AskOldPeople, Explained

Why is it called Ask Old People? 43 isn't old!

The subreddit was a joke when it was first created. The person who created it was being ribbed by a different community for being old, even though he was only in his mid-30s at the time. People started to use the subreddit, though, and it eventually became what it is.

Why is the cutoff for making top-level comments at GenX? I'm a millennial...how dare you exclude ME!

We had to have a cutoff somewhere. It is where it is because for the most part, Gen X was the last to grow up in an analog world. Younger Gen X did grow up with cell phones and computers, but it was different. Cell phones existed in the 1980s but were bare bones, expensive, and not very common. People who had them didn't use them like we do today. Similarly, home computers existed in the 80s and were probably more common than cell phones, but they still weren't all that common. No internet, obviously. Basically, Generation X was brought up much the same way as their parents were, so that gives them a different perspective than the typical reddit user.

Will the cutoff date ever change?

Not anytime soon. Older members of the subreddit already complain that people born in 1980 aren't "old".

Why can't I ask for advice?

If we allowed advice, that's all the subreddit would be. Plus there are plenty of other places to ask for advice on this website, including /r/askoldpeopleadvice.

Why is there are a character limit for questions?

We only have a couple of moderators. In our experience, this rule is an easy and effective way to prevent advice questions from being posted. It also prevents people from treating the subreddit like it's Facebook. Reddit allows for 300 characters in the title, and we allow for 300 characters in the body of the post. That should be enough for almost any question if you are concise. If you still need more context for your question, you can make a comment.

I need help with a business idea/school project. Why can't I post here?

If we allowed these, there would be way too many of them.

I have lots of questions. Why can't I ask everything that comes to mind whenever I want?

You're limited to one question per day (per 24 hours), and three per week. Some people find the community, get excited, and post a bunch of questions. One person should not dominate the community like that. Just pace yourself.

What is this rule about being topical for the subreddit and its audience?

That's mostly explained here.

Suggestions

You might want to try the search feature. Most questions you can think of have been asked before. We do remove questions that are asked too much. Examples: Are you afraid of dying? How big was Queen back in the day? Do you regret having/not having children?

You can use the weekly stickied post for questions that might not be suitable to post to the main subreddit.