h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've been telling the Gruesomes that they have X years to wait until they can join h2g2 and they're going to be sorely disappointed when they find out it is now mutated into x+3 (someone will correct me if my previous assumption that 13 was the minimum age? maybe I made that bit up myself )

Anyway...

I don't like the alternatives that were suggested in the announcement post. Actually, I'm not sure what I'm going to do now. I wanted the gruesomes to join a community that I'm part of.

@ Psycorp --

Yeah, well, the BBC long since stopped making decisions based on a moral position. Or even an intelligent, considered position.
These days, it just makes decisions based on how it thinks it will be judged on its decisions.
This might be for the better. Would you want your kids on a site run by a company that can't tell cabbies from IT specialists, that drives the occasional civil servant to suicide, and that gets fined for kitten-naming atrocities?

Yes, no, yes.

speaking as a younger researcher myself (dont worry im over 16!) i found this site for the first time when i was around 13 but didnt have an email account of my owwn. i remember coming ondite and trying out stuff like different skins and doing some research on topics that i couldnt find info on elsewhere. now i wasnt a fully fledged member until i was at least 17 or 18 but had i had an email account of my own i would have joined much sooner. it makes me sad to think that the young researchers on the site (some of whom i made friends with) will not be allowed back. this is a very safe site and everything can be seen by everyone, you are as anonymous as you want to be and the community is a close knit one, where safer for childeren to be than here? lets send them all off to myspace and facebook and bebo where they can put up photos of themselves and give out their email addresses to everyone who visits their page. this is not fair on the young people of h2g2!

mini

to the last post.

Did anyone actually ask any under-16's what they thought of this move?

My son didn't get any emails explaining he was about to be thrown off site.

As it happens, he wasn't hugely active, but there are probably people out there not able to finish their conversations, let alone say goodbye.

I wonder what they will think when they try to post and get nowhere? If they aren't on the announcements list how will they know what happened? Will they get a message when they try to post? Shame J's gone to bed. I didn't think of asking him to try logging in when he was here.

... ... ...

Genius funny comment of the week...you jest madame!

Exactly how is this absurd and ill-conceived rule to be enforced?

Kids will have to tick a box saying "Yes, I am over 16" to prove that they are, in fact, over 16.

It's foolproof.

Does that mean we can swear now?

I hope there isn't a witchhunt. I imagine established h2g2 minors will just keep their birthdate under a bushel for as long as it takes.

What about those of us who are over 16 but very immature?

Exactly, which I hope they do. This is great site for learning how to debate, interact with people of differing views, looks at our very strange dynamics when we can be calling each other morons on one thread or one day out of sheer frustration and then the next day backing the same idiot up on some other point.

However, won't this move actually be detrimental, the point of knowing someone is under 16 is that one can converse with them slightly differently and explain and help in greater detail than some 40year old who really should know better.

Now if someone is spouting absurd rubbish we will have to assume it's an adult who is just an idiot rather than someone under 16 who just hasn't been exposed to the right facts or live experiences that would allow them to view a subject differently in which case, as I say, we can explain, guide and hopefully make them see a different view point rather than, sometimes, just call the adult an idiot.

Dr E Vibenstein (Bring on the trumpets!)


Duck yeah!




(_!_) (.)(.) thpppttttt!!!!!

I hope the clearly answer your question.

I just think it's a crying shame that Ask, a thread where you can be guaranteed an answer to virtually any question under the sun will be denied to under 16s.

Barring any legislation governing public message boards, is it not age discrimination in any case?

I think age discrimination is pretty much a euphemism for discrimination against older people.

Companies routinely deny services to people who are legally adults, but below some arbitrary age boundary, and I've never heard of anyone prosecuting over it.

I have just had a look at the alternatives the italics have given the wittle kiddies to go to instead of h2g2...poor kids...and how patronising.

There are some children who like to stretch themselves, involve themselves with adults.

There is also a link to a 'safe surfing' page on the BBC website...excuse me italics...are you accusing any of us of potentially being people who would groom kids?

Presumably, you are saying there 'could be' someone who might come onto this site with that in mind...hwoever, the site is so open for everyone to see that that seems doubtful that it would happen...unless it has but no-one has been told.

Getting people to tick a box to say they are over 16 will work just as well as the other way in which you could keep kids safe on this site:

Have a tick box saying: 'Are you coming on to this site to groom young children?' If they tick yes don't let them on...

There can be no easy way to groom anyone on this site...there is no private messaging as there is on other sites and any dubious posts will be yikesed as soon as they appear unlike other sites where a post has to be reported before it is hidden and is in plain site until dealt with.

In fact it's been remarked/complained about on many occasions that certain functions are absent such as a way to contact anyone privately either by PM or email.

Nothing else much to add to that already said, other than some of the most mature people I've met over... BoB-knows how many years now, have been under 16 or so years of age... But I guess treat em like immature fools and they'll remain immature fools, which is, err, better how?
About time I goomed myself, I think I've lost my hairbrush again.