# Why Don't Youth Predominate SD Like Other Forums? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 9, 2013, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-youth-predominate-sd-like-other-forums/649776 "2013-02-09T08:03:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2013, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-youth-predominate-sd-like-other-forums/649776/61 "2013-02-09T23:02:41Z")
> [@Jake\_Jones](#): > > I made my apology and I’m not going to retract it, but can someone explain why the verb predominate exists and means the SAME FUCKING THING as dominate? > > pre·dom·i·nate > /priˈdäməˌnāt/ > Verb… > Synonyms > prevail - **dominate** - preponderate - reign > > WTF? Okay, I’ll rephrase my question as "Why don’t youth dominate the SD like the children dominated the U.S.S. Enterprise in the TOS episode “And The Children Shall Lead”? ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2013, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-youth-predominate-sd-like-other-forums/649776/62 "2013-02-09T23:06:00Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > Wow. Someone who _might_ have been a teenager once tried to post a graphic in her signature?! > > You guys are right. All teenagers are obsessed with graphic animations and that’s why they hate the SDMB. It’s so clear now. Not all teens are obsessed with graphics. However, I assume this was a teen because of the subject matter of her sig, and because of her behavior. She could have been a legal adult, but she wasn’t very mature at all. ---
**Author:** ![Simple\_Linctus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Simple\_Linctus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Linctus)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2013, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-youth-predominate-sd-like-other-forums/649776/63 "2013-02-09T23:06:03Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > Wow. Someone who _might_ have been a teenager once tried to post a graphic in her signature?! > > You guys are right. All teenagers are obsessed with graphic animations and that’s why they hate the SDMB. It’s so clear now. It’s quite funny cause you, MsWhatsit, completely get it but it’s hard to explain to people that don’t - there is a blatant anti-young bias in so many organisations (it would be compeltely unfair to say it’s only a SDMB thing) that they don’t even realise, in the same breath they’ll complain about something some “young person” did, in the other they’ll wonder why there is no new blood. I mean, seriously, a SIG FILE of all things? Has such a thing, which I only know about because I am a nerd and I assure everyone that even of tech savvy people my age less than 5% (being generous) know of, existed since usenet? ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2013, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-youth-predominate-sd-like-other-forums/649776/64 "2013-02-09T23:12:02Z")
This person posted, in the sig field of her profile, a bunch of code, which I am calling a sig file. Then she was amazed that it didn’t display properly. I don’t assume that she’s young because she attempted to do this. I assumed that she was young because of what the file contained. I don’t remember the specifics now. It’s possible that she was about my current age, as I do tend to have some unusual interests for someone of my age and sex. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2013, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-youth-predominate-sd-like-other-forums/649776/65 "2013-02-09T23:23:17Z")
So you have a half-recalled vague memory of someone who may or may not have been a teenager from several years ago. Her behavior, which you can’t remember any specifics about, seemed immature. And you use this as an illustrative example of why young people don’t like the SDMB. Because, apparently, they all want big blinky signatures and they get upset when their HTML code doesn’t work. Or at least one of them did, once. Probably. I swear to God, the people on this forum are _obsessed_ with the idea of animated signatures and the fear that they will somehow overtake the boards if we relax our vigilance for a _single moment_. The attitude espoused in this thread that we’re better off without “the youth” because they love their blinky sigs so much is frankly bizarre. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2013, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-youth-predominate-sd-like-other-forums/649776/66 "2013-02-09T23:29:26Z")
Wow. You can sure interpret my words to mean whatever you want. ---
**Author:** ![Critical1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Critical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical1)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2013, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-youth-predominate-sd-like-other-forums/649776/67 "2013-02-09T23:54:57Z")
I know what keeps me coming back is the unchangeable white background… /sarcasm off the posters here can be brutal, also they are usually dead on when calling you on your bs. Young people don’t usually tolerate this as well as adults do. ---
**Author:** ![Simple\_Linctus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Simple\_Linctus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Linctus)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2013, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-youth-predominate-sd-like-other-forums/649776/68 "2013-02-09T23:56:25Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > This person posted, in the sig field of her profile, a bunch of code, which I am calling a sig file. Then she was amazed that it didn’t display properly. > > I don’t assume that she’s young because she attempted to do this. I assumed that she was young because of what the file contained. I don’t remember the specifics now. It’s possible that she was about my current age, as I do tend to have some unusual interests for someone of my age and sex. Fair enough. In those circumstances I am unable to (with intellectual honesty) make any conclusion at all as there is not sufficient information applied, as basically what this is about is that someone’s signature was not accepted by the software. It does not change the basic complaint that this website is very archaic. But this goes back to my main point that it is likely that probably less than half of young members who want to join will actually bother doing so given the obvious anti-young bias in the procedure, and similarly I bet that WAY WAY WAY under half of those who do sign up stay to be substantive members, again because of how obviously anti-young folk the board is. I don’t say that this is necessarily wrong. It’s perfectly reasonable for older people to have a board where young people are discouraged unless they “act old”. I could understand doing that if I were old, although I do have to say that it seems a strange thing to do for a progressive board which is mostly (I think) about idea sharing. Then again it’s been my experience on various so-called open-minded boards that less “on track” messages are mysteriously disappeared. It’s something more that you find in right wing boards than left wing boards like this, but even so it’s quite funny to me because the right wing boards at least know they’re censoring, the left wing ones come up with silly justifications instead Anyway, ignoring dat, Ms. Bodoni are you saying that you have unusually old or unusually young interests? I didn’t quite get that from what you said? ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-youth-predominate-sd-like-other-forums/649776/69 "2013-02-10T00:11:53Z")
I’m very, very interested in science fiction and fantasy, and I love video games. Well, games of all sorts. I don’t consider a day to be complete unless I’ve spent a couple of hours gaming. If I’m unable to play games for a length of time, I get cranky. I’m psychologically addicted to them, I guess. I also really like fantasy roleplaying games, like Dungeons&Dragons. I’ve heard and read that many people consider that anyone above the age of 25 or so who still plays video games is very immature. When I was growing up, I was told that girls didn’t read science fiction. The fantasy market was very small back then, if you didn’t consider psi powers to be fantasy. I also read and enjoy many books that are intended for kids. On the other hand, I read and enjoy classic books, as well, and I like to learn about old fashioned ways of doing things, such as how thread used to be spun. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-youth-predominate-sd-like-other-forums/649776/70 "2013-02-10T01:06:39Z")
> [@Simple\_Linctus](#): > > I am a young person, but fairly unusual in that I spend more of my time than normal (although not excessive, especially offline) both online and offline with older people **(and not to upset all of you, but I really do at heart see 40+ as old)** and what it comes down to is values. I think that’s the problem. There’s a perception that the average SDMB user is 40+ but I doubt it’s true. If we go by the poll **Zeldar** posted, the average age is probably closer to 30. Older than your average 4chan user, but not old in the ancient sense. ---
**Author:** ![steviep24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5f9b8f/32.png) [@steviep24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steviep24)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-youth-predominate-sd-like-other-forums/649776/71 "2013-02-10T01:20:41Z")
A typical [teen forum](http://katyperryforum.com/index.php) Other than this example teens rarely use message boards these days. Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook are their domain. And of course SMS text messages. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-youth-predominate-sd-like-other-forums/649776/72 "2013-02-10T05:22:27Z")
> [@Anonymous User](#): > > Before this, I never saw any straight dope threads after years of searching for things. I may be remembering incorrectly, but I think this site actually/deliberately blocked search engine indexing for a long time, and that only changed fairly recently. Anyway, I’ve always suspected that one reason this board skews older is simply it’s “general interest” nature. That’s a major reason for why I’m still here. Over the course of my nearly 17 years online, I’ve been a registered member of loads of different message boards/discussion forums, but the SDMB is the _only_ one where I’ve continued to post regularly for 10 years. I rarely last more than _one_ year on other boards, and one of the primary reasons is that the majority of those other boards are essentially “single-topic” forums, set up by/for “fans” of that particular topic. The problem I’ve run into with single-topic forums is that, in most cases, there eventually comes a certain point where A) I’ve asked every question I’ve wanted to ask and expressed every opinion I have about that topic, and B) I’ve seen the same questions asked and answered multiple times as new members join, eventually reaching the point where it becomes clear that there isn’t much “new ground” to cover. At that point, it feels like I’ve gotten everything I’m going to get from that board, and I stop reading it. The “general interest” nature of the SDMB means that there’s really no upper limit to how much I can get from it. I never run out of new things to talk about, because I can talk about anything. And so, I stick around for years and years, and get older and older. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-youth-predominate-sd-like-other-forums/649776/73 "2013-02-10T09:20:09Z")
> [@](#): > > I may be remembering incorrectly, but I think this site actually/deliberately blocked search engine indexing for a long time, and that only changed fairly recently. This is correct, we didn’t allow search engines to index us for a long time, and we agonized over whether or not to do it. The results have been mixed. Sometimes we get spammers who bump old threads to advertise their nanny finding service or whatever. Sometimes we get people who are obsessed with a subject and who proceed to argue with posters who are long gone, or even dead. But sometimes we get new regulars, who are fascinated with the wealth of information and entertainment that this place can provide, so I’d say that the decision to allow indexing was a good one, overall. ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-youth-predominate-sd-like-other-forums/649776/74 "2013-02-10T16:24:04Z")
I’m in my early thirties and have been a member since my twenties, (under a different handle, then gone a few years then back etc) what I found turned off many of my peers was the emphasis placed upon proper writing and expression here. No chatspeak, lolspeak, l33t, or whatever other asinine way of typing was floating around at the moment. Posters are expected to be able to communicate both literately and thoughtfully. Additionally, the dope contains a very high percentage of intelligent people who do not suffer fools lightly; we have moderated the board to reflect this. Combine that with new services like yahoo answers, FB, Reddit, etc, and we’ve now got a rather large filter screening out most younger posters. As for avatars an animated sigs: I wouldn’t mind non animated avatars at all. Sigs can go screw. I hate those things. ---
**Author:** ![resting](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@resting](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/resting)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-youth-predominate-sd-like-other-forums/649776/75 "2013-02-10T16:55:51Z")
I am 24 years old. Being an Australian, this forum gives me an interesting perspective on American life. I find Internet memes to be boring and unfunny. ---
**Author:** ![ethelbert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/958977/32.png) [@ethelbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ethelbert)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-youth-predominate-sd-like-other-forums/649776/76 "2013-02-10T17:41:15Z")
I am 64 years old. I want my goddam blinking animated avatars, especially the ones that have cartoon characters having sex with many tentacled creatures. And I want you to explain to me very slowly (and with considerable repetition) how to get one. That is all. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-youth-predominate-sd-like-other-forums/649776/77 "2013-02-10T18:48:23Z")
> [@ethelbert](#): > > I am 64 years old. I want my goddam blinking animated avatars, especially the ones that have cartoon characters having sex with many tentacled creatures. Well, you aren’t getting one until you learn how to spell “goddamn” correctly. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-youth-predominate-sd-like-other-forums/649776/78 "2013-02-10T19:51:53Z")
> [@bump](#): > > …and if there was a virtual way to fling poop, they’d do it. What? There isn’t an app for that? ---
**Author:** ![Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47c2d/32.png) [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hershele_Ostropoler)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-youth-predominate-sd-like-other-forums/649776/79 "2013-02-10T20:18:30Z")
I treat SDMB as a spiritual successor to AFC-A. Not too many of today’s 20-somethings – and even fewer of today’s teenagers – were active on AFC-A. ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-youth-predominate-sd-like-other-forums/649776/80 "2013-02-10T20:47:46Z")
What is, or was, AFC-A? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-youth-predominate-sd-like-other-forums/649776.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-youth-predominate-sd-like-other-forums/649776.md?page=5)