I’m not quite sure how common common sense is. Consider potty training. As adults we think how we use a toilet and clean up after ourselves is common sense, the most basic of instincts. But anyone who has traveled, potty trained a child or had the dubious privilege of finding out how other people take a dump knows that it mostly has to do with socialization. Not saying the analogy is perfect, but I think saying something is “common sense” is a bit of a cop out and often used as an excuse to dismiss other people exceptionally idiotic, rather than being socialized in ways that are obnoxious to most people within that specific context.

I agree that most TBB commenters are an exceptionally mature bunch, but I would direct your attention to the anniversary post, which subtly points out that readers outnumber commenters by over 1,000 to 1. This is aimed at the “silent majority” to steal a phrase from Dick Nixon.

As far as 13 and under. It’s the law in the US. What I can say, is that most 11 and 12 year olds who have foolishly revealed their age online, my reaction is to suddenly understand their previous behavior. I don’t even notice the mature youngsters, because they don’t cry out their age and they behave well.

@ anon4527: I agree there’s a subtle difference, but I’m not sure what you mean by the comment. Techniques belong to everyone? I’d say that any time someone has inspired you with a theme or a very specific technique, and you know what you’re doing is derivative, it’s the right thing to do to give some sort of props. That being said, I thinks it’s silly when people try to protect a technique as theirs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanel:
Kids, don’t use your entire real names as your screen names. Don’t give your age or birthday. Don’t offer to give adults your address. Don’t post all that information on your profile for everyone to see. Very, very bad ideas.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is a really bad problem on MOCpages. There are kids that give every bit of information about themselves, everything from height, weight, hair color, E-mail address, location, and even blood type!

Not that any of those newbs are actually gonna pay attention to this article…

There’s a few points in the article I can’t really agree with. I do not object to children having accounts on Flickr, Youtube, etcetera – it is actually harmful to keep those communies away from children or vice versa. They will go there in secret and do stuff without their parents knowing. Now that’s scary.

And when it comes to Lego, it’s a good thing to not block minors completely out of AFOL communities. Even worse is places that don’t want people under 18 to join. That is just to make sure everybody is in their dark ages before they even started. But of course kids should be expected to behave as adults on sites that are actually for grown-ups.

Take an antrhopological approach and become an insider by 1st observing from the outside.

buriedbybricks: The sorting is at the point where I’ve actually been able to build. I have a few WIPs posted. Need to get a couple more containers, drawers and boxes, then fine-tune. I’ll actually do a story on that later as well.