You are most welcome Mike, thanks for the thanks. I’m really impressed by the responses we’ve had, people have bought up some fantastic reasons that really never even occurred to me. There is definitely a lot to think about…
I have especially taken these points on board:
Because whilst there are plenty of fine points that people brought up that we unfortunately can’t do anything about, the above is something that we can work on as a forum. These points made me realise that really, there are things we can do to enhance the forum experience for all of us, not just with a view to attracting more professionals.
These has hit home with me as something I need to personally work on. I hardly ever post forum topics, I just post on ones that already exist. I think I’ve posted like 5 topics since I joined.
So, I’m going to make it a goal to try and get some more in-depth discussion going. If others were able to try and do the same, then great! If we all band together then we may be able to take this forum above and beyond what is currently is.
Unfortunately, I did, and it was a disappointing read. Really, that was an oversight on the part of the OP who didn’t really understand exactly what he was starting. I tend to avoid posting in threads like that since any post, regardless of the content, just pushes it further up the page and adds another log to the fire. When I met Ann was nothing but friendly and civil, so that’s good enough for me.
Still, whilst I can fully understand that Ann personally might not feel particularly welcome here, our female members as a whole are well received. We have a small dedicated group of women on here (TA, Usagi, Abby), and for the most part I’ve seen them treated with respect. I can’t recall a time when someone has personally attacked any of them for being female… although they may be able to recall a time that I’m not aware of.
I genuinely don’t know how you do it. I frequent the CLYW Ask.fm page just to get the inside scoop on anything new, and the idea of answering questions like that all day long seems enough to drive a man to madness. Especially considering that when you give a straight-to-the-point answer to a question that’s already been answered about 5 times that day, people accuse you of being rude.
A very fine point, and one that perhaps a person cannot fully understand until it happens to them. It really is the vast minority who are causing any issues, but I guess one personal attack can be enough to hurt someone.
Sometimes I feel like behaviour like this could be challenged better. A while back I posted a rather out-of-line post against a particular forum member, and he PM’ed me calling me out on it. I have to admit, I didn’t fully understand how rude I had been or how wrong I had gotten my facts until I was confronted on it. I apologised to him publicly and personally and I’ve been more careful to avoid jumping to conclusions since.
Now I’m not necessarily saying that every time we see someone post a sarky post at us we bombard them with PM’s saying “COME AT ME BRROOOO”, but I definitely question as to whether someone should be allowed to post numerous rude and sarcastic posts at will without any repercussions whatsoever.
Thank you for all the amazing responses one and all.
Now, my follow-up question to this is simple:
What can we do better? What practical steps can we take to improve the forum experience here?