Should the age to participate here be raised to 16?

No because any kid of any age could create a 16+ account and answer here. It is like using reverse psychology on ourselves. We tell them no one under 16, then they swarm to it even more.

To be honest i started out on Yahoo! Answers back in September 2007, i was 14 at the time and thought Yahoo! was a great community where i could help people with the knowledge i had, and learn a few things with myself. I acted very mature and always tried to be a helpful answerer.

I am now 16 and still try to help as much as possible, as a teenager i know that we are often subjected to discrimination & are often stereotyped as young people with no respect and a bad attitude, but that is the minority, and there are plenty of 13-15 year old users here who are fantastic users, who abide by the rules and give high quality answers.

I Have seen some rubbish answers from the older users & younger users here, you cannot put a number on maturity, so by singling out a generation of people just because of their age it would be very unfair.

I strongly agree with you about this, considering what goes on over in Mythology and Folklore. The "I want to be a vampire" post-Twilight craze is reaching epic proportions over there, and there are at least 10-15 such questions posted daily, if not more.

The real problem lies in the very young teenagers who want to be this so badly, that they are actually posting email addresses and actual physical locations, begging the "real vampires" to come and "turn" them.

I routinely report those questions, trying to keep these kids out of the hands of pedophiliac internet predators - a crime that is very real. These children are caught up totally in this fantasy and are a danger to themselves by being allowed to post on this site. A higher level of maturity is called for, but even that may not help - I've seen the same question posted by 16 - 18 year olds and up.

No. It wouldn't be fair enough. They just should make this place a no age limit. They can just make a category for 16+ people only. One more thing I am 10 just so you know. I certainly don't post "kiddie" answers here. Or how would you know that I have a TC badge. I act mature for my age. (Not a bad thing).

It will not have that much effect - besides there is no effective way of policing it and it is not hard to disregard the garbage answers that the little kiddies post anyway...

No, but I think that there should be certain questions restricted to over 16's. That kind of thing.

oh you are naive aren't you? Do you honestly think that kids even 6 and 7 have trouble registering here? No.

No 25 would be better.

a category for 21 and up would be nice and have one specifically for the kiddies so they won't be left out.

just my opinion