Proposal: New Men's and Women's Health and Wellness Forums

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Following constructive discussions, androbot01 and 0_equals_true would like to propose that WP create new Men's and Women's Health and Wellness Forums, with a proactive approach to moderation.

We believe that these are important issues for both genders, that would be beneficial to WP members.

We think now would be a good time to provide a more equitable approach to gendered health and wellness issues.

Despite a false start many years ago, with a clearer remit and necessary discipline it is achievable and worthwhile.

We believe an inclusive approach is the way to go. Nobody should be excluded from either forum so long as they are respectful. We are not the arbiters of identity nor is it possible to determine this.

The idea would be for the existing Women's forum discussions to be retained under Women's Health and Wellness Forum and to add a Men's Health and Wellness Forum, so current concerns could be addressed.

I think this is a great idea. I like it because it is fair and inclusive. You have my support.

Good the hear

A better idea would be to change the name of the "Women's Forum" to the "Women's Health & Wellness Forum", then change the name of the current "Health, Fitness, & Sports" forum to the "Men's Health & Wellness Forum", and leave it all at that.

It is a better idea because it is easier to change the names of forums than it is to change the underlying structure of an entire website to accommodate the addition of new forums.

Being easier means that Alex is more likely to do it.

I write extensions for forums among other platforms and and do programming/consultancy for a living. I know phpBB3 well. It is not hard to create new forums. It is under the ACP.

However is doesn't matter how, it more the idea.

Health, Fitness, & Sports already includes women's posts.

If Alex feel he need rename some of the sections slightly to make things clearer, I support this. I did discuss this with androbot01. However we decided we would keep our proposal simple.

Obviously the women's forum would be renamed "Women's Health & Wellness Forum"

I feel that this would work as long as there is proper moderation, as was mentioned. I just don't like the idea of excluding all men from the women's forum just because some were not being appropriate.

And also, I think having only a women's forum just for women and not one for men is sexist. I just don't agree with the idea. Even if the reasoning behind it is that women are more discriminated against than men, then all it will do is cause resentment from some of the men here.

Besides, I do think that sometimes there are some negative comments made against males here, and I believe that should be protected against as well.

Unfortunately, I think that I'm in the minority here. A lot of people seem to only be happy with the idea of the women's forum being closed to men, and then there are some opposed to it, and the rest really just don't care enough to bother.

It'd be even easier to change the rules of the existing "Women's Discussion" forum so they make it unambiguous that men really shouldn't post there---not simply that they shouldn't make "inappropriate" posts, but that being written by someone with a penis, XY chromosomes or whatever generally makes any post automatically inappropriate.

I used to think this wasn't the spirit of the forum, but Adamantium set me straight in that I can't expect to be allowed to post there without whatever he deems a very compelling reason why the forum really needed my post. The more male posters are spared my misconception in the future, the easier it'll be to use the forum as a place for women to post alone, and the fewer arguments about it will arise.

I guess if that's what the forum rules are really meant to mean, I suppose you're right. I really don't know what the implied meaning is. In that case, the wording of the forum rules should be altered slightly.

I personally find all of this bickering and (what I perceive as) hostility between some people on both sides of the issue to be completely unnecessary and counter-productive.

I think either of these forums are not the place intended for gender politics. PPR is the correct place for that.

I think if that discussion gets on to gender politics it should in PPR, either moved or split.

A user pointed out an important moderation issue.

If a post is a topic that should really be in the adult section gets moved there. So of the users may both have intended to post in Adult. Although the ToS allows this, some of the users may be minors, or may have posted before the topic became adult.

Therefore it should be moved but stopped, so they user can choose to post a new topic in Adult section.

Also if someone is posting topic that are deliberately out of place that should be stopped.

The forum rules clearly state that men can post there. However political issues belong in PPR.

However this a new proposal so the intention is for the rule to be refined.

there are a lot more important things for Alex to do with the forums before this if he ever gets around to it

the whole captcha thing is pretty annoying, some basic modern forum features you know, at least for the bugs to get taken care of...

Point of clarification: The Women's Discussion forum is not a place where males should not post. What the rules say is:


Some threads may be marked "Women Only" in the titles by the OP. A different standard applies to those threads:


viewtopic.php?t=141113

This does mean that it is up to a moderator to make some judgments. It's not up to me or any other individual moderator, unless that moderator is responding to a report. It you are male and post in a thread with "Women Only" in the title don't be surprised if your post is removed at the moderators discretion. If someone complains about a post by a male and the post is not, in the judgment of the moderator, a valuable contribution to the discussion with compelling reason to be there, it will be removed.

That the people currently calling for exclusion of males from "Women's Discussion" don't already use this "women only" title system suggests that the forum guidelines are widely ignored.

Last edited by Adamantium on 27 Jan 2016, 2:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.: restore text inadvertently omitted by my mind while posting.

New forums are created when we have a lot of threads on those topics. If the women's forum / fitness forum started filling up with enough posts to merit the creation of this forum, we would. Obviously that's not currently happening so I don't see this fulfilling an existing need.

That makes sense. I just wish there was a way to end the senseless bickering.