Editorial

At What Age Maturity?
Doug Myers

The Halls of Fidonet are quiet tonight. The Fido Elders have retired to their Chambers and have not issued Pronouncements for a long time now. The Grunt Sysops are peacefully tilling their fields and don't seem in revolt at the moment. Indeed, the ElfLords seem to have dropped their agenda of atrocities. The mail movers haven't shot any stars out of the constellation; the splintering into more backbones seems arrested.

All in all, it's a slow news day...

But over in the Z1C echo, Stewart Hornsberger comes to our rescue, fending off several of Fido's more "experienced" sysops in an argument over maturity. Though I haven't examined all the messages related to the string, it appears that Stewart revealed his age of 19 on his web page, and was subsequently called down for "immaturity" in some of his subsequent posting.

Whether the charge is accurate or not I couldn't tell you, as I didn't read the original messages. But I'm familiar with Stewart's posting in other conversations and know that he's given to passionate and confrontational exchanges which some associate with immaturity. Mr. Hornsberger mainly makes the point that maturity cannot be determined by age alone, and cites events in his life which would contribute to maturity at an early age, such as passing newspapers to purchase his first computers rather than being born with a keyboard in his lap.

So at what age is one sufficiently mature to post in a Fidonet echo? The debate will undoubtedly continue to rage in the Z1C conference as I don't expect to resolve it here. However, I expect to make a few observations which may fuel the conversation... or, more likely, be disregarded as the ramblings of an editor trying to make something of a slow news day.

Nineteen isn't such a bad age. Though the age seems far away to me at the age of 53, I seem to recall that I had most of my language skills developed by that age and had a good general idea of how people interacted. While I've got to admit that subsequent life experience has modified my approach to things, I believe that at the age of 19 I was sufficiently mature to enter conversations as an adult. But then, I wasn't online then... I was nineteen in the sixties and hardly anyone was online then! Especially, I wasn't interacting in a hobby which has somewhat passed its prime and whose participants tend to middle age rather than youth.

To Stewart I can only offer this observation: if you post in a confrontational style, folks are going to look at you at the age of nineteen and say that the style is obviously a sign of immaturity. If I, at the age of 52, post in that same confrontational style, folks are going to conclude that it's obviously the sign of some mid-life crisis. If Warren Bonner posts in that same confrontational style, folks will conclude that it's a sign of dotage.

Posting passionate messages arguing your maturity probably won't change folks perceptions... it's kinda like holding your breath until they see you as mature.

To the more experienced participants in the discussion, I'll offer this observation: Like it or not, Stewart is the future of Fidonet. Any plan which will accomplish growth in Fido is going to have to involve younger people - the middle aged folks are already here :)

Imagine... the future of Fido is in the hands of a sysop who goes by the handle of Black Death. Kinda scary, eh?