Admin Announcement Possible changes for the Life stages area

FreeinChrist

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EDIT - please note the years for millennials changed.



The Admins and Advisors are considering changes for the Life Stages area. These forums would stay the same but may be subtitled in an area called Relationships:

  • Singles
  • Courting Couples
  • Married Couples
  • Parenting
  • Widow/Widowers

These forums will change:

  • Young Adults
  • Roaring Twenties
  • Terrific Thirties
  • Fabulous Forties
  • Golden Eagles 50+

Replace with:

  • GEN Z------------ born 1999 to 2015.
  • MILLENNIALS--- born 1984 to 1998.
  • GEN X ------------ born 1965 to 1983.
  • Golden Eagles-------- born 1946 to 1964 but will include anyone 50 and up as of 2019
There are a few reasons for this. First, this will solve the issue of friends aging out of a given forum that is strictly moderated by age. Second, some forums are not very active as the focus is too limiting, and this may provide more people in each of the subforums participating in the discussions.
As to Golden Eagles, since it has been active, we do not want to change it by cutting out those who are 50 - 54 in 2019 who have been participating there. Therefore, anyone who is 50 and up in 2019 will be able to participate in that forum.

Once the change is made, we will start threads in Gen Z, Millennials and Gen X for suggestions for names for the forums and then do a poll. The members of that forum can select the name they like most.

We plan to leave Teens as it is.
 
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dzheremi

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Wait...I'm a Gen Xer? (1982)


Since when? I thought the point of "Millennial" is that these were the people who came of age at the turn of the millennium, as I obviously did.

Ah well...anything to keep these dang kids outta my yard. :mad:
 
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Paidiske

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I wonder whether dividing the age groups up by stereotypical generational labels will entrench those stereotypes and even introduce a level of angst that hasn't been there before, but you can't know until you give it a try, really.

I have long thought the strict separation between the relationships-groups is sometimes unhelpful; it might be fruitful to have a forum in that area where married and singles can mingle and discuss relationships, for example. I get that this isn't what this announcement is aimed at, but since you asked, I thought I'd throw that in there.
 
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WolfGate

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I wonder whether dividing the age groups up by stereotypical generational labels will entrench those stereotypes and even introduce a level of angst that hasn't been there before, but you can't know until you give it a try, really.

I have long thought the strict separation between the relationships-groups is sometimes unhelpful; it might be fruitful to have a forum in that area where married and singles can mingle and discuss relationships, for example. I get that this isn't what this announcement is aimed at, but since you asked, I thought I'd throw that in there.

Did I misunderstand the OP? I thought they said the forums would change the name to whatever they wanted. So those initial labels are simply placeholders - I took it to be a little bit tongue in cheek TBH.
 
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FreeinChrist

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Did I misunderstand the OP? I thought they said the forums would change the name to whatever they wanted. So those initial labels are simply placeholders - I took it to be a little bit tongue in cheek TBH.
No, not really. Right now we have teens, who age out of the teen forum to Roaring Twenties though they have friends in teens, then age out of that to the 30s forum and on.
So the current plan is to change
from Roaring Twenties, Terrific Thirties, Fabulous forties and then Golden Eagles to forums based one when a person is born. A member will never age out of Millennials, for example.
IF combine Teens into Gen Z, that would decrease the forums.
 
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dzheremi

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I wonder whether dividing the age groups up by stereotypical generational labels will entrench those stereotypes and even introduce a level of angst that hasn't been there before, but you can't know until you give it a try, really.

I don't know exactly what you're getting at, but I do know my desire to eat Tide Pods and avocado sandwiches has gone way down since I read the OP.

I have long thought the strict separation between the relationships-groups is sometimes unhelpful; it might be fruitful to have a forum in that area where married and singles can mingle and discuss relationships, for example. I get that this isn't what this announcement is aimed at, but since you asked, I thought I'd throw that in there.

To be serious for once, I think you're on to something. I don't want advice on relationships from other single people! We're obviously not very good at maintaining our own relationships, to varying degrees; let's recognize that and hear from some people who actually know what they are doing, or can at least fake it better than we can.
 
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Sketcher

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Gen-X never really applied to many people born in the early 1980's.

Why would someone born in 1982 have more in common with someone born in 1968 than someone born in 1984? If they wouldn't, why have subforums that categorize people this way?
 
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thecolorsblend

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GEN Z------------ born 1999 to 2015.
MILLENNIALS--- born 1984 to 1998.
GEN X ------------ born 1965 to 1983.
Golden Eagles-------- born 1946 to 1964 but will include anyone 50 and up as of 2019
The problem there is that your generational labels are pretty bizarre, with all due respect. I have never seen those definitions for the various generations anywhere else before. While precise definitions vary, the most sensible arrangement is probably something like:

Boomers: 1945-1966
Gen X: 1964-1981
Millennials: 1979-1998
Zoomers: 1996-2016 (?)

There is considerable overlap in all of these generation cohorts. If anything, probably even more overlap than I allow for above. For example, Gallup Inc., MSW Research, the Resolution Foundation and other thinktanks use 1980 as the first year of Millennials. That approach makes a lot of sense because it acknowledges that people born in 1980 probably have very different cultural experiences from those born in 1968, for example.

Even my arrangement is imperfect but I daresay it's a step in the right direction. Is it really so difficult to allow members access to forums with a one or two year "grace period" or buffer based upon their age? A Gen X'er born in 1966 could feasibly identify as either Gen X or Boomer in the same way that a Millennial born in 1980 could feasibly identify as either Gen X or Millennial.

Just spitballing.
 
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FreeinChrist

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Defining generations: Where Millennials end and Generation Z begins

FT_19.01.17_generations_2019.png
 
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Ada Lovelace

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Even my arrangement is imperfect but I daresay it's a step in the right direction. Is it really so difficult to allow members access to forums with a one or two year "grace period" or buffer based upon their age? A Gen X'er born in 1966 could feasibly identify as either Gen X or Boomer in the same way that a Millennial born in 1980 could feasibly identify as either Gen X or Millennial.

Just spitballing.

This.

My friend and I are the ones who presented the idea to staff last summer, petitioning for generation-based lifestyle areas rather than age by decade to allow for fellowship to form and grow as members who've befriended one another could remain in the same community. We had asked for reasonable flexibility in enforcement, for the reasons you've posted as well as other considerations. As you noted there's variances in how generations are defined (we'd used Barna's), so someone who always thought they were Gen X or a Millennial or Zoomer, etc. could find that by the metric used here they're not considered to be. The other issue is that many people did not use their actual birthdate when creating an account, sometimes simply due to a typo, or to protect their privacy. Several of the younger users didn't enter the correct date due to a confusion caused by conflicting information saying you needed to be 13 (and there had been a young teen section for 13-15 year olds) but then after entering the birth year it said 16 was the minimum. You cannot change the date yourself once your account is made and many will never ask staff to change it. People can be barred from posting in the generational sections they actually belong to due to wanting to keep their private information private (even from staff).

Rigid enforcement based on birth year listed on the account disables fellowship among peers, which is the opposite of what we'd been hoping to accomplish when we reached out to staff. I think it's reasonable to not allow someone years beyond the parameters of a generation to post in the section but there should be some room to breathe. As it there are people who wouldn't be allowed to post in the same generation section as those who graduated from high school the same year as them.

I'm technically not supposed to post in this section since I'm Gen Z but am hopeful in this one circumstance some leniency can be given.
 
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