96 replies to this topic

[Scales]

Should it be made mandatory for forum members to show their age in thier personal information? Or maybe just people under ther age of 18?

It would make it easier to relate to a member knowing if you were talking to a child, adolescent or adult and also avoid the debates that get out of control knowing that you are debating with a young person not an adult.

This is relivant in todays aquarium society with more and more young people getting into the hobby and onto forums due to the internet and i just wanted to know peoples opinions on the subject.

clay

[Cawdor]

We have a hard enough time to get people to put their proper location in when they sign up, so people know where you are located when you want to sell or buy something.
Making something like birth year mandatory is not a guarantee that people put their real birth year in...

Personally I think you can often tell from how someone writes what age group they belong to. Whether or not this matters is the question I think. There are quite a few teens on this forum who have a good knowledge of the topic and are eager to learn more. To me it doesn't matter if someone is 12 or 120, their knowledge (or lack of) and behaviour speaks for themselves and they will be treated accordingly. Adults can be just as much of a tool as teens, and teens can be just as mature as adults. It depends on the person.

That's my opinion

[Kieran]

I know exactly what you mean, but in this PC world there's no real way you could make poeple show their real age. What would be to stop anyone from taking the popular myspace approach of 'Age: 99'? And besides, we're supposed to treat people the same whether they be 2, 20 or 200, black, white or green, the beginner aquarist or an expert with 60 years of experience

I must admit when I first came to a PCS Auction, I was suprised at the age of some members. However after some lovely discussions with a few of the PCS minors I found them to be quite knowledgable and motivated to do the right thing by their fish.

A fool is going to be a fool whatever age he or she is All we can really do is assume they are not until such a time as they prove themselves to be foolish.

If you spot one, PM me sharing is caring.

[Donna]

Hi everyone,

I think a person's age should be irrelevant. On an open forum such as this one, we should be trying to use neutral language as much as possible and be politically correct. That of course does not exclude reasonable debate, which falls easily within the above criteria. All people deserve the same respect. Young people are just as able to defend themselves as older people, with the same variation found amongst them as is found in the more aged forum population.

What possible purpose would it serve? In fact, with some of the Log in names people use it is not possible to identify people's gender or their height, weight, marital status and many, many more attributes.

We don't need to label everybody, and I am sure Den will be happy to argue with anyone of any age

I think Kieran has made some excellent points.

We are typing to people not ages.

Regards,

Donna

[Hydonia]

Hi guys,

I agree with Donna and Kieren.

Age has nothing to do with anything. I know 60 year olds who argue like 10 year olds, and I know younger people who know a heck of allot more about fish keeping then I do. One of the biggest helpers to me when I first started was Phil, and he is quite a bit younger then me.
Age has nothing to do with the love of fish, and the fishkeeping hobby. If you are worried about who you are arguing with, then don't argue. We are here for the joys of keeping fish, and helping each other out.

Alize

[Scales]

it is more relivant to the classifieds side of things, but i can see your points in question.

keep em coming, its good to hear what you all think

clay

[Hydonia]

Age makes even less sense when discussing classifieds.

Basic common sense says you include sizes prices etc. Age is no barrier to people not putting those things up. People forget or don't care about posting details no matter how old they are, age also does not determine if the seller is legit, or a good person.

[smellsfishy]

I dont see why it matters?
If they wish to share their age then they will, no matter what age you can ask a price and if they are to foolish to know what it is worth, then you just keep looking.
I am 13 turning 14 in 2 days, I have been fish keeping since I was 9, cichlids since I was 10 and a half.
I have bought off this forum many times, I have bought from people in their 20s and some in there 50s and they have all been very nice.
Age doesn't effect any or this, knowledge does.

[werdna]

it is more relivant to the classifieds side of things, but i can see your points in question.

Classifieds? What difference does age make in classifieds? That is the forum where age makes the least difference. A fish is a fish no matter who bred it.

The only time age could ever come into factor on a forum is if a 12 year old uses the phrase "In all my experience..." as how much experience can they have?
And even then, they could have been keeping one fish for 2 years and be quite knowledgeable on it, where as someone 50 may have been keeping fish for 2 weeks.

I actually find it quite funny when I see posts from people saying "I really want to get that tank/fish, I just need permission from mum".
But the main difference is I need permission from the wife instead!

Who cares how old someone is, if you want to be ageist, put on the bottom of your posts that you only deal with people over 18.

Andrew

[Scales]

age makes alot of sense and relivance when it comes to purchasing and selling, why do you think kids cant buy cars?

when you have contact with a person via pm's ect thinking everything is ok and deal to go ahead, you make the call and then get a boy on the other end saying 'i still have to check with mum/dad' and then deal falls through because they dont think things through before you do all the pre planning and discussions. i have no problem that they have to check with mum but the forsight knowledge that they are a minor would prepare you for this case in point.

its even worse when you dont make a call because things are straight forward and a deal is done via pm's and they say 'can you drop off to me as i dont drive' so thinking ill do em a favour cause they dont have a licence and then find out that its actually because they arent old enough to drive, makes things a bit shady given that its a posibility mum/dad that said no to the purchase but then unbeknowns to you they do it anyway and you then have to deal with an irate parent.

with the pcs getting more members from over east ect it would be nice to know the person i am dealing with is someone who is reliable as kids are less reluctant to be upfront with you and hense hampering deals in the long run.

dont get me wrong i have no problem dealing with someone who is under 18 and alot of purchases/swaps have been done with adolescents with no problem but when the person acts as if they know what they are talking about and then gets found out otherwise it is a bit dissapointing that they would not be upfront in the first place and give you the run about. i dont mind doing a bit of running around for good will but when its in vain its another matter.

also seeing as new members concerns are up for discussion in other sections, it would be a shame if a new member takes the advise off a younger member and then find out to the contrary that the info was wrong at a later stage. this happened to me at a lfs when i was first getting into fish and the result was a tank that was way too small for the fish of purchase costing me a quite an expensive fish.

as the last point of interest, i am in the strong belief that it is far more comfortable to deal with an older member that has been in the hobby for a while rather than a youth that is just winging it. yes they may think they know what they are talking about but the actual understanding and comprehention of a subject is far differant dealing with a younger person rather than an adult.

clay

[werdna]

OK, fair call. I havent had any of those problems!

But I think that is the risk you have to take when selling on an online forum.
And I personally have only ever been stuffed around by people over 18!

And you got a LOT more patience than me driving the fish to someones house!

Andrew

[Paddy]

age makes alot of sense and relivance when it comes to purchasing and selling, why do you think kids cant buy cars?

Because they can kill themselves or others, not relevant.

when you have contact with a person via pm's ect thinking everything is ok and deal to go ahead, you make the call and then get a boy on the other end saying 'i still have to check with mum/dad' and then deal falls through because they dont think things through before you do all the pre planning and discussions. i have no problem that they have to check with mum but the forsight knowledge that they are a minor would prepare you for this case in point.

This is not a problem based on age, it is based on unorganised people, I have had sales to 30yo's fall through because their wife said no.

its even worse when you dont make a call because things are straight forward and a deal is done via pm's and they say 'can you drop off to me as i dont drive' so thinking ill do em a favour cause they dont have a licence and then find out that its actually because they arent old enough to drive, makes things a bit shady given that its a posibility mum/dad that said no to the purchase but then unbeknowns to you they do it anyway and you then have to deal with an irate parent.

If this is a concern for you, don't drop items off.

with the pcs getting more members from over east ect it would be nice to know the person i am dealing with is someone who is reliable as kids are less reluctant to be upfront with you and hense hampering deals in the long run.

Over 18's busy schedules with work, kids of their own etc can be just an unreliable as people under 18

dont get me wrong i have no problem dealing with someone who is under 18 and alot of purchases/swaps have been done with adolescents with no problem but when the person acts as if they know what they are talking about and then gets found out otherwise it is a bit dissapointing that they would not be upfront in the first place and give you the run about. i dont mind doing a bit of running around for good will but when its in vain its another matter.

Totally agree with this whole sentence but believe it applies to human beings and not any specific age group

also seeing as new members concerns are up for discussion in other sections, it would be a shame if a new member takes the advise off a younger member and then find out to the contrary that the info was wrong at a later stage. this happened to me at a lfs when i was first getting into fish and the result was a tank that was way too small for the fish of purchase costing me a quite an expensive fish.

The argument of wrong advice has been given many times, luckily if there is 2 people giving bad advice, there will be 20 people correcting them. This is the beauty of the community forum system

as the last point of interest, i am in the strong belief that it is far more comfortable to deal with an older member that has been in the hobby for a while rather than a youth that is just winging it. yes they may think they know what they are talking about but the actual understanding and comprehention of a subject is far differant dealing with a younger person rather than an adult.

As you mentioned, this is your belief, your opinion. And i believe that is where this whole argument arises from. I do not believe the forum would benefit from knowing peoples ages because as you have mentioned some members will give more weight to something put forward by an older member simply because of there age. If we are going to need an age then we should need to know all the other details about their life and get a true picture, bit discrimanatory to ask for age. Maybe we should put in hair colour so I can avoid selling fish to blondes??

[Fox]

Or maybe we should all stop whinging about nothing and start talking about fish, Isn't what this forum is about?
That's what joined this forum to do!

[werdna]

Hair colour is a valid point.
Just think of all the blondes out there who could mistake their blender for a fish tank and be wondering why every fish they buy turn to mush every time they turn on the filter.

Yeah, +1 for hair colour from me.

Andrew

[Scales]

paddy it is all relivant, age combined with time has a direct correlation to understanding and expieriance.

if your telling me that a 14 year old with 2 years expieriance has the same understanding on a subject as a 35 year old with the same 2 years expieriance then you, and everyone else, obviously dont understand the point im trying to make.

i teach 2 year olds through to 60 year olds in my field of work and i can tell you the older you are the more understanding you will have based on the same time frame. the only indication i can have if a person is credible or not is the 'joined' date under their name and avitar. this combined with a age would significantly alter the way i would approach responding to posts and pm's due to the fact that their understanding and comprehension of the way i type a message to them would be differant. at the moment universally the 'forum language' used by users is pretty good but a younger person trying to use the same grammar and language as an older person has a differant effect and thus making communication cloudy at times and points taking alot longer than needed to get across.

yes there are older unorganised/unreliable/untruthful people as there are organised/reliable/truthful younger people but these are few and far between compared to the number of unorganised/unreliable/untruthful younger people and organised/reliable/truthful older people, whether they mean to or not it is the case and a younger person would tend to try and explain things in an adult way without actually understanding the 'universal language' that they are using, thus creating unintentional misdirection.

it is not so much that credibility would be lost to these young people or given to the older ones, more like more leaniancy given if people are truly here to help each other out.

az, this is off the wall and hense the topic could be about rainbows and lollypops, if you dont want to join in on the debate then stay in the fishy section. And its not whinging its problem solving, you should try it sometime

clay

Hair colour is a valid point.
Just think of all the blondes out there who could mistake their blender for a fish tank and be wondering why every fish they buy turn to mush every time they turn on the filter.

Yeah, +1 for hair colour from me.

Andrew

lol good one, blonde jokes never get old

[Paddy]

Fair enough points Clay, I don't really have anything else to add. Basically I feel that age has very little to do with a forums users suitability in general.

[dazzabozza]

Not sure where to take this one though Clay as far as solving goes... an Age field could be enforced but there's nothing to prevent people putting fake info in. I think we already have a few 99yr olds on here

[Scales]

Not sure where to take this one though Clay as far as solving goes... an Age field could be enforced but there's nothing to prevent people putting fake info in. I think we already have a few 99yr olds on here

have an honesty system, make the field a must in the my assistant section and anyone found out to be guilty of trying to put a fake dob or age is then given a warning/banned from posting in classifieds/banned from posting full stop for a period of time.

if everyone is as open as they say they are on this forum then they should have no problem in putting their real dob and if they do have a problem then that is kinda suspect in my opinion. its not like they have to fill out their pesronal details like applying for a loan but as far as i can tell very little users use their profile page for what it is intended for.

as a fan for leading by example i have already started to fill out as much as i know how in my profile and will be giving you a pm's daz to ask how to do the rest

clay

[dazzabozza]

Gday

Some people are reluctant to list their actual D.O.B due to identity fraud (people gathering as much info as possible about you). Birth year would be sufficient but the forum software also requires day/month (those could be dummied if need be).

As far as the moderators having to track, apply bans etc I really don't see that happening as we've got plenty on our plate already. We'd also need a valid reason to enforce true ages else it could be on the verge of being discriminatory.

Something that does pop up in the retail industry is the selling of livestock to minors without parental consent. And we should also consider the possibility of cyber-predators which makes news headlines more and more often these days. I just hope that when minors are dealing with adults in person they're being supervised by a parent or guardian. I'll bring these 2 important points up with the committee.

If the main issue revolves around classifieds and transactions between members as it is the PCS does not take responsibility for these dealings. No different to the Quokka, gumtree etc. If someone is continuously being reported as a dodgy seller/buyer, being rude, giving personal attacks, threats etc then the committee will do their best to find a solution.


Daz

[Scales]

the identity fraud is a bit of a far stretch as thats the reason most people have avitars and 'alter egos', but if they actually gave out their full name, dob, address and phone then it is really their own fault for not protecting their one informantion. the year of birth could be the mandatory field and the full dob could be the optional option

the beauty of an honesty system is the dishonest people would get found out by the honest and thus a quick pm or 'heads up' to a mod to make it apparent and is all that would be needed, mods then do with the info as they see fit.

you could appoint a 'officer' or 'forum enforcer' so the current mods wouldnt have to bear any extra burdon. they could act in such a way that a 'security guard' does for schools ect, they would have no real world authority but as far as the pcs is concerned they could investigate further and possibly stop the problem that would then be at hand.

it would also maybe absolve the pcs if, god forbid, a cyber-pred did infiltrate the forum as there would be that extra safety net 'just in case' instead of 'i only hope' as any disclamer provided is not watertight and the media would not see this as a preventative measure and publish the cause or source of the apparent meeting place.

clay