This place just so happens to be relatively free of all that horrid misogyny and I'd like to see it kept that way.
Relatively free or misogyny? As in there is some misogyny, just not as much as on average?
Please give actual examples (other than a couple of threads where people asked how many female TASers there are; that's not misogyny in any way, shape or form).
I'm not an admin or moderator of this site, but I do care about it, and such accusations make my blood boil.
(which was brought up by synnchan/Sonia in the grue'd thread)
Well... synnchan is just the old nickname, so I'd like to be referred as Sonia from now on (which is my actual name btw).
off topic: Your Kyouko avatar is super cute ♥Samsara wrote:
There was an offhand statement in one of those threads about a user being perceived as female because of their effeminate manner of speaking on the forums, and that got me thinking... That might be the main reason why people assume people are one gender or the other. It's happened to me on multiple occasions that whenever I'm expressing my happiness, or just generally typing excitedly and showing emotion, I'm generally referred to as female. When I'm more reserved and passive (or angry), I'm generally referred to as male. For the most part, all the posts on the forums are passive and "emotionless", thus the general assumption that everyone here is male.
The only reason I don't display my emotions/cheerfulness/sweetness on this site is because this is not the appropriate place to do so. As it was mentioned, this is mostly a place to talk about speedruns and the like.
But it's not like I'm always passive/unemotional. For example: I'm VERY different on Skype conversations with people that are close to me, where I display my emotional side constantly and give them a completely different kind of treatment. But if I do it here, it'd certainly go off-topic and people would probably think I'm an idiot. It'd simply feel out-of-place.
But yes, you're right. Acting unemotional DOES make people think you're a guy. That's one of the major reasons the others frequently make such assumptions.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Gamer Maiden Sonia wrote:
But yes, you're right. Acting unemotional DOES make people think you're a guy. That's one of the major reasons the others frequently make such assumptions.
Actually, acting unemotional on a video game forum makes me think you're sane. A forum about video games is not worth getting worked up about.
I also think text based communications lacks too much that real human contact has: tone of voice, pauses in speech, facial expressions, body language, and more, that such communication is devoid of real human emotion, there's no real point in trying to put effort into trying to convey what can't be conveyed properly in such a format. Therefore, any post by someone sane which contains a lot of emotion probably has some alternate agenda towards manipulating the conversation in some fashion, or studying the other posters.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Samsara, I don’t see what your problem is with having the option to choose to display a gender. You said if females were to use it then they would be treated differently… but that’s the whole reason why you could choose [blank] so that it would be no different from now. Also, the one who requested the feature in the first place (Sonia) is a girl, so I don’t understand you trying to protect females when they never asked for your protection.
I still think having a [Blank]/Male/Female/Other option, with [Blank] as default, would be a good thing.
Due to my name, I’ve also often been mistaken for a girl (Michele in Italian is a male name, and no, it’s not pronounced like Michelle), and while that doesn’t really bother me too much, being able to display my gender in the forum should help.
I also think text based communications lacks too much that real human contact has: tone of voice, pauses in speech, facial expressions, body language, and more, that such communication is devoid of real human emotion, there's no real point in trying to put effort into trying to convey what can't be conveyed properly in such a format. Therefore, any post by someone sane which contains a lot of emotion probably has some alternate agenda towards manipulating the conversation in some fashion, or studying the other posters.
I heavily disagree with this. Yes, text based communication may be different and devoid of many features from real life communication, but it's not like you can't represent your current mood and emotions online. Emoticons exists for this very reason. The segment below explains things very well:
wikipedia wrote:
An emoticon (/ɨˈmoʊtɨkɒn/) (short for emotion icon) is a metacommunicative pictorial representation of a facial expression which in the absence of body language and prosody serves to draw a receiver's attention to the tenor or temper of a sender's nominal verbal communication, changing and improving its interpretation. It expresses — usually by means of punctuation marks (though it can include numbers and letters) — a person's feelings or mood. Emoticons are usually sideways to the text. As social media has become widespread, emoticons have played a significant role in communication through technology. They offer another range of "tone" and feeling through texting that portrays specific emotions through facial gestures while in the midst of cyber communication.
There are also plenty of them to convey any kind of emotion you want to represent. The diversity of eastern emoticons is especially much larger than the western one, and a major reason they exist is so that real time chat (which is not the same as forum posting) can be made more exciting. I chat in real time on a daily basis so I'm talking from experience.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emoticons
To make real time chat further exciting, there's even the possibility to interpret actions as well. The way you do this varies from person to person, but I usually put my actions in asterisks so the person on the other end will be able to tell it's an action. For example: "*Sonia huggles her warmly*" would be an example of a simple action, but it's possible to do far more complex stuff depending on your creativity.
Not only that, but there's also internet roleplay games and the like. I think this image (taken from wikipedia) would suffice to express how it works:
My point is that text communication can in fact be made very interesting as long as you use your imagination and don't restrict yourself.
I would so much prefer if people could just be people without bringing genders, races, religions, and other attributes into the discussion, requiring special acknowledgement of those traits in matters completely unrelated to them.
Someone posted a picture saying: On the Internet nobody knows you're a cat. I would emphasize this to say: On the Internet nobody cares that you're a cat. It is irrelevant.
(Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I recognize that I probably failed to word my expression in a manner that doesn't come back biting me some day because of an alternative unintentional interpretation.)
I would so much prefer if people could just be people without bringing genders, races, religions, and other attributes into the discussion, requiring special acknowledgement of those traits in matters completely unrelated to them.
I’m not exactly sure what you mean with the last part of your phrase, but I speak from experience that having someone mistake you for a gender you’re not can create extremely complicated and annoying situations (only happened once, but still). Imagine someone taking for granted that you’re male/female when you’re actually the opposite, and talking to other people about you, mentioning your wrong gender. It can get pretty stupid for no reason, adding a gender option is not hard and it’s something a lot of other forums do so it has its purpose. I really don’t understand all the negativity towards the feature, especially from people who’ve never experienced being mislabeled as the wrong gender. If you like anonimity so much, you can go discuss TASing on 4chan.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Gamer Maiden Sonia wrote:
Nach wrote:
I also think text based communications lacks too much that real human contact has: tone of voice, pauses in speech, facial expressions, body language, and more, that such communication is devoid of real human emotion, there's no real point in trying to put effort into trying to convey what can't be conveyed properly in such a format. Therefore, any post by someone sane which contains a lot of emotion probably has some alternate agenda towards manipulating the conversation in some fashion, or studying the other posters.
I heavily disagree with this. Yes, text based communication may be different and devoid of many features from real life communication, but it's not like you can't represent your current mood and emotions online. Emoticons exists for this very reason.
There are also plenty of them to convey any kind of emotion you want to represent. The diversity of eastern emoticons is especially much larger than the western one, and a major reason they exist is so that real time chat (which is not the same as forum posting) can be made more exciting.
I find humans to contains a lot more complex emotions than can be summarized by a small list of some moods. Further, as expressive as language is, language alone is deficient in its ability to truly capture how a person feels. As advanced as our languages are today, they cannot express everything. We also have a popular saying: "A picture is worth a thousand words", and all the more so a moving picture, and full audio, and everything you get from real human contact.
As diverse as emoticons may be, they pale in comparison to the many varied states of body language.
Bisqwit wrote:
I would so much prefer if people could just be people without bringing genders, races, religions, and other attributes into the discussion, requiring special acknowledgement of those traits in matters completely unrelated to them.
Someone posted a picture saying: On the Internet nobody knows you're a cat. I would emphasize this to say: On the Internet nobody cares that you're a cat. It is irrelevant.
I fully agree with what you're saying. However, it appears for most people, they disagree with us. As idealistic as we may be, we do have to try our best to integrate with the society around us, even when they're wrong.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 12/8/2012
Posts: 706
Location: Missouri, USA
Bisqwit wrote:
I would so much prefer if people could just be people without bringing genders, races, religions, and other attributes into the discussion, requiring special acknowledgement of those traits in matters completely unrelated to them.
Someone posted a picture saying: On the Internet nobody knows you're a cat. I would emphasize this to say: On the Internet nobody cares that you're a cat. It is irrelevant.
(Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I recognize that I probably failed to word my expression in a manner that doesn't come back biting me some day because of an alternative unintentional interpretation.)
You know, I can agree with this, as it generally makes matters much simpler. In relevance to this discussion, I've had cases online where I've mistakenly referred to the person I was chatting with as a guy/dude. This is usually how I handle the exchange:
ars4326: "I agree with what you just wrote, man."
Other Person: "Thanks. I'm a woman, by the way."
ars4326: "Ah. My mistake. I'll refer to you as such from now on."
Other Person: "I appreciate it."
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
As idealistic as we may be, we do have to try our best to integrate with the society around us, even when they're wrong.
Read my post in the previous page and rethink what you just said.
Man you guys are looking at it so fucking simplisticly, jesus christ. I’m actually getting mad. None of you have even brought up a single point of why giving the CHOICE of showing your gender would be a bad thing, while people who have experienced the bad of not doing it have spoke out.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
ALAKTORN wrote:
Nach wrote:
As idealistic as we may be, we do have to try our best to integrate with the society around us, even when they're wrong.
Read my post in the previous page and rethink what you just said.
I read it. Not rethinking what I said.
ALAKTORN wrote:
I’m actually getting mad.
Now I see you're trying to manipulate people.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Man you guys are looking at it so fucking simplisticly, jesus christ. I’m actually getting mad.
Now I see you're trying to manipulate people.
Manipulating people how, to do what? Manipulate people to actually give thoughtful and insightful opinions, instead of spew garbage? Also, I edited my previous post with this:
None of you have even brought up a single point of why giving the CHOICE of showing your gender would be a bad thing, while people who have experienced the bad of not doing it have spoke out.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
ALAKTORN wrote:
Nach wrote:
Now I see you're trying to manipulate people.
Manipulating people how, to do what? Manipulate people to actually give thoughtful and insightful opinions, instead of spew garbage?
If you need to state you're angry, it's because you want people to buckle to your whims because you know, you're angry. Instead of actually giving well reasoned arguments.
ALAKTORN wrote:
Also, I edited my previous post with this:
None of you have even brought up a single point of why giving the CHOICE of showing your gender would be a bad thing, while people who have experienced the bad of not doing it have spoke out.
You do realize that my post above to Bisqwit was defending your right to choice? But if you want me to quit the work I'm doing to add gender support to the forum, by all means, make me resent you, so I have reasons to not finish it.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Gender note serves a simple practical purpose: letting people know how to address you. We do not (ever?) address anyone here as "they", simple because who wants to be addressed as "not he" is never known about, until "they" states that. A gender note/sign lets to not state it explicitly every time, until people remember :D
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
None of you have even brought up a single point of why giving the CHOICE of showing your gender would be a bad thing, while people who have experienced the bad of not doing it have spoke out.
My internet experience tells that if someone says she is a girl, she will regret it because of guys spamming her to get a date/picture/sex/fb/twitter/telephone/address/credit card last 4 numbers or seduce/threaten/rape her.
Maybe in this order.
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...
Manipulating people how, to do what? Manipulate people to actually give thoughtful and insightful opinions, instead of spew garbage?
If you need to state you're angry, it's because you want people to buckle to your whims because you know, you're angry. Instead of actually giving well reasoned arguments.
I stated it because I was getting angry at people spewing bullshit while I tried to give thoughtful opinions on the issue. I wasn’t trying to manipulate anyone, I was simply getting mad; have you ever been mad? I may be special in that I have some anger issues, but I still think what I said had no reason to be interpreted as wanting to manipulate people.
Nach wrote:
ALAKTORN wrote:
Also, I edited my previous post with this:
None of you have even brought up a single point of why giving the CHOICE of showing your gender would be a bad thing, while people who have experienced the bad of not doing it have spoke out.
You do realize that my post above to Bisqwit was defending your right to choice? But if you want me to quit the work I'm doing to add gender support to the forum, by all means, make me resent you, so I have reasons to not finish it.
I care more about the fact that you so blatantly stated that my opinion was “wrong” than about getting a feature that would help the forum. That was offensive and I’ll speak out if I have something to say about it.
@MESHUGGAH: a girl was the one to request the feature in the first place, and another girl agreed with her in this same topic I believe. They don’t need your protection. Also, that concern is the whole reason why [Blank] should be an option, and the default option.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
ALAKTORN wrote:
I care more about the fact that you so blatantly stated that my opinion was “wrong” than about getting a feature that would help the forum.
Where did I say your opinion was wrong or that it wouldn't help the forum?
I said: "we do have to try our best to integrate with the society around us, even when they're wrong"
Edit:
Which in context is in fact arguing it would help the forum.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
I said: "we do have to try our best to integrate with the society around us, even when they're wrong"
I don’t even want to read back right now as I just want to forget this, but your phrase seemed to imply that you were going along with the people who were wrong by adding the feature, just to “best integrate with the society around us”.
If I misunderstood then I’m sorry.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
To clarify, I'm saying that if enough people feel something is the correct way to go about interacting with other people, even if they for whatever reason happen to be wrong about it, it's best to acquiesce because it is the majority that should be defining their state of interaction.
This is not about any particular notion being right or wrong. Nor is it about my personal opinions on a particular feature, my signature on this matter may be illuminating.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
I find humans to contains a lot more complex emotions than can be summarized by a small list of some moods. Further, as expressive as language is, language alone is deficient in its ability to truly capture how a person feels. As advanced as our languages are today, they cannot express everything. We also have a popular saying: "A picture is worth a thousand words", and all the more so a moving picture, and full audio, and everything you get from real human contact.
As diverse as emoticons may be, they pale in comparison to the many varied states of body language.
Fair enough. Lemme rephrase my previous statement to express my thoughts more precisely. I wasn't thinking enough while typing it:
Gamer Maiden Sonia wrote:
There is also a fair number of them to convey different emotions you may want to represent. The amount of eastern emoticons is especially much larger than the western one, and a major reason they exist is so that real time chat (which is not the same as forum posting) can be made more exciting.
Either way, I won't dwell into this any further because this topic isn't about emoticons anyway. It will deviate from the main subject.
MESHUGGAH wrote:
ALAKTORN wrote:
None of you have even brought up a single point of why giving the CHOICE of showing your gender would be a bad thing, while people who have experienced the bad of not doing it have spoke out.
My internet experience tells that if someone says she is a girl, she will regret it because of guys spamming her to get a date/picture/sex/fb/twitter/telephone/address/credit card last 4 numbers or seduce/threaten/rape her.
Maybe in this order.
Sadly, this kind of thing have happened to me a few times (yes, including rape threats). But I always ignore/block those kind of guys because I don't need them in my life. I don't know them, they don't do my chores, they don't pay my bills, so I don't have a single reason to give them importance. They're as important to me as the trash I dispose from my home regularly.
Although:
ALAKTORN wrote:
@MESHUGGAH: a girl was the one to request the feature in the first place, and another girl agreed with her in this same topic I believe. They don’t need your protection. Also, that concern is the whole reason why [Blank] should be an option, and the default option.
Exactly. I'm pretty sure I'll be safe here, at least. Which explains the request.
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2794
Location: Northern California
ALAKTORN wrote:
Samsara, I don’t see what your problem is with having the option to choose to display a gender. You said if females were to use it then they would be treated differently… but that’s the whole reason why you could choose [blank] so that it would be no different from now. Also, the one who requested the feature in the first place (Sonia) is a girl, so I don’t understand you trying to protect females when they never asked for your protection.
Look back at my first posts in the thread, then come back and tell me I have a problem with having the option.
Other posts in the thread are expressing my opinion much better than I did: If gender comes up in conversation, it should be acknowledged and then promptly pushed to the background in favor of talking about something relevant. If someone wants to wear their gender on their sleeve, then let them do it. If someone doesn't, for fear of a gaggle of lonely men asking for topless pictures and cybersex, then that's why the blank option is there.
My problem is that shit can get blown out of proportion when gender is revealed in general. Absolutely none of my comments have been directed at the site itself, it's all a general scope of what happens on the internet. Again, if anything I've said has been taken out of context, I apologize for being awful at choosing my words carefully.
...And I'm not speaking out of protection. I'm speaking out of sympathy. I don't expect or want anything in return for what I'm saying.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
My point is that text communication can in fact be made very interesting as long as you use your imagination and don't restrict yourself.
