For what it's worth, as far as most nerdy communities go, particularly for traditional forums, EGF has always had quite a diverse and international userbase. Even 10 years ago, when you'd expect nothing but the average male otaku, we had quite a lot of women here. This has indeed become more standardized in recent years, but it's partly a result of the decline in activity, as well. Funny, as many of those members are now active in varying degrees on EGF Discord, instead, even if not necessarily on the forums.

Justacrazyguy wrote:But it's not like the presence of women nullifies those things. You can be female dominated and still be sexist or alienate certain women.

Agreed, absolutely.

It's just that it seems to me like trying to find a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. But I'm no lady for sure, so maybe I don't notice it if the forum is indeed alienating or threatens to become like that.

Since I'm a guy, it's hard for me to notice it too, unless it's in my face or affects people whom I know (as it indeed has). But at the same time, I just don't want to let something like this slide.

Like 10-12 years earlier, I'd have probably dismissed this as an empty worry but now it just seems so much more real.

Star Dust aside, is there no female member of EGF willing to speak up or is it just going to be us guys talking in hypotheticals?

A friend of mine once told me that men and women are different, which is why they both need to be in positions of leadership. I tend to agree with that. Like, I wanna make decisions in a way that benefits men and women discussing Eva on the forums, but I can't be expected to be aware to everything, nor is it really fair for me to be expected to be aware to everything. Having as wide of a diversity as possible in these kinds of positions naturally keeps things from being too overbearing one way or another, while also taking a lot of the burden off the shoulders of some people who just don't pick up on certain things as well as other people can.

Invite QMisato and elonna to join as our female mods

Not that I find any joy in the forum being male dominated, it's irrelevant to me, but I also don't see the point in getting women just for the sake of some nebulous equality.

The problem with this train of thought is there is a lot of inequality still to this day. It's not so much "equality for the sake of it", it is to actually prevent inequality. Which is not infrequent on the internet.

I don't think it's anything dramatic either. I just think it'd be healthier in the long run for the forum.

Invite QMisato

She wouldn't join EGF. I won't say anything more on that.

kuribo-04 wrote:She wouldn't join EGF. I won't say anything more on that.

It was a joke.

kuribo-04 wrote:She wouldn't join EGF. I won't say anything more on that.

Well, Qmisato actually did join the forums a while back, started a bunch of fights, threw a hissy fit and blamed it on everyone else.

^ That explains her attitude towards EGF on tumblr.

kuribo-04 wrote:But robersora, thing is (and btw, yes, it's great that with you there is some minority among staff as well) women aren't a minority.

This was supposed to be taken in jest, I'm sorry if I failed to make that clear.

robersora wrote:This was supposed to be taken in jest, I'm sorry if I failed to make that clear.

Yeah I wasn't sure how to read it, but that could be on me too lol. Don't worry.

So I've given this some thought. Even accounting for all the users who don't specify their gender, EGF pretty clearly has male members in the majority and more male members in positions of high standing in the community than women. The four new moderators (all male) were active on this site as well as on Discord, so we have some "cross-pollination" going on, but it's also evident that a whole lot of the Discord users are guys.

I have reached out to a couple of female members of this community for their thoughts, and would really like to hear from other women (cis- or trans-, it doesn't matter) in this thread.

Whatever the reasons, structural, cultural, or otherwise, it has also become evident to me that there is no simple "solution" to the questions raised, and any radical changes will likely cause more harm than good unless executed properly. The least I can do for the moment is hope to hear and find out if we have any issues - structural, cultural, or otherwise - that are specific to EGF and that we could improve in order to make this forum more welcoming and hospitable for our female users, and get to work on those ASAP.

I do agree both gender perspectives matter I also agree that you can have an all female dominated forum and it be sexist as I've seen that play out elsewhere like tumblr/twitter (I have a long story on that but won't be going in to it here) and that's wrong as both genders deserve equal treatment but also for one gender including female to not have women be let off for bad behaviour which I've seen happen as well when the male counterpart would not.

I have seen sexism on the forums but it tends to be with new members but I've only had 2/3 instances in my time here and one was more trolling he seemed to be tailing me knowing I was female making condescending remarks and hoping I'd take his bait which I didn't.

I feel the gender problem goes beyond the forum as there is a thing on tumblr/twitter if you mention you like anime and your female all hell can break loose because too some anime is sexist by default and then a thousand flamers will come at you with pitchforks and it's deeply unpleasant. Even though what there aiming at is the sexualization issues of anime and not the real problems in the medium like with animes double standards and it's deeply frustrating.

So I imagine a lot of women who get caught up in this watch in private but don't tell their friends for fear of being burned and these are the people you want to ease out of the shadows, so they join. Like I don't have all the answers I'd need to think more on how to make that happen but I do belive these women are out there, their just afraid to come in and voice feelings as once social media stings you its very hard to get back on your feet and you grow weary of forums.

One of the things I did like and still like about this forum is it feels like a more equal ground and members do call out others when bad remarks are made. I like that people here are level-headed that they don't fly off handles its why I stay here as I don't want to be on forums where someone bashing Kaworu for being gay/bi/trans or are pissing on the LGBT themes which I hold in high regard.

Like I feel this forum has the potential to go from strength to strength but I feel it will take time, Rome was not built in a day. I do think female mods will help as then if these women have some difficult issue they can voice to their own gender until their comfortable voicing to both.

One more thing to note as of late: given the possibility that our admins are not always guaranteed to be around to deal with troublemakers who need to be temp-banned, some of the moderators now have access to the ban ability and will be able to give out short-term (a couple of hours to a couple of days) bans. They've agreed to take on the responsibility, and will accordingly be held to account for it.

UrsusArctos wrote:One more thing to note as of late: given the possibility that our admins are not always guaranteed to be around to deal with troublemakers who need to be temp-banned, some of the moderators now have access to the ban ability and will be able to give out short-term (a couple of hours to a couple of days) bans. They've agreed to take on the responsibility, and will accordingly be held to account for it.

Makes sense, having more people with the abilty to deal with others causing trouble is a good move. Hopefully, after all the effort that has been put in, there will be minimal troublemaking. I'd definitely like to see this place grow into a much more positive and active place.

jcmoorehead wrote: I'd definitely like to see this place grow into a much more positive and active place.

Good sir, I'm in complete agreement with your sentiments.

Also, since we've got the colors of Eva-01 (purple and green), Eva-00 both original (orange) and rebuilt (blue), I've gone ahead and given the old Admins Emeritus (and Emerita) Eva-02's classic red.

I think we're all dressed up appropriately now!

So, as I mentioned earlier in this thread I'm new (since june) and mostly a lurker. I choose to interact with EGF almost exclusively consumptively, reading old threads on topics that interest me start to finish. This is mostly because as a neophyte, I don't think I've really marinated in eva enough to contribute meaningfully to the conversation.
Going off of my experience alone, I would say that EGF is not unwelcoming or inhospitable to women specifically, but rather there is a perceived (real or otherwise) high barrier to entry. Low "recruitment" numbers among both genders would call attention to the absence of high-profile members like Reichu and SSD.
But I suppose as someone who's only been here for a few months, I should stick to what I can speak confidently on, instead of speculating. With that in mind, my perception of EvaGeeks, as a new member and a woman, is that the community is a relatively small, well-established group of people, mostly men, that sees very little turnover. 90% or more of users who are active today were active five years ago, and as a result everyone knows (or knows of) everyone else, like your HS graduating class who you spent six hours a day with for twelve years. As a result, new users need to learn not only the canon and popular theories, but also the social dynamics of the forums, before they can engage with old users on equal footing. I have observed some behaviors that made me feel alienated (see below), but my general impression is that users displaying these tendencies are the exception, not the rule.

As a result of all the above, I do not believe that my gender would make me feel lesser or unwelcome in the EGF community, but that I am not yet a member of that community all the same.

LordGlazedDonut wrote:But I suppose as someone who's only been here for a few months, I should stick to what I can speak confidently on, instead of speculating. With that in mind, my perception of EvaGeeks, as a new member and a woman, is that the community is a relatively small, well-established group of people, mostly men, that sees very little turnover. 90% or more of users who are active today were active five years ago, and as a result everyone knows (or knows of) everyone else, like your HS graduating class who you spent six hours a day with for twelve years.

I'm a user that has been around for a (comparatively) shorter period of time and has only gotten really involved with EGF itself in 2017, through its Discord, though I have been active elsewhere in Eva communities, and I know members from all "generations" so to speak, from EGF and elsewhere (though for the most part older members are only ones that were in EGF at one point or another), and the general story of those times, so I'm generally better positioned to understand these dynamics than most older members, and I agree with you 100%. I know dozens of lurkers like yourself that have a similar perception of the forums - they keep reading it but don't feel like adding anything to the discussion. A bit of this unfortunately is also due to the traditional forum format - even during their heydays forums could easily develop cliques and become stagnant, and even to this day gatekeeping is considered something desirable in "classical" nerdy communities, but it's a hurdle we need to try to overcome anyway. I can think of a dozen other female members that have been active over the years - Kendrix and Silvermoonlight are two other big examples, though we also have or had many others. Relatively few members left outright or were banned, some simply got tired of Eva, or even moved to our Discord instead, or other EGF-adjacent communities.

I think some initiatives we've had these past 3-4 months have been largely positive however and we're slowly making the forum more welcoming. I've seen a fair amount of older members returning and some new ones, including some I know lurked for 2 or 3 years and never felt like making any post. While part of this is certainly due to the ramping up for 3.0+1.0 (though this didn't really happen with the Netflix release, for instance), we've maintained a high online user count (100 right now, peaked at 134 yesterday) and corresponding activity even as other places have peaked around the new 3.0+1.0 trailer and fallen to normal levels. There are some other projects kinda in the fridge at the moment or going slowly at the moment as well.

Also, I'm pretty sure that screenshot of yours is from the other EvaGeeks Discord server, which for whatever reason users the EvaGeeks name (recognition?) but is not affiliated with the EvaGeeks forum at all and has maybe a handful of people from here there, if any. Try this one, Sachi's server: https://discord.gg/nPyXV6FBM7

EDIT: nevermind, it's ours. I'll leave that though because I do seem that confusion sometimes.

I'm reluctant to derail this thread from "diversity and inclusion" to "lurkers and new blood," but my post from yesterday was the first in three weeks on the topic, so I'm going to risk it.

A mainstay of other forums I've been a part of that is missing from EvaGeeks is a clear path for new users. Opening a forum for the first time (especially one as old and established as EGF) can be information overload, and seeing **NEW USERS START HERE** can alleviate a lot of that disorientation. I think the site could really benefit from a sticky thread where prospective eva geeks can introduce themselves and share their experience with Evangelion and why they're here. Very few people are going to just crack open an ongoing thread and pitch in their two cents when everyone else in the discussion has thousands of posts on their decade-old account. We would likely observe more growth if new arrivals had a clear place to dive in.
I'm apprehensive even writing this, since I imagine it's very likely similar discussions have been had before, and my "contribution" here is just retreading ideas that are old hat to most of you.

^
Don't be afraid to speak up, I appreciate it a lot!
Concerning your idea, we already have a Welcome Thread... but you not having seen it, speaks to the fact that we might wanna give it a more prominent place... but where, tho? haha.

Those ideas are definitely worth looking at, it's how to implement them that's a bit of a headscratcher...