Of course they should, and Jessald's idea of permission slips is great. I just don't want them to join. Or they should have their own section of the site, "CreateDebate 4 Kidz!" so I don't have to deal with their shit.

If you're gonna put them on the site, teach them the rudiments of rhetoric, and assign them reading on logical fallacies. They'll be a step ahead when they get here :P

7th Graders really are not mature enough for some of the arguments we have here at CD. I do not think that they would put much into the website other than crap. Not to name anyone but there are a couple of people at this site around my age that put up the stupidest posts and their arguments annoy me because they are ridiculous and stupid. This ( these are ) high school student(s) that I am speaking of.

Some of the debates here are over my head at 16 those are the debates I do not post in. Maybe we could mark debates as being 15 years or older debates. There are reasons for why middle schoolers cannot ' get ahead ' in 8th grade in classes like English (like they can in Algebra ), because they are not mature enough to understand the material given to them.

All in all they just are not mature enough for some of the debates here. I just do not think they would put in enough logical arguments.

NO! They should not be allowed to use this site unless an age category or categories are listed for them. I believe no one under the age of 18 should be here, on the main CD boards. I believe, beyond the shadow of a doubt there should be two additional age categories added. Those that are ages 12 - 14 and those that are 15 - 17. The levels of debate have suffered here on CD since allowing entrance through the school debates. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule and some teens will be smarter than their age and vice-versa.

The only thing is...will they be honest when listing their ages? They may or may not be but one can always tell if they've lied about that. It comes through very clearly in their debates and rebuttals. Information can be had but it's when you begin to disagree that it becomes sophomoric and obvious.

Although I have many friends that are in the underage groups, these are the special ones...who not only possess the knowledge, but for the most part do not engage in child-like responses.

CD, take note: my highest-voted argument is the one that says there should be a separate area for young people. Maybe we should make a poll?

Many debates mentioned on this site are too sophisticated for someone of a 7th grade education to put a well thought out argument about. If they are allowed to join this site then soon we will have people putting up debates like Jesus or Politico used to! That alone is enough reason not to allow them to join. If you want to give them a website where they can learn how to debate, check out the boards of neopoets.

I would not have let a 7th grade JC onto this site =] I would have formed virtual mobs and started virtual riots.

No, they should not. And I'll give you one reason why..... ready?..... Joe Cavalry ;)

If you think TV rots your brain, just try a heavy dose of JC. ;)

Well frenchie maybe you are different i am sure that I could have posted some reasonable arguments on CD but I know that I would not be able to put into the debates we have like religion, health care, and politics because I would not really be paying attention to things like politics health care and religion ( other than my own ). When I was in 6th grade the election meant nothing to me. I had no idea what the hell was going on and I just said John Kerry for prez just because he was a democrat and that I thought democrats were good and republicans were bad.

For starters what kind of school is this guy teaching from? It must be a private school since most schools have all kinds of web protection like Betsy and Websense that prevent kids from ' streaming media, viewing blogs, and file sharing '.

Are we allowed to drive at 13 ? Why not ? It is not that we are not tall enough to reach the pedal is it?

It is not so long ago that you were 13 so you are telling me that the only difference between you now and you in 7th grade is that your vocabulary has increased ( DONT FORGET THE GRAMMAR! ) ? That is bs.

I am not saying that all of your arguments or ideas would have been stupid I am saying that you would not have gotten all the debates back then. What would your opinion have been on universal health care back then? Mine would have been ' WTF is that '.

You can't get rid of me that easy ;)

no it would be,there are lots of online video games have those geeks that put the word up with an accent mark over the i in bitch etc etc they can also just make the word look like the word they want Fucl{ @$$

Or we could always just not allow 7th graders in and not worry about anything

no i do not beleave they should simply becuase they don't know enough of whats going on in the world, and of course you are gonna have your random crazy smart ones but there is always an exption to the rule and so you must vote on the majority and the majority is that no they sould not

no they shouldn't because once one finds out about this then they will tell there friends and it will all become one big joke to them making our discussions useless and pointless besides most of their opinions are based off there parents so it wouldnt even be there thoughts :P thanks for reading

wow. that is true. i'd say 16 and up, since a lot of people that are my age and below are pretty dumb, but then i myself couldn't participate in this site, and i like all the different points of view i get to see by being apart of it.

that wasn't the point smart one, you mine as well said that 105 year olds dont have an opinion either, i was making a point by saying a common expression it was meant to mean that everyone has an opinion big or small....come on man, get with it

having an opinion !== understanding debate

It isn't their knowledge of words that should be the main concern! It is their understanding of the debates we have a 13 year old has almost no perspective of healthcare politics and religion. I could care less if they have a big vocabulary or if they know that shit is a bad word I only care about the crap that they will post.

Exactly politico was a nightmare from what I saw. We have enough immature people on the site already. We do not want to see those immature people at an even younger age do we?

I think you're right that CreateDebate should set a minimum age requirement. 16 is about right, but 14 or 15 may work since the person would be in High School. Once a person is in High School, they've had 8 years of school experience to (hopefully) teach them good speaking skills.

It wouldn't be a good idea, considering the language many users choose to use.

I agree with either a censored site that will not allow publishing of foul language, or a site just for students.

I agree that if young students enjoy debate, they should receive their own section of the website or an entirely different website for their benefit. Their participation in CD could be harmful to them when they are faced with adult issues and harmful to its users when they are being deceived into believing that they are arguing with responsible, intelligent adults as opposed to young, if perhaps bright, children.

I'm saying no strictly for the reason that the majority of 7th graders, and any teenager, would make this site less appealing. Teenagers are truly good at dominating the web and annoying the the mature populations. There should definitely be an age limit to joining this site, although anyone could lie about their age to gain access. But I wouldn't recommend teenagers on here. But on the other hand... would a 7th grader truly into debate be a bad idea? Wouldn't the 7th graders that don't even like debating probably rather wander to other sites on web to spend their time, like, myspace? It really takes a lot of determination to wander to a site like this to annoy people. So, maybe it wouldn't matter if 7th graders came on because many probably wouldn't even bother.

Kids are not well developed enough to be critical thinkers or disagree politely.

Please only invite the clever students who aren't 'know-it-alls' to avoid a flurry of spam.

so kids under four are not entitled to a opinion even when they whine and moan about how they do not like that color or that they wanted a different thing, remind me the next time to tell a three year old that i dont care what they think and we will see what happens.

he may not know how to spell "gullible" but you couldn't even spell

"whatever"...

If you make them take logic/debate classes first, fine.

In fact, I wish this site had more moderation along the lines of correcting logical fallacies. What we have here, by and large, is not real debate, but gainsaying and simplistic, regurgitated rhetoric. Real debate requires a moderator. When debates are self-moderated by the creator, it becomes simplistic, farcical, and an aberration of what debate is designed to promote.

yea joe we will just send you a virus?