I think it's perfectly all right to take age into consideration, and to treat a teen with much more patience than a thirty-something claiming to be a professional programmer. I personally will slam the latter with a comment if they can't be bothered to look in the damn manual; I'll be much more tolerant with a twelve-year-old.

However, nobody is obliged to treat young people differently. It's a professional community and JNK's quote catches it perfectly: If you want the advice of professionals, you need to abide by their rules. Also, experience shows that if you don't add age information to your profile, you're going to be treated like an adult, and that's fine.

Should the age of the asker temper our answers?

It's nice if it does. It's perfectly all right to take age into consideration, and to treat a teen with much more patience than a thirty-something claiming to be a professional programmer. I personally will slam the latter with a comment if they can't be bothered to look in the damn manual; I'll be much more tolerant with a twelve-year-old.

However, nobody is obliged to treat young people differently. It's a professional community and JNK's quote catches it perfectly: If you want the advice of professionals, you need to abide by their rules.

If you don't add age information to your profile, you're going to be treated like an adult, and a minimum level of competence of maturity will be expected.