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It's not just women who are turned off by the community.

Age-restricted forums would be a massive boon. With mature moderators (18+) acting as handlers for the grots until they themselves reach 18.

The benefits include:
1) Censoring out the foul language so the little'uns don't pick up bad habits. (Yes they probably know bad words too, but they won't have adults using them in return)
2) Conversations appropriate to the level of the readers with educational bits popped in by the moderators
3) Snotlings avoiding the abuse that comes with picking arguments with some of the older elements.

 jreilly89 wrote:

Yep. Womynz ain't strong enough wot to lift up and paint them tough metal minis. Dey's better off staying in da kitchen and making sandwiches, cuz they small fingers can make sandwichez faster.

Seriously, way too hold back the advancement of society, moron. Also, please don't drag science into your sexist view of reality.

So, I bring up that women and men are biologically different and have different aptitudes. From those points, you deduce that I must mean that women are too weak to pick up miniatures. If those are the type of rational conclusions you come up with, please put me on ignore. It is doubtful you and I can have a polite, intelligent conversation.

I think this particular misdirection is best left here.

Thank you.

My advice is try to be a women less and a human being more. I'm sure there are going to be some all female groups but it's not going to be the norm. Shouldn't matter because nerds are very accepting people. You should see some of the people who regularly game at my shops - some people who would be ousted by many different types of groups are accepted and welcomed into our gaming groups. If you are a the kind of women who wants to flaunt feminism around though in an environment of war gaming - it's going to be met with negativity every time. IMO it's really as simple as not flaunting feminism and everything will work fine.

Wow, thanks Don Draper.

Who you calling Don Draper? lol

This is exactly the kind of gak OP was talking about. We don't need every thread concerning the Sisters of Battle to develop into a discussion about whether women belong on the battlefield, or if they really were just an army designed for girls. We especially don't need pricks who come along and talk about how men are just simply genetically superior or anything like that.

Let's try to keep this civil, folks. I'd like to avoid getting the thread locked for one, if possible. If this turns into a broader conversation about inclusiveness on the forums, I don't think that's a bad thing. But it's devolving into a shouting match, and that's the sort of thing that stifles conversation and discourages people from participating.

Someone earlier suggested that I'm characterizing Sadie as a "wilting flower" or some such thing, and that's not the case. She is quite tough, in her own way, and very resilient. Also eight months pregnant, so if she can handle that and the hard bit at the end she can probably take anything. She doesn't like confrontation or arguing though, and she wants to hang out in a forum or group where she reads things that make her happy and excited to play 40k rather than angry and disappointed.

I'll mention again that she's not a feminist in the "shouting at you because you are male" sense; she wants to be treated like a human being, regardless of gender. That sounds like an easy thing to come by, but a lot of people use the anonymity of a forum to dehumanize the other party(s) in a conversation and the discourse becomes less than civil and supportive.

There's also an attitude that "we have things the way we like and we're not going to change." That's fine to a point; some people like the confrontation and arguing and so on on forums, and they need a place to yell at each other online too. But taking a "you can play with the boys so long as you fit in with the boys" attitude isn't very welcoming or accepting of new people, especially people from outside the core demographic. Maybe this is my Canadian showing, but I'd like to think different people can all get together on the basis of common humanity and shared interests without having to suppress the things that make them unique and interesting for fear of getting shouted at.

office_waaagh wrote:

 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.

She should have a look at Tale of Painters. That is a wonderful hobby website that is really quite free of the negativity you sometimes see on other sites. Plus, they have a lot of great Tyranid painting guides, as Nids happen to be one of the favorite armies of the guys who run the site.

Did you check there, in the end : https://plus.google.com/u/1/communities/113711991701122962234 ? I saw very few negativity there. Ryan Cunningham in particular is a sweetie, he always forward me every new piece of rumor about the Sisters and stuff .

(I use a feminine name (that is a pun) and avatar (that is Germany's most dangerous woman, actually) on Google+, and I never had any problem there, too.)

 the_Armyman wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

Yep. Womynz ain't strong enough wot to lift up and paint them tough metal minis. Dey's better off staying in da kitchen and making sandwiches, cuz they small fingers can make sandwichez faster.

Seriously, way too hold back the advancement of society, moron. Also, please don't drag science into your sexist view of reality.

So, I bring up that women and men are biologically different and have different aptitudes. From those points, you deduce that I must mean that women are too weak to pick up miniatures. If those are the type of rational conclusions you come up with, please put me on ignore. It is doubtful you and I can have a polite, intelligent conversation.

There's a difference between "biologically different with different aptitudes" and "the best professional athletes will be male, the best warfighters will be male, men are genetically built to be physically stronger and faster". So no, I don't think we can have a polite, intelligent conversation, because I refuse to have conversations with someone who thinks women are inferior. Thanks for the ignore tip, though.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
http://jen-kollic.deviantart.com/art/Tyranid-Ripper-Earrings-30558367 Thar' gow.

Oh those are cute.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Did you check there, in the end : https://plus.google.com/u/1/communities/113711991701122962234 ? I saw very few negativity there. Ryan Cunningham in particular is a sweetie, he always forward me every new piece of rumor about the Sisters and stuff .

(I use a feminine name (that is a pun) and avatar (that is Germany's most dangerous woman, actually) on Google+, and I never had any problem there, too.)

She checked it out but I don't know if she's on G+. I'll definitely pass along the recommendation though. I'll admit I'm curious about who is "Germany's most dangerous woman"...coming from someone from France that could mean anything!

Merci beaucoup!

 eskimo wrote:
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.

Background section is generally good as well. I've had many geekstorm discussions there without them getting nasty. Hit the Yellow if it starts and Mods will be on that pronto.

Agreed stay out of OT.

There are slo several dedicated modeling forums on da internetz if thats her bag as well. Those are usually very positive, with lots of suggestions.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
http://jen-kollic.deviantart.com/art/Tyranid-Ripper-Earrings-30558367 Thar' gow.

Oh those are cute.

I KNOW!!! This is the first time I've ever wanted to have my ears pierced.

office_waaagh wrote:
I'll admit I'm curious about who is "Germany's most dangerous woman"...coming from someone from France that could mean anything!

I have had some people confuse her with Avril Lavigne. She is much more dangerous than Avril, though.

Who is it then? 'cause my German partner has no idea!

Why have you chosen a murderer and terrorist as your avatar?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Who is it then? 'cause my German partner has no idea!

Ulrike Meinhof

 Paradigm wrote:
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.

This. just avoid N&R OT and General chats and she should be fine.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

office_waaagh wrote:
I'll admit I'm curious about who is "Germany's most dangerous woman"...coming from someone from France that could mean anything!

I have had some people confuse her with Avril Lavigne. She is much more dangerous than Avril, though.

Ha! She does look like Avril Lavigne! I'd not seen that picture before.

I recognize her as an associate of the Baader-Meinhof gang, Google tells me her name is Brigitte Mohnhaupt (and it's in the URL of the picture, I now see!).

office_waaagh wrote:

I recognize her as an associate of the Baader-Meinhof gang, Google tells me her name is Brigitte Mohnhaupt (and it's in the URL of the picture, I now see!).

Woops, looks like I got the wrong terrorist.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
http://jen-kollic.deviantart.com/art/Tyranid-Ripper-Earrings-30558367 Thar' gow.

You'll draw 40k male fans to you like astranomican.

 koooaei wrote:

You'll draw 40k male fans to you like astranomican.

I...think she'd probably like to avoid that too.

In all honesty, if your wife is even remotely sensitive I wouldn´t recommend DakkaDakka or any of it´s subforums especially for someone who likes 40K ( for reasons someone will surely want me to list after this post while simultaneously being completely aware of them. )

 RunicFIN wrote:
( for reasons someone will surely want me to list after this post while simultaneously being completely aware of them. )

Welcome to MY world. lol I agree though. Its one of if not THE worst on the internet in terms of participating or interaction. Fairly decent in terms of purely finding information though.

It could be that it might just be an idea to give her a list of the sites you know, have heard of. A "warning tag" attached to the names of the sites/groups and just let her go at it. She will decide for herself what she can take or not take and may even find a few sites on her own your not even aware of.

Dakka is probably the nicest general forum you could find. We certainly have issues, but relatively speaking its a very civil place. Largely thanks to the mods who do a good job of policing and enforcing the rules(which really just amount to "play nice")

 Grey Templar wrote:
Dakka is probably the nicest general forum you could find. We certainly have issues, but relatively speaking its a very civil place. Largely thanks to the mods who do a good job of policing and enforcing the rules(which really just amount to "play nice")

Agreed - I like the rules here. Some forums take it too far in moderating but seems the guys/girl here do a good job. I've never had a problem. Then again, I'm still pretty new here.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Dakka is probably the nicest general forum you could find. We certainly have issues, but relatively speaking its a very civil place. Largely thanks to the mods who do a good job of policing and enforcing the rules(which really just amount to "play nice")

Agreed - I like the rules here. Some forums take it too far in moderating but seems the guys/girl here do a good job. I've never had a problem. Then again, I'm still pretty new here.

I actually disagree. I think the general tone of Dakka is negative. I stay here because it seems to have more traffic than other places. If other places had as much traffic but were not as negative I would go there instead. I have said it in another thread, I think the mods here could do a better job on controlling the negativity, but that is just my opinion.

The very topic of this thread (and the fact it has gone on for 3 pages) indicates there are others who share the same opinion. Maybe the mods should think about that as they do their moderation work?

I used to be an admin and mod on several Tribes forums (some of them as large as this one) when Tribes was a populer game. Of course since then computer games like that have fallen to console games but thats another story....
Anyway, we had other mods who did indeed do a great job and we had ones who had the same problem as many here. they forgot how to be impartial and took sides in arguments, allowed some to break rules and made up fake offences to get rid of people who disagreed with them legitimately on topics and participated in much negativity. I and the other admins got rid of them and policed our enforcers keeping the sites "family oriented" places where all were welcomed.
The 40k sites (and many other forum topic sites) of today dont police the actions of their enforcers. This is where we end up with debates of which sites are good and bad. Your right, the very fact that the answer is not unanimous shows that there is an issue.

Loborocket wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Dakka is probably the nicest general forum you could find. We certainly have issues, but relatively speaking its a very civil place. Largely thanks to the mods who do a good job of policing and enforcing the rules(which really just amount to "play nice")

Agreed - I like the rules here. Some forums take it too far in moderating but seems the guys/girl here do a good job. I've never had a problem. Then again, I'm still pretty new here.

I actually disagree. I think the general tone of Dakka is negative. I stay here because it seems to have more traffic than other places. If other places had as much traffic but were not as negative I would go there instead. I have said it in another thread, I think the mods here could do a better job on controlling the negativity, but that is just my opinion.

The very topic of this thread (and the fact it has gone on for 3 pages) indicates there are others who share the same opinion. Maybe the mods should think about that as they do their moderation work?

That's dangerously close to calling for the Thought Police.

As has to be, surprisingly frequently, pointed out Dakka, and no other forum, is not a gestalt entity, it is comprised of individual people with their own opinions - if those opinions in the places you hang out seem negative, perhaps it would behoove you to look at the causes of those negative opinion, rather than those who hold them?

Calling for moderators to act against people because they hold different opinions to those that you (evidently) do is a dreadful, dreadful idea.