Younger members vs. older members - pros and cons

I have been (and still am) a member of a huge variety of communities. I've seen my fair share of immature behavior, as well as peaceful behavior by mature adult members.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on a generally older membership vs. a younger membership. What are the pros and cons? Which do you have more experience with? How do you cater to each?

My oldest forum is generally populated by older members. One of the great things about this is the level of maturity throughout the community. Members are respectful, intelligent, and peaceful 99% of the time. We can hold intelligent and productive discussions (while also having fun!) and could probably get away without rules.
One major draw-back to an older membership like this is that it's hard to get feedback and interaction. Older members aren't geeks like myself who love new "forum toys" -- i.e, modifications, hacks, add-ons, etc. We'd still be successful if we were on an old-fashioned messaged board or e-mail list. I myself like to make things fun by adding new features, seeing what the members like, etc... but as I said, it's hard to get feedback from them. Sometimes they don't seem to care one bit about anything other than coming to talk about what they're there for.


I have never been a part of an extremely child-like community, but my most recent forum seems to have a lot of younger members. The reason being that one of its sister sites is very popular, and has a ton of young members, who have found their way over to my forum as well. It's not a bad thing, but it's just... 'different'. It's harder to remain professional, and things seem to get more off-topic at a much quicker rate. On the other hand, it's sometimes more "fun" as, in contrast to an older membership, you can get feedback on features and implementations.


I've been thinking about this for the past few days and thought it would make for a nice discussion here. Feel free to share your thoughts.

 

Wow...hmm, this is a good topic Nick.

I empathize (?) w/ some of your characterizations/experience of the generations.

What I have found is that both age groups can easily cross the maturity scale. Younger being more mature and vice versa. I will say it happens in only moments and not consistent cases, if you will.

I think the common thing I've seen is the lack of explaining one's "complaint/suggestion. People just seemed to have a high affinity for instant gratification across age groups and maturity levels. That is the trend that I see.

Few and far between are there level headed discussions, even when it's sarcastic and fun. It seems to roll on cycles and so I blame it on the holidays.


Edit -- My brief list of Pros/Cons

Pro of Older Members -- Money (in general)

Con of Older Members -- Apathy

Pro of Younger Members -- Pomeranian Activity

Con of Younger Members -- no Money and no boundaries

 

OLDER MEMBERS
advantages
maturity-threads are less likely to go off topic and debates turn to insults less quickly
money-the members are more likely to be able to donate, as they have jobs and earn more money
meet ups are easier-members most likely drive or are able to travel on their own and its easier for things to be organised, with their parents not worrying.
disadvantages
older members might not be as good with computers
less feedback

YOUNG MEMBERS
advantages
more appreciation of extra features
loads of feedback
closer to my own age group, so more in common
disadvantages
immaturaty-conversations go off topic quicker
no money, so less likely to donate money

 

Good topic.

In general a mature attitude should have no correlation with the calender. But the more mature younger people seem to loose their composure easier than the older ones.



On the other hand the some older members doing bad things cause more damage. Some older members that are not mature at all and take great joy in making snide comments, rants, and personal attacks at every opportunity driving the other good people away. If the younger members did that they would either be ignored, silenced, or otherwise dealt with.

 

Question: Do you guys start the forums to gain money or to share with other people alike? I know you need to pay your server costs and such...but All of you are listing that having no money is a con...so yeah? If a user isn't donating money they might at least be contributing to your community.

I think the younger audience is very overlooked. Not only are we mostly ignored, silence, etc but it seems that many older people take some of our suggestions as if it were silly and we didn't know anything. From my experience, the older audience has been the one that has given me most headaches. On the my chat, I don't have to be babysitting a 21 year old constantly telling him/her to not curse or not go into sexual topics.

 

???

I think we need to clarify 'older' and 'younger'.

I usually think of people in one of 4 age groups
Spring, pre-18
Summer, 18-40
Fall, 40-70
Winter, 70 and up

I thought younger in this thread might be pre-18, and the 18-40 crowd I would not normally refer to as older.

 

We each probably define the age groups differently, according to our own personal scale. In my original post, younger was < 18, and older was 40+. We do have some 20-39 year-olds, but they're just average. For practical discussion purposes, I figured we should just take it to the extremes (young, < 18 and older, > 40).

 

Great Topic.

I find younger members better as there ends up being more discussion.

I will agree that older members make better people to talk to. And they are more likely to donate for server costs/features.

 

Most of my members are middle aged. I've never ran a forum with teenage members. From my prospective I feel strange telling a 40-50 year old guy to behave themselves, that's probably the hardest thing for me to do at my age (25). Other than that I do notice like Nick that they're less likely to be wowed by new features or hacks which is cool with me as I'm not big on installing lots of stuff for future compatabilty. Most members have taken a good liking to the Post Thanks hack though and use it prolifically, a few spend lots of time in the arcade (IBPro Arcade).

For me the best thing about having older members is there seems to be less drama. I've joined a few forums where people my age and younger we're the primary audience and there were always idiots who stirred the pot just for the sake of stirring it, suicide/boycott posts, etc. Don't get me wrong we do have our share of drama on the DJ board but it seems a whole lot easier to get older people to respect others point of view even if they don't agree with it.

 

one thing i have noticed, when comparing both mine and my competitors forums (we are the two big groups of friends on another bigger forum)

our group are of varying ages-theres a lot of us who are quite young, (although not very young, cause the forum is for over 16's), with three older members age 53, 63 and 51, and a few in their 30's. theirs are 30-40 year old women, and seem to cause a lot more trouble on the other big forum we post on, than we do-they seem nastier, making up lies and sly digs, but it only makes people hate them more for starting on the forums younger members. and they cause the most drama...i cant believe a 43 year old woman, with two teenage children, can cause so much drama!!!! there are members there aged 15 who cause less trouble...

and lol, yeah, i guess as i am one of the youngest members on one forum, having to tell off some of the older members is weird, although its easier in my forums that have mostly teenagers, cause at 18, im a lot older than they are!

 

I am 18 so for me 21 is old in my perspective, and anyone 19 or less is younger, of course I will classify myself almost old two weeks from today.

 

That's a good prefacing question about why I said Con for younger members. My list was in general and from my own experience. My con of younger members = no $, is just a fact. It can also be an impact on maturity level. For example, if you don't provide funds or some type of support, you don't feel much inclined out of selflessness to be more appreciative of the site or people. It's not always the case, but it is the majority of the case. Yes, I'm not including those youngins' that don't actually fall on the side of contributing in a civil manner.

So it's not necessarily whether the site is run as a business or not, for me. If it's a business, then I think it's a lot easier to manage such indiscretions.

Everyone comes from different backgrounds, so the level of sensitivity varies with it accordingly. I certainly don't expect everyone, nor do I wish them to be, on the same level. I encourage and like the diversity as it is my position that people learn more by shear exposure. However, any aged person gets as far alot more with kindness then brashness.

^lulz I love it...analogy to seasons. Thank brah!

You are old. I'll race you with my walker against your cane.

 

i consider young forum members to be 13-25 and old to be 50+ and then theres somewhere in the middle

 

I've found that the younger members are more open to changes, new features etc. for one. The older members tend to notice the smallest change you make and often don't like it. That being said, I find the older members on average take the time to compose well worded posts with proper spelling and punctuation. I really hate chat speak and it seems the younger crowd is who really uses it. Given the particular niche of our forum however it naturally attracts a younger crowd which can bring a fresh perspective on things.

 

You're on, Major!!!!

 

well..im 30...and 'most' of our members are sumwhere around my age...give or take a few. We all seem to get along real well...and we can easily get into a "remember back in the day when we had this car" LOL. Stuff like that.

The younger ones seem to chime in right along with us, and the older ones all respect them for it.

Theres alot of respect all around my board...im very lucky as far as that goes.

 

Then my initial comment definitely applies.

Christmas will be here soon. It is winter.