I can understand that you wouldn't prefer to have younger writers here... that is fine with me. But to cut them off without an ALTERNATIVE??? I find it quite disturbing that this banner was put up ONE DAY after I went through the trouble (about 4 hours of my life) to create a separate group/forum SPECIFICALLY FOR people younger than 18 (actually 20 but that's irrelevant). I planned on using Hatrack to contact them so they could work in a group of the same writing level... and now that flow has been cut off to my JUST STARTING group as well... and I could complain all I want, but really you're only doing a disservice to people who want to write... is it too much to ask that instead of being shunned they be redirected? I think not.

I suspect that what is happening now is firmly reestablishing that this forum is still for adults only, perhaps a bit belatedly. There are alternatives out there, though this site is under no obligation to redirect you to them. In fact, this site is a courtesy for authors. It's free for us and paid for by OSC. He can do whatever he likes, whenever he likes. He could shut it down tomorrow and we would have no redress. But he owes us nothing... if anything, we are indebted to him.

So... does that put your mind at ease? Probably not.

Instead of making your complaint, you could have politely e-mailed Kathleen and asked for permission to advertise your new forum for the young writers as an alternative. Though I can't speak for her, she has been extremely generous in the past.

But whatever. This site owes you nothing, hopekeeper. Life owes you nothing. Get used to it.

Hopekeeper, what makes you think that you are owed anything whatsoever? It is perfectly acceptable for OSC to decide who he wants to access the forum and who he prefers to not cater to. There were several reasons for the under eighteen forums to be shut down, and I think that one of them was ingratitude and attitude problems from the younger writers. Unfortunately your post rather reinforces that stance.

Unfortunately, I probably wouldn't have been as nice as HSO or autumnmuse.

It is a basic mistake to believe that benevolence confers entitlement. With any luck, you'll learn that. I hope that you do.

No, what is at issue here is that the owners and operators of this forum have set in place a rule for the use of THEIR site. Their FREE site.

They have put up a restriction, a reasonable restriction on many levels though I understand, and am sure they do, the arguments against it. But even if they were pig-headed child haters, this isn't a democracy. The users don't get to vote on the policies set in place here. If they wanted to restrict access via password-protected registration, they could. If they wanted to make you pay for accesss, they could. If they insisted that everyone submit a story about evil robot monkeys before granting access, they could!

But they don't charge, or require passwords to access the site, only to post, nor have I ever written a story about evil robot monkeys (my loss).

Thank you, Mr. Card and Kathleen, for hosting a place where aspiring writers can come and chat.

Young teens have tendencies to behave in ways that may be developmentally-appropriate, ie expected... but those behaviors tend to be disruptive to this forum's purpose. Rebellion, snarkiness, silliness--those behaviors are expected when you run into a teen at, say, a local mall.

But here at Hatrack we have adult writers who are seriously attempting to better our skills. The time we have spent trying to keep the topics on track, to remind younger folk that rudeness is not acceptable, and to reinforce the minimal guidelines--say, the 13 line rule in F&F--has been pretty significant. It is no small thing. And it's been pretty annoying.

Teens aren't the only ones with behavior problems, but they are the majority of it. We've seen an influx of the issues I've described since OSC had to shut down the Young Writers Forum.

No one is checking your I.D. at the door to verify your age. But the "for writers age 18 and older" is another way of saying: "Mature, adult behavior only."

The message is simple, "Act childish, and you'll be asked to leave." You can replace "asked" with a more forceful verb if you like.

The other point, that this site is private property and subject to any rules the owners or appointed operators see fit to impose is very true. But this forum has no policy against requests for explanations of its policies. And hopekeeper was posting as a registered member. The content of the post may seem a little childish for such a delicate matter, but that's a matter of taste.

All that being said, let me put my own interpretation on this. It is a simple fact that most of the serious writers on this forum are over 18. I'm sure if we bothered to go through the member list and find out the ages of every member when those members were actively posting, we'd find that a slight majority of them were under 18. We'd also find that most of them weren't terribly serious about improving their writing skills.

JOHN!

EDIT:MaryRobinette- beat me to it...great minds and all...

No, I never feel entitled to anything. No, I don't feel that anyone here is required to help us out. All I was trying to say was that it seems a little unfair, and perhaps it WAS just a coincidence that it showed up a day after opening my forum... in either case I agree that I was acting childish, demanding an explaination like that... but please try to understand where I was coming from before labeling me as an immature teenager. You see, one of my main reasons for CREATING my forum was so that it would detract the younger users from here... I know when I was here I was overwhelmed and I felt sorry for myself because I was "no good" at this... but then after spending some time with my other writing friends, I decided that it was simply the environment. Not to say that this environment is bad, but it is simply not targeted at people my age.
So when I made the aspiration to start something out which could in turn help out many many people, I just felt a little confused and angered after seeing that where I intended to find the majority of my members there was a discouraging banner which prevented them from contacting ME... well you get the point.

So in summary, I appologize, and I appreciate your upfront answers, but I will not move my stance on the fact that I feel slightly wronged. (yeah it's a private forum... I know)

I have to be honest, I haven't really considered this from the point of view of the teens who feel potentially overwhelmed here. I suppose I might have considered it except that I felt as if they were intruding on my territory. This was a place for adults to discuss writinf ro years, and I have noticed a maturity shift lately. I wish I could say it was "one person ruining it for everyone else" as it so often is, but in this case I don't think so. I think, respectfully, that for a variety of reasons the culture of youth has hurt this site. I can't name names. I can't point fingers. I won't, even if I could.

There *is* a maturity shift that happens sometime after the age of 18 (several years after, but 18 makes a convenient legal cutoff). I have always thought it happpens when "kids" leave their parents home and go off on their own for the first time. I nkow that's when it happened for me. As a senior in college, I could pick out the freshmen a mile away. Why? They hadn't hit the maturity shift yet. By the end of the year, most of the now sophomore were indistinguishable from anyone else.

I managed just fine without a writer's group through my teen years. I was busy soaking up all the articles on the SFWA site, reading books about writing, and doing a lot of writing. Now that I'm a little older, I feel like I actually have something to contribute to this site. I realize now that writing is hard work that I ultimately have to do on my own. I don't come here for someone to hold my hand and show me what to do.

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As to what Mary said: I recieved a rather explicit story a few days ago that I had offered a critique on. I cringed to think that a young person might accidentally get their hands on it. It was fairly horrifying. I myself would have rather forgon the pleasure but I had no warning of it's content. I mentioned to the young person (I believe it was one of our teens) to put a warning in their post, but as yet have not seen it there. I'm thinking of sticking one in the thread myself.

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Once I get an offer, I usually give a warning even if it's not that explicit of content, since diferent people have different sensibilities.

I was under the impression that everyone should be 18 or older, so after I gave a warning, I didn't feel bad about who got it.

A warning is all well and good, but when I was under 18 watching cable while my parents were in bed, and saw a movie come on that said, "The following movie is Unrated. It contains, Adult Content, Adult Themes, Adult Language, Adult Situations, Nudity, and Strong Sexual Content..." I knew I'd found exactly what I was looking for.

So, for everyone involved, it's kinda good the 18 and up rule is in place. Sorry to hear about the teen/young writers' forum, though.

http://www.hatrack.com/forums/writers/forum/Forum1/HTML/002128.html

Because of those concerns, I talked to the Powers That Be about a clarifying notice.

This does not mean that we are going to "card" anyone (interesting term in light of the identity of the Powers That Be) to make sure only those 18 and older post here or participate in the forum. It just means that we expect participants to behave with maturity and to be aware that we are not encouraging or catering to those under 18.

My point exactly... but if the ones who can't stand the heat can't get to my place either, then they miss out.

I, personally, laughed out loud and clapped my hands with GLEE when I saw "This forum is for writers age 18 and older," at the top of the page. YAY!!!

Do I hate teenagers? No. I just spent 4 days with 15 of them, whom I love dearly--all girls, no less. But there are places and situations appropriate for teens and places and situations which should be sanctuaries for adults. Hatrack has been MY sanctuary, and the Immaturity Invasion nearly ended my association with Hatrack.

So far, mythopoetic and RagDoll, I have not seen any behavior that is immature to the point that we wouldn't want you around. Just keep participating as you have been.

Obviously, as this is the internet you can pretend to be whomever you choose and I will never be the wiser -- not even if you act immaturely. I have known plenty of adults to act like teenatgers. The trouble is that all teenagers act, to one degree or another, like teenagers. I have never met an exception.

Acting like a teenager is not the same as acting immaturely. Some teenagers, are a part of their rebellious whatever they're trying to do, become entirely rude. Rudeness is not the same thing as acting like a teenager. I believe it may have been this rudeness that disrupted the young adult's forum.

I respect that many teenagers here have "behaved" themselves. But I still don't want you here.

I originally went into a long-winded discussion of what acting like a teenager meant, but I decided to nix it. The important thing is that there has been a shift in the culture of this site, the shift that nearly drove people like dakota and myself away. Cultural shifts are hard to describe, but basically, this place is feeling more and more like a high school to me -- and I HATED high school.

I personally don't see anything magical about the age of 18, and I've known people much older than 18 who act like two-year-olds. We have to have an official cut-off age though, and 18 is considered adult for legal purposes.

It is my hope that that eighteen-year-old will have learned good things here (by giving as well as receiving feedback) in those less-than-two-years.

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Just know - you'll be losing someone who can and will contribute a different perspective and a unique style that's sure to impress even the site's veterens.

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Is that supposed to be mature? I don't know a single veteran here who would--even after publishing in pro markets or winning WOTF--trump himself up like that. Maybe humility is a sign of maturity?

As a 37-year-old first coming to this site, I felt like an infant among giants. I looked up to them. I feared them. I had to work hard to gain their respect--I most certainly did NOT expect it because I said so.

But just to clarify a few things:

I remember what it was like as a teen and I have to say I sympathize with RagDoll. That said, I also sympathize with the older members here.

I used to frequent a site where people could submit their entire manuscript for free and have others review it. Often, these writers were teens. What turned me off eventually was a combination of three things (laying aside basic writer's mistakes).

First, most of the writers in the sections I frequented (Fantasy, Romance, Mythology) were either writing about high school or were basing the drama in their stories on high school dramas. Often writers in this group let their fantasies take over the story, completely ignoring how adults actually act. In fact, I could often tell who was still in high school simply by the lack of reality surrounding the adult characters (a result of the "generation gap" we've artifically put around kids in school as a means of glorifying childhood).

Second, the ones who didn't do this tried to be "edgy", or, bless their hearts, "original". Often this meant shock value, not an organic story. After reading a few of these, I got the feeling that the writer didn't have enough real world experience to create the depth he/she needed to take her writing to the next level. The only cure for that is time.

That's why I disagree with teen writers who say they can hold their own with writers who are much older. It's not a matter of writing ability: it's a matter of life. They haven't lived enough yet and the only cure for that is time.

The third item pertains to the quality of critiques and isn't germaine to the discussion except to say that they were rarely helpful.

My point with this long post (sorry) is that, like I said, I don't mind teens who behave themselves. However, I don't think teens should expect adults to react to their stories with the same enthusiasm that an adult would show another adult.

Why?

Because of the kind of posts we're getting from the under-18 crowd in this thread.

If you're going to argue that you're mature enough to contribute to a forum for adult writers, then start by making your arguments persuasive to adult writers. Yes, that means leaving the teen-ness out. Yes, that means paying at least some attention to such basics of writing as spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Yes, that means making arguments based on facts or sound logic rather than emotion and personal hurt (though such arguments can be used sparingly to juice up an otherwise dry point).

Look, I don't have any problem with thinking that persons under a certain age are necessarily lacking in ability to write and write well. But by the same token, I don't have any patience with teens and their teenness. I don't look back on my own teens and cringe, but I don't look back on them wistfully either. I don't look back on them at all because I never went through them.