Women of CAX 2009 - My Response and The Future.

mclemore

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Part 1:

Women of CAX 2009 – reactions and more

Summary:

* This post began as a response to the Women of CAX thread, and has turned into something much more.

* I need the forums to be fairly self-regulating.

* Self-regulated forums begin with self-regulated behavior. Please avoid unnecessary personal attacks, insults, racist comments, and insensitive sexist ones. If this 'censorship' and board 'guidelines' cramps your style too much, then please leave. I don't personally get enough out of the forums to put up with much bs. What I primarily get out of the forums is simply a satisfaction that they are helpful to and appreciated by others of a community based on specific interests, in this case for people interested in arcade games. (It is the same reasons I host the lymphoma.com forums—I host them to be helpful, neither I nor anyone I know has lymphoma).

* A cooperative environment can be maintained with the help of all the users, moderators, and admins. Again, self-regulation is the basis. The role of the moderators and admins are generally to gently nudge the board and to deal with individual issues. Without self-regulation though, life becomes a war between the moderators and countless other self-interests (each different). That wouldn't be good for anyone.
 
Women of CAX - Response Part 2

How this began today:

I've gotten complaints from –several—people about the 'Women of CAX 2009' thread, both via email and via the 'report post' button. That is the time the thread becomes my problem. I had other things to do today than read the thread and decide whether or not action was necessary.

My post here includes mostly my personal reaction along with a little bit of 'official' position. Hopefully it will be clear which is which.

Ok, so Avidgeek posts a thread to his flickr page with his photos of girls/women playing arcade games at the California Extreme show, mostly taken from behind them while the girls/women unknowingly played the games. [Note: My post here really is not primarily about Avidgeek and his photos, it is about the board in general.]

Several people write comments, several people lob insults at the women in the photos, several people suggest the photo album and thread is unnecessarily insensitive or offensive, and several people respond to these concerns with 'get real' comments.

Several people suggested taking more photos with faces in a less voyeuristic style, and avidgeek says that it (a) isn't his style, (b) would require a lot more time taking photos, and (c) would create 'posed' looking shots. Re: (a) style is a personal choice, (b) yes, it might take more time and distract from the games, and (c) the shots wouldn't have to be all"posed" and in any case would probably be more interesting and more flattering at the same time (IMO).

It is clear to me how some could find this insensitive and offensive, and justifiably so. In particular because the photos don't stand alone—the thread in this case is integral to the discussion. Labeling photos 'crossdresser' and other insults within the 120 posts add a flavor to the thread regardless of avidgeek's intent on whether or not to generate an "Am I hot or not" thread.

The photos by themselves, in my opinion, would be found significantly offensive by only a small part of the population, though more of course might consider them 'juvenile' or 'uncomfortable'. I myself simply wondered, 'why even bother (to take the photos)?'.

Add the content of the accompanying thread, and the number of people troubled by the photos and/or responses goes up significantly.

Also troubling is that whenever any one posted concerns about the photos and/or thread, they were often personally attacked.

Furthermore, one of the admins posted a response essentially stating that "calling women cross dressers could be seen as insensitive".

havok69, instead of responding with a "ya, maybe you are right," responds with basically a "you are policing the threads too much, and she deserved being called a cross dresser – I'd never let anyone I cared about dress so ridiculously and parade around like that in public. [Summarized and rewritten]"

Havok69, in short, you 'don't get it', and other people sometimes 'don't get it' and that affects the board and other people, then becomes my problem…

ArcadeJunkie follows up admin's post with "are you kidding me? no wonder alot of people i know from this site are posting less. what a joke, why dont you just give them an infraction and push more members out..."

While I'm writing this Arcadejunkie follows up with "so ypu are one of the people who the mods are all of a sudden caring about its total bs administration doesnt listen to jack contributing users have to say but some butthurt noob has more of an affect on this site. get off the internet and go back to bible camp" and another post stating that the topic is nothing compared to some of the things ArcadeJunkie has posted before and in the future.

Avidgeek—saying you had good intentions in your posts doesn't really jive with you latest answer to the complainers calling her "narrow-minded, uptight, and high maintenance".
 
Women of CAX - Response 3

* The purpose of this site, KLOV, and IAM is about games, and the arcade community, etc.

* The purpose of the forums is to serve as much of the gaming community as possible, and not to be hijacked by a small group of ultra-posters, who through their heavy participating becomes the 'majority' presence while not being a majority by head count. The gaming community includes women, and occasional posters, the young, and the old. Again, its about gaming and the community. Random non-gaming, non-personal, chat-room style banter is of secondary importance.

* General forum guidelines serve multiple purposes. The first is to make the forums as helpful and as appealing to as many as possible (see above), and for people to be treated with respect. This not only includes appealing to the gaming community, but also to the media and to potential sources of institutional funding for upcoming upgrades to the KLOV and IAM. I can't get into it yet, but I'm working on a number of substantial exciting new (non-forum) features. Some of this will require the involvement of others (beyond me, beyond KLOV regulars). As such, to make a long story short, the forum needs to be relatively non-controversial. It should also be relatively self-regulating. I'm not ultra active on the forums (due to time constraints) thus if they were taken down I'd probably miss them less than a lot of you would. And yes, there are days I've thought about taking them down. Not seriously, but serious thoughts often begin life as simple "I wonder if…" In short, I'm happy when the forums are not a thorn in my side. There seems to be enough confusion about what is and is not acceptable behavior that I'm getting sucked into this right now.

* A decent number of people have left due to the tyranny of a few, (particularly) forum fights, and repeated insensitive comments (racist, overly sexist, trolling, etc.) over the last few years. I've read my share of 'good-bye' emails. The trouble is part of why I split the lymphoma and arcade forums (even though I had to buy an extra software license to do it), and why we upgraded to the new system (so we had other tools to put disincentives on troubling posts other than the very blunt tool of a permanent ban).

* If some people leave because the forums get "over-policed", I don't really care. For every one that leaves, several others will stay and several new ones will show up. Pleasing everyone will always be impossible. The trend will be towards firmer policies regarding expected behavior. With firmer policies, policing requirements and activity should be much less, not much more. Not every post that is questionable will require action, nor will the ones that do always get action (we are not always around, and also, opinions about a post can differ). Still, abuse the boards at your own risk.

* I've run other (non-KLOV, non-IAM) forums in the past that had unregulated sections. In short, they never worked, turning into a fragfest (open warfare) for a few and absent of everyone else. I have no interest in that happening here.

* Along those lines, I think we should work towards a firmer posted list of guidelines for the forums. What seems obvious to me isn't to everyone (obviously). A few users have suggested guidelines, and the moderators and administrators wouldn't mind them either (both for them, and for users in general). It is something I'll look into and will likely be an ongoing work-in-progress for a while.

* Occasionally users have asked for a straight 'chat' feature to be added to the forums. On one hand its tempting if it would keep some of the junk out of the forums. I have the larger fear though that a chat would just create issues that would spill over to the forums. If the lightly regulated forums have issues that arise, what might an unregulated chat section result in?
 
Point taken Master M. But I must profess that comments made by those offended such as the quote below should not go un-noticed. You don't get reactive posts w/o a criticism that pushes the boundaries of tact.

====================================
Originally Posted by JenChs
Avid- Enough excuses for not taking pics of our faces, my girlfriends and I took great pics of us playing games with our faces in the shots.

Thanks for turning a family friendly event into a creepy peep show. Do you also stalk little girls at your local arcade? Your photos diminished the whole gamer experience for us. We came to play, buy and enjoy games, not to be treated like objects and publicly demoralized. Are you guys gamers or perverts? Maybe you should have gone to a strip club and left the gaming to us.
=====================================


Pick and choose any part of the post above and tell me you don't see a gross generalization, attack, and judgment toward KLOVrs that are in favor of the Women of CAX 2009 thread.

I agree that the rude comments criticizing someone's looks or style should be kept private...but c'mon, Implying that just because you like the thread means you also stalk little girls at the arcade, what kind of BS is that??!! If you really want to stretch it to the lunacy of PC'ism....maybe I'm offended she imply's I am okay with strip clubs. Taking pictures of women playing arcade games is one thing...women pole dancing half naked or nude is another.

Let's not have double standards....one standard is enough.
 
I'm baffled.. How can those pics be offensive to ANYONE? He has men and women pics from CAX. He made a thread just for the women giving them props for playing games. The men pics are the same way. No offense Mclemore but Avid, you are in the right! Avid has not done a thing wrong with the pics or thread.

One thing he did wrong was break Cardinal rule of cut/paste PM from a complainer. Only thing in his defense, the complaint was ludicris!

Agreed on Tranny comment, it was just a lady with different creative style to her look. If it was my wife that was called a tranny, I would be pissed. Other than 1 member making a remark after mod warning.. it was left alone. Tranny was mentioned again later in a Pic involving Chris flirting with what he thaught was a woman, lol :) That pic is PRICELESS!!!

Seriously, CAX was a fun event for those that went and those who couldn't go is sharing in their experience as a whole.

Kevin
 
One thing he did wrong was break Cardinal rule of cut/paste PM from a complainer. Only thing in his defense, the complaint was ludicris!

Kevin

I must correct this Kev....My cut/paste of a PM critical to the thread did not include the sender. Unfortunately, the sender made themselves known by the repeated verbiage that matched my cut/paste.

I don't think providing the verbiage is bad....making the sender known is the no no, right?

I had no intentions on outing the sender....and I stick by that.
 
Ok...that is a cross post. Same response on two threads. So now I'll do the same:

Yes, just as the negative comments about women were out of line, yes so was JenChs's "little girl" and "strip club" comment for that matter. Acknowledged. As per my other post though, the thread was troubled long before JenChs's post. While JenChs's cheap shots may lessen the likeliness the post is taken seriously, it wouldn't be the first reactionary post on these forums...


Point taken Master M. But I must profess that comments made by those offended such as the quote below should not go un-noticed. You don't get reactive posts w/o a criticism that pushes the boundaries of tact.

====================================
Originally Posted by JenChs
Avid- Enough excuses for not taking pics of our faces, my girlfriends and I took great pics of us playing games with our faces in the shots.

Thanks for turning a family friendly event into a creepy peep show. Do you also stalk little girls at your local arcade? Your photos diminished the whole gamer experience for us. We came to play, buy and enjoy games, not to be treated like objects and publicly demoralized. Are you guys gamers or perverts? Maybe you should have gone to a strip club and left the gaming to us.
=====================================


Pick and choose any part of the post above and tell me you don't see a gross generalization, attack, and judgment toward KLOVrs that are in favor of the Women of CAX 2009 thread.

I agree that the rude comments criticizing someone's looks or style should be kept private...but c'mon, Implying that just because you like the thread means you also stalk little girls at the arcade, what kind of BS is that??!! If you really want to stretch it to the lunacy of PC'ism....maybe I'm offended she imply's I am okay with strip clubs. Taking pictures of women playing arcade games is one thing...women pole dancing half naked or nude is another.

Let's not have double standards....one standard is enough.
 
Again, re-read my post if necessary. Take it as fact that some could be offended by those pics (when seen as collection), but I'm not so PC as to believe that you have to please everyone all the time. I personally wasn't bothered by the pics, just bored for the most part.

My primary beef was with the unprovoked comments that followed, as well as the responses given to anyone that expressed concern about it all. When someone says they are offended, one doesn't have to agree with them but one also doesn't have to give them a hard time because of their opinion.


I'm baffled.. How can those pics be offensive to ANYONE?
...
Kevin
 
A lot of posts from me in a single day, eh? I typically average about 5 posts per month.
 
Part 1 - whether the original post topic was appropriate:

Well, I don't think the original post was wrong, and this particular subject has been posted at least twice before in previous years without an issue, hence the return of this popular subject.

If the purpose of these photos were to just take pictures of women's backsides, I could see someone being offended, but that wasn't the case. Women who enjoy playing arcade games is a minuscule percentage when compared to men, and photos taken at an arcade expo showing women actually present and playing games is what the thread is all about. It's kind of hard to take pictures of people's fronts while they are playing an arcade game, which is why most are seen from the rear. It would be different if there were a lot of pictures of women's backsides when they were standing around drinking a coke or something.

Also, people who go to a public place have no expectation of privacy when it comes to photography. I won't go into the legal aspects of it here, however, but it is well established.

Part 2: Reactions by other members

I agree that some comments were in poor taste, and some crossed the line. Of course we're going to see juvenile commentary from certain members, but that's to be expected on a forum devoted to "big kids and their toys".

Others seem to think that they're "entitled" to everything THEY want - simply because they are a member here, or have been here longer, or post more often. I have no problem with those members getting a cold dose of "webmaster reality". It might help keep this place the fun place I enjoy.

I can also identify with the poster (JenCHS or something like that) who had her (?) own opinion of what the thread was about and not liking it. I'm not sure if it was a legitimate lurker newbie, or a "joke" post from some of our more off-the-wall "pranksters" (remember Kevin Sorbo?), but more people should have thought about it better and decided it was better to leave it alone than to set it on fire and hope it doesn't (or does?) blow up.

Conclusion:

I will say, though, that it was semi-unclear as to what you were trying to accomplish in this thread. You had a couple posts that seemed to be "Forum Philosophy" and one that pointed out specific issues. I think I got your point, but some members may need a more pointed "use it or lose it" explanation. I wouldn't mind a more comprehensive "Forum Rules" section when it comes to posts, myself....


PS - And I might have lost my way on what my overall point was in this lengthy reply. Hopefully, it is comprehensible...
 
I am not about to read that whole thread over! lol.. I seen the tranny remark and a mod stepped in and corrected it. That event died quickly. I seen the fake member posting giving crap to avid over it ruining the sharing of the fun of cax. I must missed a page on that thread..

I think most here agree that poking fun at pics of the women is wrong.. no argument there by anyone (i think). Look at past years, same type of pics.. backside of men and women playing games. You are the admin, you are right, who gives a crap about being politically correct. You have intel, judge it for what it really is, not what some newbs are trying to make it out to be.

AGAIN, No one condones making fun of another possable forum member or their family out of cruelness.

Kevin
 
I've been wishing for people to learn self control and behavior for a while now.. I was once a victim of falling for all the negativity but I wised up a while back and saw it for what it was. It's about time Mclemore stepped in and told us all to stop acting like a bunch of animals. Virtually none of us here would behave this way in public so why do we do it here?
 
Holy crap, that made my day, can't stop laughing :D


It IS damn funny too. Yes, the photos aren't Ansel Adams material but I've pretty much accepted that. :D

prOk...yes, the cloak of anonymity is the answer for the behavior. Cutting up and jabbing at others still happened at CAX between KLOVrs but that was between those that know each other, not newcomers. If someone were to join in a live conversation at CAX and begin throwing down criticisms...you'd still get disagreements but hopefully it would be more civil.
 
It IS damn funny too. Yes, the photos aren't Ansel Adams material but I've pretty much accepted that. :D

Yeah, I'm sure if your intention was to objectify women in that thread, you would have used zoom a lot more than you did. Strictly from a "titillating" p.o.v. those pictures were really bad/boring. That leads me to believe that it wasn't the intent, as it would have been easy to go down that path...
But I liked the thread, as it shows a interesting cross section of the types of people who were there, and what type of games they played.
 
I have to concur with RedWolfJC and mclemore. The backside pictures were quite boring. I am bigger fan of the upskirt picture. If you are not familiar with this method, I have attached a picture illustrating the technique.

Avidgeek is there anyway you can snap a few of these pictures next year? While the thread may get you banned permanently from the forums, it would definitely garner the most the views.

I kid ... I kid ... :)
 

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It IS damn funny too. Yes, the photos aren't Ansel Adams material but I've pretty much accepted that. :D

I beg to differ. You captured the geek in it's true essence and the geeks approach to eying women playing arcade games. From a far. Admiring yet not getting too close because they may actually talk you. :p

Next time get some of these fine women licking the joystick or something. At a minimum... Jebus! :D
 
Wait a minute what kind of trash is being advertised on this site? I am completely and utterly appalled. I have been so traumatized by this ad I am not sure I can ever return to the forums.
 

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