No. That’s what other sites do. They create these lists, the bannable offenses, shut down arguments, like untouchable topics and then you wind up with moderators that just kind of police thought not just community.
I do not want that here. I think I’ve made that clear.
… but those other sites they have more diversity, they just do. I refuse to believe that the only way you can get a diverse population is to police the shit out of it. I don’t think that’s true.
Now we’re not talking about trying to bring in a 100 new members or anything like that, just maybe we can shift a little so the next time someone kind of browses the site they won’t see sexist behavior and automatically assume this community just doesn’t care. He doesn’t share her belief, so he goes at her until she backs down… as if the automatic response for when that happens is for me to “turn the other cheek.”
I don’t think anyone is trying to take your words away from you.
But on the other hand it should also be possible to discuss why a certain phrase makes some people uncomfortable without derailing into a discussion of whether poster A really meant for it to have that effect.
If you really want to try to be more inclusive, you have to realise that intent isn’t all that matters. Words have effects regardless, and part of being inclusive is listening to what others tell you about how your words affected them, and taking that into account when you communicate next.
I was just taking a look at other forums I visit to see if there is much difference to this one and maybe why I visit those as well.
Forums I frequent.
Octopus Overlords - I find this similar to here and when Gone Gold went away I went there and over here. I have similar post counts on both and to be honest they seem pretty similar.
Overclockers Forums - I use this a because it has a wide range of European users but it’s not as welcoming as here. It’s too fractured, too many forums and sub forums and stuff is too spread out. It certainly feels a lot more sexist than here I admit. I don’t post there but i do read it weekly.
Golf Monthly Forums - My main hobby and read for the golf chat but the non golf forums are 99% men and it really shows, the sport topics and political ones are cess pits at times. The golf banter is good but the rest is not great.
Gaming Trend - Used to visit but it’s too similar to OO so went.
Reading through the above it’s clear that welcoming helps but time may be an issue as well. Finding time to integrate and become part of a forum is not easy.
Maybe a topic of the week would be fun, you know like something new weekly that’s on topic and fun would be interesting.
Also how do we bring those of us that don’t post often out of the woodwork a little more, it’s great when you see lurkers come out and say all this chat about a game (Subnautica springs to mind) and I have to post to add my piece and brings new posters out. Maybe we focus too much on the banal and regular I don’t know but those things spring to mind for me.
I have posted more this evening (haven’ actually eaten yet and it’s 9pm here) then ever I think…
I would say most “shrill” is in the eyes of the reader. It is why sarcasm doesn’t work well online, there is no nuance to text. Most of us just aren’t that good at writing or expressing ourselves.
Thus you imagine shrill, or you imagine someone has verbally wronged you when they meant no such thing.
I think with the shrill argument you miss one very important point. The source and the target. If the source chose that word, at that moment on purpose, to describe that target, yea, it was sexist. And it was meant to be.
And I will agree that JMJ could be sitting back laughing at how well his choice of words panned out.
It’s a bit odd though, what if she was acting shrill does that mean anyone else best not use it, what If I had said it, would that be acceptable because i don’t recall being sexist to anyone and there lies your issue, we can’t pick and choose who can use the terminology, it’s ban it or allow it or do some users get their own banned word lists depending on their posting history.
Someone earlier asked if you ever used the term shrill to describe a male, I don’t know if I saw a reply from you. If a term is only used to describe one sex and then in a not very flattering way, can’t you see why maybe a woman wouldn’t like that.
I am far from perfect, I have used several terms here that some have found offensive. Some I came around to understand, others I never did. But I did think again before using them and I thought about the context.
Thus far no one has suggested that JMJ outright not be allowed to call women shrill, but rather that it fairly definitely was a dick move for him to do so, and it’s a little silly to pretend it wasn’t. Other people may also be being dicks AS WE SPEAK. That was just one instance that we pointed out. Because doing that is probably healthier in the long run than just banning people.
Aye, when I read it i did think “ouch” but really didn’t feel the need to call him a troll I felt that was how he felt, maybe I was wrong but really calling it a sexist term because it was him using it is not really right is it.
Again, context matters a great deal. We’re not just deciding it’s cool for one user to say something and another user to not based on a whim. JMJ has literally and repeatedly trolled these sensitive discussions of sex and decorum with long-winded diatribes about his dick to thumb his nose at people he thinks are being prudes. He’s consistently made an effort to be as rude and unhelpful as possible on this specific topic because he thinks it’s a silly thing to talk about on a gaming message board and that we were all probably really no fun to hang out with in high school.
And he is allowed to think this, even though I was awesome to hang out with in high school.
I’m thinking about a post from a couple years back, I think, some poster (I forget who) saying his wife wouldn’t listen to the movie podcast because Tom and Christien and Kelly were kind of casually throwing around the word “chicks”. And it offended her. We all kind of turned that over for a bit, I think a lot of us thought that was pretty hyper-sensitive, never really heard of that word being used in a derogatory manner and certainly Tom and the guys didn’t mean it that way. But you know, everyone’s got their thing. I think you have to respect that. Or get thicker skin, I don’t know.
Trolling in and of itself is not a bad thing, although there is a time and place for it. I myself on certain threads will troll for a little while, but this thread perhaps isn’t the best place for it.
I warm-heartedly trolled a bit in the thread myself with a few offhand derails, but being deliberately sexist in a thread about being more welcoming to women and minorities is a bit much. And yes, shrill is one of those words that unfortunately no longer needs context because it’s solely used to demean women. Unlike thick-skinned!
But how far do you take it? We had an incident some years ago with a police response to a birthday party because they had baloons up for 1 5 and someone though thought it said “IS” (Daesh) and called it in. Is that something that people should think about before they use, or if they have a black towel or w.e. they hang up to dry and someone mistakes it for the AQ flag. It is that unfortunately people have been conditioned to see something that isn’t really there and thus react a certain way. If you’re to accomodate for every percieved slight, offence or threat that someone may or may not feel, I am not really certain you can even go outside the door even, let alone post something on the internet in a discussion, just having a disagreement is a slight for some people.
On the other hand, wearing that shirt that causes some people to mistake for something else could lead to a violent response towards you? So you’ll have to ask yourself if being beat up or worse is worth it to ‘broaden’ someones horizons in that, not everything is A, but can sometimes be a B or a C.
A communications error is surely a shared responsibility or are you saying that "I, being the enlightened party that is able to change my way should do so, since the other party surely is incapable of such and needs to be protected… ", treating everyone the same is surely more inclusive than having special rules, but you can of course try to be accommodating (like building ramps for handicapped people who are in a wheelchair so they can access public places etc…).
Funny that though, you warm heartedly troll while the other is a sexist monster who trolls for a living. I always like these different shades of grey depending who is posting them… grin…
I can’t give you the full response you deserve right now, but I’m confident that black people in America are absolutely capable of engaging in a two-way street of communication and adaptation to situations, but that they might feel just a little more comfortable easing off on their feelings of fear and unease around certain symbols commonly associated with the racist right when literal, actual, Hitler-soluting Nazis and literal, actual cross-burning KKK members aren’t routinely marching in the streets here in the US calling for the deaths of people who look different than them.
I get it. You can’t possibly account for every single slight and thing on earth. I don’t wanna keep posting a list of verboten words for everyone to follow along with, not least of all because I’m a horrible resource for knowing what they are anyway.
But ya know, there’s some bigger stuff that I think we can all manage together.
