Minimum age to register on your forum?

[NYCGuy76]

Do you have a age requirement in order to join your forum? I'm thinking about making it a requirement to be at least the minimum age of 18 to register on all three on my forums.

 

[Bionic Rooster]

No age requirement, open to family members

 

[zappaDPJ]

I have no age requirement on any of my forums. I do maintain a couple websites that have an age requirement for legal purposes though.

Personally I feel having an age restriction is a bit arbitrary unless of course the site contains adult related content.

 

[NYCGuy76]

Personally I'd rather not deal with any unnecessary headaches so nobody under the age of 18 are allowed in my two forums except for pet forum.

 

[Pete]

I go 18+ just for avoidance of headaches, even though 16+ wouldn't be a legal drama in my country.

 

[NYCGuy76]

I go 18+ just for avoidance of headaches, even though 16+ wouldn't be a legal drama in my country.

Exactly why I do it too. You're walking a thin line with under 18 let alone under 16. My New York forum has discussions that get out of hand. I don't want to be getting some letter stating this and that lol. Screw that.

 

[TrixieTang]

18

 

[Kaelon]

If you want to avoid headaches, only choose one of two options:

1. 18+, with little concern for content restriction; or,
2. 13+, with absolutely no adult content permissible, and with strict COPPA enforcement in the United States.

 

[LeadCrow]

No age limit for membership, but you have to specify anyway as part of profile completion. Upon completion, exceeding a membership duration (3 months, as deterrent for making duplicate accounts), postcount number with age now exceeding 16 opens access to 2 unmoderated private member-only sections not meant to be participated in by minors (high intensity debates and naughty talk - excluded from searches and trending).

The reason we ask for age threshold is really so as to have a better idea of how to better serve specific age groups, especially across their entire membership. More than the scasm between desktop and mobile, age groups shed a lot of light in how people's interests and activity leve changes over time. Older folks tend to appreciate a "slow web" experience and need theirs preserved so as to retain them as active members as they hold nostalgia for desktop-era forum communities, while youngsters are the most passionate and need more frequent or immediate gratification. Its an interesting difference I rarely see elabnorated on and it could be very enlightening to differentiate activity level by age bracket (keep in mind today's seniors were your young newbies before). Web scripts give very basic statistics, none as detailed as social media provides (woltab and more recently invision do).

 

[NYCGuy76]

No age limit for membership, but you have to specify anyway as part of profile completion. Upon completion, exceeding a membership duration (3 months, as deterrent for making duplicate accounts), postcount number with age now exceeding 16 opens access to 2 unmoderated private member-only sections not meant to be participated in by minors (high intensity debates and naughty talk - excluded from searches and trending).

The reason we ask for age threshold is really so as to have a better idea of how to better serve specific age groups, especially across their entire membership. More than the scasm between desktop and mobile, age groups shed a lot of light in how people's interests and activity leve changes over time. Older folks tend to appreciate a "slow web" experience and need theirs preserved so as to retain them as active members as they hold nostalgia for desktop-era forum communities, while youngsters are the most passionate and need more frequent or immediate gratification. Its an interesting difference I rarely see elabnorated on and it could be very enlightening to differentiate activity level by age bracket (keep in mind today's seniors were your young newbies before). Web scripts give very basic statistics, none as detailed as social media provides (woltab and more recently invision do).

I’m guessing you have a large membership to have all that implemented. Does it work out well?

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I go with 13 years old and over.

I also try to keep the forum PG-13.

 

[Web Diva]

I started out at 18+ and switched to 13+. I do prefer 18+ because I do believe kids should be kids and not attached to technology, however, my website is teen rated by IARC and the content is becoming more niche content (gaming) in an organic way, so I made the change. I won't tolerate bullying, bad language etc., though 13+ comes with more responsibility with moderation.

 

[Drachen]

Do you have a age requirement in order to join your forum? I'm thinking about making it a requirement to be at least the minimum age of 18 to register on all three on my forums.

Most, of the time I know the peps on my boards, but the chance someone wants to gain access I require 21 as the age, and have a questionnaire for them to fill out ?

Also depends on what your board is about subject wise.

 

[Odis]

Actually it depends on the category of the forum but it should be at least 16+

 

[Avery]

13+, due to COPPA requirement in the US (even though my community is not related to any adult content - if there was someone like a spammer, etc. who posted it I would be liable due to their underage aspects).

 

[Paul M]

We have no age requirement.

We did once have a 12 year old lad join, I dont really recall any other children.

 

[Kyng]

If you want to avoid headaches, only choose one of two options:

1. 18+, with little concern for content restriction; or,
2. 13+, with absolutely no adult content permissible, and with strict COPPA enforcement in the United States.

Yeah, I agree that these are the only two options that make much sense - although, this does leave me with concerns about the future.

Option 1 is simply unappealing to me. I've only ever run family-friendly communities - not only because the 13+ audience is by definition wider than the 18+ audience, but because I personally don't have the strongest of stomachs for adult content (indeed, my Discord server briefly had an NSFW channel, but I got rid of it after two days because I found I absolutely hated moderating it). Going down this route would mean exposing myself to all kinds of content that I actively want to avoid... I have nothing against those kinds of forums existing, but I'm not the right person to run one.

Option 2 is what I've done for my entire time as a forum admin. However, I'm worried that it might soon become unviable. In the USA, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) was introduced a couple of months ago - and this would mandate age verification, parental controls for under-18 users, and so on. In the UK, the proposed Online Safety Bill contains similar requirements. Of course it remains to be seen whether these will pass (and, if they do, what form they'll pass in) - but, even if they don't, I'm sure they won't be the last legislation of this type.

So, if I can't do option 2 without increasing legal headaches, and I won't do option 1 (because frankly, I'd rather give up forum administration altogether than go down that route)... then, where does that leave me?

 

[Kaelon]

So, if I can't do option 2 without increasing legal headaches, and I won't do option 1 (because frankly, I'd rather give up forum administration altogether than go down that route)... then, where does that leave me?

Honestly, host the forum outside of both US and UK jurisdictions with anonymity in mind, and enforce no age verification mandate, but be prepared to invariably be blocked if you fail to properly moderate.

 

[lordi]

17+, my forum using specific niche though, which i don't think children or even teenager will interested

 

[Rockatteer]

Under US federal law (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act) it's illegal to store data on anyone under 13 without parental consent. This is why sites like Facebook have the age restriction.