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My wife loves 40k, loves tyranids and (recently) daemons, loves painting, enjoys playing games within our gaming circle, and wants to be more involved in the "community" so to speak. She's into pen-palling and belongs to online groups for that, for example, and informal professional associations (Facebook groups for professional translators, etc), and she's in an online book club. She likes sharing tips, chatting with people with similar interests, and swapping stories. She'd like to find something for 40k like that, but all the forums, groups, and so on are...well, to put it charitably, not very welcoming and not well-supplied with the sort of kind, supportive people that she prefers to interact with online. Ideally, she'd like to find a community of fellow 40k-loving women, but she's looking for anything where the forum/community culture is generally friendly and helpful, and more devoted to fun and hobbying and less concerned with complaining about rules, angrily denouncing GW, arguing about fluff, and generally being mean to one another.

Is anyone a member of a smaller online community where everyone knows everyone else that they could recommend or to which I can direct her? A Facebook group or something like that? Is there a sub-forum on dakka that would be more to her tastes that she can spend her time in that won't see her tearfully resolving never to touch 40k again? She's been searching and so far all she's found are a couple of blogs. Any help or advice is appreciated. Cheers lads.

With a gender ratio like the one 40k fans has, a women-only gaming community is not going to exist.

I myself have never even tried anything else than blending into the 'standard' community.

Maybe the G+ 40k community?

I suggest the painting and modelling forums on here if she's into that. Only very rarely do you get any negativity up there, it's typically very constructive, polite and welcoming. Not saying the rest of Dakka isn't (for the most part, Dakka is a very decent forum for gaming in general), but you're never short of a good conversation or some helpful advice in the P&M boards.

 Ashiraya wrote:
With a gender ratio like the one 40k fans has, a women-only gaming community is not going to exist.

I myself have never even tried anything else than blending into the 'standard' community.

Even a facebook group with a couple of dozen members would be perfect for her. She doesn't really want to try to blend into the mainstream community, she's not too keen on contorting herself to fit in to something she's not suited to. I know she'd love to find something online that can help support her hobby habit, but she's not so desperate for it that she'll suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, so to speak, just to have someone to chat with about how awesome tyranids are and what colours to use so that not all the hormagaunts look the same.

There are a bunch of small, army-specific ones out there. Like the Dark City for DE, for example. Just google a 40k army name + forum, and I'm sure you'll find stuff.

The only problem with small, though, is that it's small. If you don't want to talk about just one army, or talk to just the same few people, or have to be a part of several forums that you aggregate together, then a small forum isn't really the way to go.

I agree with Paradigm. Dakka may have a lot of hateful bile, but it's not evenly spread out. The painting and modelling forum (both sides) and dakka fiction are nice places to be. 40k general isn't nearly as bad as 40k tactics, which is why there are people like me pushing the little yellow triangle to get those kinds of threads moved back to where they belong when they pop up here. Meanwhile, if she stays off of Off-Topic, that will reduce the malice to which she would be exposed by a great deal.

One of the things you could do as well is to sort of "set up" an account for her. She makes the account, and then you spend a few minutes going in and adding a bunch of people to her ignore list so she just doesn't see the worst posters in the first place.

Try Astronomican.com. Has like 30 active members, nice folks

office_waaagh wrote:
My wife loves 40k, loves tyranids and (recently) daemons, loves painting, enjoys playing games within our gaming circle, and wants to be more involved in the "community" so to speak. She's into pen-palling and belongs to online groups for that, for example, and informal professional associations (Facebook groups for professional translators, etc), and she's in an online book club. She likes sharing tips, chatting with people with similar interests, and swapping stories. She'd like to find something for 40k like that, but all the forums, groups, and so on are...well, to put it charitably, not very welcoming and not well-supplied with the sort of kind, supportive people that she prefers to interact with online. Ideally, she'd like to find a community of fellow 40k-loving women, but she's looking for anything where the forum/community culture is generally friendly and helpful, and more devoted to fun and hobbying and less concerned with complaining about rules, angrily denouncing GW, arguing about fluff, and generally being mean to one another.

Is anyone a member of a smaller online community where everyone knows everyone else that they could recommend or to which I can direct her? A Facebook group or something like that? Is there a sub-forum on dakka that would be more to her tastes that she can spend her time in that won't see her tearfully resolving never to touch 40k again? She's been searching and so far all she's found are a couple of blogs. Any help or advice is appreciated. Cheers lads.

I'd suggest staying offline altogether lol. There is only one site I've seen to fit the bill in terms of being friendly and welcoming to everyone and thats Bell of Lost Souls. Some of the facebook groups re also pretty good. The Overlords is pretty good there.

Is this site really that bad? I thought it was kind of nice here. Then again, I frequented reddit for two years so maybe I'm used to much worse.

The polite and considerate people are part of why I like this hobby so much, anyway. Miniwargaming.com has always seemed very nice.

There's Bolter and Chainsword, they're a goodly bunch for the most part and it's a heavily moderated community. Human and post-human armies only though.

There's the facebook group, "A Fansite for Games Workshop" run by Sami Lynn. Lots of nice people there, and a shocking number of us women!

Agreed, the Painting and Modeling forum would be best. General Discussion can be abrasive in certain threads.

The 40k - specific forums on this site seem to be a lot more confrontational/aggressive and offensive than the hobbyist forums on this site.

Even in our FLGS, it can be hard to keep it G+. The owners push for that ('family store!'), but some people just don't care, even when there are kids around. However, it never seems to get bad when talking about painting or modeling.

lustigjh wrote:
Is this site really that bad? I thought it was kind of nice here. Then again, I frequented reddit for two years so maybe I'm used to much worse.

The polite and considerate people are part of why I like this hobby so much, anyway. Miniwargaming.com has always seemed very nice.

Yeah! What @#%$ said we ain't $%^$ing polite here?

On reddit, r/warhammer seems quite positive. It's mostly for showing off/critiquing models and terrain, but there are other threads as well.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

Yeah! What @#%$ said we ain't $%^$ing polite here?

Well, you yourself are frequently encouraging hate-storms.

It's not bullying, it's character building

Though the modelling section is a pretty happy place.As for other forums, i've personally never seen any that haven't had at least two jumped up users. 40k just doesn't lend itself to pure friendliness.

I'd hunt down the females here and see if you could make a facebook group of your/ their own.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

Yeah! What @#%$ said we ain't $%^$ing polite here?

Well, you yourself are frequently encouraging hate-storms.

GW makes the storm, the rest of us just ride it.

 Colpicklejar wrote:
On reddit, r/warhammer seems quite positive. It's mostly for showing off/critiquing models and terrain, but there are other threads as well.

HA. Back when I tried posting there (granted, this was at least a year ago) I rudely got told to off by one of the mods because I posted an obvious question. When I told the mod he was being rude he said he didn't care, it was his sub and he'd do what he wanted. It was not a positive experience, even by reddit standards. Hopefully that's not the case anymore.

 EVIL INC wrote:

I'd suggest staying offline altogether lol. There is only one site I've seen to fit the bill in terms of being friendly and welcoming to everyone and thats Bell of Lost Souls. Some of the facebook groups re also pretty good. The Overlords is pretty good there.

Wow, you just recommended BoLS Trolls as a nice place?! I disagree. Dakkadakka certainly isn't the answer to the question either, but I like it that way.

I'd recommend the ICs forums. Kind people, more focus on narrative play, tends to be positive... #tuttletime

http://www.theindependentcharacters.com/forums/

lustigjh wrote:

 Colpicklejar wrote:
On reddit, r/warhammer seems quite positive. It's mostly for showing off/critiquing models and terrain, but there are other threads as well.

HA. Back when I tried posting there (granted, this was at least a year ago) I rudely got told to off by one of the mods because I posted an obvious question. When I told the mod he was being rude he said he didn't care, it was his sub and he'd do what he wanted. It was not a positive experience, even by reddit standards. Hopefully that's not the case anymore.

I've run into that guy before. He's a real tool. And he's still there.

On reddit its better to go to warhammer40k.

The mods are nice, there arent a huge amount of stupid rules and the people are nicer. In general just a better place.

no place on the internet is gonna be a perfectly safe harbor, that said it depends on what she's looking at. I'd definatly avoid tactics focused fourms etc. as generally those are gonna have tourny goers whom take the game seriously, and occasionally you get someone who doesn't understand that "well yeah that Khornite CSM army might not be the most efficant points spent but I enjoy screaming 'blood for the blood god' and seeing how many I can slog across the table!"

I think Dakka is a pretty wonderful place, most everyone is pretty decent. I will admit that 40k You Make Da Call and 40k tactics can be very contentious places, but everywhere else people are nice.

News & Rumors is different (in terms of 40k) as people tend to fracture into different groups about releases.

 Lobukia wrote:


Wow, you just recommended BoLS Trolls as a nice place?! I disagree. Dakkadakka certainly isn't the answer to the question either, but I like it that way.

I'd recommend the ICs forums. Kind people, more focus on narrative play, tends to be positive... #tuttletime

http://www.theindependentcharacters.com/forums/

+1

The Independent Characters forum has a different culture than Dakka. It's much more positive and the mods play a role in keeping it positive. But, positivity can also stifle legitimate debate. Everything is not well in 40K Land, and although it's not good to only dwell on that aspect, it's also pretty damn hard to ignore.

Dakka has a rough edge at times, but you also can get some honest, thoughtful feedback and discussion from a really diverse group of hobbyists.

40k has an on average rather agreeable fanbase of laid back and friendly people, but as with most niche interests it may have a tendency to attract a minority of.. equally niche people.

All online communities for 40k I've been in contact with have been of a very high standard, so I can't quite agree with your statement. Could be down to bad luck, or perhaps I just mentally filter disagreeable content :X

 the_Armyman wrote:

 Lobukia wrote:


Wow, you just recommended BoLS Trolls as a nice place?! I disagree. Dakkadakka certainly isn't the answer to the question either, but I like it that way.

I'd recommend the ICs forums. Kind people, more focus on narrative play, tends to be positive... #tuttletime

http://www.theindependentcharacters.com/forums/

+1

The Independent Characters forum has a different culture than Dakka. It's much more positive and the mods play a role in keeping it positive. But, positivity can also stifle legitimate debate. Everything is not well in 40K Land, and although it's not good to only dwell on that aspect, it's also pretty damn hard to ignore.

Dakka has a rough edge at times, but you also can get some honest, thoughtful feedback and discussion from a really diverse group of hobbyists.

A "rough edge" is putting it somewhat mildly. I don't consider myself an easily offended person: I've been a non-com in the infantry for my entire adult life. I'm used to the trash talk and so on, and dakka is pretty mild by the standards of the internet. But Sadie is different; she's sensitive, and she likes chatting and having fun and isn't so interested in debating how evil GW is and how bad the latest rules are or how broken some unit or other is. If she posted something like "I love my tyranids, the Alien vibe is awesome and the new models are amazing!" she'd get a bunch of replies along the lines of "Lol the maleceptor is terrible and you should never use it", "GW stole the Alien look because they're uncreative money-grubbing thieves", "ever since 6th dropped assault is dead and so are 'nids because GW can't write balanced rules", and so on, and she'd leave feeling completely deflated and sad when all she wanted was to come and chat about a thing she loves. On that basis, I have a really hard time recommending dakka to her. I don't want to set her up to get her feelings hurt.

Whether or not all is well in 40k land is a matter for debate. I don't see any problems, but I don't play in tournaments against taudar wave serpent spam or 2++ rerollable invisible daemon factories. The game is fun and the fluff is cool, and that's all I ask for. Now, people are going to disagree with me, and that's fine. But there's a tendency on dakka for certain people to ambush threads and denounce GW and 40k roundly, regardless of what the actual topic of discussion is, and spoil the atmosphere for people that really just want to talk about how much fun they're having. People get touchy, backs get up, and suddenly there's a wall of text three pages long about whether paying 5 points for a grot orderly makes you subhuman.

I kind of have a problem with the idea that we're a "diverse" group of hobbyists, to be honest. The fact that I know there are women out there (besides Sadie) that love 40k and won't come near a place like dakka for all the tea in China because of the hostility and negativity suggests otherwise. I'm not saying every forum has to be all-inclusive; people for whom 40k is srs bsns need a place to chat and vent their frustrations too. But it doesn't lead to a lot of diversity, and it drives other people away.

Thanks for all the great suggestions, everyone.

Cheers,
Jesse.

If you're looking for a safe place on the internet there just isn't one. Sadly, even for the pure painter/collector among us the internet has a very magical way of stripping all the magic out of everything it touches, wargames included.

office_waaagh wrote:

Whether or not all is well in 40k land is a matter for debate. I don't see any problems, but I don't play in tournaments against taudar wave serpent spam or 2++ rerollable invisible daemon factories. The game is fun and the fluff is cool, and that's all I ask for. Now, people are going to disagree with me, and that's fine. But there's a tendency on dakka for certain people to ambush threads and denounce GW and 40k roundly, regardless of what the actual topic of discussion is, and spoil the atmosphere for people that really just want to talk about how much fun they're having. People get touchy, backs get up, and suddenly there's a wall of text three pages long about whether paying 5 points for a grot orderly makes you subhuman.

I think it's important to understand that Dakka is also pretty well delineated. I stay away from some of the sub-forums because they don't have value to me. You Make Da Call and Army Lists aren't useful because my friends and I can figure out rules on our own and I really don't care what someone thinks of my list building skills. And the Off-Topic sub-forum is full of liberal, anti-capitalist, pot-smoking douchetards that think that government handouts and more legislation is a-okay! Hee hee!

I kind of have a problem with the idea that we're a "diverse" group of hobbyists, to be honest. The fact that I know there are women out there (besides Sadie) that love 40k and won't come near a place like dakka for all the tea in China because of the hostility and negativity suggests otherwise. I'm not saying every forum has to be all-inclusive; people for whom 40k is srs bsns need a place to chat and vent their frustrations too. But it doesn't lead to a lot of diversity, and it drives other people away.

Wargaming is not a gender-diverse crowd. It never will be, I suspect. Just as the best professional athletes will be male, the best warfighters will be male. It's in our genes. That's not misogynistic, it simply IS. But, Dakka draws people from all over the world. That's the diversity I'm speaking of. European and Asian wargamers do have different perspectives to us New Worlders.

As for the negativity? Welcome to the Internet? You really can't control what some anon on a forum is going to say or do. Positive interactions are better had IRL.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
If you're looking for a safe place on the internet there just isn't one. Sadly, even for the pure painter/collector among us the internet has a very magical way of stripping all the magic out of everything it touches, wargames included.

That's, like, the most depressing thing I've read all week.

Oh, but Sadie did say to thank everyone for being so helpful, and to tell Ailaros that he's a sweetheart.

 Lobukia wrote:

 EVIL INC wrote:

I'd suggest staying offline altogether lol. There is only one site I've seen to fit the bill in terms of being friendly and welcoming to everyone and thats Bell of Lost Souls. Some of the facebook groups re also pretty good. The Overlords is pretty good there.

Wow, you just recommended BoLS Trolls as a nice place?! I disagree. Dakkadakka certainly isn't the answer to the question either, but I like it that way.

I'd recommend the ICs forums. Kind people, more focus on narrative play, tends to be positive... #tuttletime

http://www.theindependentcharacters.com/forums/

Kinda funny to hear someone on Dakka criticize BoLS for troll behavior... though I guess if you're referring to BoLS frontpage rather than the forums, it would make sense.

The BoLS forums are probably about as female friendly as you can get. Not only are a number of top posters openly female, but there are several running threads on feminism and lgbt issues in the off-topic. Granted, if you're a guy, and you say anything that could remotely be construed as theoretically possibly being sexist in some conceivable way, Eldargal will flame the gak out of you, but her ire is only directed at guys. Or white people, I guess, if it's about a race issue like Ferguson, but even then it's really only white guys... huh, I kinda do see what you mean about trolls .