[TopAce]

I urge you to reconsider, Battuta. It's not something constant; it's just one discussion out of many that was dragged on further than it should have been. It happens at HLP, and on the Internet in general.

To an outisder, it did not seem that harsh. I mean, the discussion as a whole, not specific posts.

[General Battuta]

As I believe the linked post made clear, my concern is in part the amount of time and energy that I put into these conflicts, and even my role in causing them. The problem is not exclusively with others.

I like to believe that I am more fair-minded than most, and when problems arise, I look at myself first.

I want to reduce the probability of this happening again.

And as I think I have made clear - and as I tried to explain to Goober, who patronizingly suggested he was 'concerned' about Rian because 'one thread had such an impact on her' - this is not a single thread. These concerns stretch back across my entire time at HLP, spanning multiple threads and touching on elements as disparate as the Silent Threat Reborn wingman personas and the amount of leeway iamzack is sometimes given in moderation.

And, to reiterate: the fact that something is commonplace does not mean it is acceptable. I am a researcher in the field of stereotype, prejudice, and attitudes, and I am far more aware of the mechanisms at play than most. It is not easy for me to tolerate things that I used to blow off as harmless.

[TrashMan]

On a broader social level, you do not understand what it is like to be a woman on the Internet, where your worth is characterized by certain very specific features which are not those by which men are evaluated.

I don't think anyone is contesting that. I certantly don't know how it feels to be a woman, you certanly don't know how it feels to be a man.
Men and women are different, and recieve different treatment in different cultures over different time periods. Such things have always been in flux.
You getting a raw deal? Yeah, the few perks you get don't seem enough to overcompensate the negatives, but it's changing. Slowly. There's really not much any one person can do to speed up the process. A society doesn't change over night...
I wish it was different. Hopefully one day it will be. Soon.

At some point she has to make a choice as to whether the minimal benefits of her time here are worth the constant sidelong attacks.

This is universal to everyone. I've been thinking of quiting HLP a few times myself - for a bit different reasons, but running into d**** on the net is part of the internet package. Nobody wants that, yet there's really nothing to be done about it.
Deciding to leave is not irrational. Sometimes you just go "f*** it!"


EDIT: Quiting forum moderating? For this? Aren't you a bit overacting GB?

[General Battuta]

I appreciate your post, TrashMan. I think it's very fair.

As I've said, my reasons are not confined to this thread. In addition to long-standing issues with gender on HLP (just like in other primarily male groups I interact with), I spent a long time in IRC conversation with Goober5000, a person who shapes the tone of the community and my relationship with it.

I am concerned about the amount of disruption I cause. Furthermore, because my 'patron' for moderator status was Goober5000, I am not entirely sure I can comfortably continue in the position as I feel an obligation to him.

[TrashMan]

Goober, your argument seems to stem from the belief that there is something about women that is inherently suited to staying home and raising a family.

I don't actually think he said that. Or did he? Best we not start reading too much into things.

That said, while men have some advantages over women as soldiers, those advantages are not insurmantable. It's not like that makes women incapable of combat. And in times of trouble, everyone pitches in.

[CP5670]

I had written a rather more harsh reply to you Battuta, but your last few posts have diffused the situation. All I will say is that if anyone chooses to leave the Freespace community over a thread like this, then so be it. It has happened many times before, and the community has always recovered from it in the long run.

[Snail]

I appreciate your post, TrashMan. I think it's very fair.

As I've said, my reasons are not confined to this thread. In addition to long-standing issues with gender on HLP (just like in other primarily male groups I interact with), I spent a long time in IRC conversation with Goober5000, a person who shapes the tone of the community and my relationship with it.

I am concerned about the amount of disruption I cause. Furthermore, because my 'patron' for moderator status was Goober5000, I am not entirely sure I can comfortably continue in the position as I feel an obligation to him.

Come on GB. All you did was express a perfectly legitimate view.

[General Battuta]

I had written a rather more harsh reply to you Battuta, but your last few posts have diffused the situation. All I will say is that if anyone chooses to leave the Freespace community over a thread like this, then so be it. It has happened many times before, and the community has always recovered from it in the long run.

Respectfully, the decision is mine, and while you are free to pass judgment, you also must be aware that you are not privy to my perspective.

I considered posting the full chatlogs from my conversation with Goober5000 but felt that it was unethical.

I am amused by your reaction, because I did not express an intent to leave the community.

Have I not by now made it clear that a single thread is not the issue?

[NGTM-1R]

I am amused by your reaction, because I did not express an intent to leave the community.

I find it hard to read your statement about having your moderator status revoked and possibly not completing your obligations to BP any other way.

[General Battuta]

I haven't made that decision yet. In any case, were I to decide to leave, it would be a decision made for my own well-being, not a gesture towards the community (whether positive or negative.)

[Woolie Wool]

HLP has gone downhill recently. Someone's definitely been putting something in the water. Or everyone's just been eating some really bad sushi.

One thing I think is different is that we only have three active admins (and Fury hardly posts anymore). We used to have eight--Goober, Setekh, Karajorma, Styxx, Shrike, Fury, Sandwich, and Kalfireth.

I think we might need to nominate a new admin or three. If anyone cares about my suggestions, I would think General Battuta (yeah, I know about stepping down but you're a damn good moderator, and perhaps you could combine your professional understanding of prejudice with more authority to do some good), Axem, chief1983, and Galemp would make good candidates.

Edit: Forgot Fury due to his almost unnoticeably small avatar.

[FoxtrotTango]

I've abstained from participation here since a few pages ago, but I think I should address something that Battuta has done with his many points of misogyny. I'm not trying to kick a sleeping rottweiler, but I'm just curious. You said that all of these issues were taken from the entirety of your time at the HLP. If this is true, why didn't you address these concerns before, instead of venting them all at once in an explosive gunnysacking? Holding in problems and then throwing them out onto the table all at once is rather destructive and I think it could have been avoided had you expressed your lack of comfort with this situation previously.

Like I said before, I'm not choosing to refute anything you've said, but wouldn't it have been a better idea to address the issues as they came instead of letting them swell up and become one big, intimidating problem that will take a lot longer to cut down to size?

[General Battuta]

I've expressed the problem many times before, in threads you were not active in. I've spoken to the admins before.

Don't assume.

The fact is that there's very little that can be done about the issue, by anyone, no matter how well intentioned.

Moreover, while I've said that this is rooted in a general trend, I have made it very clear that my specific problem right now is my discomfort with serving in an administrative or sub-administrative role on a website whose leadership espouses these views. That is a specific claim.

Your choice to use terms like 'explosive gunnysacking', 'swell up', and 'rather destructive' is unfortunate and betrays a regrettable lack of understanding. Of course you can't be expected to have the full picture, but grant me a measure of credit.

I've outlined the problems I have, and they are as much with my own conduct as with anyone else's. If that degree of self-awareness isn't getting across perhaps I need to outline it again?

[Woolie Wool]

I don't think you can get away with it wherever you go, in the Internet or real life. It's a pervasive, society-wide problem that will take decades if not centuries to resolve. HLP is any worse than other sites I've been to in terms of sexism.

[General Battuta]

Quite so.

Ironically I wish I'd handled this more like Rian. She's asked me not to pass on any of her commentary on the matter, but everything she's said about it has been so remarkably calm and fair-minded that I sort of want to shove it in Goob's face in a distinctly juvenile way.

For perspective, Goob believed she was departing solely because of the content of this thread, when in fact she was effectively resigning from an endless and unending series of misogyny threads going back years. This one just involved a site admin, and so became significantly more severe.

[Woolie Wool]

I don't think leaving HLP will change anything for you. It's just a symptom of a problem that's everywhere. As a supermod, you have at least some capacity to fight this (although you are not really in a position to fight Goober, of course) and reduce the extent of it. If you think this is bad, I've been to forums (and not even imageboard-related communities, I avoid those like the black death) where people ask women to post nude pictures of themselves to prove that they are female.

[General Battuta]

That might be so, but I will reiterate Rian's reasoning:

With so much going on in my life right now, and so much possibility to put my (considerable) talents to work in achieving some really brilliant stuff, I cannot justify spending time on these misogyny debates. And so I want to take action to reduce my chances of becoming entangled in them.

I've already submitted my resignation. I think my most epic moment was probably handling the return of Derek Smart. I'm kind of bummed that's not in Classics, actually.

[FoxtrotTango]

I wasn't making any accusations. Just trying to get a clearer picture and be sure that you had thought this through. I know this now and apologize for questioning it. I just like to be sure that what I see is what I get, that's all.

Sorry about that, Battuta.

[Goober5000]

Let me straighten up some things here.

1) My statement that Rian's withdrawal from the thread was "irrational and emotional" did not come out of left field, nor was it "rooted in a stereotypic view of women".  It was a direct response to Battuta on IRC, when he asserted that Rian's withdrawal from the thread was "rational and calm".  It's disingenuous to make an assertion, and then demand an apology when that assertion is contradicted.

2) The "irrational and emotional" statement was based on specific things Rian said in her second-to-last post, such as questioning my "authority on which to make this claim", and her last post, which is textbook ragequitting behavior: fail to address the argument, withdraw from the thread, and leave an insult behind you.  Battuta pointed out that one of my assertions (that Rian didn't address the "prefer extinction" opinion) was incorrect, so I conceded that point.  However, that does not invalidate the argument as a whole.

3) Battuta claims that my argument "has been thoroughly trashed" based on his demographic calculations from Operation Thresher and the Epsilon Pegasi massacre.  While these calculations are useful and illustrative of the casualties suffered in space-based warfare, he neglected to take into account the losses from ground-based warfare.  Unfortunately, we have no specific numbers on ground casualties, but we do have plenty of clues.  We know that the Harbinger, a warhead with a 5000 megaton payload (300,000 times the yield at Hiroshima), was used for planetary bombardment during the Great War.  We also know that the Lucifer's beam cannons "have been seen bombarding colonized worlds".  While not as dramatic as the Vasuda Prime bombardment, these undoubtedly caused casualties in the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions.  Finally, Battuta ignores the specific figure of 4 billion lives lost at Vasuda Prime.

4) Neither the HLP website nor the administration is "colored by my opinions"; my professional ability to administrate a website or moderate a forum is independent of whatever personal conclusions I reach on a fictional scenario.  Even the fact that I recruited Battuta to be a global moderator is irrelevant; I expect him to think and act for himself.  He shouldn't feel any obligation to me personally; any obligation should be to the forum as a whole, or to himself.  Indeed, we couldn't even have this public debate if my status as an administrator had a chilling effect on the forum.  Few people in the forum share my conclusions anyway.

5) I still fail to understand how any discussion in this thread, or even the opinions people hold in general, should have any effect on Battuta's participation in HLP overall.  Battuta, correct me if I'm wrong, but are you really saying that you are incapable of working with people who hold opinions different from yours?  It smells of passive-aggressive behavior to me.  Karajorma and I hold substantially different political opinions but we work together all the time.  I wish you wouldn't resign your global moderatorship or your participation in Blue Planet; you are an asset to the HLP community.

[karajorma]

I am concerned about the amount of disruption I cause. Furthermore, because my 'patron' for moderator status was Goober5000, I am not entirely sure I can comfortably continue in the position as I feel an obligation to him.

Actually it was me who put you forward for the position not Goober.

*Raises the defensive shields*