Women's forum

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So, I'm getting the feeling the mods don't feel they have enough to do, and want to enmesh themselves in constant rules lawyering over a subjective standard in a virtually unused forum...

I think some of the members think that rules lawyering is somehow productive or other than a waste of everyone's time.

My interpretation is this: if you feel that you have been wronged in some specific way, report it and I'll see what I can do to set it right.

If you report just to vent about someone who irritates you, I will ignore the complaint.

If you complain about a restrictive thread that has not harmed you, I will ignore the complaint.

If someone complains about a guy posting in the women's forum in a thread tagged "women only" the post will probably get moved.

If someone complains about a thread that is tagged "women only" and there is no apparent reason for it to be a "women only" discussion, I will probably ignore it unless there has been some other abuse like a personal attack or offensive language, in which case, the usual steps will follow: warnings, temp bans, etc.

I don't understand why a forum for women to discuss issues specific to their gender should bother men. But it seems some men feel such is discriminatory. The example given of women discussing their experience with menstruation is, I think, a good one. I'm not sure why a man might think he has something to offer in this discussion. And yet one man has said his second hand experience is relevant. To me this is arrogant and condescending.

I can't figure out why there is a "women's forum" in the first place especially since men are responding too. It makes no sense to me. I don't think we need one. Just label your thread as "only women responses wanted" or something.

I think people just like to argue about having a women's forum. Both men and women. It seems to be some kind of strange compulsion.

It does sound kind of discriminatory towards men to me. And a lot of the posts are from men in the Women's forum. If men can both see the posts and answer the posts, then it really isn't a "women's forum" at all. Might as well get rid of it and make everything coed. Bizarre.

I honestly really don't think there is going to be any solution to make everyone happy. There seems to really be no consensus among the women, and no consensus among the men.

So it's just going to be a bunch of arguing , since everyone can't come to an agreement.

Is it not Black History Month in the United States right now (February)?

I think the existence of the Women's Discussion forum is valid for the same reason a month to study and celebrate black history is valid.

There shouldn't be a black history month. Black history should be studied throughout the year just like any other history.

You have a point, Miss Y. I never thought about that. Huh.

Go tell that to the next black person you meet during Black History Month, and see what they think about that. We'll be waiting patiently for your description of what they say.

I don't think black people universally support black history month, like women don't universally support women's only subforum.
Black history should be more included in American history, with focus throughout the history curriculum.

Yeah, well that's a good point.
I wouldn't even be able to access a women's only forum now.

Honestly, I'm not sure. While I do support better moderation and clearer, stricter guidelines for posting in the Women's subforum, I'm not sure if barring access to male members is the answer. Then again, I tend to avoid posting there because I'm not a woman, and the topics there don't pertain to me. Maybe it does need to be barred to male members, with the exception of moderators, of course. If male members are allowed to post there, I think moderation needs to be increased so that they aren't dominating discussion and/or perving things up.

Au contraire rules lawyering has value when the rules themselves are vague and unevenly enforced, as they often are here, and when the party someone feels they've been wronged by is a moderator acting in a biased way, in which case there really isn't any alternative to arguing about it in public. For example, much of the guidelines in PPR are the result of years of rules lawyering, much of it by me, that was incorporated by Tallyman into a revised set of guidelines for that forum better reflecting it's role on the site. In this case, you've got multiple layers of subjective rules and a population that doesn't like grey areas and already feels singled out, so the parsing of the rules is the expected push back, which I suppose is better than some of the less constructive, more trollish possible responses.

Exactly. Black history is a part of American history, and should be a part of the curriculum. If there has to be a month just for black history, that means that it's not being properly included in the curriculum. Of course, there should still be the history classes that focus on specific areas, like women's history, black history, history of western civilization, etc.

The idea that all black people think the same about black history month is actually pretty racist. Just like the idea that all women think the same about women's issues is sexist.