I must be hanging out at the wrong places because to me Era feels like a haven in the cesspool that has become the Internet.
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Era's Woman Problem (Read OP)
- Thread starter Persephone
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This!
People can play the game of what counts as a game and casual vs enthusiast. People who play candy crush as the primary video game they play aren't coming to this site.
Also all of this crying about the white male majority on this website doesn't make any sense. The majority of the members on this site come from countries with a white majority
I've been practically raised on forums for many many years, and it's been interesting from what I've seen. I guess I just pick accepting forums, because even as a pre-teen/teen everyone assumed that they were only talking to other guys. Maybe girls weren't as vocal about games/other fandoms online at the time? I would see "lol I'm a girl btw!" followed by a "oh sorry!!" Things have changed, but even then friends at school played games, but only a few actually went looking for online communities.
Maybe not forums, but there sure are a HUGE amount of girls that use other social media sites instead, like Facebook, tumblr, etc. for gaming.
Anectdotes aside, it would be interesting to see a survey of girls that play (any) games, and if they have ever posted on online gaming forums before.
We can't solve it but we can work on making it a little bit better.
Yeah but these people get punished. I do think repeat offenders could probably be punisher more harshly but still I think a better framed op can improve the overall discussion
This seems like a very weird comparison
Yes but the point is to better invite discussion. You wanna talk with fellow forum members about the topic
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Well, for one, the fact that you glossed over her concern that her and other women's opinions about their experiences are belittled and de-legitimized to be a pedant about whether her claim that ERA is not "progressive" enough should clue you in with regards to "her angle".
Nah, temporary bans have really helped. In fact, a temp ban I received actually helped me too. Perma banning me won't give me a chance to actually improve my behavior. Temp bans do.
Agreed. Seeing someone banned for "cross forum drama" while the posters who also participate on boards dedicated to the mocking and harassment of posters here are left alone made me blink
This conversation is poisoned by the fact that one of the triumphs and failures of Democrats in the US is teaching their kids that progressivism is good, but not what progressivism is. So everyone who believes themselves fundamentally good (an idea common among conservatives) will proudly say "I consider myself a progressive", but if I ask them "would you marry a MtF trans woman, why or why not?" they likely wouldn't be able to explain or really elucidate on their feelings, or maybe never even grappled with the question. Not saying that a person must be willing to date/marry transwomen to be progressive, but that this is one of the central ideas of gender non-binariness and if you can't even comprehend that how can you really call yourself a progressive? You didn't do the legwork. I don't call myself a physicist just because I watched Interstellar a few times and read some wikipedia articles about black holes.
Just going "uuuh, gays should get married, and uuh, legalize weed" is not nearly enough to qualify as progressivism. As I wrote earlier, these two issues are where socialists align with liberals, since both of them care about personal freedom, it's very convenient to support because it's in line with general liberal ideals but supporting the things that are easy to idealogically support is not particularly special or brave.
Just going "uuuh, gays should get married, and uuh, legalize weed" is not nearly enough to qualify as progressivism. As I wrote earlier, these two issues are where socialists align with liberals, since both of them care about personal freedom, it's very convenient to support because it's in line with general liberal ideals but supporting the things that are easy to idealogically support is not particularly special or brave.
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Would it be possible to maybe have a sub forum
For many of these issues that women don't feel they can safely talk about in off topic, which has even stricter moderation? Or entrance requirements?
For many of these issues that women don't feel they can safely talk about in off topic, which has even stricter moderation? Or entrance requirements?
I don't disagree but that doesn't make this the best place it can be. The other place was the same way.
it could still be better
it may not be progressive enough
this is hard to argue with. As a guy I'm not really in the position to tell the OP to be happy with what we got. I don't notice these things as much
No problem, we need more discussion in these shitty world we live.
For ostensibly a gaming forum, there is a lot of progressive ideas. In a vacuum, it can showcase a lot of intolerance. For every progressive there are plenty of people who objectify women or put forward the same lies about false rape reports or argue in bad faith against trans rights etc. For what it's worth I think the moderation stays on top of them pretty well and unlike a lot of people I'm fine with a scaled punishment system because a lot of people come from a place of ignorance and exposure to different viewpoints is what's going to broaden their horizons. I could name at least a half dozen posters who are trans or women who are god damned heroes in some of these threads. They shouldn't have to continually educate people but I'm glad they are. They've got infinitely more patience with it than I do.
Yep, shield the poor dudes from those opinionated women.
The message this would send is that women would not feel welcome in any other section of the forum.
No thanks. Rather, give idiot men their own little sub-forum so the rest of us don't have to engage with them but they still don't have to be permabanned. Now that, I can get behind.
But, again, you are refusing to acknowledge and engage with the OP's claims of the issues she has experienced, rather implying that the issues don't bother you enough for you to speak out against them and agree with the claim that the forum isn't progressive enough for you. That sends a message.
For sure. I'm just saying it's not a very easy thing for a website to do. People can say that we need to bring more women onto the site to have a more varied viewpoint of things but that is going to be incredibly difficult when the gaming industry as a whole is still very heavily dominated by guys.
It's not socialism, if we equate the term with communism, worse real socialism. But many social-democratic parties here in Europe use "socialism" in the context of referring to such policies, not as negating capitalism but to mitigate its worst consequences (and to acknowledge, for example that health care isn't and shouln't be considered solely as a market )
I can understand the value in distancing oneself from the word, though, as there is likely to much negative stigma associated with in the US.
Why avoid giving people a site-wide ban though? There's a whole internet out there where people can be arseholes, they can go make use of it.
No! What the fuck? No! Women should feel safe to talk about these topics in any thread on any side of the forum! Why would anyone want to coddle men to the point of forcing women to move to specific threads to feel like their opinions are valued and that they are welcome. Jesus what a terrible idea.
If women don't feel comfortable enough to talk about actually important things while dudes are making threads about not knowing how to wash their asses or being afraid of public hair that's on the board
i'm not sure what you're saying here. are you saying the answer would have to be yes for you to be progressive, or are you saying you would just need to have thought about it before?
So segregate the Women and the topics they want to discuss?
Don't think that will help in anything really.
If this is true (I'm not saying it is because I don't frequent many forums), but multiple marginalized groups are voicing, repeatedly, that they are still struggling with being heard, then perhaps forums in general have a ways to go, no?
Also if you're having a hard time seeing the world from the OP's perspective, that might be a symptom of the need for more empathy, no?
Those are progressive values, but respectfulness is in no way exclusive to progressives. Nor are progressives entirely free of being rude or disrespectful, especially when ideologies clash
I feel the issue here is separate though, I skimmed the thread. 4 bans over 900+ posts. Remove the posts from those 4 people and the thread still has the same outcome. A great opening can always improve discussion but I don't feel like a thread title controls the direction of discussion so much that anytime this specific topic comes up it wouldn't end in lunacy if the opening just tried a little harder.
That type of topic is just hard for some people to accept. I don't think it's really deeper than that.
But almost everyone here was a Gaffer, it's fhe same community that continues to be toxic.
And being educated and white equals what, exactly? Because from my perspective as a mixed race gay male, I find that group tends to be the one that I have most issues with.
We can start with this thread by taking a clear stance that the way men posting in it dismiss women's experiences is unacceptable, regardless of moderation.
Lol what?
I though that notion was included in my post. Gaming forums in general have lightyears to go.
And segregating people doesn't really help anyone. I'm sure a lot of people have learned empathy and checked their values even though the amount might be much smaller than the people who didn't learn and got banned.
You need to be able to understand and process the question and see how it fits into the broader context of gender constructedness.
It's a question of innate ability to grapple with difficult questions and general mindfulness, and not a yes/no thing.
Only then can I even consider that you might be a genuine progressive and most people on this board would fail that test, as the last trans dating thread has shown, and ones we've had before on GAF.
EDIT: And I think this is one of the reason why activist groups have the term "ally" now, to describe someone who's sympathetic to your cause but is not necessarily educated on the complexities. Yes, being an ally to progressives is not the same thing as being progressive. There's nothing wrong with that. I don't expect everyone to read social philosophy. What's harmful to progressive causes is posers who dilute the meaning and try to co-opt it for the sake of their own egos, at the risk of undermining the movement overall. Have you ever encountered someone who was very outspoken about some issue but clearly are talking out of their ass? It's like that. It warps people's perception of what you stand for.
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How about folks just behave instead and go away if they can't
I get that, and to be fair to myself, I am posting from my phone.
Era is a very typical brogressive bubble. Progressivism is just a vehicle for people here to shit on religious and social conservatives, not to help the weak and marginalised, which is the backbone of progressivism
Go get em, doggy! *avatar quote*
Yeah I've made the same mistake lol. Learned to stay away from posting to threads that require genuine thought and nuance when I'm out on the go.
Traditional racism/sexism/etc would still be bannable, but if it's just thread derailing stuff then boot them from the thread and call it a day.
hypothetically, if someone answered "i comprehend your question and see how it fits into the broader context of gender constructedness, but no, i would not date a mtf transgender person." then they're still progressive in your eyes?
this is a quality post, and everything you say here is true.
it's a pretty black and white topic too, so the fact that this is a 1000+ post thread that has gone off topic is really telling..
thanks for making your comments public too. i think moderation needs to be more active here. it's good that you can report individual posts, but the onus shouldn't always be on members to call it out. having to report a lot of shit posts is frankly tiring. and while you do sometimes, you don't always get a reason for why the post in question didn't lead to a warn/ban.
They would be back to shit up the next thread instantly. Granted, I guess you could site-wide permaban them in that case but honestly this would just increase the rate of dismissive exclusionism. Why exactly are we sitting here trying to make up the best way to protect the people doing the oppression anyway? Who gives a shit? Our focus should be on showing solidarity and including more women in the conversation, not trying to protect the people shutting them out. I don't give a fuck about those people. Get them the fuck out of here. Give them their own shitty little sub forum where they can complain about women with no one else being able to read it until they get permabanned for saying what they really feel.
You can engage them in debate and take a staunch stance against them spreading their bullshit, especially when it's not overtly bannable. Even if they are unwilling to listen and you have zero chance of changing their mind, always remember that there are plenty of people passively lurking and just reading different opinions without expressing their own. You can always reach these people and I would argue that they are a lot more important than reaching the dumbass posting the dumb shit you're replying to.
Anyway I don't mean this as any sort of attack on you or anything like that, just saying that we shouldn't be solely relying on moderation and that we can collectively take an inclusive stance on these issues by clearly showing that exclusionary language and behavior is unacceptable, if we genuinely believe it is (which I do.) That's all.
Other than calling out shitty behavior and alerting mods of said people, what else can I do? I don't have mod powers, I can't force people to leave threads, and I can't force someone to change when they're unwilling to listen. Am I misunderstanding something here?
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