I tried replying to this a few times in a meaningful way that also did not seem to insult an entire age group, but I fail.

The only thing I can say really is that the maturity (in a macro sense, not a micro... never in a micro, and if you ever think it so, go find the thread discussing whether it's okay to teabag girls in FPS games ) requirement here is pretty high. From what I've seen, there is little tolerance for a lot of the usual forum activities: "first" posts, spamming up one's post count, flame wars, personal attacks. I'm not that far removed from teenager land: there are a lot of people in that age group who, unlike you, can't hang with that.

It's definitely not all of you though. There's no specific reason I'm aware of young people can't be here, they just need to possess the maturity for it like you. Some do, some don't.

Seconded.

And get off my lawn.

In all seriousness, I respect opinions based on validity, not age. At the risk of sounded obnoxious, many 18 year olds don't have much worth listening to for folks my age. I know I didn't when I was 18.

Worry more about polishing your opinion, and less about your age.

Respect is earned Son, and you havnt lived long enough.

There are other college students here as well though.

You'll fit in just fine here with words like that. Welcome!

I submit to the committee that this is actually an "I'm new" thread in disguise, which is a clear violation of Article 8 of the Forum Code of Conduct.

I actually had to do this once. Some kid was taking pictures of all the cars that passed by from middle of my front lawn. My neighbors were curious what was up, cars were slowing down wondering why they were getting their pictures taken. (My house is next to a four way intersection in the development.) I was a little nervous someone might actually get into an accident being distracted, but basically I just wanted him off my lawn. He said it was for a class project, I said "Great, I hope you do well, now move over to the sidewalk and take your pictures from there instead of my lawn."

You might be the youngest now, I've been visiting this site since I discovered it as a Freshman in high school, now I'm a freshman in college and I'll be 19 in about 3 weeks. Welcome to the fold.

I was thinking the same thing Irongut, I just didn't want to be the finger pointer. Back in my day, serious breaches of the CoC would result in a whippin'.

Actually, you're not the youngest one here. I know of several high school students who lurk here, and at least one who posts consistently. But you wouldn't be able to tell that from that person's posts - they don't read that way.

Respect for your opinions has nothing to do with your age around here. It has to do with the content of your opinion. You really don't know how old people are here. Some very mature sounding people can't vote yet, and the ones you would bet dollars to donuts were disguised 9th grade smack-monkeys are college graduates and parents themselves.

So go for it! It might help to think of your posts like a persuasive writing assignment. Especially if you're going to do a root post about an issue.

Or maybe think of your posts as many tiny definitions of the kind of person you want to be seen as. So like, if you say things that are smart and funny we'll like you. But, if you mess up and say something dumb, we'll hate you, and you'll have to leave.

Bingo. It's all about your talk, not if you can vote yet.

I've tried to decipher what this means and have failed. Please explain.

Being newish/lurker of a certain age, I agree the 'with jobs' tag did attract me, since, um, I have a job and it seemed to in a way say "Not SomethingAwful, please come in!". If I'm going to dislike someone its going to be based on their terrible personality and horribly incorrect opinions which age doesn't tend to solve anyway In general though the 20s-40's crowd, those trying to balance gaming, work, relationships its what makes this forum interesting for me due to like experiences.

He explained it better than me. But yeah, that's pretty much exactly what I was trying to get at. Hooray, someone can comprehend my babbling!

Yeah, a lot of kids your age think that. You'll grow out of it.

I see, I see. You do realise that a site with immature people would have had a thread advocating teabagging women, not questioning whether it was appropriate.