Would we be better off disallowing teenagers?

So, I had yet another member write back incredibly rude for breaking the rules. Ugh, I hate that. And, 99.9% of the time, the people that cause problems are teen age boys...some hormonal issue, I'm sure.

While I realize not *all* teenagers are bad,...

I'm wondering if we wouldn't be better off disallowing teens in general, going forward?

well I'm 15. I love this site. When I don't feel comfortable asking my friends or family things or talk about things with them I always come because people are very encouraging and give good advice. I'm sure I'm not the only teenager that feels this way.

aaaw.

dooont... *sniffles*

...maybe you could try warning those who misbehave? Or perhaps...take away their priviledges for a certain amount of time...

To give advice... maybe there should be a higher set age limit.
But to ask questions... you should keep the age where its at because I feel a lot of the young ones are curious about things and get a lot of good answers here
Maybe you should just change the age of people allow to GIVE advice, but not the age of people being able to receive that advice. Catch my drift?

I think that would put a lot of people down though. But you got to do what you got to do I guess...

Not all are bad - I've just had a few lately that really irked me.

Hence, the question.

My problem is basically this: of the problems on FunAdvice, 99.9% of those are *caused* by teen agers.

And it would be near impossible to censor what certain ages do, enough, to make a difference...and, it's not all bad, so I don't want to do something that extreme.

I just wish people would be nicer sometimes

Is there any way to put them on probation? Let them know that rudeness will not be tolerated.

I think too many "chances" are being given.
I understand why you want to give them to people, but most of them end up breaking the rules again anyways. I think once someone slips up once, they should be gone. Well... depending what the situation is.

I think it's part of the faceless culture of the iinternet, jeremy. In every corner of the web, there are jerks, and rudeness to a level that would be unimaginable if face to face, in real life. Just look at the comments on youtube videos. Yes, it's depressing. But I think if we eliminated teens from this site, a lot of people would suffer. It wouild lose its vitality...

I guess it's the cost of doing business. Kind of like retailers having to deal with shoplifting

No, teenagers are generally people who tend to come here for the most advice, they may cause the most trouble, but they probably post the most questions too?

I agree with Steph.
Except the advisors can ask questions, no matter what the age.
Tehehehe.

I think that teenagers need a lot of help and don't always know where to find it. I think that this site gives them the chance to express their feelings and ask questions without having fingers pointed at them personally or made fun of. I do not think that this site should disallow teenagers. I think the filtering and "warnings" are a good idea. but teenagers NEED a lot of help, and I"m hoping this site has helped many and will help many more to come that need it. If certain people are not being respectful for the site, them as an individual should be disallowed from the site..

Thedude, I would strongly disagree with banning teens (although it must be noted that I don't have to deal with their rudeness). Part of the social good of this site is a forum to let the younger generation know what is accepted, and a place to ask questions that would never be otherwise asked for fear of ridicule or retribution. If we as adults aren't willing to do this, who will?
Banning their address after giving a warning is probably a good solution. To keep the worst offenders out of your hair, possibly use a filter to automatically dump e-mails over burdened with bad words, or bounce e-mails from banned addresses for some certain period (sort of a cooling off period).
Most of the people on here appreciate the Herculean task that you, esconsult1, editor, and I'm sure many other over-worked people are doing, and an especially loud cheer to the advisors!!
Thank you, and as always
Good Luck!!

But if you set an age limit wouldnt that cause people joining the site to lie about their true age? People always find some way to 'beat the system'

People can easily lie about their age so it probably wont do much good. Banning people from giving advice is also a bad idea because that's what people come here for and if you take that away a large number of advisers are gone. I'm sure you'll all agree that that isn't a good thing for this community.

And like ty said teenagers are the one who need the most advice and they are most likely to want it from other teenagers and if they can't get that the they will probably leave and this community will suffer as a result.

I know that teenagers can sometimes be a nuisance but it's something that we will have to put up with for the greater good. I think the idea of warning people and banning people for inappropriate behavior is a good one but this site already had those sots of measures in place. You just have to report the offenders.

Oh, by the way, I am a teenager so I know what I'm talking about.

points well taken thanks. As I saisld earlier, I posted this mostly out of frustration.

I feel better now.

lol, you and every other parent out there :0 teens are generlly frustrating...

You should ave something where you can delete the people who are doing bad. Teens are here for advice because they are in trouble and curious, also some teens give the best advice on here!!

Jeremy,

Why not limit people of a cerain age to post only in certain groups.

Maybe set up a Teen Advice group that has set advisors to oversee it on the basis that it is likely to take more time to to monitor the questions and replies from this group.

Then, limit the posting of certain age ranges just to that group.

The only problem there is that one has to take the members word that they are adding their true birthdate. However, this applies anyway and I'm sure there are some under 13's on the site that lie about their age.

However, as you are aware, these people are usually quickly caught out.

Also, I agree with Ty's first reply.

If you had no teens you would have no site. The majority of the people on here are teenagers. If you are having a frustrating day that is not good but you dont deal with it by coming on here and saying that you think having no teens on here would make it better for you. No one else is allowed to vent on here without getting into some trouble!

Those kids come here looking for help they cant get in the real world and I would be assuming at some point before you made this site up that you would have wanted to target teens because of the word of mouth factor. With every job in this world comes frustrations. You have to be a bigger man and just delete the trouble and get on with it. This is a great site and will only get bigger but not by getting rid of some frustrating teens I know there are just as many perverts in there 40's who cause trouble on other sites. So be gratefull its only little hormonal kids on here causing grief...mel

oh come on now
I like yo think im a good member
but I understand your frustrations completely

also kiasu is 100% correct

I dont think you should disallow teenagers.

I'm a teenager and I come on here for advice because I cant talk to my friends/family.

Maybe you could just block the person/people being rude from giving advice etc for a certain period of time if you feel they were too rude, if there's a way of doing that?

NOOO. Please don't. If you do, I'll be so lonely. *sniff*