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[HariKari]

If you think the world of poker isn't the most friendly for women think what a gaming forum is going to be like with all its "you're gunna get raped" jokes.

In your example, the mood only soured when the guy sat down. It wasn't anything he did in particular, beyond just brazenly entering a women's tournament. It's solely that he was male. No one looks good in that example.

Always a bad sign in forums. The mods' decisions being infallible is more important than the rules being applied correctly? Never ends well.

They're official forums. A subreddit or even this thread on GAF is a better place to criticize and organize. Do any official forums let rioters run through the streets openly calling out mods? Just protecting the brand/image is all, as reprehensible as it is. The rape threads and bikini stuff is just inexcusable.

 

[caleb1915]

It's hard for me to have an opinion on this if I can't actually read the thread. Maybe I am naive, but I have a hard time believing she would be banned simply for starting an innocent thread about wanting to make a girl group.

A little bit maybe, i don't find it hard to believe the people given the unwavering power to dictate what is tolerable for their community to see let's their views and actions be influenced by the community's reaction.



And the fact they don't have to answer (and likely punish) to anyone who comes to them with questions isn't really surprising.

 

[moolamb]

Just droppin' this here.

http://youtu.be/V4UWxlVvT1A

Probably NSFW.

 

[Bony Manifesto]

Always a bad sign in forums. The mods' decisions being infallible is more important than the rules being applied correctly? Never ends well.

NeoGAF (and pretty much every other forum) has exactly the same policy though. If you allow public discussion of the moderation, as soon as anyone gets banned, the topic of the thread will inevitably shift towards whether that person should have been banned or not. Which of course always devolves into a heated argument about Nazi mods suppressing free speech.

 

[ATXAlchemy]

I'm not totally sure but I'm going to guess that men who have been raped in the past are not exactly going to be happy about a game that lets them relive that horror in a virtual world either, somehow.

That said: rape victims are disproportionally women.

Star Citizen allows you to get raped in-game?

 

[James Coote]

The point about "Girls only club" being unfair on guys might be valid if we lived in a perfect world. But we don't. It's a small sacrifice for you to "miss out" on things happening in that "girls" club, vs the huge benefit for those women to have a place to go when the wider community gets hostile. If you spent just a day on the receiving end of this kind of stuff, you'd be like "oh shit, that's the least I can do!"

 

[Talyn]

For people who err towards the side that a "girls only" club will foster division, there are reasons why sometimes women want to be only in their own company:

http://www.victoriacoren.com/main/blog/archive/pick_on_someone_your_own_size

This is amusing because if the situation had been reversed, as is usually the case, the men in the club would be portrayed as horrible misogynists who didn't want to let the poor woman participate in their "good old boys only" poker game. No one would give a damn about their desire to "sometimes be only in their own company."

 

[meltingparappa]

To completely miss seeing the forest from the trees: sex, space bikinis, and fictional sexual violence are in entirely different levels.

Despite there being a safe bet that any of those may be an uncomfortable topic to a female community member, I (as a male who is probably wrong on this) feel it is possible to discuss those topics without it turning abhorrent, which is the line that the community manager should draw.

I think calling for a self imposed censorship causes the typical forum member to double down because they feel they shouldn't have to change in order to coddle a "small" group. Trying to instigate a change in typical internet gender attitudes might go over better with trying to maintain a modicum of social grace, if even superficially.


Also sexism in a minimally moderated hardcore videogame forum is as expected as the sun riding.

 

[chrominance]

Star Citizen allows you to get raped in-game?

Apparently that was the proposal brought forward by some Star Citizen forum members.

 

[Alienous]

It's weird.

Ultimately aren't these exclusive groups a barrier to inclusion? They must stagnate the integration of people with others.

I've never liked the idea. To me it's BET levels of misguided. Let people be people. A group of gamers banding together solely because they share the same gender is inherently sexist.

 

[Ratrat]

That said: rape victims are disproportionally women.

There was a thread about this in ot recently. Its possibly not so disproportionate as you assume.

 

[AlimNassor]

Most those threads were civil. You did seem to be harsh, with the video interviews/background checks. It's just sad men and women can't be together.

 

[Abriael]

"I want to stir trouble, please support me."

 

[Glass Shark]

It's weird.

Ultimately aren't these exclusive groups a barrier to inclusion? They must stagnate the integration of people with others.

I've never liked the idea. To me it's BET levels of misguided. Let people be people. A group of gamers banding together solely because they share the same gender is inherently sexist.

That's kind of like saying that gendered locker rooms are sexist because everyone should just be okay getting naked in front of each other. Just be people!

 

[Lord of Castamere]

Interesting.
Where did they put her topic? When she said "part of the forums where threads get buried very quickly " did she mean an obscure sub-forum or more of an OT area or what? Its not uncommon at all for a forum to have an area where they put community threads regardless of her insistence that it should be wherever she wanted it. Don't get me wrong I agree that some of the responses are a little much. I've had to deal with that and more in other community threads on other forums. Equating them to the KKK is just absurd.

I'm not sure whose side I'm on for the Mods though. The mod response was off as well. The members trolling the thread should have had their posts deleted and been warned. At minimum they were trolling at best they were derailing. Though that's not an easy call to make and depending of other variables I could easily be swayed the other way. I would never have banned her though unless the trolling intent was clear. I might have warned for the flag spamming, or given the lowest ban if no warning system is in place.

 

[Recall]

This thread was made knowing that these topics always spiral out of control, right?

 

[akira28]

"I want to stir trouble, please support me."

Making it strictly girls only may have brought it to a confrontational level. What they should have done was make it a girl friendly safe place, closely moderated for trolls from the outside, and let the women make it their own space through community action and posting. If the mods couldn't support that, then that's just bad moderation and customer service. But making a rule, no men allowed, and then asking for SC to make it so, that could have become problematic. Instead of letting it blow up like this and banning her, they should have tempered the issue and made some smart suggestions, while also isolating the asshats and putting them in their place.

 

[Fantastapotamus]

The point about "Girls only club" being unfair on guys might be valid if we lived in a perfect world. But we don't. It's a small sacrifice for you to "miss out" on things happening in that "girls" club, vs the huge benefit for those women to have a place to go when the wider community gets hostile. If you spent just a day on the receiving end of this kind of stuff, you'd be like "oh shit, that's the least I can do!"

Also it's not like it would hurt anybody. The "background check" stuff might be weird but then again nobody is forced to join that club.

This thread was made knowing that these topics always spiral out of control, right?

Soooo.....what? Because of that nobody should ever talk about it?

 

[caleb1915]

It's weird.

Ultimately aren't these exclusive groups a barrier to inclusion? They must stagnate the integration of people with others.

I've never liked the idea. To me it's BET levels of misguided. Let people be people. A group of gamers banding together solely because they share the same gender is inherently sexist.

How is it inherently sexist to have people discuss things associated with their gender that they don't feel comfortable discussing with those of the opposite sex?


I guess it'd be harder to understand if you're a ok with discussing gender specific things with everyone. But I don't think you are.

 

[Yopis]

Love the headline grabbing thread title. Having a female only group in the official forums seems sexist in my view. Why not create your own forum then you could provide that safe haven for female gamers to enjoy and talk about the game.

Dealing with a private forum you could be banned by anything the mod feels like that day. The comments were pretty bad. Oh and that poker example looked bad on both sides.

 

[Minsc]

The point about "Girls only club" being unfair on guys might be valid if we lived in a perfect world. But we don't. It's a small sacrifice for you to "miss out" on things happening in that "girls" club, vs the huge benefit for those women to have a place to go when the wider community gets hostile. If you spent just a day on the receiving end of this kind of stuff, you'd be like "oh shit, that's the least I can do!"

I posted it on the other page, but there will be the problem when the game launches then, when hundreds or thousands of (paying) players purposively aim to grief the girl-only guilds. I'm sure it won't be pretty either. In the end it sounds like a big mess to deal with, but it's probably nothing new to Star Citizen, I'm sure WOW and other MMOs have girl-only guilds that draw negative attention as well.

It just seems to bring a lot of trouble with it. When there are problems within the guild, and people are complaining to the devs, eventually they will decide it's more hassle than it's worth I think. Maybe I'm wrong, but the online gaming with large groups of people isn't the most friendly, tolerating place to be. I think even playing 1v1 online you see this quite a bit, how much hate and bad manners other people will display.

 

[Aztechnology]

So you're using confirmation bias as your reasoning to essentially create an organization with a country club model. By this I mean a place that will often let anyone come in as long as they don't break the rules, but many of which have lounges where only male members are allowed to enter. You're telling me by creating an environment where men can't come in is safer... and that's not sexist? Because that sounds like either sexism or androphobia to me.

I hope this doesn't get shut down too quickly for discussing the tough issues. This is where bans are appropriate, not thread closures. This stuff needs to get flushed out and discussed or people will be forever jaded.

 

[RpgN]

This is amusing because if the situation had been reversed, as is usually the case, the men in the club would be portrayed as horrible misogynists who didn't want to let the poor woman participate in their "good old boys only" poker game. No one would give a damn about their desire to "sometimes be only in their own company."

While I find that example personally very extreme (poor guy), it's unfair to say something like that. It is not the same when most communities are populated with males. When I read and participate in threads, most of them feel like ''male only club'' threads, whether it's intentional or not. They don't have to label them officially as such.

If we lived in a world where gaming communities are dominated by females, then I would have absolutely agreed with you. Being a minority is a very unpleasant experience. Wanting an exclusive community with a minority doesn't mean the minority are being sexists.

 

[Majukun]

Just droppin' this here.

http://youtu.be/V4UWxlVvT1A

Probably NSFW.

not really that good,it's really that difficult to approach such topic from a "balanced" point of view?

The point about "Girls only club" being unfair on guys might be valid if we lived in a perfect world. But we don't. It's a small sacrifice for you to "miss out" on things happening in that "girls" club, vs the huge benefit for those women to have a place to go when the wider community gets hostile. If you spent just a day on the receiving end of this kind of stuff, you'd be like "oh shit, that's the least I can do!"

it would also mean for the moderators o admit that the other half of the community is unsafe or simply "doesn't welcome" women.
and in general,you don't help gender equalty by separating them.

 

[n00bsauce87]

I think it's understandable that women wants to talk to other women in a game that they love. People saying they can understand why others wouldn't approve of that is quite confusing. What is there to understand? In their world, only men exist I guess. So to see that women wanting to separate themselves from them (and it wasn't really like that from what I've read in OP, they just want their own space, not to disassociate themselves from the guys) is a problem in any sense of the word is sad.

 

[Yopis]

This thread was made knowing that these topics always spiral out of control, right?

Thread title is like bees to honey. Hope people stay civil.

 

[HariKari]

"I want to stir trouble, please support me."

The added screenshots of the thread really start to paint that picture

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/35305811/RSI/brownsea1.png

Things seem really civil until "Lauresh" starts getting upset that people aren't hot on the idea. "Pippy" seems to be a female gamer that isn't okay with it and has some pretty good posts early on. It just spirals from there. I am always wary when someone has a list of demands for a resolution ready to go. It just makes it all seem a little sketchy.

 

[chrominance]

It's weird.

Ultimately aren't these exclusive groups a barrier to inclusion? They must stagnate the integration of people with others.

I've never liked the idea. To me it's BET levels of misguided. Let people be people. A group of gamers banding together solely because they share the same gender is inherently sexist.

Perhaps. But you're assuming that the default mode of operation (i.e. no exclusive groups) doesn't also exclude people implicitly. And to hopefully explain that in more detail: look at the third post in the first OP image, from TheBlackadder:

Mmm... I don't really quite get the phrasing, 'safe environment.' It's safe enough here, isn't it?

It's a pretty innocuous comment, as these things go. It's not an attack, it's not malicious (at least, I assume it isn't--I suppose it could be dripping with sarcasm but I doubt it). But what it's saying is, on some level, exclusive. That poster thinks the forums are safe for everyone, surely this must be the case? After all, that poster's never had any concerns about not being able to voice their opinion or not being able to tackle any criticisms leveled at them. Everything's cool.

If you're the kind of poster for who that isn't true, and if you happen to see a trend where a lot of the people experiencing problems on the forum all happen to fall into a certain group, then is being out in the open going to be safer than trying to close yourself off and isolate yourself from the rest? That's more of an open question. My sense is that TheBlackadder either doesn't understand that there are posters who don't feel they can express themselves freely, or doesn't believe it. And there are probably a lot of people on those forums who feel the same way.

So while I'm not the biggest fan of creating an isolated group with strict rules on membership, I can absolutely understand the desire to create a safe environment. Ideally, you'd make the forums hospitable enough that it becomes what TheBlackadder thinks already exists: a safe space for EVERYONE. Given what's been going on (and given the history of, oh, the whole internet), I'm not holding my breath. But ideally that's what we would have.

 

[Donos]

That is messy from the start and will probably get even uglier.

And btw. who the fuck goes to a ladies poker tournament as a man. Only because it's not illegal? Damn some people.

 

[obonicus]

But making a rule, no men allowed, and then asking for SC to make it so

I don't think they were asking SC to do anything, they were suggesting the idea to other female backers. They mention building the infrastructure.

I transcribed the OP. Any typos are probably my own:

Hi SC backers and fans.

After a conversation today I realised there's not really a place for the females in Star Citizen to hang out and talk about random stuff in a safe environment so I'm starting one.

I have no idea what the group will be called yet as I'm bad with picking names so for now I'll just call it the Female Gamers Group of Star Citizen. (Yes, this WILL be changing).

To qualify to become a member you need to identify as a female (absolutely no guys) and that's it. There will of course be group rules such as anything said in the group must not be repeated outside of the group without the permission and such but generally it'll be a pretty relaxing place to hang out and chat.

Girls, If you're keen on getting involved please PM me here on the forums and I'll setup a voice interview with you and a general background check. I should have a jabber server setup for us to chat on soon.

Guys, once we have infrastructure setup, please feel free to get involved in the public areas but of course the private areas will be reserved for members only.

As a side note, i wanted to point out that this is in no way a Goonrathi program and is open to absolutely all organisations. Organisation politics is not welcome in the group.

 

[KoopaTheCasual]

"Star Citizen has it's fair share of sexist remarks including a thread asking for rape to become a part of the game because pirates should be absolutely disgusting people"

I'm more amazed at this thread than the main one in the article! What goes through some people's heads sometimes? This is the most moronic thing I've seen in ages.

Anyway, I don't see any problem with setting up a group for just girls, or any other section of the community, if it those members idea. It's just a group, not the damn KKK.

Yea, that rape thread is mindblowingly dumb. Like holy shit.

 

[Kinyou]

Making it strictly girls only may have brought it to a confrontational level. What they should have done was make it a girl friendly safe place, closely moderated for trolls from the outside, and let the women make it their own space through community action and posting. If the mods couldn't support that, then that's just bad moderation and customer service. But making a rule, no men allowed, and then asking for SC to make it so, that could have become problematic. Instead of letting it blow up like this and banning her, they should have tempered the issue and made some smart suggestions, while also isolating the asshats and putting them in their place.

That sounds like a good way to approach it. To go as far as saying that you need to provide proof that you're really female and that every topic that is talked about inside the group is "confidential" seems kind of extreme.

When you really want this kind of privacy you can start your own website + Guild, but I don't see why the devs should have to support it.

 

[Recall]

Also it's not like it would hurt anybody. The "background check" stuff might be weird but then again nobody is forced to join that club.



Soooo.....what? Because of that nobody should ever talk about it?

There is a difference from talking about it to flat out exploding into "if you find someone sexy you are a sexist, rage111!" This isn't some hot new topic, it isn't the same thread we've never had before. We all know where this all leads and it can get out of hand, but I guess if the thread ain't for me, then it ain't for me.

Some people are idiots and horrible on the Internet. These people don't represent everyone.

 

[Orayn]

It's weird.

Ultimately aren't these exclusive groups a barrier to inclusion? They must stagnate the integration of people with others.

I've never liked the idea. To me it's BET levels of misguided. Let people be people. A group of gamers banding together solely because they share the same gender is inherently sexist.

By the same token, why does the NAACP hate whitey so much? I mean, if you reverse the roles—which is obviously a totally valid thing to do because roles have no history or context behind them and it's always possible to change them on a whim without affecting the implications of the original scenario–then they're clearly racist as hell. Crazy, right?

Spoiler

This post is deeply sarcastic and I tried to make that obvious.

 

[Principate]

The point about "Girls only club" being unfair on guys might be valid if we lived in a perfect world. But we don't. It's a small sacrifice for you to "miss out" on things happening in that "girls" club, vs the huge benefit for those women to have a place to go when the wider community gets hostile. If you spent just a day on the receiving end of this kind of stuff, you'd be like "oh shit, that's the least I can do!"

TBF the issue is always moderating it. There's no real way without getting into very personal information, to determine if someone is male or female online. This combined the clubs existence in a hostile environment paints a red target of abuse. It's the reason why you rarely see girls only guilds in mmo's.

It often becomes a mess.

 

[Messofanego]

Ok, starts getting messy around page 3 when people start questioning the safety of such a social group or whether this all is "trolling". And then assuming it'll be a group for "bitching about men", sports bras, etc.

 

[TheSpoiler]

That sounds like a good way to approach it. To go as far as saying that you need to provide proof that you're really female and that every topic that is talked about inside the group is "confidential" seems kind of extreme.

When you really want this kind of privacy you can start your own website + Guild, but I don't see why the devs should have to support it.

And this topic is done.

I think games could all do well with a bit more moderation from all angles. Snuff out the trolls in general, so that it's welcome to everyone.

 

[Alienous]

How is it inherently sexist to have people discuss things associated with their gender that they don't feel comfortable discussing with those of the opposite sex?


I guess it'd be harder to understand if you're a ok with discussing gender specific things with everyone. But I don't think you are.

Things associated with their gender like what, exactly? What are the subjects that a male voice is invalid in? Because a section of them promote rape, they should all be dismissed. Considering the opposite, what are the subjects that a group of males might think a female voice is invalid in? Particularly in a gaming forum?

I'm asking. I can't think of any.

That's kind of like saying that gendered locker rooms are sexist because everyone should just be okay getting naked in front of each other. Just be people!

How often do you go to a locker room for a discourse? That's kind of what this is about, excluding people from a discussion based on gender, it's not about the right to see the other gender's nudie parts.

 

[BumblebeeCody]

Just droppin' this here.

http://youtu.be/V4UWxlVvT1A

Probably NSFW.

Not really related to the thread but was an interesting watch.

 

[chrominance]

There was a thread about this in ot recently. Its possibly not so disproportionate as you assume.

I'm not suggesting men don't get raped, because I don't want to spread the misconception that it's only a problem for women. RAINN suggests that 1 in 10 rape victims are men. It doesn't specify if by that they mean males or just adult males (children are broken out separately). Rape reporting is obviously very difficult to get accurate numbers for, and probably especially so for male victims; this National Crime Victimization Survey indicates the number could be as high as 4 in 10.

But if we're going down this road, then I'm going to simply say that my primary argument against including rape in a game is that it's unreasonable to ask victims of rape, no matter their gender, to have to experience a similar phenomenon in a video game. It doesn't even matter much that it would not be X-rated, as specified in the original thread; just having it be non-consensual and impossible to stop would be enough.

 

[Yopis]

I think it's understandable that women wants to talk to other women in a game that they love. People saying they can understand why others wouldn't approve of that is quite confusing. What is there to understand? In their world, only men exist I guess. So to see that women wanting to separate themselves from them (and it wasn't really like that from what I've read in OP, they just want their own space, not to disassociate themselves from the guys) is a problem in any sense of the word is sad.

Don't agree if we want to move everything foward people need to learn how to tolarate each other. What happens later if I joined with a friend who was a girl? By not joining this womens section would she be alone in the general forums?

Women bring another angle in real life and gaming. Would make the game less appealing if all of them only felt safe in this group.

They should have a girls section that can have anyone involved thats heavily moderated or create a separate forum for that need.

 

[guggnichso]

3. For them to encourage and support my idea of a female community, and due to the inconvenience I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that CIG start a brand new thread on my behalf.

The way she want's to set that up would be quite transphobic. What about women that have a male body? They would never be able to get through her videointerview.

 

[SkeptiMism]

In your example, the mood only soured when the guy sat down. It wasn't anything he did in particular, beyond just brazenly entering a women's tournament. It's solely that he was male. No one looks good in that example.

The reason the mood was soured when the guy sat down wasn't just because he was a man. It was more because he was a man who had very obviously come there just because he felt so entitled to take part in a women's tournament. If he had come smiling and saying something like "sorry I realize this is meant for women only, but I really don't enjoy playing with men for [reasons], and I really mean no harm, so is it ok if I join you?" instead of just coming in without saying anything at all and thus very obviously making it clear he was there only for "equality".

This is amusing because if the situation had been reversed, as is usually the case, the men in the club would be portrayed as horrible misogynists who didn't want to let the poor woman participate in their "good old boys only" poker game. No one would give a damn about their desire to "sometimes be only in their own company."

If in that hypothetical reverse situation the poor woman had come and asked nicely if she could join and maybe given some reasons for why she would specifically like to join the men, and the men had just got angry at her, then yeah maybe. If the poor woman had come there making it very she came only just because she felt those men shouldn't have the right to have their own tournament then I can't see that happening.

No offense, but that seems like a stupid strawman.

 

[caleb1915]

I also think it's humorous that the people in power are always dudes wondering why they can't just discuss things with everyone else.


Girls: "We don't exactly feel safe, and openly able to discuss our viewpoints in these forums."

Guys: "LOL WHY NOT, IS IT THAT TIME OF THE MONTH AGAIN"

 

[obonicus]

The way she want's to set that up would be quite transphobic. What about women that have a male body? They would never be able to get through her videointerview.

That's kind of a big conclusion to leap to. There's also no video interview mentioned in the OP. There is a voice interview.

 

[Majukun]

Not really related to the thread but was an interesting watch.

not really.
it was less about beinga male in a female dominated society and more about being in a world were everyone is a jerk for the sake of being a jerk

 

[Tesseract]

Making it strictly girls only may have brought it to a confrontational level. What they should have done was make it a girl friendly safe place, closely moderated for trolls from the outside, and let the women make it their own space through community action and posting. If the mods couldn't support that, then that's just bad moderation and customer service. But making a rule, no men allowed, and then asking for SC to make it so, that could have become problematic. Instead of letting it blow up like this and banning her, they should have tempered the issue and made some smart suggestions, while also isolating the asshats and putting them in their place.

you magnificent bastard

 

[Alienous]

By the same token, why does the NAACP hate whitey so much? I mean, if you reverse the roles—which is obviously a totally valid thing to do because roles have no history or context behind them and it's always possible to change them on a whim without affecting the implications of the original scenario–then they're clearly racist as hell. Crazy, right?

Spoiler

This post is deeply sarcastic and I tried to make that obvious.

The sarcasm is quite overt.

Holding on to history is no way to achieve equality, though.

 

[guggnichso]

That's kind of a big conclusion to leap to. There's also no video interview mentioned in the OP. There is a voice interview.

Well, a voice interview will produce the same results. She seems to exclusively want women in there and she sets her "test" up in a way that only a biological female will pass.

 

[Orayn]

The sarcasm is quite overt.

Holding on to history is no way to achieve equality.

Because history ceases to affect the present simply by insisting that it doesn't or shouldn't? Sounds like some mind over matter garbage.