I agree. But some people do it anyway. 

I'd like to thank ChikenMan08 for the good comment referring to mine. Afterall I am not that strict as I sound in that post. I've played with a couple of young players and I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately it is not possible to control any kind of ill manner on the internet. But I felt better after having discovered the possiblity of disabling the chat option! Lucky enough I did not meet another bad behaving youngster after that very experience of mine.

Etiquette is something that is learned. I am grateful to have a place to practice chess. Perhaps the ill mannered will learn etiquette(should I be in breech a quick note would be appreciated). As a mom to 4 kids I know that this is a painful lesson to learn and to teach. As for children's net safety  I am glad that its a subject that is prominant on this site.

Gulza said: Then I decided not to play with opponents that are younger than me from then on.

 

 

I have to say that, in my opinion, this is not a very good strategy. There may be several younger players who are not well-behaved, or possibly have had a bad day. There are adults who also behave this way, so although age does affect behavior, I don't believe that you should base your games simply on age. Besides, if you play people that are only older than you, who will you be playing, say, 50 years from now? That may be an exxageration, but consider it: it's not worth giving up games with youngsters because the behavior of a few may reflect the small portion of "uncivilized" children.

Personally, I don't rush players; I know that chess is complicated and therefore players need time to think; also, some players have many games to play at once. Neverhteless, you can tell an opponent that it is necessary to spend some time thinking, or else losses will result, as well as a lower quality of gameplay. Whether children or not, all players should be taught this rule eventually, but they should not be discriminated for their age.

I'm saying this because I, myself, am only 16, but I have etiquette when it comes to chess. Therefore, I believe that age should not be highly considered in chess games.

No hard feelings, but I just wanted to ensure that discrimination of any kind would be limited as much as possible.

Hi!  The same thing happened with me as with AlecKeen. I was playing just as usual and I had 2 days and several hours to move, he suddenly started to curse and said that I was too slow to move! When I checked his profile, I found out that he was a youngster and probably not a good brought up one. Then I decided not to play with opponents that are younger than me from then on. So in that case it is really nice to see the birthday of the opponents to be. But then again, who knows that it is true.

 

Parents! Tell your kids to either A: Do like Eric suggests and keep their birthdates hidden or B: Just make one up.. I'm sure that there are at least a few other alternatives than just those two as well. Either way; it is really on them whether or not during the course of a game they happen to give every bit of personal info (home address, phone #, age and etc) to their opponent(s).. I'd be more concerned about messengers and chat sites, however.

 Make 'em learn safety and responsibility on the net.

Agreed. My concern was not with older age groups but with chidren. Anyway I gather it is optional. However, children logging on for the first time might not think of that, so it might be useful to blank any birthdate entered if it showed the person was still under (say) 16. Once they passed that mark, the date would reshow itself.

mm an interesting debate, i like people to

know how old i am they would expect a certain amount of maturity and it may be condusive to getting more games. if its optional that will sort that problem tho......

anyone can easily set their profile to NOT show their date of birth, just as easily as they can set their picture, name etc. we are carefully tracking IPs.

Thanks, Erik.

It only occurred to me when I got annoyed at an opponent who appeared to be hassling me to make a move, despite the fact that I has 2 days 23 hours and change left. When I looked up his home page I realised he was a youngster probably not too well versed in chess etiquette, so I called his attention to the way things ought to be. Hopefully he won't do it again. Then it hit me. I knew how old he was, and that unsettled me. 

 

thanks for bringing up the issue!

you don't have to show your date of birth on your profile! you can always change it if you like in your profile. perhaps we should have it not showing by default. but we have to collect the birthdate when registering as part of the law. also, the site terms and conditions require minors (under 18) to have their parents permission to use the site. finally, we do log all IP addresses.

i will re-think what we do with the birthdate information after login. maybe we will just make it blank and then users who want to input their birthdate and show it on their homepage can decided to do that. so right now it is ON by default, and perhaps it should be OFF by default. 

great question! 

I agree.

And you should store games and game messages permanently with IP addresses. And indicate this on a registration page to scare paedophiles away.

Also, under age players should probably have their history accessible by a responsible adult for monitoring purposes.

I have two sons and I agree with you that the date of birth should not be included in the profile. I always remind my kids not to give their age.