[John Hathaway]

This topic has been broached many times over the years, but it's been mentioned on/off more recently in greater numbers, obviously because we have more people here.
The {UFP} has never set an age limit, our belief has been that age doesn't necessarily dictate maturity, and therefore it seems wrong to discriminate based on this factor alone.

However without anyone fearing that this discussion will bring about a change in policy, what are your thoughts on age restrictions? Do they serve clans well? What are the pros and cons of introducing such an act? If you believed in age restrictions what would you think to set it to? Are there alternatives to consider from a simple binding age restriction policy?

This is just me being curious about people's feelings on this subject, so feel free to comment openly.

[Jonny700]

just my thoughts but i think an age restriction is possibly a good thing at the younger end of the scale, this is simply because it protects you/us from the possability of being accused of something inapropriate (sorry cant spell) whilst on line or in game. the ages we set im not sure about. im 31 so anything under 16 for me may be a potential problem however i dont feel that is far as there are im sure members who are 16 and younger but i think the line should be drawn a 12-13 maybe. its a bit of a tough subject in this multi media age when most younger people are so more versed on internet than us old folks lol. anyway that was my 2 pence. hope it helps

[John Hathaway]

Appreciate your input Jonny.

[Alex L.]

I do feel an age restriction is something we should implement. Not to exclude certain people, but to exclude certain risks.

Because the cognitive and social abilities of younger children have not yet developed fully, conflicts and miscommunications can occur. During my time as adminitrator in the Realitmod tournament, I can recall one instance where my staff got an angry email from parents because their son had been verbally assaulted on the forum with language deemed not appropriate for the child. Though the character of the tournament was quite more strict and military than is the case here, you have to consider that when dealing with younger kids, you simply have to be extremely careful what you say and how you say it, as these children are much more succeptible to both positive and negative feedback. They have not yet developed the ability to put things into perspective or relativize remarks. At certain ages, this community and its people has/have the power to destroy the self-esteem of these children and leave permanent damage to their psyche.

Especially when it comes to positions of authority and responsability, younger children might not be able to handle all the stuf that's coming to them. Sure, they'd all like to progress through the ranks and be a commanding officer, but they are likely not to have the skills (yet) to adequately cope with the often stressing nature of the job.

From my experience with children (I am also a teacher) I can say that for an online clan experience, the ideal age would be 14ish. At this age, the children have alsmost all started the traject to becoming adolescents, and the more childish manours from prep-school / lower school / basisschool/ kindergarden / grundschule (or whatever the term is in your nation) have dissapated.

Because we have such a friendly and client-centered community within the UFP, Its feasable that we can allow younger people to play and serve in our fleet. Even age 11/12 can be considered from this point of view. Any younger aplicants will most likely not be able to cope with the technical mechanics of the games in which we play, and will - as such - always be considered noobs, with all the negative fallout associated with that.

For any position of authority and responsability, I would say that people aged 16 and up have developed sufficiently enough both socially and cognitivly to be able to participate in complicated discussions and debates often held at command levels.

Finally, I'd like to stress that age, like maturity is a fluid concept. By experience or intellect - or lack thereof - people might have a mental age that is different from their biological age. If we are to adopt restrictions, there should be ways open to deviate from the restriction in individual cases.

[John Hathaway]

Interesting points raised I think. Would most others agree with this assessment?

[Jenson]

I strongly disagree with setting age limits. I myself entered [F-I-I] at 12, I know Taisen entered {UFP} at 13, Muzzy at 12ish(?) and I've seen several outstanding officers in the various clans I've been apart of have been between the ages of 11-14. I think the considering factor in judging an application should be maturity. Age does not always reflect maturity, in fact, I very often find 20 year olds acting like a Kinderg

[LynxMukka]

I also have to say I disagree with that assessment primarily because I don't believe it would work in an environment such as the UFP very well.

Imposing restrictions would limit our member base considerably in the long term or at least reflect to other members that we're too strict for them, I don't really see why a younger person should be restricted in what fleets they choose because of their age, in my opinion, so long as they follow the code of conduct, and remain active with UFP I don't really see a major issue in why they shouldn't wear the UFP tags.

Sure, a younger person of say, 10 perhaps wouldn't be able to run Internal Affairs, I agree, but it doesn't mean that their age stops them from playing in a large and popular fleet, common sense to the older members will just say that if a 10 Year Old person does apply for a CO position, there's the simple choice of ignoring their application if they haven't proved worthy.

Linked in with this is that as Jenson said, we have had numerous members in the past who have proved themselves most valuable to the fleet, Taisen as an example at the moment, who has so far proved to be an excellent XO of Internal Affairs, and guess what, he's just 13.

Additionally, if such age restrictions were to be put into place, there's nothing to stop them from lying and adding that they're of an older age than what is allowed. Sure, you can ask an educational question but that doesn't necessarily mean the older members would know the answer either perhaps because they just didn't know of that fact.

Finally, if such a restriction were to be imposed, making exceptions for certain applicants wouldn't work, since how would you realistically know they can be a top quality member? It just wouldn't work practically.

Alternatively then, I think the concept of age restrictions for UFP is a little over the top, instead I think if we did have a problem with a certain young member, it should be dealt with by the JAG who I'm sure will be able to deal with the situation fairly and maturely. We haven't really had any major incident as far as I'm aware anyway with any member who has misrepresented UFP for quite some time who was of young age, instead, we should depend on educating them to be more mature in UFP rather than cutting them off from the community simply because their voice hasn't broken. After all, that's partially why we have an Academy.

Everyone deserves a chance in this world.

[Trav]

I absolutely agree with Jenson and Mr. Mukka. You can't rate the maturity of a person solely on his or her age. Things aren't that black and white in this universe and if there are younger persons who can't join because of the restrictions, as Lynx said, there is always the option to lie. And younger persons tend to be more stubborn, so I think it's better for the youngster to know that he was accepted here legally, than having that little lie on his conscience.

Of course there's a chance the person won't join, but then we could have just missed a valuable member.

[Hocking]

I've been in and out of various different gaming communities over the past couple of years, although Elite Force has always been my staple. I am of the opinion that introducing age restrictions should heavily depend on the particular communitys demographic.

For example, Star Trek is quite a reasonably intellectual franchise and the people that watch and take part in it's inherent following, are generally more mature and/or intelligent than those you would find in other communities. As a result, I believe that introducing age restrictions within Star Trek communities can do more harm to it's long term lifespan than it would do any good. RPG-X serves as a pretty good example of this at the moment, with the majority of it's players being in their early or mid teens. If these people were forcibly excluded from the RPG-X Community via age restrictions, then the community would be overall; a lot quieter than it already is.

With the Counter-Strike: Source community serving as the comparative, the younger individuals playing are usually looking for a bit of hostility and can generally cause trouble. Perhaps they're playing Counter-Strike to vent some home frustrations or they enjoy gameplay where smacktalk is a frequent feature. So within that community I would suggest that age restriction is fair game.

In an earlier example from within this thread, there was a previous issue with a minor having been verbally assaulted. The issue there isn't with the age of the individual, but more so with the inappropriate actions of whomever was taunting the younger individual. If you have a forum where it's acceptable to flame bait others, then you are frankly asking for trouble regardless of if you have an age limitation in place.

On a similar note, where by people could be accused of inappropriate conversation (ie, mature conversation on a voice client) that would be deemed untoward from a parental aspect; It is the responsibility of the parent to keep tabs on their children. A parent that allows their son or daughter free, unmoderated access to the internet is the person that is solely at fault for what the resulting exposure is. After all, porn and graphic violence are only a few clicks away at any one time.

That said though, if an age limitation is not implied in whichever circumstance, I am also of the opinion that there should be guidelines for what is not acceptable to be posted on a forum or similar medium. An example being a topic where by the posters discuss previous adult 'encounters.'

[Grizz]

Everyone deserves a chance no matter what age. Some people are very mature at young ages - for the rest, well you'll find out soon enough after acceptance.

[Thomas Mullaly]

I agree with all of the above. Age restrictions - aside from being completely unenforceable - are not reasonable in our society where young members can be more mature than some of our older members.

[Alexei The Visant]

Good point,VFA!!!

[Telex Ferra]

I don't think there should be an age limit. Star Trek is a franchise which reaches out to smart individuals. I don't think we've had an instance of an average teenager in here doing anything inappropriate.

TBPH, I love Taisen74565, and I would never have guessed that he was 14, because he;s that mature. Don't use arbitrary lines to define who can and cannot be here.

[Sharpkiller]

I think we need to look more closely at the legalities (particularly in the UK) of knowingly having members under the age of 13. In the United States, COPPA makes it illegal for us to collect personal information about individuals who are under the age of 13 without parental consent. I think there are similar laws in other countries that we need to look into. I have no personal objections to age restrictions, but as a growing community with a growing presence, I think we need to know more about laws that govern the internet.

[Alex L.]

Whhile I do agree with some age restrictions (wouldn't want to get someone on board who's 9), I do agree with all the reasons for not to introduce one. However, the COPPA issue is a good point. We'll have to look into that.