Definitely and that’s part of why FLGSs can be uninviting. My wife has had her fair share of those exact experiences. She’s even had someone stand over her at a convention to talk to me even though she was much more interested, and initially more responsive, in what he was talking about.
The article did a good job of going over it though, so I thought I’d bring up a different point 
I have just signed up to thank you for this article. Seeing stuff like this is heartening.
i came here to post this very thing.
the recent post on NRD, for example, someone came out to say ‘hey, i use guys all the time, and so does everyone else i know, i don’t see what the big deal is’
i saw some explanations of why it’s a big deal to people, but i also saw a lot of trolling in response, even by one of the admins.
i felt that this was really unfortunate because it reminded of what happened when the NRG page got shut down. there were a lot of ‘when’s men’s night’ posts which were obviously meant to stir up drama, but there were an equal amount of posts from the other side whose sole purpose was the stir things up as well, and very little education presented in a reasonable way to these people
bringing this back to my and @moistloaf’s point, not everyone has had the same education in how and why these things can be a problem for some people. i love the article in how it clearly laid out the hows and whys, but also, i really appreciate that it gave the offenders involved a chance to apologise and allow everyone to move on and not dwell on it. i recall another moment a while ago when @mediohxcore named a deck (whose central component was Marcus Batty) that apparently was a derogatory term in some cultures. he was given the chance to say ‘yep, sorry about that.’ and people accepted that he didn’t know, and we all moved on. i doubt many people recall, and i’m sure i’m not remembering it correctly either. but i think Dan is given a little more leeway as a well-known member of the community.
whereas my own experiences, not nearly as many people know who i am… i posted a picture on NRD that was considered offensive (i didn’t think it was at the time, but i now completely understand why).
anyway, i was messaged 7 times about the picture having been moderated, was told that it might be considered offensive, and then that ‘maybe [i] should be more considerate of [my] fellow community members in the future’
i didn’t even respond, because i had already been accused and found guilty, so an apology didn’t seem warranted or even welcome, so when this first happened, it wasn’t explained to me the hows and whys it was considered offensive, and i ended up bringing it up a couple of times later to share that experience.
it wasn’t until i brought it up in slack many months later that @eric_c i believe pointed out why he found it offensive. now i know. i apologised to eric, and now i don’t bring it up anymore
there was another situation a couple years ago with what pronoun to use with apex. i knew that it was an issue before anyone had even brought it up, but it was apparently a huge thing in the thread, but i remember i had used the it pronoun several times, but missed a he somewhere, and someone came out and talked down to me in a huge tl;dr of text of how misguided and misogynistic i was, how uninformed i must be. i got no credit for realising that it was an issue and having made an effort to go over and correct things. my response at the time was not pleasant, and i want situations like these in the future for people who are corrected to be done so in a way that’s inclusive to them as well. had they simply pointed out that i forgot a he, i would have said ‘yep, sorry about that’, and we could have moved on.
i consider myself a pretty progressive person with a strong liberal leaning in terms of social issues and expected behaviours. i have a lot of education in sociolinguistics, but even i obviously can make mistakes. so when i’m accused of being something i really don’t feel i am, i didn’t think it was very fair at all, and my responses weren’t really representative of who i try to be or feel i am.
i know most of the people in this thread have been reasonable, so this isn’t really targeted at anyone (or even the people from my examples). i just think when problems like these happen, we follow the example of this article and allow some education to happen in a reasonable way, the opportunity for apologies to be made, and that we all move on together as a community
To give you some perspective, there are a lot of jerks out there on the internet.
Many discussions like this are derailed by people “just asking questions” and forcing people to re-establish the premise over and over again. It gets very hard for people to have a meaningful discussion. This has been used as a deliberate tactic by people arguing in bad faith.
That makes it incredibly frustrating when people do it, even in good faith. There are only so many times you can reasonably make your case before getting fed up.
Now I know a lot of people don’t react to being told that they’re acting exclusionary. It’s human nature. It’s very easy to take it personally and feel like you’re being accused of something. In most of these situations, people are being asked to make minor behavioural changes that cost them nothing in the hopes of making life better for others.
Of course, all it takes is a well-intentioned jerk or someone who is frustrated because of things like the above to turn it into an actual accusation and a demand to get your shit together or be ostracised. Then there’s more frustration, more mudslinging and more jerks all round.
It’d be nice if everyone could be calm, considerate and patient while discussing things. Jerks made that rather hard. Jerks and human nature.
We see this in this very thread. It starts by somebody questioning if we even have a problem. Instant derailment, but fair enough. We had a polite discussion about it, and several people explained in detail why yes, we do have a problem. But when a new poster appears after a hundred posts and wants to let everybody know that he does not think we have a problem, it really is time to be rude and dismissive. Read what came before.
was this meant to be a reply to me? if so, i’m not sure i explained myself well.
i’m not talking about this thread. i’m talking about everywhere. i mean any time, even outside of this community, that you see someone acting in bad faith, the first call of action should be to try to educate them on why others might find their behaviour unsettling, questionable, offensive, etc.
if the first response is yelling, cursing, trolling, there will be no room for improvement
of course there are jerks on the internet, but just because someone feels their cause is justified doesn’t give them license to be a jerk. i read some rando internet article recently where the author observed that many people find bullying on the internet ok, as long as they feel it’s justified. ie: someone something racist, then everyone piles on.
i don’t want this community to bully others just because someone feels that it is justified. i want people to be open about things.
the examples i gave about my own experiences weren’t to say ‘hey, i was treated poorly! don’t do this to others!’
it was just to illuminate the fact that i was not given a chance to grow initially. in psychology i learned that when punishment is given to someone (and i mean punishment as a technical term, not negative reinforcement) for some behaviour, but they didn’t perform that behaviour or didn’t know how/why it was wrong, they are conditioned to do this on purpose as a response. the rationale that’s being developed is ‘i’m being punished for it anyway, i might as well do it’
whenever someone screws up in this way, regardless of how they meant to do it, if we punish people for it without first helping them to understand how and why the behaviour is unacceptable, we are reinforcing that behaviour instead of discouraging it
[quote=“ulrikdan, post:152, topic:8970”]
But when a new poster appears after a hundred posts and wants to let everybody know that he does not think we have a problem, it really is time to be rude and dismissive. Read what came before.
[/quote]i feel that in situations like that, it is rather the time to completely ignore them or let someone else take a try at explaining things in a respectful and calm manner. this example makes me think of the old saying about having nothing nice to say.
not everyone reads everything. some people are genuinely asking a question, and hell, some people are actually trolling on purpose, but it doesn’t matter. if the response is trolling in return, no one is going to learn from this and get better. we have to allow people the chance to get better because nobody’s perfect.
When I say someone is acting in bad faith, I mean that they have no intention of being reasonable and are trying to get a negative reaction from people. Trying to engage positively with them will not work because these trolls are trying to rile people up. Ignoring is a fine tactic but there are always enough people around that someone will take the bait.
When someone does something wrong but is acting in good faith (typically because they don’t know what they’re doing could be negative) then they should be responded to the way you’re suggesting
What I was saying is that because people are jerks and/or frustrated they will assume bad faith and cause situations like yours.
Edit: Apparently I’m terrible at using this site and can’t use the reply function properly.
I’m not sure that reading a few hundred posts is still grounds to be rude and dismissive. In fact, being rude and dismissive is probably behavior which is inappropriate regardless of context. Now, if you’d prefer not rehashing the last hundred posts and instead, mention that the opinion was discussed earlier on in the thread in a civil manner, that seems pretty reasonable.
Golden rule of thumb for me is, don’t escalate.
Endless discussion on if we have a problem or not is spamming the thread. It blocks anything constructive we can do. If being rude drives such people away it’s a bonus.
And having said that, the discussion on how we handle such people is yet another derailment, so this will be my last post on this.
I think any improvement has to start at the local level, as that’s where the first impression is created. Ladies nights seems to work well, has there been success getting participants to join in on regular take nights as well?
In our local meta we struggle with recruitment and participation as it is - it would be a boon to double our potential recruits, but on the flip side things like “ladies night” is a bit hard to pull off when we haven’t seen our few female players in years…
If you read this thread, you’ll find that very largely that’s what’s happened - when a thread on how to be a more inclusive community gets derailed by
a) this isn’t a problem in my meta
b) women don’t play netrunner because brains
c) you all sound so angry, please calm down
d) there is no rule saying women can’t play netrunner
e) it was just locker room talk
f) this is a netrunner forum, take your politics elsewhere
g) you’re excluding men by including more women
then the initial responses have been polite and constructive, despite the fact that these are old, old tropes which we’ve seen again and again and again.
An excellent article which I encourage people to read is here : http://meeplelikeus.co.uk/busting-myths-around-sociological-accessibility/
If someone wants to take part in this conversation, then (@jdeng) I think it’s completely reasonable that they are expected to read the thread to date, and then look to say something new, or constructive, rather than repeating one of a-g above.
As others have said, this is called ‘derailing’. It moves the conversation away from the real issue - diversity in participation.
On top of that - when contributors are told that they have to remain calm and polite at all time, even in the face of what looks like trolling, you’re tone-policing. This is a big issue, and emotion is allowed.
This link says it much better than I can:
http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/12/tone-policing-and-privilege/
I’ve tried twice now to move the conversation back towards practical steps that we can take to expand participation. Please consider suggesting your own ideas, rather than repeating any of a)-g) above.
Got two things. First, just to make something clear:
The fact that Netrunner is a complex and obscure (in that it’s not tied to any better-known franchise) game should be reflected in the size of the player base, not its diversity. The lack of diversity is inherited from the much larger gaming culture that is unfortunately in many ways uninviting to women. If you aren’t aware of how, do your homework.
Both the fiction and art of Netrunner are exceptionally inclusive, as has been stated. There are games that deter women, but it’s because they are inherently offensive (e.g. Dead or Alive fighting game series).
After reiterating that, let’s move onward to actually contributing something.
My home university’s gaming club is actually in a very good spot when it comes to diversity. Sometimes it almost feels like it’s run by women - scartch that, on some years it is run by women. It didn’t start out like this. What got us here was the hard work of a few pioneer women. They got involved with the club board, and started showing up in club fair stands any other promotional events. They had a clear message: gaming is fun, women can enjoy it too, come join us - and people did. The only thing the men of the club can give themselves credit for is allowing this to happen by not driving the women away.
In addition to not being jerks by following the guidelines in the article, one thing we can do is give the women in our community platform. Ask if they want to commentate games on stream, invite them as guests to podcasts and other video series etc to talk about the game. Most importantly, if they choose to lend their voice to the community, treat them just like any other guests. Just by being there they are already representing the women of the community, there is no need to highlight that with questions that would not be asked from male guests.
Now, I haven’t listened to a lot of podcasts, but on the video front I can recall exactly one instance of having a female guest in a program.
I’d probably have a lot more to say about this, but let’s not ice our discussion with high str wall of text.
The closest things to ladies nights in the UK have been women-only tournaments, which seem to have been really successful and enjoyable. I do think you have identified a real issue though - how we can get out of the vicious circle of ‘the community is CWM-dominated, so non-CWM’s are put off joining’. I really don’t know how to get out of this.
100% this. @CodeMarvelous has had @shanodin and @emilyspine on his test run series - two excellent episodes. The podcast scene has got better recently - with Another Click Another Credit, plus The Source having W/NB presenters. The #uk SHL finals have had female commentators as well - but I think we can do much, much better.
Nobody is talking about excluding men and it is very frustrating to have a discussion about how the community can be more inclusive derailed by statements like this. Could I suggest you read Tolaasin’s post above for an idea of why this is an issue? Representing the Community: Learning from the European Championship - #158 by tolaasin
Your post was flagged as inappropriate: the community feels it is offensive, abusive, or a violation of our community guidelines.
Dont see this in my post above…
Flagging the post only because some1 doesnt agree with it is also somewhat of an exclusion-attempt.
Can some1 please tell me how to mute a whole thread, so i dont see this on top when i log into stimhack?
Thx in advance.
No.
Please read the passage in the first post of this thread.
You can ignore this thread if you want but if you want to participate in our community you must accept its presence and that it is important to us.
Well, normally i dont wanted to post here again, but u r the mod and it seems i misunderstood my intention of my request.
I wanted this to prevent myself to hit the reply-button. I never stated pro nor con of the original intention of this thread and i dont will do this now or in future (i think u woukd be surprised when i would do).
My problem here is, how some people “discuss“. I dont like it, if some1 tries to make me “mundtot“ and i dont like people who cry out loud for tolerance while being themself intolerant.
Again: this has nothing to do with the original intent of this thread.
I hope i made my pov clear even not being a native english speaker.
This will be my last post in this thread - do with it whatever u want.
Gl&hf an have a nice day.
Edit: mobile-based typos
It’s just that your original post was nothing but a rehash of arguments that have already been made upthread. Any response would just be people repeating themselves.
On that note, I’m closing the thread. There will soon be a new thread for diversity discussion, except we’re going to have some explicit guidelines for contribution (stricter than the normal forum guidelines and more actively moderated) so we don’t go around in circles like we did here.
Anyone who’s really interested in making Netrunner as inclusive as possible should stay tuned.