? If you did not know a person's age would you treat them differently on the internet? Does knowing that a teenager can think rationally and come up with good arguments change your view of kids?

I don't really pay attention to how old people are. I might occasionally assume someone is twelve when they have a five-minute attention span and make immature comments.

Uh, I mean, gol-dang whippersnappers! Back in my day, we had to walk five miles through the snow to make a post, and the snow was pixelated and took twenty minutes to load. Why, I remember the great ASCII famine of '43...

Yeah, age isn't all that important around here. I've seen quality posts and activity from many of the younger members around here. Being young doesn't put you at a disadvantage, nor does being older exempt you from expectations. Come to think, I don't know how old many of the forumers these days are. It's just not important.

Atilla wrote:I don't really pay attention to how old people are. I might occasionally assume someone is twelve when they have a five-minute attention span and make immature comments.

Uh, I mean, gol-dang whippersnappers! Back in my day, we had to walk five miles through the snow to make a post, and the snow was pixelated and took twenty minutes to load. Why, I remember the great ASCII famine of '43...

You could make a post just by walking through snow? Egad, back in my day, we had to write out our contributions in binary! With zeroes 'n' ones. And sometimes we didn't have ones: during the '43 famine we had to use the letter O.

It's just not important.
Quality of the posts are important. Though, quality of posts are usually depends on age, which means it's actually important, a bit.

Tunco123 wrote:It's a little bit important, in my opinion.

There you go, much better :D


I personally think it's not important.

Age is something you notice or end up guessing at based on the content. We've had some excellent contributions from younger members in the same thread as less helpful drivel provided by older members. Age isn't taken into account directly by any means, but it will obviously affect how you present yourself.

Does knowing that younger members can make good arguments differ your opinion of kids?

If you know a person's age, I find it hard to believe that you can not think anything of it. If you have kids, does it change your view of their intelligence? Do you view teenagers better because of this site?

Oh, and did you have to walk uphill both ways? (In the snow of course)

This is actually a really good topic of debate. Y'know... for a kid.

Anyway, age plays a huge role in the forums, because an infinitesimally small percentage of youngsters around here are even remotely capable of higher thought, and it shows through a full 99% of the time.

Most of us "Grandpeople" can know exactly how old a user is solely based upon what they post, and I can extrapolate behaviour to who is going to be a problem and who isn't. Every now and again, someone comes along to prove us wrong, and much like Yanni, Sidke, and the other newcomers - Some of these dudes prove me wrong, and I love that.

It's only important insofar as how you present yourself. If you're younger, you tend to present yourself like a pretentious, self-important skank. Always exceptions, of course, but hierarchy here is based entirely on maturity. This is why TDL and Trogdor never got moderator spots. And they then both proved to us why it's entirely to be true.

I think that no matter how hard you try to be impartial when it comes to this, you will inevitably subconsciously view people differently based on age. It's just human nature.

I have no idea of the age of really anyone here, besides those I know outside of metanet, so I suppose it has no effect on my perception of others. Other things that affect my perception of others, such as quality of writing and perceived maturity, tend to indicate an age to me, but I don't really consider people based on age; I consider them based on their behaviors.

I don't care about actual age, only how old one acts. I wouldn't treat someone who behaves like he's 10 any differently if I found out he was actually older than me, and I wouldn't treat someone who behaves like he's 20 differently if I found out he was 10.

maxson924 wrote:I think that no matter how hard you try to be impartial when it comes to this, you will inevitably subconsciously view people differently based on age. It's just human nature.

I agree.

+1 above

Well, I personally don't view it as a factor, considering people like Axonn, who are terribly, terribly mature, even given his age. I can see how it creates preconceptions; I guess mine have just broken down.

I think that age effects your perception of people and how you suppose they will act, but that respect is more important of a factor, and respect is not based on age rather, it is based on behavior and (at least for the internet) the content of posts.

I agree with what basically everyone else has stated, that it's basically about the content of the posts. That said, I think of the mods as 100+ year old awesome Merlin types, and evil_sire as your annoying younger brother.

Yeah.

Some people who act maturely will, in my eyes, be presumed to be older than say, 12, 13 or maybe 14. But if they post very short comments, adding very little to the discussion, more often than not they'll be between the 12-14 age group.

To me, age isn't really a factor in this community. A lot of the younger members (say, younger than 14) are much more mature than I was at that age, whereas some of the older members (older than 17) aren't. Therefore, I really only view and treat people based on how they act, and not how old they are.

This is an interesting contrast to real life, where age matters more, because physical size and social differences are clearly apparent.