Women's forum

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I think it's long overdue.

I think an answer would be to try it as a fixed term experiment. Say, 3 months. See how it went, and how the strength of feeling was distributed. I don't know how much faffing that would involve at the admin level.

That settles it, then. Unless Alex decides otherwise, a "Women Only" forum that denies access to men just ain't gonna happen.

Perhaps members should petition Alex directly.
I would still like to see a poll created to guage the popularity of a potential women's only forum.
It would seem for any change to be considered it would have to have the numbers behind it.
I would do so myself but I feel it should probably be started by someone who is not gender non-conformist and who has not been seen to be 'switching sides', as such.

If this issue is so important there should be much more noise made about it.
I can't help thinking things are too quiet around here.

Hmmn, well I don't think it matters how many people ask for something to change here. A lot of people complained about the white background, and nothing was changed.

Women have been asking for the section to be women-only as far back as 2011.

If the section was working well the way it is, this issue wouldn't keep coming up.

If people would not post any misogynist OR misandrist material in that subforum, there would be less acrimony, the subforum would work better, and the subforum would be more successful.

Unless Alex wills it, it won't happen and he's not receptive to input or delegating duties. What you see is what you get here, I guess we should be glad the forum isn't almost totally unusable like last year.

Why don't the women who want this actually build their own forum and do what they want with it? It's not that hard, just set up a Joomla website with a Kunena plugin.

If the mountain won't come to Muhammad then Muhammad must go to the mountain.

The cynical part of me believes that is not how "working well" is defined. Wrong Planet is "working well" if it gets enough traffic to generate advertising revenue. This isn't a democracy, it's someone's business model. Plus if the women's forum is private then it won't show up on search engine results and that will mean less traffic to the site.

I have thought about this, but will we get enough autistic women and girls to sign up, so that the forum actually makes sense to create and maintain ? It's far better to just make the existing sub-forum private - we'll probably have more women and girls with autism find and participate that way.

As an aside, I have been unable to login to my account on OOM's boards. I don't have her email address and don't know how to contact her (aside from a pm to her here - even though it's been about a month since she last visited this site). Can anyone contact her about the private Women's forum, in the meanwhile ? I have a feeling that she will be more receptive to the idea than Alex.

If an entire website dedicated to autistic women won't attract anyone, then how likely is it that a sub-forum, within a larger forum, amongst a collection of other forums on a website, will attract only the target audience?

Far less likely than Alex creating such a sub-forum just for you, I'd wager.

It's about seeding the boards, plain and simple. WP is an established site and high on search engine results. Making a brand new forum as popular as this site - even if we took advantage of social booking websites / back links / social media --will not easy. It will be a Herculean time-intensive effort to produce enough quality content that will attract and keep people interested / participating. Quite frankly, as the mother of young children, I don't have that time. I could create the forum and hand it over to someone else to run / administer -- if anyone will volunteer for the job.

Even if we did manage to generate sufficient traffic, the biggest obstacle would be requiring registration to see the content. If the forum is to be closed to all but registered female members (in order to allow private / sensitive discussions), then that may be a "turn-off" to many people, who may not have the time or the inclination to sign up first to see the "content", wanting a "free preview" instead. It is therefore better to make a sub-forum of an existing, well-established site (like this one) private, so that existing female members can freely access it and participate -- without having to first worry about seeding, SEO, marketing, popularizing the forum etc etc etc.

Unless you have a better idea (other than, "men are entitled to troll a women's discussion board").

This! If people would stop posting misogynous or misandrous stuff, there would surely be less hatred and arguments around.

Or you could all vote with your feet and go to aspies central instead. It's a much better quality of site. Why should Alex get your help with site hits if you don't even like the site he has built. I really don't think this is going to change. It's been brought up time and again over the years.

Do you mean the one that follows people around, reporting them to the mods, and licking the mods' behinds like he's a teacher's pet? Because I find users like him, and his followers (why does everyone respect what is blatently a bully?) are the ones who put new, potentially great users off.

This site also attracts trolls because the people of this site take their wind-ups seriously or assume they really don't know the answers to their questions.

So in essence, it is the users of this site that make it a sh!t hole. It has a massive target painted on it because people here are too ignorant to be able to tell what trolling is, what a personal attack is, and what bullying is.

We used to be able to form a "group" (I don't think "groups" are a function on this site, anymore, though), and the only ones who could participate were the ones who were INVITED; also, the posts would be nowhere to be found----like, for instance, the Mods belong to a group and their "Mod Business" posts aren't seen, anywhere. Also, it would, pretty much, eliminate males registering as females and joining-in on the discussions, because people would only get invited if they had participated in the "other" forums and people would know what gender they were, eventually, even if they didn't mark it in their profile.

I would LOVE to have a separate forum for "women only". I was very excited when I saw the forum in the index, when I first came here, but my excitement was short-lived when a male posted on a thread in which I was very interested----meaning, I agree with others who have said that there are just topics that I don't feel comfortable discussing in "mixed company".

I also agree with whomever said (I've read this entire thread, but I can't remember who said, what) that it would never happen because Alex isn't about to allow a forum that can't be crawled, and thus bring more visitors / ad revenue.

Men could have one, too, but.....

I also think that the LGBT community should have their own----I mean, inaccessible to non-LGBTs, but.....

.....and, TEENS!!

The forums that are already here----for instance, "Women's Discussion", could remain, to keep-up the draw to the site----but, for the more personal stuff, have a "group" (again, I don't think "groups" are a function on this site, anymore). That way, too, the men could be just as raunchy as they wanted----I would be GLAD not to read "personal things", from them. I responded to a thread on L&D, one time (I sometimes forget to check, unfortunately, when I click on a topic in "Active Discussions"), and someone responded to me, and I almost had a stroke, from reading the post (very frank / very explicit), and I've never been back. Also, one time, before that, I posted in L&D to a thread about what I like in a mate----and, again, not realizing what I was doing (coming-across like I want a mate), I posted very openly. (I really should have that post deleted, I guess, because if someone comes-across it, and PMs me, thinking I'm looking to get hooked-up, I'll have a friggin' stroke!)

Also, I agree with the idea of there being a specific Mod "in-charge"----I just don't agree with any of the suggestions (especially, since one of the nominees is a huge, HUGE narcissist, IMO, and is playin' everybody, here); I think it should be someone who "gets around", so-to-speak----those mentioned, seem to be, sort-of, centralized to GAD, and "Parents", I think.....

Hmmn, I can think of a few people who might fit that description. But yeah it's a problem, not only puts off new members but drives away current ones too. It's not so bad if people recognize bullying and nasty behavior for what it is and stand up to it. And good moderation can shut them down fast. But if mods sympathize with them and/or they attract followers or "toadies" it gets way out of hand.



Wish I didn't have to agree with this, but I do.