Age Restriction (1 Viewer)

Is age restriction on applications a good idea?

  • Yes, it's a good idea

    Votes: 31 75.6%
  • No,it's a bad idea

    Votes: 1 2.4%
  • Require permission for all applications, regardless of age

    Votes: 9 22.0%

  • Total voters
    41
  • Poll closed .
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Madact

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Talking about the age restriction set on the applications. +15 or you have to get permission.

Recently I've just been a little 'what is the point' kind of phase since that incident happened with someone who lied about their age got in, became a full admin and admitted. By that time it was fine as they had proven themselves, but at the same time I ask myself if people can lie through it what's the point in the first place. (Just saying here, it was mentioned a while back. The admin in question is brilliant at what he does, this isn't a bash the admin day)

This is slightly a drama starting thread maybe, but I really want to know a sane sound reason to keeping the age restriction. So I wanted to start a discussion about it, with both good and bad factors about it so I can get a little closure.

I've also added a poll for fun!
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Onelight
I agree with the sentiment of introducing a "bash the admin day". (No srsly i luv u unnamed person :kappa:)

I've been admin in a few places that required everyone to get permission, which, IMO, was a sensible approach to keeping out low quality applications. Some arbitrary age restriction may help to an extent, but it's arbitrary and silly.
 
Yes,it's hard to prove whether someone is lying about his/her age or not. Still,I think we should keep this as a requirement.

As we all know, most people bellow that age don't seem to be fully mature and ready to take responsabilities an admin has, but I've also seen cases of kids being more mature than most people,so the "asking a full admin permission to apply" should be kept aswell. This is just my opinion, but I think we should keep it as it is now.
 
Eh hard to say.
On one note "kids" might not be mature enough for the role of admin. On another note, we might miss out on some good applicants if we restrict the age.
If someone really wants to be admin its not that hard to ask some full for permission to apply, so imma vote yes on age restriction.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Onelight
Most people will sign up for the forums and fill in their age without ever knowing about the restriction. The only way to then change their age is through Kevin, who will then have a record of it somewhere ideally.

The reason the restriction was put there to begin with was because there was an actual fucktonne of applications from 11-13 year olds coming by that just had no hope of getting accepted, but nobody dared to straight up close them either. So it was a waste of everyone's time. It's hard to remember how bad it was since the restriction has been there for so long now.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Onelight
I think it's best to keep it, as there could be some edgy immature squeaker 11 year old that actually reads the age requirement and then decides to back off.

Though, as Fluffy said, there is a chance that some non-edgy mature non-squeaker 12 year old decides to apply, and he could infact be a good admin, but then he sees the age requirement and, as his edgy immature squeaker 11 year old friend, doesn't do anything and leaves.

As mentioned, we can't really prove someone's age, but it's best to keep it for those who really read the 'How to apply for admin' thread. Better be (somewhat) safe than sorry.

EDIT:
a drama starting thread

FINALLY MAN \(^0^)/
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Onelight
They should show their passport or something for proof of age :kappa:

To be honest, the age restriction is both good and bad as mentioned like 20 times above my comment. Yes it stops immature people from applying but it also doesn't as seen by this here Click Me. This person clearly didn't read the template which includes the age restriction and pretty much wasted an admins time and I don't even need to talk about how its a bad thing cause it has been mentioned so many times that this will just turn into spam (which it kind of is) (I don't even know what i'm saying now lmao)

I think it's best to keep it, as there could be some edgy immature squeaker 11 year old that actually reads the age requirement and then decides to back off.

Though, as Fluffy said, there is a chance that some not-edgy mature not-squeaker 12 year old decides to apply, and he could infact be a good admin, but then he sees the age requirement and, as his edgy immature squeaker 11 year old friend, doesn't do anything and leaves.
Boom that's all you need
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Onelight
Is nobody considering TBot's suggestion? It's very easy to tell if someone has a chance of being at least a decent applicant just with a short conversation with them. This would eliminate applications that are otherwise not worth considering. If not this, then I'm for keeping the age restriction for reasons mentioned by Evo.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Onelight
I find it hard to imagine how everyone needing permission would work in practice. What would be the criteria to allow someone to do it? How well do you have to know them? What do they have to show you, just decent conversational abilities or would you give them a little interview if you didn't know them already?

And even then, there's often disagreements on apps. What if an applicant talks to an admin who doesn't allow them to apply even though there are 3 other admins who would vote yes? You can't really say that people can ask multiple admins, because then there will be those who talk to several different admins until they get permission.

Things might go smoother than the scenarios I'm picturing, but even then I'm not sure if it's worth the risks - or the hassle for that matter. I mean, if that new system's purpose would be to save time by keeping apps out that would otherwise require time to evaluate them, then it can't be a system that is equally time-consuming at best and risks putting people off unnecessarily at worst.


Yes it stops immature people from applying but it also doesn't as seen by this here Click Me. This person clearly didn't read the template which includes the age restriction and pretty much wasted an admins time and I don't even need to talk about how its a bad thing cause it has been mentioned so many times that this will just turn into spam

An age restriction or lack of one does nothing to people like that...

Though, as Fluffy said, there is a chance that some non-edgy mature non-squeaker 12 year old decides to apply, and he could infact be a good admin, but then he sees the age requirement and, as his edgy immature squeaker 11 year old friend, doesn't do anything and leaves.

That is why I initially came up with the whole permission idea (don't want to steal the credit from anyone else, I think it was me). If someone below 15 is really good enough, they can use that. If they can't or won't do that for whatever reason, then they clearly don't have the confidence, and one has to wonder if they were good enough at all. The restriction became needed because the incompetent kids were far outweighing those that might have a shot.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Onelight
If they can't or won't do that for whatever reason, then they clearly don't have the confidence, and one has to wonder if they were good enough at all. The restriction became needed because the incompetent kids were far outweighing those that might have a shot.

Yet it still assumes that age is a reliable measure of maturity, which it is evidently not (look at me, lol). Why would we hold older potential applicants to lower standards. No matter what the age, if someone cannot bring themselves to ask a question they are probably not qualified.

Permission so far has been a matter of "just ask". It's not the point here to transfer the responsibility of screening and questioning applicants to an admin. The point is that anyone with okay behaviour (i got permission to apply and my chat was, uhm, less than clean yknow) and any sort of activity whatsoever ought to have no problem getting ahold of an admin and getting permission to apply.

As for asking multiple admins, I don't think it's that big of a problem. If someone becomes plain annoying they will be known as such quickly and will simply be ignored or denied when they ask, and if only one admin deems them a potential candidate that is good enough (imo) to let them apply for further review. On the contrary, if someone can't (due to not knowing who the admins are, etc.) or doesn't want to approach an admin to ask a plain simple yes/no question, that seriously calls their dedication and / or suitability into question in my opinion. There is no need to make it a huge ceremony, it's simply a matter of informally asking (ingame, steamchat, forums, shoutbox, whatever) an admin for permission to be considered.

And, of course, it makes no sense to give permission to someone you've barely had anything to do with before.
 
I just doubt that you're going to get all that much out of a small conversation (again, assuming that people want something time-efficient) which should literally only filter out the absolute worst who couldn't put together much of a conversation - in which case that should be immediately visible in the app. I'd hope indeed that most people who ask permission already somewhat know an admin, I guess that a lot depends on that.

I get that age is far from a great indicator but as far as I remember the number of hopeless applications certainly decreased when the restriction was put in place. Nobody is held to lower standards, I don't know why you would say that. If someone aged 14 shows the same capability as current 17-year old admins I'd sure hope they would get accepted.

Back then none of the other restrictions about playtime and such were in place so that might already help somewhat, I really don't know what would happen were the restriction to be removed now. I'm no admin so if the admins feel up to the task of answering to everyone that comes to ask for their permission (in such a manner that it actually filters out the baddies) then you people can go ahead. I have no clue who have been voting what, the admins hold all the authority in this vote so it's theirs that count. I hope that at least the person who started the poll can see data on this, @Madact ?
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Onelight
what worked best imho was what they used back in b2b when I first started, applications had NO age restriction but all applications were hidden from the public view so no outside influences/shitposting and the applicant required permission from at least one member of staff. (it didn't matter how many said no, it only took one yes)
furthermore it was less about the application itself but more about the discussion that followed. there was no template, no set rules to follow, you were "interviewed" on the spot and it was up to you to formulate everything the best you could. i liked that...
 
But if you're willing to go through all that, then why have any restrictions? What does the permission thing add? If someone is so terrible that you could filter their potential applications out just through conversation (with multiple admins, probably, as people tend to be persistent), you might as well shut their app down quickly in the alternative systems that don't require permission. What is the added value of a permission system time-efficiency wise? Even with a permission system you'll still have loads of bad apps/applicants too, and because someone has given them permission they deserve more consideration than without a system like that. If someone is given permission then they understandably get their hopes up more than if they just have to put an app out there. So individual admins spend time working through permission requests, the collective still has to work through the apps that come through, and to what benefit?
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Onelight
there isn't any time efficiency with that method, the permission system was in place to give the younger applicants in particular, a starting point (and potential mentoring for the future) due to no playtime requirement instead of being the 200th applicant that just happened to come across the server and feels like applying 10 minutes in which seems to happen a lot even with panda's playtime requirement of 72hrs. on top of that it was an unspoken rule among admins to never 'just' give out permission. instead of quietly farming your hours you were encouraged to make your presence known. it was made very clear to both players and staff that permission does not amount to any guarantee whatsoever of you getting in. if you, the applicant, thought differently or get your hopes up too much that is a fault of your own and to me, personally, pretty indicative of their potential and thus pretty time efficient if you ask me. There was nothing and no one to hold your hand throughout and how applicants approached that was the dealbreaker. It's been a couple years since then but I can pretty clearly remember our archived applications containing a lot less invalid and denied ones. I'm not saying hey let's go and do it. despite its efficiency it's not very practical i'll admit, but it worked. It worked really well. I should probably mention that there was an additional member group labeled Applicant (again, only visible to staff) and you couldn't even post an application before being given your permission(read: promotion to applicant) of which clear logs were also kept and there were 1 or 2 admins at a time specifically assigned to overseeing applications, asking the right questions etc.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Onelight
Also, just to clarify: A short conversation is not what I'm proposing. In order to give permission, the admin should already have a decent picture of that player and their behaviour on the server. If you first have to have some sort of conversation with an applicant in order to determine whether you should give them permission, in 99.9% of cases you shouldn't.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Onelight and Bugs
i have an app but imagine if it would happen right now
is there a big chance that it will get declined cus im underaged
or is it still going to be the same who already did an app before this?

EDIT: maybe i just understood it wrong since this happens pretty often to me (maybe cus of the autism i have)
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Onelight
Age restrictions are simply a barrier to filter strong applicants from the weak. I believe that if a person has the ability and potential to be admin, and they are willing to put the time and effort in. The Age restriction just acts as a barrier for them to overcome. 13 year olds can be more mature than 18 year olds. Simply put age is not the only factor and why does it matter if there is an age restriction if an admin can overrule for a stronger candidate. It is all a filter process for the best of the best. Only those who really want it and put time and effort into proving themselves and working on weakness's get positions. Age is a number, keep the restriction but have a get out clause.
 
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