Changes to Age Input

[High on Lullabies]

Dear All

The staff would like to thank everyone for their interesting and varied opinions expressed in Heathcliff's thread in Website Support and elsewhere on the forum, which we always encourage. As has been noted, there isn't a perfect solution that would satisfy everyone and we always try to balance the needs of all members (old and new, young and not so young).

This topic has of course been considered by the staff on several occasions in the past, but the composition of the staff gradually evolves over time and the current staff have now concluded their discussions on this. The debate tried to consider all angles and some new ideas were put forward to see if they may work better than the existing system.

Our conclusion was that the balance is currently about right between encouraging our younger members, by allowing them to participate fully on the main boards, while at the same time protecting them by being on the look out (with the help of the rest of the membership) for inappropriate behaviour towards them.

The ideas we discussed, some suggested by members and some added to by ourselves, all had problems associated with them, such that although they all had at least some merit, in our opinion none of them were clearly better than the current position.

There are, however, some minor changes that we'd like to institute that will hopefully address some of the concerns raised by members. There has been a precedent set since the inception of the Forum that no member would be required to display their actual age. However, as our membership grows and more young members join our ranks, it has become clear there is desire for more transparency regarding the ages of members. Because of this, we have instituted an "age range" system. In your profile settings, you will now find a field in which you can select an age range from: 13-17, 18-24, 25-30, 31-40, 40+, Not Telling. We hope that by not forcing members to display a specific age, there will be a greater comfort level with revealing an age demographic.

We highly encourage all members to complete this field. It will display under your username on all posts where the current AGE: field is displayed. It is our hope that this method respects your privacy by not requiring a birthdate or specific ages and also allows for more comfortable and appropriate interactions between all members. Please be advised that full birth dates will still be required when applying for Adult or Youth Board membership (you can always fill this in, apply, and remove it once access is granted).

We acknowledge that our little community is a diverse and utterly unique place where each of us come for a variety of reasons. There is no system that will make the Forum perfect for everyone because of our diverse membership, but we appreciate and discuss every single suggestion. We would stress that this was not a decision taken lightly and we do totally understand some of the concerns expressed.

Once again, we thank all members for putting forward their opinions on this difficult topic.

The SFF Staff

PS - for information, we provide links to previous discussions on the topic as follows:

HoL's post (number 44) here - the majority of this is still relevant

Discussion in 2014 - this was on the Adult Board, so unfortunately, not all members will be able to see it (basically, a member asked if all observations could be categorised by age and some of the problems with this were highlighted)