We prefer people not to post their age for their own protection, but it does depend on the circumstances. The biggest concern I think is when people join the forum and start 'What age are you?' threads, those raise concern more than anything.
A lot of young people use the forum, and their parents like to know that they are safe - which is why it's a fixed rule - if the fixed rule was removed, nothing would change, mods would still censor age posts as they see fit. Personally, I think that we could reassure a concerned parent that this forum is safe for young people to use, much easier than other forums, any other forum I've used for that matter.
The whole reason why I wanted to be made a mod was due to some really horrific images being posted by a troll - the sort of stuff I don't want to see, would hate for my son to see, and those instances just never happen these days because of the huge mod squad we have
. I wouldn't want the poster of those images having any sort of influence or contact with a youngster here.
