You should assume that the subset of people who volunteer information are representative of the board as a whole, unless you have a valid reason not to. That’s how any scientific poll works.
Based on the number of men and women who have self-identified on both boards, I think it’s clear that there are significantly more women on BF. Unless the initial assumptions are incorrect, and women are more willing to self-identify on BF than here. But in either case, that’s evidence that BF is more welcoming to women.
Just this week on QT3, I saw someone pose the question “What’s your favorite scenario in Operational Art of War?” to a female poster, specifically leveraging that person’s gender in order to make a rhetorical point.
I really, really like QT3, but I can’t say that it’s particularly welcoming to posters outside of the middle-aged male demographic.
That’s awesome for the people that want that. Do you think there are women who choose to not specify their gender for the same reason the vast majority of other forum posters on the Internet don’t specify theirs?
I personally don’t care what gender people view me as here, because I don’t see how it affects the content of my posts. I suppose if I were discussing something where gender identification had some impact on the validity of my opinion I would do so, but otherwise why would I? I prefer to keep a decent level of anonymity online most of the time (and I assume most others feel the same).
The point is, I don’t treat anybody differently from anybody else here. I don’t care what their gender is. I don’t care what their race is. I don’t care what their religion is. I care about what they have to say. That’s it. Of all the forums I’ve been to, this one mirrors that philosophy more than any other.
Yeah, I should have worded that in a way that didn’t refer to a specific person. But given that I immediately had a bunch of people pile onto me and assume that I was a gamergater or something, I have a hard time believing QT3 is a den of misogyny.
I don’t think we’re unwelcoming to women, but neither do we go out of our way to make it an inclusive safe haven at all costs, with strict moderation on people making booby jokes and such. Different priorities.
In the last two months I’ve seen two stories relayed about hot women posters glimpsed IRL, and the first (or maybe second) responses to both were requests for pictures of these random women who the posters did not know and would have been pretty weird to photograph :)
I know that kinda stuff is often intended in a joking manner, but Qt3 rides a humor line that I could imagine making a lot of people uncomfortable, and there are a handful of folks here who are outright hostile to marginalized groups, plenty of quasi-racist or sexist views have been tossed around lightly or unthinkingly in P&R, etc.
I don’t think we’re amongst the worst places on the entire net, but I can’t help but think that there’s probably a reason or two I can only think of about 5 female posters on this board, at least 1-2 of whom have either quit entirely or severely curtailed their posting.
I mean hey, better here than /r/the_donald, but damning with faint praise and all :)
IRL I am pretty unhinged and make terrible references and jokes and do not hold back. Here I’m constantly feeling like I’m doing thread policing essentially (which I hate so much) because of some of the shit I see people say. I’m not changing my approach to how I talk between the two, this place just sometimes gets straight up hateful/hurtful/stupid, on a level way beyond the shit I usually say.
Penny, why would you care when the default is in your favor? I just don’t think you’re really open to what others experience.
But here let’s just go here… before some site tells another site how they should treat women, maybe that site should have more than like a few to begin with. Qt3 should not be in the business of telling other sites how they should deal with women when we have so few.
And I am not going to go there with these weird claims about not seeing color or something. If you don’t know why that statement doesn’t work, nothing here will change your mind.
As an un-hip, straight white, male, it’d be ridiculous, and presumptuous, to chime in and suggest who should feel accepted and welcome here. First of all, I’m a visitor like everyone else. Despite ‘the Internet’, I try to be friendly and open-minded. However those folks on the board that aren’t old-ish white dudes can express their own opinions of this virtual community, and I wouldn’t try to argue away their sense of belonging. This isn’t my virtual living room. It’s Tom’s, or at the very least a public space, and if I’m not comporting myself in a respectful and inclusive manner, I’d want to be called out on it rather than defensively marginalizing someone else’s experience.
Well first of all, Quarter to Three isn’t telling any site anything. I, as a human being, am saying Broken Forum is a shit show, and not the bastion of equality people make it out to be. Different opinions are exciting, aren’t they?
Secondly, I don’t care about what gender people view me as on this, or any other forum, but if you’d like to presume to tell me how my own personality and thoughts would actually fit your narrative were my gender different, then, I suppose you can do that for some reason? I’m not sure where you think that’s going to get you, but go nuts I suppose.
You know what’s kind of, let us say, interesting about your entire spiel is you, that’s right, you asked for someone to elaborate on “this.” But… you didn’t really mean it did you? You’re definitely not open to listening to what you asked to hear.
No, I meant it. By all means, I’d love peoples’ opinions on why they feel BF is more welcoming to women than QT3. Have you covered that yet? I’ve just re-read your posts and see no such elaborations. Simply you stating that there are more women there, and insinuating that it’s because of “reasons”.
IIRC, I think I did one of those. Sorry everyone.
I don’t think I was being serious though.
However, thanks everyone for bring it to my attention, as I hadn’t given it a second thought since. And there are times where I could certainly use a second thought.
