Except the majority of the posters who bicker in threads are older than 16. I've noticed the majority of 16 unders don't bother participating in debate threads.

ETA: Scratch that, I've never seen a 16 under participate in a debate thread.

Where in my post did I call you a dick?
Did I even mention you? o.O

I have.
Actually 14 and they were way more mature. Lol.
Pretty sad.

Well she did say 16 years and older.

No.. did I say you did. O.o

According to certain people I am though.

I have to agree with a lot of what EveV has been suggesting. In fact, a lot of the suggestions I can trace back to GaiaOnline (lo, how far my life has sunk). There's sections on there where people can be immature, rant & rave about stupid things, and then there's other parts of the forums where people can get a bit more serious. It just gives people a place to goof off, even for the most serious and honest of posters.

Forcing there to be a requirement wouldn't fly at all. If they can't get in there at the beginning of their membership, members don't care about getting in there at all; it's just a forum after all.

There are, as far as my near-sightedness can take me, three issues regarding the implimentation of a "Serious Discussion" forum. The first is that anyone of any age can sign up to use these forums. There's a thread swimming around somewhere about a 12 year old worrying about being a good mother. Language is always, for one reason or another, an offensive matter, and when people get passionate about a debate, they'll start using "adult language" (a term that, quite frankly, doesn't and can't exist). Regardless, that's one issue.

Another revolves around passionate people. As stated earlier, when people get passionate about an issue, and a debate starts getting hot, people will start getting nasty with one another; it doesn't happen all the time to rational adults, but it does happen from time to time. When that happens, people get offended, and when people get offended, they'll leave the forums. We'd start losing membership left and right because of silly, immature arguments that started from (you guessed it) the "Serious Discussion" forum, a place where we're supposed to act like rational adults who won't get hot and bothered over silly trivial things.

The third issue is that we just simply don't have enough active members for this to be effective. In the future, maybe; now, no way. Looking back to Gaia again, the community there is massive, so a serious debate can last for quite some time. Here, on the other hand, a serious conversation would only last for, at most, maybe a week before the thread starts to slowly deviate from the original topic. Threads would be started up left and right (not a problem), but they'd be closed down fairly quickly (that's the problem).

A good idea, but there's just a few things that need changing/addressing beforehand.




...Sorry for the Wall O' Text.

You can be one.
But everyone can.
If people fucked with me like they do you I'd probably get alot more pissy.

Edit- Your avatar makes you seem alot more cocky then you actually are. <<
You have an almost smug expression.
That's probably another reason why people take what you say so seriously.

Yeah, stupidity doesn't go away just because you've reached the mature age (of... 16?ha!) since, unfortunately, maturity and age don't always go together.

What Kanji meant to say is that if people feel like bashing each other over the Internet by typing stuff out, they don't have to do it on this site. Why would someone join a forum about Japan to spend their time talking shit about other people? Making a special section for this purpose is like saying: hey guys, it's okay to be a bitch and talk crap about everyone and their mom as long as you keep it in the right section.

The fact is that they do join the forum and do just that.
As sad as it is.
And if we want to keep this forum clean having a place for them to be immature wouldn't hurt.
It separates the good from the bad.
And keeps the rest of the forum clean.

Heh, so you do think people f*ck with me.

I'm facing so much of it that now i'm thinking i'm really the one who is to blame.

I don't think people like me belong on a forum. I'm too used to Real Life.
A serious discussion thread would prolly have me being "dick" status there too. I just can't leave ignorant people alone and ignorance likes company.. so its few of the same people vs me. :rolleyes:

Even more reason to say an age restriction is pointless :P

Yeah, but I'm saying why make a restriction when it isn't an issue? It'll be fixing something that isn't broken.

Then maybe the spammy posts just need to be removed? If people just ignore them, then they should be able to be removed without throwing off the discussion. And one more thing: just like the world itself, the internet is full of idiots. On the internet, however, we can erase what they say, and even their existance. Maybe better moderation is the only solution to this problem.