Requesting an LGBTQ+ sub forum.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

I've been running the largest car forum on the net for 20 years,  suffice to very much say, moderation is sometimes a vain, because you can only do so much and then you are also fighting your own morals and belief systems,  going "are they right, should I act"  or "should I stop it here and upset every one in it's tracks"   it's always been a very tough job.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

12 minutes ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

So in other words...control what people post. Who will be determining what is considered a *phobic or culture war stand point? 

Exactly the same people who determine what is phobic or inappropriate in every other forum and thread here.

The mods.

[Coffee Pancake]

13 minutes ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

So in other words...control what people post. Who will be determining what is considered a *phobic or culture war stand point? 

Every sub forum, in combination with the community standards, exerts some control over what people can post.

That's literally the point.

[MalibuBratz]

Some of y'all are way to bothered by the fact that y'all can't be homophobic/transphobic and not be called out for it. 

[Arielle Popstar]

6 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Exactly the same people who determine what is phobic or inappropriate in every other forum and thread here.

The mods.

Begs the question why so many report posts or threads when they see something they don't like. By the act of reporting they are not leaving it to the mods and hope to sway their actions.

[Coffee Pancake]

1 minute ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Begs the question why so many report posts or threads when they see something they don't like. By the act of reporting they are not leaving it to the mods and hope to sway their actions.

I guess you could bring that up in it's own thread if it so egregious. This thread is about requesting an LGBTQ+ sub forum.

[Arielle Popstar]

1 hour ago, Coffee Pancake said:

But it changes everything. An LGBTQ+ forum is not intended to act as a replacement for General or Lifestyles where all views and topics are granted equal standing. It provides a specific place to raise LGBTQ+ topics without the room to debate the existence or validity of an individuals identity & experiences from a *phobic or culture war stand point.

Expressly LGBTQ+ spaces are important.

Most of S/L is already a safe space for LGBTQ+ but from what I have seen of this thread, this would be the last place I would suggest any LBGTQ+ person should come to for bringing up any topics. 

[Coffee Pancake]

1 minute ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Most of S/L is already a safe space for LGBTQ+ but from what I have seen of this thread, this would be the last place I would suggest any LBGTQ+ person should come to for bringing up any topics. 

Which is precisely why we need an LGBTQ+ sub forum. I'm glad you appreciate why I felt the need to request one.

[Persephone Emerald]

Just now, Arielle Popstar said:

Begs the question why so many report posts or threads when they see something they don't like. By the act of reporting they are not leaving it to the mods and hope to sway their actions.

Wrong. When we see something inworld or in the forums that we as individuals believe to be against the TOS, the Maturity ratings, forum rules, or any other set of rules for SL, we are not capable of removing such an infraction on our own. We are capable of reporting it and letting the Mods, Moles or Lindens decide what to do about what we think is an infraction. The Mods are not capable of reading every post on the forums or seeing everything that happens in SL. They require us to report, while they decide what to do. We are simply citizens.  They are the Prosecutors, Judges and Executioners.

 

1 minute ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Most of S/L is already a safe space for LGBTQ+ but from what I have seen of this thread, this would be the last place I would suggest any LBGTQ+ person should come to for bringing up any topics. 

Where would you suggest they should go with their questions and concerns then?

[Kathlen Onyx]

25 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Every sub forum, in combination with the community standards, exerts some control over what people can post.

That's literally the point.

Correction...every thread on this forum exerts some control over what people post. What you are asking is for the mods to exert more control over this particular sub forum. If they aren't moderating to your satisfaction now what makes you think a sub forum will be moderated any differently. That's right..you said you didn't expect it to be moderated differently which by your posts in this thread is clearly not true.

[Silent Mistwalker]

[Arielle Popstar]

6 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Where would you suggest they should go with their questions and concerns then?

Pretty much anywhere but here. Not seen any other thread or inworld place that had so much critical and or derogatory remarks aimed at trans and non-binary people who didn't subscribe to the right views, as here, and those remarks from other LGBTQ+ and their supporters. This is just LGBTQ+ vs LGBTQ+ debate. I say that as someone who mostly only has friends and favourite clubs that are all under the LGBTQ+ umbrella or their admirers.

[MalibuBratz]

Not the "i have gay friends" lmfao girl bye

[Arielle Popstar]

31 minutes ago, MalibuBratz said:

Not the "i have gay friends" lmfao girl bye

Nope, no gay guy friends, they don't seem to like girls or gurls and are rarely seen in the places I hang out.

[MalibuBratz]

4 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Nope, no gay guy friends, they don't seem to like girls or gurls and are rarely seen in the places I hang out.

First of all I ain't said nothing about your friends being men, and second of all I'm a gay man and have zero issues with girls or "gurls" (whatever the difference is for you). So maybe they just dont like you.

Edited April 17, 2022 by MalibuBratz

[Paul Hexem]

4 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Please stop with the circular reasoning fallacy.

I'm just tired of people thinking I fall for them just because I don't bother to rebut them. 

"Fallacy" doesn't mean "pointing out my inconsistencies".

3 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Expressly LGBTQ+ spaces are important.

I don't disagree. Like I said, I just don't think LL will keep it under control any better than they do with General or Lifestyles and Relationships.

[Madelaine McMasters]

2 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Begs the question why so many report posts or threads when they see something they don't like. By the act of reporting they are not leaving it to the mods and hope to sway their actions.

How do you know that "so many report posts or threads"? LL doesn't reveal such things and most of the people who've admitted to reporting claim to do so quite sparingly. Other than reporting spam, I think I've ARed one or two posts in my dozen years here. I might wonder about moderation by AR at times, but I'd not claim it, much less claim "many" are doing it.

Conjecture is not evidence.

[Madelaine McMasters]

2 hours ago, MalibuBratz said:

Some of y'all are way to bothered by the fact that y'all can't be homophobic/transphobic and not be called out for it. 

There's probably some of that at play, Malibu, but I don't think that's the whole story. Some of the anti sub-forum contingent are LGBTQ+. Still, they imagine vitriolic bogeymen coming for their freedoms, and will rail against anything that even rhymes with that. I get the sense that empathy is a factor, and the presence or absence of that is fairly independent of gender identity and sexual orientation.

[MalibuBratz]

9 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

There's probably some of that at play, Malibu, but I don't think that's the whole story. Some of the anti sub-forum contingent are LGBTQ+. Still, they imagine vitriolic bogeymen coming for their freedoms, and will rail against anything that even rhymes with that. I get the sense that empathy is a factor, and the presence or absence of that is fairly independent of gender identity and sexual orientation.

Well that's even sadder then.

[Polenth Yue]

On 4/13/2022 at 7:26 PM, Coffee Pancake said:

One of Second Life's enduring super powers is allowing people to tailor their own identity in ways their first lives might not permit, providing a safe doorway to self exploration. As a result, Second Life is a huge draw to the LGBTQ+ community and is well represented in world with locations, events, support groups and so on. There should be a place on these forums to openly discuss these topics as arising from a persons use of Second Life and community participation.

On another forum that tried this (unrelated to SL), it only works because they ban people from that sub-forum the moment they break the rules. I don't see it working here with the current moderation, because the moderators don't step in unless it turns into a boiling lava pit and they don't really recognise microaggressions and such.

I'd rather see an improvement in moderation across the forums. It's very easy at the moment for someone to be a bigot with a smile, someone to complain, and the complaint get removed without the original bigoted comments being touched. This happens in threads with racism and ableism and such as well. Some of this stuff isn't easy to see if you're not the daily target of it, but it's possible to learn to recognise it.

[Extrude Ragu]

On 4/14/2022 at 10:43 AM, Jordan Whitt said:

I wasn't gonna say anything cos whether or not there is a dedicated sub-forum won't affect my life either way, but that comment really burned my britches. 

You know why there is "no hetero pride"?  Cos we're not allowed to have any!  Its "-phobic" or "-ist" to be proud of being white, proud of being hetero, proud of being a woman.  So we're not allowed to be proud of who we are.

I'd disagree with you but I honestly can't.

I recall the 'White Lives Matter' Banner being towed by a plane and it was only allowed to be called racist and white supremacist by the people who are supposedly inclusive.

Women who feel excluded from sports now, because men must be allowed to compete with them lest they be called transphobic.

Every corporation on earth now supports LGBTQ+ and flies rainbow banners everywhere. The rainbows basically are the mainstream.

I also notice how the idea of an LGTBQ+ place is advocated as a place for the young and vulnerable, but to me that sounds just ripe for abuse in itself, as the vulnerable are more easily groomed by people who want them to join their group and won't hear a second opinion. The young should simply not be engaging sexually with strangers on the internet, that is between them and their parents. In fact, they should not be on the SecondLife forums to begin with - Isn't there a minimum age requirement to play SecondLife?

Edited April 17, 2022 by Extrude Ragu
typo

[Sid Nagy]

6 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Begs the question why so many report posts or threads when they see something they don't like. By the act of reporting they are not leaving it to the mods and hope to sway their actions.

I report a burglary or a fire at one of my neighbors houses to the police or fire department too.
It is up to them how they respond to my call.

Edited April 17, 2022 by Sid Nagy

[Sid Nagy]

10 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

But it changes everything. An LGBTQ+ forum is not intended to act as a replacement for General or Lifestyles where all views and topics are granted equal standing. It provides a specific place to raise LGBTQ+ topics without the room to debate the existence or validity of an individuals identity & experiences from a *phobic or culture war stand point.

Expressly LGBTQ+ spaces are important.

As an asexual I'm  included in the LGBTO+ community too.
Being an asexual did not make my life easier. Made me feel an outsider for most of my life. Heck until about two decades ago, I didn't even know about the existence of more asexuals.
Internet changed that. And it is very good that LGBTO+ is more in the open these days and SL has a relatively huge community.

As you all might have noticed in the last year that I'm active again on these forums, I don't make a secret of my asexuality.
I just bring it up when I think it adds something to my point of view in a discussion.
But I don't expect that non asexuals understand how it feels and influences ones life.
They very seldom do.

Not that I'm against the forming of a sub forum, but I'm not really excited about one either.
I hate it to get labeled. I never wave the colorful banner flag. I'm far more than an asexual. I'm a former teacher, a socialist, a football, snooker and darts fan, an introvert, a single, a pensioner, a Limburger and a music and cheese lover, among other things.

So when you say "Expressly LGBTQ+ spaces are important."  as a fellow LGBTQ+ member I beg to differ, as far as these SL forums are concerned.
I see more disadvantages than advantages to be honest.
So mileages (as always on every subject) do vary.

 

Edited April 17, 2022 by Sid Nagy

[So Whimsy]

51 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

I hate it to get labeled. I never wave the colorful banner flag. I'm far more than an asexual. I'm a former teacher, a socialist, a football, snooker and darts fan, an introvert, a single, a pensioner, a Limburger and a music and cheese lover, among other things.

So when you say "Expressly LGBTQ+ spaces are important."  as a fellow LGBTQ+ member I beg to differ.
 

Thank you for that, as a fellow LGBTQ'er I relate to this so much. I am not proud of being bi as it is just a part of who I am along so many other parts that make up the whole that is me. Being bi to me is just normal, nothing to be proud of to me personally.

[Velk Kerang]

Well personally I don't care if there is a LGTBQ+ sub-forum or not added. I'm not against it, but let's call it what it is. A place where straight people aren't allowed. (Gonna say straight because cis gendered sounds way entirely to much like sissy gendered to me. lol🤣 ) Let's at least cut the BS and be honest about that much. It ain't about trolls or whatever blah blah BS reason. It's all about a form of segregation which is a popular trend now days. People want to bring it back. I'm personally not with that program, but if people want to be stupid and bring it back in the form of so called safe spaces and have history repeat itself all over again then by all means knock yourselves out. lol Just keep in mind people segregation works both ways. For example I am about to go segregate myself back to watching my stories. lol Good luck with that people.👍😎