Discussion boards are scary, desolate and cold places. Now your forums and stuff have their age limits because children younger than the age of 12 are very gullible and tend to go along with anything, so in other words they're very susceptible to being abducted or giving away important information that strangers shouldn't know, etc. I fully understand that children aged 12 and above are just as susceptible to this in some cases, but the law has to draw a line somewhere. To give a voice to those in danger above 11 posting on discussion boards, I personally think that they should be lightly supervised by parents until a good age (18?), or until their parents feel that they have a good understanding. It is out of the law's grasp if children are still in danger as this point, really, because as another poster said, it's only really bad parenting that leads to a young person being in danger on the Internet.
Somethings to consiter:
*Anybody could easily lie about their age
This is true (and to be fair, it actually should be more strongly enforced in my opinion, but what can you do), but anybody can easily lie about a lot of things in life. It comes down to parenting once again; "those who lie never truly benefit".
*Today a 17 year old can't join, but tomorrow the same guy (now 18) can
The line has to be drawn somewhere. By playing that card, somebody two days before their 18th is only 1 day younger than a person who just joined, so they should be allowed to join too right? And then what about a person 3 days away from their 18? They're only 1 day away from someone able to join as well now, so they should just be allowed to join... and so on and so forth.
*It actually keeps people from (gasp) asking questions and (double-gasp) learning something)
I don't think knowledge should be valued above safety.
*Serebii is free for anyone of any age to use, so lets all thank them for that liberty!
Wohoo