Talk:Americans for a Society Free from Age Restrictions

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[edit] General

They just had an election, and are undergoing dramatic reconstruction and revitalization. Svend la Rose 19:32, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

They're currently having an election with several new candidates running who hope to revitalize the organization, so we should see what happens with that before deleting the page. -Rory096 14:41, 23 January 2006

This organization appears to have gone quiet. The last "long term goal" of the PA state chapter is to accomplish something by 2002, ands the Yahoo group of the other chapter has only 28 members, and only 5 posts in 2005. I'm not sure that this groups was ever notable enough for Wikipedia, but now that it is inactive it is even less notable. Any other thoughts? -Willmcw 20:50, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Rory, you are attempting to use what's left of ASFAR's page to attack me. Your writing is full of ambiguity and bias. Please refrain from publishing (and republishing) this unbalanced information. -Shane


Perhaps the fact that a supposed member of ASFAR continues to post what seems to amount to a personal smear campaign is a sign that many young people lack the maturity to be considered equal to adults in society. It is this immaturity which the laws ASFAR protests are meant to keep in check.

The main idea that young people are individuals with varying potentials and capabilities still holds true. The actions of Rory, "BadLands," and other youths acting in a similar manner speak about -their- character and maturity, not necessarily the character of youth as a whole. I do criticize some youth rights activists for reinforcing the stereotypes against them, though. It's hard to change society's generalizations about a group you're in if you just reinforce what it currently believes by behaving in a manner that meets the stereotypes. - Shane

Removed the quotation marks from "dedicated to protecting and advancing the legal civil rights of youth"; I see no reason for them to be there. CameoAppearance 00:20, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merger conversation

If this organization even exists, it presumably has like six members. Can be merged into a single sentence in Youth rights movement. Herostratus 04:31, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

  • ASFAR has over 1,000 members. ASFAR forms one of two major arms of the youth rights movement, and has been more active than its webpage would indicate. Communications is one of the main areas of improvement of ASFAR in the near future, and that should undergo large-scale revitalization. Svend la Rose 19:32, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Well I'll be... I used to belong to ASFAR a decade or so ago. I honestly couldn't say it would strike me as being "notable", in its own right (unless I somehow missed something it did while I was some manner of "member")... but, if the information at Youth rights movement is accurate, it may be notable enough for a mention there, if only there. But I doubt it's notable in its own right. Somnior 09:54, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Er... Maybe it is notable in the realm of youth rights (which is admittedly something not notable to most people, I suppose). The NYRA seems notable enough (I may be wrong) in its own right (and it does indeed have an article), and if the article is accurate, ASFAR may be notable enough for its own article. If so, it probably requires inclusion of history found on the articles referenced. Somnior 09:58, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Well, the National Youth Rights Association looks to pretty active, it and its chapters seem to have active web sites at any rate, and so NYRA deserves its own article, probably. But the Americans for a Society Free from Age Restrictions seems to have gone almost dead, and wasn't active enough long enough to rate its own article. I can't say for sure without more research, though. Herostratus 16:09, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I say we give the children of the corn at least six months- there aren't a lot of groups like this, so to be notable in the field doesn't take much. Resonanteye

Don't Merge I agree with Resonanteye. The organization may not be very large, but ageism is a major issue in modern society, and very few groups seem to be addressing the issue as it applies to people who are under legal age. As a side note, I noticed that there is no article Youth rights movement--it redirects to Youth rights, and has been a redirect since 19 September 2006. Toyalla 07:25, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with resonanteye. There are VERY few groups in this movement and FAR MORE opposing it. Giving this it's own page would be quite beneficial as info instead of merging it with the page for the youth rights movement, I think a link from the youth rights movement article would be good however, the site itself says it was last updated December 21st, 2006.

So i don't think it can be considered 'extinct' quite yet........ Nateland 06:53, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't Merge. It will get mixed and become ugly. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jet123 (talk • contribs).

This conversation has died down and I'm removing the merger proposal. - Freechild 07:48, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clearing my name

I haven't been involved in any of this since I was in college, but since my name is here, I think I should get a chance to clear it.

ASFAR was founded in 1996 by Matt Walcoff and Matt Herman, two individuals that felt that the role of age in society, socially and legally, should be removed. Their ultimate goal was to completely abolish age restrictions, and they sought the progressive relaxation of age restrictions to this end.

This is incorrect. Even when I was 18, I did not believe that all age restrictions should be or could be eliminated. My only goal was to reduce the burden of age restrictions on young people so they could live up to their potential.

The small project grew quickly, and with that growth came a high degree of infighting.

I don't know what is meant by "grew quickly." In the year or so I worked on this, ASFAR was never more than a mailing list with no more than 12 to 15 active members and a website.

Within a year of its founding, ASFAR developed internal conflicts that would ultimately split the organization. Disputes over internal affairs and over the Declaration of Principles would lead to the creation of two factions. One group, which included the majority of the membership at that time, called for a detailed declaration of principles and a high degree of accountability to the membership. The other faction, led by Herman and Walcoff, called for more power to vest in the board and staff, and for a smaller and more moderate declaration of principles. This latter group would leave to form the National Youth Rights Association (NYRA).

This paragraph makes it seem as if there was some great power struggle comparable to a civil war. As I said earlier, ASFAR could hardly have been called an "organization" in 1997. (I know nothing about its current status.)

This is what actually occurred: When I created ASFAR, I had no idea how pressure groups were run. So I wrote up a utopian "Declaration of Principles" and wrote a "constitution" that stipulated that by-laws and positions would be voted on online. All one had to do to join the organization was sign up on the website. It didn't take to long to realize this was a bad way to run a group. The reliance on the mailing list limited active participation to about a dozen people, since more people than that made the list too busy. I spent a session as a legislative aide in Annapolis and learned that the way to make changes is not to set out a list of demands for a perfect world but rather to try to find one or two policy changes that could find widescale approval in the near term and build a coalition to convince lawmakers of the need for the change.

Most importantly, the lack of any central authority, or control on new members, allowed the "organization" to be hijacked quite easily. This became apparent when pedophiles began to join the group and prevented the group from taking a stand against child pornography.

It was at that point that several people met on IRC and decided to turn the group into a normal organization, with a board of directors, real-world chapters and an agenda that actually had a chance of being successful. As it happened, I wound up leaving the "movement" to focus on my real-world career before the new organization got off the ground.

In retrospect, the "ASFAR-NYRA schism" seems like nothing more significant than a fight in a kids' treehouse club. But in the age of the Internet, what you do in your youth can come back to haunt you. For that reason, I think I have to set the record straight.

I believe I still have all of the e-mails and IRC chat logs from that period of my life if anyone doubts what I wrote above. -- Matt Walcoff 08:53, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

The sentence about fighting pedophilia is no less verifiable than the rest of the section. Either remove the section in its entirety or include the full story. -- Matt Walcoff 12:43, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
So fix it. It's a wiki and anyone can edit the articles. Herostratus 19:27, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
I did fix it. But one of the paragraphs I added has been deleted twice. -- Matt Walcoff 23:28, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
What did the paragraph say?Agnapostate (talk) 00:27, 10 December 2007 (UTC)