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Most forums already do this, but I don't remember seeing it here.

When a new member registers, they have to agree that they are 13 years or older (or whatever minimum age would be appropriate) along with agreeing to the site guidelines for the forum. This would also be in conjunction with the person's year of birth on the site, so if they claim to be the appropriate age and provide a birthyear which doesn't add up, the site could refuse to let them register.

I haven't seen this on this site. This isn't a site for kids so shouldn't we be restricting it as such? Of course, it wouldn't stop them from reading/reviewing storygames, but this is something for the forums specifically.

I get that people could still lie about their age and falsify a birthyear, but surely doing something would be better than just letting absolutely anyone sign up.

Another thing that could be possibly implemented is a required activation email for new users, as well as something to help with forgotten passwords. This would prevent users from having to constantly make new alts just because they forgot the password for their old account.

'Most forums' do a lot of things this one doesn't, because most forums haven't been around as long as a good percentage of their members have been alive, and CYS went a lot of that time without anyone capable of updating it being active.

I was planning on making a similar thread in the Lounge asking about people's feelings on young children using the site, but this works too.

Some sort of school safe mode is eventually planned that locks out the forums, private messages, and any stories above a certain maturity level, but I doubt we're going to see any changes like this soon. 3J is on hiatus and had other updates in the works.

In the meantime almost nothing here is appropriate for them, and they're annoying, obnoxious, and rarely have any idea what they're getting themselves into when they start provoking people who have no qualms about grinding them underfoot. But we survived the WC plague, and short of every admin fucking off at once I can't imagine things ever being allowed to get to that level again.

It's kind of a pity though because some of these kids will wind up having really bad experiences with the site when they might have been decent members if they'd shown up a few years later and when slightly more mature. Though there's just not much else that can be done about that. Once they prove themselves incapable of learning or of taking a hint, stronger measures are required.

Despite the fact that I really hate annoying children, there's some of those really rare cases where children contribute something good on this site. Minimum age requirements feel really useless, as like you have said, you can lie about your age and birthyear. One can claim to be 0 years old as of this moment, which leads to some interesting messages from Cysid on your 'birthday'.

As for the e-mail confirmation, it might be hard to actually implement. Although it could make a good security measure for CYStia to prevent hurt kids or spam bots from spamming the forums.

Stryker has proposed a captcha system for robots and spammers, and it might actually be better and easier to implement. That said, it's annoying for posts so those simple button captchas should work for posts only whilst the account creation should have those check for street signs, stores signs, etc.

I think the point of a minimum age requirement is that it removes the ability to say 'i didn't no????' once it comes out they lied to get around it.

And if we had the school/child mode or whatever it's going to be called there'd be no reason to lie, ten year olds can still use the site, they just get shifted off to the dark basement where we'd be keeping the others.

But at the moment I feel like it's probably better for their overall site experience (and ours!) to just, not sign up, rather than to be docked points/banned for shit posting or have their stories mocked and then unpublished because they're shitty children who are only capable of producing shit.

I'd actually be for preventing everyone less than 13 years old from using the site entirely (Forums/stories/comments) if only to put a stop to all the grade school class projects that suddenly pop up from time to time posting their crappy stories.

Well, yeah, something to prevent the site from being flooded by horribly written stories would be nice.  Maybe a limit on how many stories could be published from a single IP within a given time period?  I don't know if something like that is even possible or whether each school computer has a unique IP or not.

Getting brutal enough with the kids that they cry in real life is a harsh but sometimes necessary tactic, and possibly the only way to get through to oblivious teachers.

I may be wrong, but I thought I read somewhere that this site was originally intended to be "Family Friendly".  I'm not sure how attempting to deter young people from even signing up would prevent immature trollish behavior and the spamming of the forum since maturity has almost nothing to do with age.

Disney World is a hell of a lot more family friendly than we would ever claim to be and it still managed to let a child get devoured by wildlife. 'Family friendly' still means some parental awareness is required, not that children can just run rampant without any incidents.

I know I have a reputation for hating children, but I'm still thinking of them here. I'm just not seeing how a ten or eleven year old posting on the forum or putting up stories can end in anything else but tears for them. And the fact that they're all taught to think of themselves as special snowflakes now and completely unused to criticism will make the icy shock of reality that much harsher.

Shit posting idiots will be mocked, docked and banned whether they're seven or seventeen, the difference is I would feel slightly bad for the former...but they still don't belong on the site when they're incapable of meeting minimum standards or behaving on the forums, so if they insist on signing up what else can you do? Keep in mind the site deliberately drove out most of its younger users with the WC purge, so there's precedent for the little shits being unwelcome and unwanted. I mean the problem was their attitudes and unwillingness to listen or learn, more than the inherent shittiness of the subject they were writing on itself.

Using Disney as an example is flawed. CYS is a website. Many website have age requirements. I see no reason not to follow suit. Will it fix everything? No, but that doesn't mean we can't take steps to better the site. 

I think you're agreeing with me while phrasing it as a disagreement? Ok good deal.

I speak in riddles 

We should do this, but I think we should also do that little literacy test thing that the stickman MMO did, just to be super sure.

Also, if I'm supposed to be above a certain age, does that mean I get banned if I change it so I'm -80 years old again?

^ Literacy test. Gives younger people a chance to not being a complete retard.

There was a fairly clever age test on certain websites, such as showing a picture of a cassette tape and a pencil and asking the user to write what's the link between them.

:0 I get it. ^-^

Well, this could save the innocence and snowflake status of a few children. Of course, the kid could lie as you said, but it would give us the line "You should be at least thirteen, so you should be mature enough to handle this slight criticism, imbecile" which could come in handy.

An activation email would be nice as well. (One may be less likely to act as a retard or pervert when we have an email of theirs.)

Does anybody have any knowledge of any user who was ever useful while under thirteen? I can only think of one person who could even possible qualify. If there isn't any exceptions to their uselessness, why not ban 'em?

Who knows? The only person that qualifies this is BetaBand, but I don't even know what he did back then. There are possibly some people that are still kids, but prefer to hide their ages so we won't really know.

Aman's brother Tan is about the only one I can think of that was under 13 when he joined and wasn't a complete retard. In fact I thought he was older than he actually was until he mentioned his age in passing.

I was 11 when I joined the site. I was and continue to be a complete retard.

Betaband and some others wrote a lot of passable stories at 13 and younger. One of the featured horror games was written by someone around that age if I'm not mistaken (He could've been 14, if I am mistaken.) there was this one kid especially (Who couldn't be much older than 13, given the frankly loud color scheme of his furry profile) who wrote like 3 passable storygames (Out of the 8 or so that he published, which would get a low three or a high two these days if I;m being honest.) Fazz and Tanstaafl were 13 when they first joined, I think, and wrote a bunch of very thoughtful, insightful reviews back then. Thara is also a very small child, if I understand correctly.

I think I wrote Randomly Walk at 13, but that's only a little higher on the story scale than perhaps that first WC story that was good enough to bring all the obnoxious ones here, and I was also an obnoxious prententious cunt, so take from that what you will.

Written by a 13yr old.

Also written by the same 13yr old.

Both were very, very good.

I would think of 13 as the minimum age, that's how most sites do it. If there's a 12 year old somewhere capable of passing as older they can just lie and if they're not acting like idiots it's fine.

I mean I played MUDS at 12 and I like to think I wasn't completely obnoxious and bad. Typing in English is really not as hard as so many people make it out to be.

I agree email activation would be a good step to add. Having an age limit on registration, I have more mixed feelings on. Most younger kids probably wouldn't contribute much, and are more prone to get their feelings hurt, but that doesn't mean all of them are not interested in sharing their writing and improving it. Though there's probably sites that are a little more kid-friendly, so even if we lost a few registrations, they'll still have other places to accomplish the same thing.

Hm... I don't think having an Age Limit set to 13 or older would be such a bad thing.

(Especially now that EndMaster, Steve, and Malk have pretty much blown "family friendly" out of the water with all the smutty stuff they leave dripping in certain shadier corners of the forums.)

I agree with the idea. Sure, people could and would fake it, but if even a single kid decides against it that's already better. As for the argument that the site is ment to be family friendly, it is doing a bad job already, so who cares? There are many sites that are family friendly, and even those need parents to watch over their kids. In most of the cases that we have here, I doubt the parents know anything about what's happening.

So far it looks like everyone's in agreement for a site age restriction. (13 years and up)

I'm a bit ambivalent about a minimum age requirement. I can see the point that it sends a message that a certain degree of maturity is needed, in for example ability to take criticism and what not, especially if you want to go on the forums. However, as has been before, people will inevitably lie about their age to get on the site, especially if they think they are great writers and want to showcase their work. 

In that sense, I think an actual email confirmation system will do more to deter immature users. Even with age requirements, you'll only be able to find out if someone is actually decent enough to be on this site after they for example post a story and whine about the criticism. However, even if certain terrible people get banned, they can easily make a new account and put up part two of 'Sentient cat-thingies that explore each others' bodies', then get banned again, create a new account, and so on. There are of course ways to get around e-mail confirmations, but it does take a bit more work, and will probably deter the more (both literally and figuratively) immature trolls. 

Furthermore, if the 'school mode' system ever gets implemented, that will also prevent the flood of mediocre games that happens once every while when a teacher decides to encourage their kids to write stuff online. 

All in all, age requirements are a purely symbolic measure, that are easily circumvented. In my opinion, there are other, better ways to deal with immature users, without blanket banning kids. 

And I do apologise if my rant was a bit incoherent, but I think I have a mild caffeine overdose at the moment from a day of coffee-fueled paper writing. 

I concur. Any age limit would just be for our own peace of mind. Something more tangible such as email verification would be a more meaningful and lasting solution.

Here is the only reason that web sites starting creating things related to the magical age of 13. Yes, of course the site could make people enter their age and reject them if they are under 13. And yes, as many have pointed out, people could simply lie. Therefore, in my opinion, there's no real reason to write the code and create something like this. I think the exact same thing could be accomplished by putting a line on the sign up page that says, "If you are under 13, don't fill out this form."

I think something that says, "If you are under 13, don't fill out this form." is about as good as we can get on the age restriction front.

An email verification on sign-up would help more. (As would making new accounts wait 24 hours to post).

That's going to be ignored. I would've ignored it. :3 I'd mention how harsh we can be as a community in general as a better deterrent. "Criticism may be strong and not appropriate for people under 13."

That still sugar coats it. It should be:

"Enter at your own risk. Irish prick will crush your hopes and dreams."

That's to provocative. Kids wanna prove themselves and be like "oh, I can handle this guy who does he think he is". They'd wanna know what the risk is and see for themselves what's screwed up about em.

It's more about being up front in an official way about not wanting young children here than any expectation it'd be a deterrent to anyone who badly wants to join. But at that point any kids are here at their own risk with no possible excuse for their behavior that wouldn't get them banned in and of itself.

If you want to get around people lying about their age, perhaps you can ask new members questions that demonstrate a measure of maturity and/or literary ability that must be answered correctly in order to join the site (or else be locked out of the site for a year or something), like:

Though America financed and built the pedestal on which the Statue of Liberty stands, the statue itself was a gift from France. In this way the complete work, much like the United States, is a product of both American and French contributions. At one time America was ruled by the British. The founding fathers of America chose to fight against Great Britain for the independence of their country. France supported America by providing money, men, and weapons of war. Had it not been for French contributions during the Revolutionary War, America would not exist in the way that it does today; therefore, it is quite fitting that the Statue of Liberty, which represents freedom, came to being by a joint American and French effort. On October 28th, 1886, just over one-hundred years after America declared its independence from Great Britain, the Statue of Liberty was completed and dedicated by its designer, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi. 

Which choice best expresses the main idea of the paragraph?

a. France assisted the United States in the Revolutionary War.

b. The statue was a joint effort between France and the U.S. just like U.S. independence.

c. The U.S. was once a colony of Great Britain.

d. The statue of liberty was dedicated 100 years after America declared its independence. 

 

or

 

Write the following as an expression: 3 less than the triple of x

a. 3x + 3

b. 3x - 3

c. 3 - 3x

d. 3 - x

The math shouldn't be multiple choice.

e. America, Fuck Yeah!

In order to make an account at CYS, a cyoa story must be submitted by email. You want in? Are you dedicated mofo? Didn't think so, go back to twitter. 

Would backfire, you'd be stuck trying to catch what's plagiarized and what's not. Good people would be dissuaded, and the other kind wouldn't really care.

Well, I said it as a joke. But truth is we already have to police for plagiarism.