Regarding the age groups on the Therian Guide

Hello,

Some people may have expressed some concern over what age groups of people are allowed on our forums, so I thought I'd address that. I write this as one of the current site co-owners and that I am the person to authoritatively speak of policy here on TG.

As you know, the primary purpose of the Therian Guide is to educate / Guide people about Therianthropy and how to live with it.

Based on our research, it would appear that most people learn about their Therianthropy around the ages 12 to 15:

(n = 112; Source)

This is the age when Therians discover their Therianthropy. Eventually they wander out to various communities in search of more information about their condition and this includes the Therian Guide.

As the USA, where many of our users are from, requires website operators to obtain parental permission for a member under 13 to join communities, which is impractical (and even though TG doesn't currently fall under US jurisdiction), we have as many other online communities opted to not accept children under the age of 13 to our community.

However, as it is our primary function to offer information on therianthropy to those who seek it, and as most of the people looking for information about therianthropy are likely to be under the age of 18, we will continue to make our community available to people of those age groups.

We also have members of other age groups, with the current co-owners of the site being old enough to be parents. I've always seen our ability to get along as an intergenerational community as a great asset. Sure it gets a bit irritating at times when older members talk of problems our younger members are not familiar with -- or when our mostly teenage crowd starts talking about teenage problems on a massive scale... However so long as we all still have respect for eachother? I am sure there is a lot we can learn from eachother.

And it's not like kids are not exposed to adults in daily life.

Not to trivialize the issue too much however, as staff we understand the dangers to young people online. We are also very protective of our members and do not take well to them being threatened in any way. As a certain drama-prone therian meme-star will tell you, we discretely monitor things that go down on our site in order to keep our members safe from predators.

But all that being said. We will continue to welcome members under the age of 18 and any suggestions to limit this differently will be ignored, no matter what levels these one-sided demands are taken to.

Take care everybody.

EDIT in 2018: I guess some people might have gotten the impression based on this that we are all 13. We are not, this chart was made in 2016 and we've gained many older members after that, primarily through the therian IRL meetups we organized.

The staff is now mostly over 30 (because older people are better at this role). There is even one member over 70 in the community. We have representatives of all ages (we also have a special position of pup reps, who are members under 18 who you can talk to, if you feel intimidated by having to talk to an older staff member).

Regardless, please don't sign up on the page and claim to be a 1000 year old dragon or a greymuzzle. Be honest about your age, so that people like you can find you and you can make friends.

LP,
Dusty

As the other site co-owner, I have to say that I agree with Dust whole-heartedly. As it's name implies, we are Therian Guide and the reason we are here is to help and educate therians and kin of all ages. It just so happens that most who come to us seeking guidance are younger people. Being experienced in how the world works on a large scale, this seems on-par to me because most adults have developed their own positions throughout the course of their lives, where as younger people have not and continue to seek guidance and help.

I would like to express a concern, however, with being able to retain our older members and even possibly start appealing to more older therians in the future.

Dust, you, I, Lupa and the others whom are within our age range may not be able to always maintain the ability to meet the needs of these young members, should the ratio continue to trend toward mostly younger members joining. As of now, we dont do a bad job because we are graced with some highly intelligent and responsible staff members who sort of bridge the gap between the pups and our ancient selves. Renata, WereRen, Calico, Wayward and Thorviem are a huge help to us in this endeavor.

I suppose my concern with this issue is not based on the number of pups joining but rather rooted in the ratio of those available to effectively meet their needs.

To second you and kind of reaffirm your point, we do have an adults only section, which is good for those of us who feel the urge to discuss things that aren't necessarily appropriate for our younger members.

I have, at times, considered an adult shout box but I've concluded that this may be counterproductive of our goal to provide guidance.

As far as anyone making demands go, I haven't caught wind of this and if I had, it wouldn't go well. Everyone knows how I am. You can approach me with any concern and I'll do my best to at least try and resolve or find some middle ground but to outright, brazenly demand something from me, it's like "Wait, who are you, again? ".

As far as COPPA goes, I'm not sure rather we fall under US jurisdiction or not being that one of our backup servers is now physically located in the US, one of the owners of the site is also physically located in the US and majority of our members. That's kind of a gray area that I'll look more into in the coming days, if not for anything but my own peace of mind. Regardless of legality, I'm sarisfied with limiting pup age to 13+, however.

I'm basically agreeing with everything you've said, Dust but If there's a way we can better appeal ourselves to both younger and older members alike, I think we could at least remain open to discussion and suggestions on how to do so. As far as demands, haha, whoever is making them obviously doesn't know me very well.

I've been scouting and snooping out other online communities and resources lately and I can tell you, from my perspective, we remain the world's best online therian/kin community as far as atmosphere and quality of members go and we will continue to strive in remaining as such.

Have a good day everyone.
Lyc

Hey,

Yeah, children tend to be childish -- this is normal.

Though not all people under 13 years old are immature and not all people over 13 years old are not.

LP,
Dusty

Since every age can access the internet; what happens if some, IDK, ten year old signs up to TG?

(2016-07-29 15:19)Sahkari Wrote:  Since every age can access the internet; what happens if some, IDK, ten year old signs up to TG?

Their account will not be activated until their thirteenth birthday, assuming they return to make a new intro at that time.

(2016-07-29 15:20)Calico Wrote:  

(2016-07-29 15:19)Sahkari Wrote:  Since every age can access the internet; what happens if some, IDK, ten year old signs up to TG?

Their account will not be activated until their thirteenth birthday, assuming they return to make a new intro at that time.

I think the assumption is that a determined ten year old will not be honest with their birthdate.

Hi,

While I too agree there should be a minimum age. There is a divide. Maybe it's not one that happens often.

I originally awoke at 14, however that was in 1998. This site wasn't around, that was probably the alt.horror.werewolves days.

I am always ashamed, saddened, what have you that it took me 18 to awaken, stop suppressing myself. But there is a split to this.

I wasn't even mature at the slightest to begin to grasp Therianthropy at 14, my Aspergers caused a gap in my physical age and mental age of about 5 years. So if I was physically 14, my mental age was about 10 to 11 years old. I don't think I would have had the mental wherewithal to process what I was and what was going on. Now I don't think say in 2005 when things really cranked up, I was 21, I could have at that time. But alas, more fears, suppression, etc...

So for me, where most go through all this and seek it at 14, I began at 30. So most of the people I encounter like myself, in that same stage of learning were 14-18 year Olds.

Because really whether one awakens at 14 and immediately searches or waits, suppresses/denies and doesn't do it til 30, the outcome is the same.

Just like someone who waits to drive til they're 40, they might have more maturity mentally. But they still lack the overall knowledge, experience of most people their age, so in that and this, age doesn't matter. The knowledge, experience is the same, no matter the age.

Even if there is a 18-20 year gap between myself and those in the same place in life.

-Lee

(2016-07-31 4:29)coffeebear Wrote:  I think the assumption is that a determined ten year old will not be honest with their birthdate.

We can tell anyway.

And given the way our community works, I'm sure you understand that lying is not well accepted here.

LP,
Dusty

(2016-07-31 9:39)DustWolf Wrote:  And given the way our community works, I'm sure you understand that lying is not well accepted here.

I agree Dusty. I think in any community, lying is not good. Even in real life, lying is not appreciated. Just lying in general!

Quote:I am always ashamed, saddened, what have you that it took me 18 to awaken, stop suppressing myself.

I know this is kinda off-topic, but I just keep thinking about this everytime I see your name somewhere. Don't feel ashamed. Cliché I know, but it's better late than never. I'm a late bloomer myself in several ways and always have been. Looking back on my life I now realise how many things I have misses because of my own incapabilities.
It hurts, but it has made me more determined to make the best out of the days still to come. At my own pace I try to live my life in a way I can enjoy it. Don't let shame or sadness rule your life, please. There's so much more to it than that. For you and for everyone else on here.