User:MrMeAndMrMe/What Maturity Isn't
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 | This page in a nutshell: Maturity is many things, but it is not your age, it is not your number of years active on Wikipedia, and it is not your number of contributions |
Maturity in Wikipedia is defined by how you handle situations under stress or controversy, your wisdom, you humility and courtesy to other users, and your ability to follow rules. These values are essential qualities that are needed when applying for RfA and are needed to be the janitors of one of the longest-running sites on the web. When disscussing a RfA applicants' maturity, their age and time spent on Wikipedia is almost always brought into account and whether they would be unsuitable because of young age.
Just recently during the Request for Adminship for Theleekycauldron, the largest topic of discussion was concerning just this; they were under the age of 18 and was only active for a year and a half.
Maturity isn't Age[edit]
Wikipedians are from hundreds of communities with hundreds of different types of ethnicities with different beliefs, ideologies and backgrounds. It is an accepted fact that people are different and grow up differently. It stands then to reason that the age that someone became fully mature is different throughout the community. If a 16-year-old is mature enough to help sweep up the community, then there is no reason that they may not sweep unless if there is an active reason in why they may be untrustworthy or unfit. There is no age requirement in the RfA and there's a reason why ― we don't look at their age, we look at their maturity. Other 16-year-olds may have the mental fortitude but if they do, we should not use their age against them.
The biggest and one of the most essential parts of Wikipedia's community and growth is that we don't discriminate and anyone is allowed to help, no matter race, gender, relgion and in this case, age. Having the policy of "making the adults run the show" is not what we do here on Wikipedia and it never has been.
There is also the argument that "administrators may be exposed to things younger people cannot handle well such as child pornography, sexual harrassment threats, bullying, difficult decisions, etc". Again, however, this argument is missing the point because maturity is not the same thing as age. Saying that someone is unfit for adminship purely based on the fact of their age and not looking any of their past decisions and how they handled it is missing what they are truly like.