"How Card Games Became Cool Again"

This is all true, and I’m sure there are people with that background who enjoy and appreciate it.

But there’s also a whole heck of a lot of this still going around.

I mean, geographical location probably plays as much a part as anything else, too. I live in the middle of a large liberal city, which probably skews my personal view of it.

I hope you’re aware that this exists

a) completely awesome
b) some missed pun potential - for instance, the Andromeda really, really should read “Dispossed Swiftie” for maximum hilarity

Dat Zabaitsu and Muertos Gang Member!!

Style. That song makes me feel like a teen again.

Love these ideas! @eric_c and I were also talking about some way to get casual/alternative format events more visibility. Maybe a thread dedicated to core-only and other beginner-friendly events, both for organizing them and sharing experiences having attended them.

Though yeah, I feel like getting women and other folk who are forum-wary here is still a tough obstacle that I honestly don’t have many ideas for addressing. I do think building easier access points is a great start!

FAQ seems pretty solid. Maybe making it more visible (I’m on mobile And had looked for one and couldn’t find it). Also adding a section on who to contact in case of a problem.

About doesn’t really cover that these people will help you out if you’re being harassed. I had seen it but it isn’t obvious if they pm these people about that that it is the right person.

One reason why we didn’t sticky a general thread was that there isn’t very much room at the top of the forum to have more than 2 stickies without sort of clogging up everything. We have the new player help thread, but it’s pretty inactive. If we were to have a general thread instead, what should we call it to indicate to newer players that it’s a good place to jump in?

I like the idea of an “Introduce Yourself!”-thread.
It does not need to be for beginners exclusively:
I would imagine it makes these forums way less intimidating if new players could look into that thread, see the posts of the forum veterans and realise they also are just normal people.

I lean pretty heavily to the right, as does my friend who also plays netrunner, but we both thoroughly enjoy the game. Cyberpunk has always been a really interesting flavor for me (Ghost in the Shell being one of my favorite anime). I really hooked into the flavor and have been looking for a card game to get into for a while now ever since I quit Pokemon. Philly regionals was a great event that really brought back the feel of competitive play for me.

I think one of the biggest things is realizing that netrunner is a fun game, and that if we are all excellent to one another, people of many different demographics can get along and have fun in a warm and welcoming environment. I’ve been very pleased with how pleasant the community has been, and I try to reach out to others and engage them in conversation to make them feel welcome.

New player introduction thread seems like a good title.

Something like a couple of baseline questions to answer (where are you from, how long have you been playing, what decks you’re playing) as well as saying any questions about anything in the forum can be asked. In a friendly welcoming tone. Id type something up in full, but I don’t have internet until tomorrow so it’s all mobile which is a pain.

The first post can also double as linking to community guidelines so that it’s more visible.

on the topic of the thread @kim and i were discussing, i was actually thinking of somewhere people could discuss ideas for what they’re doing to make their groups more approachable/diverse or to attract new players. like, “what are you doing to grow this community and make it more awesome” – a reminder that while most are here to discuss competitive aspects of the game, there is a burden on us to help make sure this game isn’t dying/stagnant in a year or two or five because that’s all we focused on. i mean, we can’t trust that FFG will just take care of all/any of that. maybe that could be even this thread.

I feel it should be pointed out that, not only does this article features @mediohxcore, but it is written by Stimhack’s own @kim.

Found this post on reddit relevant:

I haven’t ever posted before, but thought this discussion needed a little more reaction from a woman. First of all, on the whole, having been a female in a lot of male spaces in my life, I find that the Netrunner community has been easier to fit (and much, much more respectful) than many others. I’m really happy to be a part of the community, and I have met some wonderful people through it.
That said, it’s still a place where I am constantly made to feel like I need to prove myself to the people I don’t know yet. At casual game nights, I’ve had a lot of experiences where the really competitive players (that I don’t know) will “take a starbucks break” when it’s time to play me. I find that it’s really hard to talk game and strategy with men I have yet to beat.
That’s the weird thing. Once I’ve beaten someone, they start treating me completely differently. The tone of their voice changes. They start asking me serious questions about my deckbuilding choices and advice on theirs. Etc.
I’m not living in the skin of any of the dudes around who are newer players, but I don’t get the sense that they feel like they have to earn each and every individual by kicking their ass in order to feel like part of the group.
I want to describe two things that that have happened to me to make me feel this way that are a little different than the “did your boyfriend teach you” and unsolicited advice that comes across as condescending in the hopes that they can open up the conversation a little more. And to be clear, I don’t think anyone means any of this in a malicious way–at least one of these is clearly a compliment–but the way that it comes across coupled with the fact that I don’t hear any dudes saying these two things to other dudes can feel really uncomfortable.

1. I set my playmat down before a match. Opponent: “Wow, Winter Champion? That’s so impressive.” This usually happens when there are a bunch of GNK playmats around, and the most I ever hear the guys say to each other is “cool playmat.” While this is a compliment, it is usually presented in a very surprised tone of voice which implicitly suggests that they are surprised to see a chick with a championship playmat.
2. Right before I am about to play someone, they tell me that they are going to switch to their more fun/janky deck for this match, even when all night they’ve been seriously playtesting their Pre-Paid Kate for the tournament this weekend. On the one hand, I love to play against janky decks and see other people’s wacky creativity way more. On the other, there is something implicit in this that suggests they do not see me as a serious opponent.
   I play competitively sometimes, but not often, largely because as soon as I show up at a tournament (I’ve never been to one with another woman present), I suddenly feel like I’m representing all women and if I do badly, everyone will continue to hold stereotypes that women are not so good at this. And let me tell you, there is nothing that brings on the stupid mistakes like suddenly feeling that pressure to perform for something bigger than yourself…
   Again, I love this game and I feel pretty good about this community. My point in sharing these experiences is to suggest that people think about how they speak to different members of their local community and if there are differences in the way that you treat different people. I notice how people speak to me differently than they do others, even if they don’t.
   I don’t think any of the people I’ve encountered were deliberately treating me differently because I’m a woman. It’s automatic and unconscious. But it’s clear to me that I’m fighting against implicit assumptions every time I sit across the table from someone new. All that said though, I’ve been really impressed with the way that people have seemingly changed those implicit assumptions after I’ve played with them. So good on you guys!

Just call it: Stimhack Lounge Chat and in the opening say its a free for all. It’s meant to be a chat thread. New people should introduce themselves. Etc.

I think it’s a good idea to have a thread explicitly for new people. Long running chat thread will quickly become just as intimidating to new people (it also doesn’t need to be stickied, as general discussion thread will keep itself at the top anyway).

likewise stimhack non-staff @HEacho is also featured.

I think that one thing that hasn’t really been discussed is how to keep the quality of the discussion high. I think the amount of meme-related chat (e.g. memstrips) has gone way up of late, which I personally find annoying. Also, I feel that most sites go through a process whereby early in their lives, they’re full of interesting chat and as the appeal broadens, the quality of the chat goes down. I am all for being welcoming - but I think I benefit from the fact that it’s somewhat intimidating to post about your game thoughts, especially if you’re not good. If I want to read a forum where it seems like everyone’s empowered to share their observations, I’ll go to reddit and be downvoted for suggesting that ‘underworld contacts’ is not a tier-1 card. In fact, I feel /r/netrunner is a good example of this. It used to have good content but as the game gets more popular and newer players dominate the voting on reddit, the quality nose-dives.
I think an introduction thread is a good idea. I think that having lots of off-topic chat will bring memes and off-topic chat more into the main site, which I don’t want. For me, the primary focus of stimhack is competitive netrunner, and I while I want people to feel comfortable using the site, I also want most of the posts to be high-level discussion. Maybe we could do something like an ‘Explain like I’m 5’ thread where people could post what they regarded as ‘n00b’ questions and people could answer.
Ok, tl;dr - let’s make it inviting and also make sure that the content remains of high quality.

With some reference to xerxes’ post, there was a study done where two groups of women who were good at math were asked to do a math test. One group was told that only women were taking the test and the other group was told that men and women were taking the test and the scores of each gender would be compared. The first group did better.

So it’s fair to say that to an extent women may “psyche themselves out” when competing in a traditionally male activity, and it’s not necessarily the fault of the men in the immediate vicinity. (The fault is still probably sociological in origin though).

So it becomes the responsibility of the men and women in the immediate vicinity to recognize that such effects exist and work together to not exacerbate them.