Rejected Voice-Chat Age Limit

Hi, everyone! My name's Sharp, and I've been playing on Serious GMod deathrun for roughly a month now. I've more or less ventured over from the slowly-dying Counter-Strike: Source community and initially joined at the invitation of another community member.

Compared to the legion of other Garry's Mod communities, I personally consider Serious GMod to have a fairly good number of decent individuals. That being said, I feel as if it could take a page from the book of what many CSS servers used to hold as a rule, essentially barring prepubescent users from using the microphone chat.

I understand that this will inherently be seen as a potentially controversial rule, but I still feel as if the server could benefit from its implementation. This isn't a rule meant to discriminate against younger players, and although it may be inconveniencing and/or potentially disheartening to be barred from using the voice-chat, it's undeniable that this would come with a fair number of advantages:

1. Generally speaking, many individuals are inherently put-off from loud and high-pitched voices, especially when these voices tend to be excited, agitated, or otherwise emotional. Implementing the ban would help the server attract older and more mature individuals, which may benefit the growth and longevity of the server/community's playerbase.

2. There has been a noticeable amount of disdain from server regulars towards prepubescents, which often turns into flaming when moderation is offline. While this should obviously not be tolerated, it's undeniable that there's a certain level of hostility created due to the generally annoying (and sometimes physically painful) from prepubescents. Emplacing a ban on prepubescent microphone usage would likely reduce tensions between players.

3. From the ~month that I've been with Serious GMod, I've noticed that the server's microphone-spammers, singers, and screamers (these are far too common) are almost always prepubescents. This issue tends to not be resolved with more than a warning and/or an unfortunately short gag, which is soon disposed of, only for the aforementioned actions to continue the next day, if not simply a few hours later.

4. Lastly, as the most obvious, if not implied result of such a restriction, the general flow of conversation via the voice-chat system would be calmer, more mature, and generally less cluttered, making a more enjoyable experience for the current community and slightly less reminiscent of the Call of Duty playerbase. The result of this is more or less undeniably going to involve a better community, as well as younger players having better leading examples in terms of acceptable behavior.

It's undeniable that a fair number of players will be affected by this change, so I'd like to consider the opposition before posting this.

Concern: It's unfair to mute a player that's potentially done nothing wrong.
Resolution: The suggested restriction does not call for 'censorship' in any way, and underaged players are more than welcome to use the text chat for their communicative desires. The removal of voice-chat does not impede the player's ability to play the gamemode.

Concern: The act of having to place a gag on so many community members would create difficulties for the moderation team.
Resolution: Gags will only need to be placed once, and will likely be far easier for staff than attempting to deal with the repeated rule violations that I've mentioned occur in point three.

I'm sure that this is the type of idea that would be considered slightly more controversial within the Garry's Mod community (unlike Counter-Strike: Source, where it's fairly commonplace), and I don't doubt that I'll get a lot of flak for suggesting it, but I still believe that its implementation could potentially benefit the community that exists here. I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts/opinions/input, or even improvements towards the idea. Cheers!

 

We treat everyone equally here, No matter the Gender, Age, Etc. This is just being unfair to our "Younger" Audience that plays (A good bit to.) Theres people like me for example I am 15, Etc And I still have a high voice this would be blocking me from talking yet I meet the requirement, It's just not fair to everyone A big -1 from me.

 

A majority of the server is composed of players who either do not have or do not use their microphone. These players are not at a gameplay disadvantage, nor are they barred from communication with other players through the text chat. You'd be at no more of a loss than players who don't have a microphone to begin with, which is a seemingly fair majority.

 

We were all kids once.

 

I've been playing these servers since I was 13. From my experiences I can tell you that would have been very annoying to not be able to speak because of my age.

 

Not me...

But anyways. Old suggestion, won't happen.

 

only once

 

being someone with an annoying voice i am gonna have to
-quan
this

 

-1 they can't control what their voice sounds like, let em live.

 

Can this be locked?

Discriminating against someone for something they cannot change goes against the ethics of the community.

Thank you.

 

Yes because typing while someone is shooting at you is just as effective as voice chat.

 

We're in deathrun

 

Pretty sure you wouldn't like your own voice being heard on the server then if you were young.

 

you can personally mute them by holding tab and clicking on the speaker next to their names.

 

-1, there is no actual way to tell if someone is under the age of 12 or over the age of 16 or if they are 26 or 93, just by there voice. gmod is for 13+, but many younger players also play. And they have fun, discriminating against their voices is just wrong and ruins their day.

 

-1 from me. As a decent amount of players here are young. Like @nilz said...

If you have an issue with the way someone sounds or the maturity of someone, You can easily make it so the only way of them contacting you is through text chat.

If we were to add this into our rules or we had a thing where you had to pick your age and if you're too young, You get a permanent gag until you are above the required age, That In my opinion would be targeting and in a manner harassing younger players. This does not need to be added as gmod has a system already in place of it.

 

-1 i don't agree with discrimination

 

Tho I already dont talk I am nearly 18 and my voice is about the pitch of someone who is 13-14 this bar isnt against anything to do with age but voice, you cant help what you sound like so it is impossible to enforce this.

-1

This just seems a way to make older people even more assholish to younger members.

 

I don't think it's fair to rate a genuine post such as this one dumb just because you disagree. (that's why we have a disagree rating) Anyways, this rule would be very discretion based since it is impossible to tell someone's exact age by their voice. The culture of this community is that everyone is welcome, no matter what. (as long as they follow the rules of course) This is why there is such an emphasis on the 'no tolerance for harassment' rule. The staff strives to create a game that is fun and welcoming for everyone. The message that would be sent, if this rule were implemented, would contradict this goal. It would be detriment what we are trying to achieve; a place where everyone is welcome. Those banned from talking would most definitely not feel welcome and would most likely leave, never to return. This is not beneficial to anyone and not beneficial to growing the community. I hope this sheds light on why this is a bad idea.

 

This is the kind of shit posting that makes me glad we have negative ratings