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[Poll/Discussion] Minimum Age of Access

What should the minimum age be to access SARP as a member?

  • Total voters
    26
  • Poll closed .
Arbitrated

Arbitrated

The Smollest Smol
🦊 FM of Neshaten
The Basis of this Thread


There was some discussion a short time ago on the official/unofficial SARP Discord Server regarding the limitations of access for the forums. A simple, unofficial poll showed a 70% voter support for lowering the age to 15 years, and as a result the forums proper should have a discussion-and poll-about this possibility.

What are the advantages?

-Immediately obvious would be the increased availability for people to join. More members in a community is generally quite helpful, giving more life to the community.

-Although not directly beneficial to Star Army itself, if people who like to roleplay found this website earlier on and were able to join it, learning more about how to create characters with detailed personalities and the like, roleplaying as a culture may see a slowly increasing general quality.

Potential Disadvantages

-Obviously with easier access comes the increased likelihood of a troublemaker joining the group, to troll or harass other people or generally cause a bad time.

-With a younger age group being able to access the site, there comes into question if SARP might end up becoming more convoluted and unnecessarily complex as the younger members may have a significant amount of ideas that may or may not work in the setting, many of which will likely be mentioned more than once.

Counter-Arguments

-This site from personal experience has had a minimal problem with people that join only to cause trouble. It is quite likely that persons of this variety would ignore an age limit, regardless of what it is set to.

-As long as the submission moderators/NTSE staff are able to regulate the flow of approved concepts into the setting, there will be less clutter in regards to factions, species, technology, and so on.


Please Remember:

This thread is both a poll and a discussion. Feel free to type why you are for or against an age change, but please keep the discussion civil and on-topic.
 
I doubt this change would affect more than one or two people each year, either way, which might unfortunately make this something of a personal question for them. Age doesn't determine someone's writing ability or how fit they are to join a community, but age limits exist because it's not practical to judge everyone individually, and is likely to be even more unfair that way, or at least raise questions about biased decision-making.

I think it's safest to keep the current age limit, even though it would be ideal to have no limit at all.
 
Arbitrated said:
-As long as the submission moderators/NTSE staff are able to regulate the flow of approved concepts into the setting, there will be less clutter in regards to factions, species, technology, and so on.
Click to expand...

There being younger people will take away the clutter or the other way around?
 
My vote is for raising the age.

I understand that Wes has legal complications to deal with regarding the age of the members involved in his roleplaying communities. The lower the age, the more interference parents can apply to our community as well. This actually happened before, which is why I'm in opposition to lowering the required age for membership.

I'm also in favor of raising the age because it's fact that a sizeable part of us are growing older, Wes included. Having lives, we don't neccessarily all have the energy to keep up with high school youngsters.

For contrast:
  • there was a time when people gathered several times a week to head into a chatroom and work on a joint-post that lasted several hours.
  • Eventually, that transformed into mostly single-posts, a couple of times a week.
  • Nowadays, many plots have trouble churning out more than one post per person. Especially when we consider how not all of us are in the same timezones.
Having new applicants that are more seasoned early-college level both speaks to our current level of writing and to the autonomy these people possess (therefore, less legal complications for us). Also, that way we don't end up being the reason a teenager is not doing his homework (which is just plain healthy for everyone concerned); I figure the same could be said for college students; but those are generally adults (if they screw up on that level, that's on them).

I still think our 18+ areas would remain relevant, but in the context of Not-Safe-For-Work content.
 
I'm definitely listening to what people's thoughts are on this and I would consider lowering the age if there's enough interest.
 
Arbitrated said:
increased availability for people to join
Click to expand...
This is the most compelling point. Having more people is always better, both for community growth and survival. Best way to make SARP fun for years to come is to include as many people as possible!

I voted to keep the age requirement at 16. Don't mind if the age is lowered for the above reasoning, though. And because 15 year olds are basically the same as 16 year olds. Would lowering it to 15 really increase our user potential very much?
 
I've had quite a few players that would benefit from being able to join at fifteen or older, @raz. This year there have been three, @Navian. And the year is young(ish). I am refraining from voting, though. I would be doing so simply to see the results. There are reasons for either side to such a degree that I can't make up my mind.
 
Ametheliana said:
I am refraining from voting, though. I would be doing so simply to see the results.
Click to expand...
That's a good point. Consider my 16 vote also one for 15, or void at all.

Whatever the admins are most comfortable with is what I think we should go with (unless it's raising the minimum age because that would harm the community).
 
I guess the key questions to ask are:
  • When do people join their first RP site?
  • What age is that usually?
  • What age was that for most of you guys (SARP members)?
  • What is the minimum age on similar RP sites?
  • Are we losing members to them because they will take people we won't?
 
Lol protect them from what? Maybe we need to more accurately define what makes a plot an 18+ plot but that's all I can think of.
 
I was able enough to write a funny comic or participate in a roleplaying group when I was 12, to write a silly short story or GM when I was 14, and to write a professional-quality novel or run someone else's roleplaying group for hours without anyone noticing I'd swapped places with another GM when I was 16.

I'm not sure how much that helps. I don't think I'd have had any chance of dealing with the community side of things here until I was at least 21, though. It's still hard enough, now.
 
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Wes separated 18+ from the rest of the site for good reasons. They included the safety of the site and other, personal reasons. Wes can speak to them if he feels comfortable doing so.

I think for those reasons haven't lost standing or importance even amid the class of players we've had over the past 18 months.

We tend to attract a pretty mature type of person, but they also can be passionate. While we can handle such players, I think we shouldn't expose the site to the potential of their parents -- just like Fred said.

We can't assume those parents will be reasonable about their 15-year-old seeing even the barest hint of 18+ content. I'm not talking just about content behind the age wall, but content you or I might think doesn't rate going behind said wall.

Or, for that matter, content that we find perfectly reasonable and acceptable, but parents of children from certain backgrounds will not.

Yes, I mean same-sex relationships, innuendo, casual violence, even philosophical discussion. IC or OOC.

Like Fred said, it's happened before. It is not worth the risk. My vote is for at least 16, preferably 17/18.
 
What age was that for most of you guys (SARP members)? I was probably atypical because I started when I was 9. I also was exposed to pornographic material accidentally at a young age when I browsed my older brother's search history. I was 11 when I first did ERP with a 13-year-old girl and I lied about my age. I would take steps to make sure my child did not have this happen to them, or have access to RP sites like SARP until 18, unless they allowed me to monitor their conversation.

My opinion would be to raise the age requirement, although I don't think age requirements will keep anyone out, so ultimately it would be pointless except as a legal CYA. The reason? Doshii and Fred have already covered my reasons.
 
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