Add Gender Options in the sidebar

[Valka D'Ur]

Firstly, I said "I don't think is what we want", not "we don't want", which means I'm speaking for what I think 'we' want. Secondly, you're not part of the 'we' I'm referring to.

If you're putting on the Royal We or referring to staff only (speaking for all of them, are you?), you should say so.

I don't think stalking is going to be an issue due to this. The problem I was referring to is that it could make this an unwelcoming environment for female members, if they feel they must display a disclaimer as to their gender in a male-dominated place. If someone is met with a profile field on sign-up asking for their gender, they'd be excused for believing that it might for some reason have some significance. When the vast majority of the forum populace is male, making a big deal, or any deal, of this difference would not strike me as a positive.

To preempt, I'm not saying that this is what you think, or what all females would think. I'm saying that I think the existence of such a field, particularly if it were displayed next to each post, would possibly create an unwelcoming environment for female posters. I don't think we would want that.

Never preempt my opinions, especially when you're doing exactly what you claim you're not doing.

Honestly, this feels like one of those "My girlfriend doesn't understand me/I don't understand women!!!" threads in OT where I decide to give some feedback to the guys who don't understand how women think and they promptly tell me I don't know what I'm talking about because I'm a woman.

The gender field would be OPTIONAL. As in check it if you want, and if you don't want to, you don't have to. I certainly know of women on other forums with this option who don't bother checking it.

There are some forums where I don't fill out my birthday information (or not all of it), sometimes I don't fill out my location, and in a couple of cases I haven't even got a sig. The reason I fill out all that stuff here is because I feel at home here, and safe. I've gotten to know some folks here outside of this site (whether on other sites, email exchanges, etc.), and so it's not a big deal to add one more visible piece of information.

Have you ever considered that some women look at a gaming forum, see that it's apparently populated exclusively by men, and they promptly go away? If they see there are already women there, they may be more willing to at least lurk for awhile, even if they don't join immediately.

 

[metatron]

The gender field would be OPTIONAL. As in check it if you want, and if you don't want to, you don't have to. I certainly know of women on other forums with this option who don't bother checking it.

Again: Most people men will check it out of indifference. You'll have a situation where 80% of the forum population is "male", 1% is "female" and 19% are "unchecked".

I have a really hard time seeing how a female non-member/member in potentia has any benefit from this. I have a hard time seeing how anybody has any benefit from this - except the 80%: They can now "safely" dude and bro each other.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I have a really hard time seeing how a female non-member/member in potentia has any benefit from this.

That's because you've never been a female trying to decide whether or not to join a forum that looks to be mostly populated by guys. There have been one or two female members here who, when discovering that I'm also female, expressed relief that they weren't the only one here (I guess that as much as OT is mostly male members, some of the Civ forums are even moreso).

 

[metatron]

That's because you've never been a female trying to decide whether or not to join a forum that looks to be mostly populated by guys. There have been one or two female members here who, when discovering that I'm also female, expressed relief that they weren't the only one here (I guess that as much as OT is mostly male members, some of the Civ forums are even moreso).

Yeah, my speculation is that this may be relevant to some of them, but that there may be other female potential users who wouldn't feel invited by a 95%+ male forum even if there are some very few women around.
If we have this gender box, these potential female users would know that we are such a forum right away. The way things are now they kinda have to find out (by lurking or whatever) giving us a chance to grow on them.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Unless 50% of the males pose as females... I'll have to think about this.

 

[bhsup]

It is possible to add your gender or your favoured pronoun under the username.

Did everyone miss this? Workable solution already in place.

 

[ainwood]

I'll add this when I get a chance. Male / female / unspecified.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Did everyone miss this? Workable solution already in place.

Some years ago, I tried this. My default usertitle was "Warlord" and I changed it to "Warlady." I daresay that most folks here completely missed it, or what it meant, judging by all the times I had to say, "Please don't call me 'dude'/refer to me as 'he' or 'him'", etc.

I'll add this when I get a chance. Male / female / unspecified.

Thank you, ainwood.

 

[bhsup]

Some years ago, I tried this. My default usertitle was "Warlord" and I changed it to "Warlady." I daresay that most folks here completely missed it, or what it meant, judging by all the times I had to say, "Please don't call me 'dude'/refer to me as 'he' or 'him'", etc.

Huh. Oh well, it was just a thought. I would have figured folks would pick up on it. Thanks for the correction and I guess Ainwood's thing is best option.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

I like it. ..for the potential drama it might produce, if nothing else.

 

[Furiey]

Personally I like the internet as somewhere that my opinions are taken as they are without being coloured by 'oh but you're a girl'. I get referred to as he, so what. Those people that get to know me know differently.
An unspecified option is just the 'what have you got to hide' option. It doesn't bother me if a forum is all male or not when I consider joining, a forum that is properly moderated so that posters are treated with respect is far more important.

 

[ainwood]

An unspecified option is just the 'what have you got to hide' option. .

The entire thing is optional. Unspecified is prempting wishes to cater for transgender etc, not the default if people don't want to specify male or female.

 

[Leoreth]

So there are four options in the end, male / female / unspecified / entry not shown, with the latter being default? I think this is a good solution, because it would also address some of the criticisms brought up in this thread.

You won't be prompted to select your gender when registering. I also predict that only a minority will even display their gender so there won't be a what do you have to hide effect, and you will simply be assumed to be male like now.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Personally I like the internet as somewhere that my opinions are taken as they are without being coloured by 'oh but you're a girl'. I get referred to as he, so what. Those people that get to know me know differently.
An unspecified option is just the 'what have you got to hide' option. It doesn't bother me if a forum is all male or not when I consider joining, a forum that is properly moderated so that posters are treated with respect is far more important.

I'm not saying I've never been treated with disrespect for being female; some years back, a guy on another gaming forum made some comment that he was surprised that I'd made such a good argument, considering my avatar was Duchess (the mother cat from the Disney movie The Aristocats). I set him straight via PM, and we eventually became friends. So even a situation that started out negatively later turned into a positive.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Custom user title. Bio within your profile. Joan K spells it out very explicitly in is sig (or I'd have not known). Feels to me like we have various ways of signalling it if it matters, and with the degree Genderbreadman nuance that a checkbox would never allow.

Happy to defer to your sense of it, though, Valka, if you really think it would up the female presence here. Threads like "will feminism end the west?" do become laughable when all one has is dudes weighing in. And then weighing in on whether they should be allowed to weigh in.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Happy to defer to your sense of it, though, Valka, if you really think it would up the female presence here. Threads like "will feminism end the west?" do become laughable when all one has is dudes weighing in. And then weighing in on whether they should be allowed to weigh in.

Oh, I've got some of the posts in that thread multiquoted, and when I've caught up to the end of the thread, I'll have some things to say...

I'm not saying that having this feature enabled here will definitely prompt more women to join, but it's a possibility. I'm just going by my experiences on other forums - I've belonged to a lot of different types over the years, and something like this has never turned out badly that I've seen.

 

[dutchfire]

In addition to Aimee and Valka, I can think of at least two other people who have had problems with people misgendering them: Aelf and Zelig. Both of these posters have been wrongly identified as men -- despite Aelf posting numerous pictures in the Members Photos thread! An icon identifying them as non-Men would certainly nip this in the bud!

Wow, I didn't know Zelig is female.

 

[Mise]

You knew Aelf was though right?

 

[dutchfire]

Sorta, if I think about it hard enough, but I don't actively remember it when I read her posts and would probably refer with 'his' by default.

 

[Mise]

(Sorry, just to be clear, neither Aelf nor Zelig is female. Some people thought Aelf might have been a woman, and there was a hilarious conversation discussing why it was obvious that Aelf was a woman in the Member Photos Thread a year or two ago. Zelig, IIRC, pretended to be a woman, or was thought a woman, or something like that. I can't really remember. Anyway, this whole thing was my way of saying "there have been a few misconceptions over the years".)