[Spart]

I just saw that you can now see people's age along with their posts...

It seems to me that age is something a little more personal that should be kept in your profile. Mostly because people will see a posters age and subconsciously give them credit/respect based on it..

Maybe I'm just whining cause everyone knows I'm 17 now.

:smokey:

[Wickers]

No worries. . . 17 is where it is at man. I'm with you on that at least.

PS. the age thing is a good idea. . . I like it.

[alcimedes]

would be nice to just have in the profiles though.

public......

not so much. now you all just make me feel old.

[LoCash]

It was a feature added with a vBulletin update I think. Seems they turned it on for me. How nice. I've turned it back off.

[Powerdoc]

Well there is no need to made the age public, to see how old a member is. For example, Alcimedes, when I see your custom title " I have no beer", it's clearly a sign of wisdom, coming from a man of experience perfectly aware that " you shouldn't let enter a canuck in your bar"

[drewprops]

time until Murbot enters room in a huff: 10 - 9 - 8 - 7 ........

[_Ω_]

Originally Posted by drewprops time until Murbot enters room in a huff: 10 - 9 - 8 - 7 ........

...... 6 - 5 - 4 .......

[alcimedes]

he's gotta sober up from an all weekend bender. you should have started counting from 8,756.

[_Ω_]

Originally Posted by alcimedes he's gotta sober up from an all weekend bender. you should have started counting from 8,756.

8756 - 8755 - 8754 .......


[I need sleep]

[Spart]

Originally Posted by LoCash It was a feature added with a vBulletin update I think. Seems they turned it on for me. How nice. I've turned it back off.

Everything is cool then.

:smokey:

The new "related threads" thing looks like it could be cool...but I imagine some completely unrelated threads might get tossed in there.

[murbot]

What the FUCK?!!!1

*cough*

*hack*

*patooey*

ungh... too.. much.... beer.....

Ahem. Now gentleman, do we really need to know who all the old bastards are?

[curiousuburb]

Originally Posted by Spart I just saw that you can now see people's age along with their posts... It seems to me that age is something a little more personal that should be kept in your profile. Mostly because people will see a posters age and subconsciously give them credit/respect based on it.. Maybe I'm just whining cause everyone knows I'm 17 now. :smokey:

Dude... I have Scotch older than you!

Don't feel bad though... I have about a half-inch of 1980 Dalwhinnie Reserve left as well, so I have Scotch older than probably half of the members.

As for the age field in posts affecting value judgments, I would tend to agree, if only on the subconscious level in most cases.

One recent case where I found it quite illuminating was the Avatars thread.
IIRC, some of the days I read it had the age field inline, and it seemed pretty obvious that most of the pro-avatar posts were from teenagers. Most of the posts seeking clean design and a text centered experience were from more mature members. Without the age field, many of the new members opinions might have seemed trollish and provoked strong reactions. (Indeed, some commented on this.) Spotting the age field during subsequent reads of the thread cause me to cut them some more slack than I might have otherwise.

There are times online when I've wished for an age filter or group, but I think everyone's capable of great thoughts, whether rare or practiced, and the risk of missing the gem of signal isn't worth the benefit of less noise.

Plus... I was young and online once, around 1980, and wanted to be taken seriously if I posted seriously, so it would be hypocritical for me to deny similar opportunity to others.

However, for privacy purposes - setting aside the voluntary sharing of that information which the user has consented to by adding it themselves - not displaying it inline makes sense, since threads usually index higher than profile in Google and the proverbial bogeyman stalker would have to click twice to find victims. We don't have a 'gender' field inline for similar reasons, I'm guessing... and it would be depressing confirmation of the disproportion of distaff discourse. Plus, "A/S/L?" is such a tacky intro.

meh... need coffee.