Who Needs 'Em Anyway?

If you read Slashdot with a fair amount of frequency, or even if you don't, it's safe to assume that you may have stumbled upon this tidbit by this point. For various debatable reasons, Yahoo (a site I'm sure you can find without my linkage) has decided to close off it's chat rooms to anyone under the age of 18. I'm sure you're thinking: what does this have to do with an obscure videogaming website? Well, I'll tell you. Just give me a moment.

The fact is, as someone who hates children, I'm all for this. Not that I'm the sort who frequents chat rooms - in fact, outside of videogames, it's a concept completely outside of my range of vision. What I'm hoping for here is that, eventually, people under the age of 18 will be barred from any sort of online activity. Videogames, message boards, chat rooms: you name it, they're not allowed. Far from a utopian society, but a step in the right direction nonetheless.

We've got enough of a problem already with the above 30 crowd who decide they're going to rekindle the magic of their youth by never capitalizing the letter "I". Cut out the teenagers who think that words can actually be spelled with numbers and I'll be pretty happy. Ban them from voice chat in online games and I will ensure that you will be paid handsomely, even if it's in blood.

To be serious, this whole measure is entirely overboard on Yahoo's part. It would not surprise me in the least if this decision was reversed in a few weeks time: both Yahoo and Eliot Spitzer doing their best to act as if A.) this never happened, and B.) if it did, they were totally cool for doing it, but they didn't so... back to A.

Anyway, next week will be back to normal (ie. something actually about games), so stay tuned.