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On July 04 2026 19:26 Artesimo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2026 18:34 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 16:00 Simberto wrote:On July 04 2026 09:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 09:39 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 08:43 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 08:36 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 08:10 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 07:10 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 06:15 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I don't think the trans people and sports is the interesting discussion, here. I think the interesting discussion is to what degree we want society to be gender segregated. The trans discussion tends to work as a placeholder for this discussion- people who want society to be less gender segregated tend to be more positive towards trans people while people who want society to be more segregated along gender lines are more negative. Sports happen to be an area where many people think it makes sense to separate men and women because men are biologically superior in most sports, and thus, people who are otherwise entirely trans positive end up being a bit more 'eh I'm not quite sure how to go about this' when talking about trans women competing on a professional level.
But this is an area where there is an ongoing ideological/religious debate, and where I myself - as a teacher- experience that youth today (in norway) are more separated along gender lines than they were 25 years ago. But like, where most people will at least claim that they are in favor of equality of opportunity for men and women, there's a much bigger divide in terms of whether they want equality of outcome, and - the central element dividing people is to what degree differences are biological or cultural. This discussion is one I think is genuinely interesting - and important, because there is a lot of variety between different times and cultures, and it doesn't shape the future of a handful of athletes, but of all humans.
I've also probably adjusted my pov throughout my adult life, in the sense that I've become more accepting of the idea that, for example, men are on average more centered around 'things' and women are on average more centered around 'people' and that this influences which professions they are likely to choose. This means I become less interested in, for example, quotas as a method of creating more equal distribution of men/women in different jobs - but also, more interested in increasing the pay for jobs that have 80%+ women working them. Yeah it’s a curious one, I can’t pretend to have a huge amount of insight there. + Show Spoiler +Been doing conventions (usually setup and casting SC2 tournaments) for like 15 years, and compared to my youth there’s a lot more girls and women who are into nerd culture and proud of it, there’s been a bit of a social or cultural shift there. + Show Spoiler +Equally, despite said shift the eSports events, card game events or tabletop wargaming events are still pretty male dominated, women tend to dominate the art stalls or the cosplay events amongst others that are either less competitive in nature or more social.
Purely anecdotal of course I couldn't help but think of people like cheergurl ( https://www.tiktok.com/@xocheergurlox/video/7637277240115350798 ) and orgs like Black Girl Gamers ( https://www.theblackgirlgamers.com/ ) as an indispensable part of how it got that way. It's worth waiting for the end of cheergurls video if listening is an option imo. You guys really don't appreciate how miserable you (either actively or by what you allow around you) make these spaces for people other than whiteclub/adjacent guys. You have to understand you all are a major reason why there aren't more women and Black people here and around various scenes and why we typically would rather just not be around you whether that means making our own spaces or just abandoning an interest because of the community around that interest is too toxic for an individual to tolerate. Historically/evidently the primary way to get white men (and their lackeys) to be less bigoted shitheads in the US is to force them against their will and let them retroactively explain how it was really their idea/intent all along. That's something that connects all these issues. I can’t generate competitive minded StarCraft players from thin air, and we’ve actively worked to be as welcoming as possible. The general toxicity of online gaming, especially it being disproportionately wielded versus certain groups is certainly a factor, but not something I can particularly shift for the better (although I do try) This is basically the standard "I'm a nice/good guy" combined with "Not all men" response. Right then, I’ve seen the light. We’ll just stop bothering and everything will sort itself out, seems much more sensible. Not sure why I didn’t think of that before This is the textbook tantrum that typically follows. Okay, then explain what you expect us to do. Not being toxic and working on making your immediate surroundings not toxic seems like a very good thing a person can do, but apparently that isn't good enough for you. So explain, instead of giving semi-toxic oneliners. What is it that you actually expect. I didn't mean to imply that not being toxic and working on making your immediate surroundings not toxic wasn't a good thing to do, same for being a nice guy. I used the "nice guy" "not all men" framing hoping the familiarity was already there from online Dem rhetoric. Are you guys actually not familiar with why responding that way is problematic? Are we considering TL.net our immediate surroundings? + Show Spoiler +Is anything gaming related that isn't a lan party or among a circle of offline friends be considered the immediate surrounding?
Also anyone who is even remotely interested in actually improving things and helping the cause would have explained why they think its problematic instead of asking it condescendingly. Remember when I ranted in here about all the US people being all talk and no bite when it comes to trump and his politics? If I had to pick an avatar of that, it would be you. Nothing I have ever read from you gave me the impression that you do anything meaningful to further your causes, only snarky remarks, and if you do something its probably the kind of action that only alienates your target audience and drives everyone away. Your post history is a perfect example for that.
Lets purity check on this, what have you done to further say women in gaming? I can tell you what I have done, I build up and coached some female cs teams. + Show Spoiler +Due to me having a professional background in that area with over a decade of experience, I was able to effectively build up some talent, help them navigate the space and get them into contact with other high skilled male players for scrims to help them improve as well as being shown acceptance from people that matter more than some random online person. I also used my credibility and connections within the scene to have some players, admins, and organisers within the scene/the leagues the teams I coached competed in get reprimanded or even sanctioned for sexist behaviour and boundary crossing, and I would say I hade a lasting positive impact on multiple scenes by that.
I can also say that I directly got at least 18 of the players I coached to feel like they can actually have a place in the scene, and that had considered leaving it all together before joining one of the rosters I coached. Overall its probably more, but I just stick to the ones that directly told me so.
So what have you done? I would not be surprised if you couldn't think of a single person who you directly affected positively in this, and I would be even less surprised if in total you managed to drive more people away and turn the "normal sexism"/ "casual sexists" or whatever you wanna call the average joe who is insensitive and doesn't think much about their behaviour into doubling down on their BS because you come out with garbage like your post right there.
Let me tell you from someone who actually did the work, after the actual sexists, you are the type of person that was my biggest enemy throughout my coaching activities. Which ultimately prompted this post because by god your posting is normally insufferable but you really managed to hit a nerve with that one for me. You are not an ally, your are the enemy.
I want to thank you for bringing this issue in the competitive CS scene to my attention.
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On July 04 2026 19:59 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2026 19:26 Artesimo wrote:On July 04 2026 18:34 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 16:00 Simberto wrote:On July 04 2026 09:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 09:39 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 08:43 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 08:36 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 08:10 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 07:10 WombaT wrote:[quote] Yeah it’s a curious one, I can’t pretend to have a huge amount of insight there. + Show Spoiler +Been doing conventions (usually setup and casting SC2 tournaments) for like 15 years, and compared to my youth there’s a lot more girls and women who are into nerd culture and proud of it, there’s been a bit of a social or cultural shift there. + Show Spoiler +Equally, despite said shift the eSports events, card game events or tabletop wargaming events are still pretty male dominated, women tend to dominate the art stalls or the cosplay events amongst others that are either less competitive in nature or more social.
Purely anecdotal of course I couldn't help but think of people like cheergurl ( https://www.tiktok.com/@xocheergurlox/video/7637277240115350798 ) and orgs like Black Girl Gamers ( https://www.theblackgirlgamers.com/ ) as an indispensable part of how it got that way. It's worth waiting for the end of cheergurls video if listening is an option imo. You guys really don't appreciate how miserable you (either actively or by what you allow around you) make these spaces for people other than whiteclub/adjacent guys. You have to understand you all are a major reason why there aren't more women and Black people here and around various scenes and why we typically would rather just not be around you whether that means making our own spaces or just abandoning an interest because of the community around that interest is too toxic for an individual to tolerate. Historically/evidently the primary way to get white men (and their lackeys) to be less bigoted shitheads in the US is to force them against their will and let them retroactively explain how it was really their idea/intent all along. That's something that connects all these issues. I can’t generate competitive minded StarCraft players from thin air, and we’ve actively worked to be as welcoming as possible. The general toxicity of online gaming, especially it being disproportionately wielded versus certain groups is certainly a factor, but not something I can particularly shift for the better (although I do try) This is basically the standard "I'm a nice/good guy" combined with "Not all men" response. Right then, I’ve seen the light. We’ll just stop bothering and everything will sort itself out, seems much more sensible. Not sure why I didn’t think of that before This is the textbook tantrum that typically follows. Okay, then explain what you expect us to do. Not being toxic and working on making your immediate surroundings not toxic seems like a very good thing a person can do, but apparently that isn't good enough for you. So explain, instead of giving semi-toxic oneliners. What is it that you actually expect. I didn't mean to imply that not being toxic and working on making your immediate surroundings not toxic wasn't a good thing to do, same for being a nice guy. I used the "nice guy" "not all men" framing hoping the familiarity was already there from online Dem rhetoric. Are you guys actually not familiar with why responding that way is problematic? Are we considering TL.net our immediate surroundings? + Show Spoiler +Is anything gaming related that isn't a lan party or among a circle of offline friends be considered the immediate surrounding?
Also anyone who is even remotely interested in actually improving things and helping the cause would have explained why they think its problematic instead of asking it condescendingly. Remember when I ranted in here about all the US people being all talk and no bite when it comes to trump and his politics? If I had to pick an avatar of that, it would be you. Nothing I have ever read from you gave me the impression that you do anything meaningful to further your causes, only snarky remarks, and if you do something its probably the kind of action that only alienates your target audience and drives everyone away. Your post history is a perfect example for that.
Lets purity check on this, what have you done to further say women in gaming? I can tell you what I have done, I build up and coached some female cs teams. + Show Spoiler +Due to me having a professional background in that area with over a decade of experience, I was able to effectively build up some talent, help them navigate the space and get them into contact with other high skilled male players for scrims to help them improve as well as being shown acceptance from people that matter more than some random online person. I also used my credibility and connections within the scene to have some players, admins, and organisers within the scene/the leagues the teams I coached competed in get reprimanded or even sanctioned for sexist behaviour and boundary crossing, and I would say I hade a lasting positive impact on multiple scenes by that.
I can also say that I directly got at least 18 of the players I coached to feel like they can actually have a place in the scene, and that had considered leaving it all together before joining one of the rosters I coached. Overall its probably more, but I just stick to the ones that directly told me so.
So what have you done? I would not be surprised if you couldn't think of a single person who you directly affected positively in this, and I would be even less surprised if in total you managed to drive more people away and turn the "normal sexism"/ "casual sexists" or whatever you wanna call the average joe who is insensitive and doesn't think much about their behaviour into doubling down on their BS because you come out with garbage like your post right there.
Let me tell you from someone who actually did the work, after the actual sexists, you are the type of person that was my biggest enemy throughout my coaching activities. Which ultimately prompted this post because by god your posting is normally insufferable but you really managed to hit a nerve with that one for me. You are not an ally, your are the enemy. I want to thank you for bringing this issue in the competitive CS scene to my attention.
Answer my questions coward or go into hiding.
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On July 04 2026 19:59 Artesimo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2026 19:59 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 19:26 Artesimo wrote:On July 04 2026 18:34 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 16:00 Simberto wrote:On July 04 2026 09:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 09:39 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 08:43 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 08:36 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 08:10 GreenHorizons wrote:[quote] I couldn't help but think of people like cheergurl ( https://www.tiktok.com/@xocheergurlox/video/7637277240115350798 ) and orgs like Black Girl Gamers ( https://www.theblackgirlgamers.com/ ) as an indispensable part of how it got that way. It's worth waiting for the end of cheergurls video if listening is an option imo. You guys really don't appreciate how miserable you (either actively or by what you allow around you) make these spaces for people other than whiteclub/adjacent guys. You have to understand you all are a major reason why there aren't more women and Black people here and around various scenes and why we typically would rather just not be around you whether that means making our own spaces or just abandoning an interest because of the community around that interest is too toxic for an individual to tolerate. Historically/evidently the primary way to get white men (and their lackeys) to be less bigoted shitheads in the US is to force them against their will and let them retroactively explain how it was really their idea/intent all along. That's something that connects all these issues. I can’t generate competitive minded StarCraft players from thin air, and we’ve actively worked to be as welcoming as possible. The general toxicity of online gaming, especially it being disproportionately wielded versus certain groups is certainly a factor, but not something I can particularly shift for the better (although I do try) This is basically the standard "I'm a nice/good guy" combined with "Not all men" response. Right then, I’ve seen the light. We’ll just stop bothering and everything will sort itself out, seems much more sensible. Not sure why I didn’t think of that before This is the textbook tantrum that typically follows. Okay, then explain what you expect us to do. Not being toxic and working on making your immediate surroundings not toxic seems like a very good thing a person can do, but apparently that isn't good enough for you. So explain, instead of giving semi-toxic oneliners. What is it that you actually expect. I didn't mean to imply that not being toxic and working on making your immediate surroundings not toxic wasn't a good thing to do, same for being a nice guy. I used the "nice guy" "not all men" framing hoping the familiarity was already there from online Dem rhetoric. Are you guys actually not familiar with why responding that way is problematic? Are we considering TL.net our immediate surroundings? + Show Spoiler +Is anything gaming related that isn't a lan party or among a circle of offline friends be considered the immediate surrounding?
Also anyone who is even remotely interested in actually improving things and helping the cause would have explained why they think its problematic instead of asking it condescendingly. Remember when I ranted in here about all the US people being all talk and no bite when it comes to trump and his politics? If I had to pick an avatar of that, it would be you. Nothing I have ever read from you gave me the impression that you do anything meaningful to further your causes, only snarky remarks, and if you do something its probably the kind of action that only alienates your target audience and drives everyone away. Your post history is a perfect example for that.
Lets purity check on this, what have you done to further say women in gaming? I can tell you what I have done, I build up and coached some female cs teams. + Show Spoiler +Due to me having a professional background in that area with over a decade of experience, I was able to effectively build up some talent, help them navigate the space and get them into contact with other high skilled male players for scrims to help them improve as well as being shown acceptance from people that matter more than some random online person. I also used my credibility and connections within the scene to have some players, admins, and organisers within the scene/the leagues the teams I coached competed in get reprimanded or even sanctioned for sexist behaviour and boundary crossing, and I would say I hade a lasting positive impact on multiple scenes by that.
I can also say that I directly got at least 18 of the players I coached to feel like they can actually have a place in the scene, and that had considered leaving it all together before joining one of the rosters I coached. Overall its probably more, but I just stick to the ones that directly told me so.
So what have you done? I would not be surprised if you couldn't think of a single person who you directly affected positively in this, and I would be even less surprised if in total you managed to drive more people away and turn the "normal sexism"/ "casual sexists" or whatever you wanna call the average joe who is insensitive and doesn't think much about their behaviour into doubling down on their BS because you come out with garbage like your post right there.
Let me tell you from someone who actually did the work, after the actual sexists, you are the type of person that was my biggest enemy throughout my coaching activities. Which ultimately prompted this post because by god your posting is normally insufferable but you really managed to hit a nerve with that one for me. You are not an ally, your are the enemy. I want to thank you for bringing this issue in the competitive CS scene to my attention. Answer my questions coward or go into hiding.
While I'm not sure why he went full-asshole against WombaT in this specific conversation, GH doesn't seem to be interested in having a good-faith conversation right now on this legitimately important topic. I wouldn't be surprised if he purposely answers your statement with a faux-shocked "how dare you tell a person of color to go into hiding; this is exactly what I mean about you all making this a terrible place for us".
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On July 04 2026 20:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2026 19:59 Artesimo wrote:On July 04 2026 19:59 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 19:26 Artesimo wrote:On July 04 2026 18:34 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 16:00 Simberto wrote:On July 04 2026 09:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 09:39 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 08:43 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 08:36 WombaT wrote:
[quote]
I can’t generate competitive minded StarCraft players from thin air, and we’ve actively worked to be as welcoming as possible.
The general toxicity of online gaming, especially it being disproportionately wielded versus certain groups is certainly a factor, but not something I can particularly shift for the better (although I do try) This is basically the standard "I'm a nice/good guy" combined with "Not all men" response. Right then, I’ve seen the light. We’ll just stop bothering and everything will sort itself out, seems much more sensible. Not sure why I didn’t think of that before This is the textbook tantrum that typically follows. Okay, then explain what you expect us to do. Not being toxic and working on making your immediate surroundings not toxic seems like a very good thing a person can do, but apparently that isn't good enough for you. So explain, instead of giving semi-toxic oneliners. What is it that you actually expect. I didn't mean to imply that not being toxic and working on making your immediate surroundings not toxic wasn't a good thing to do, same for being a nice guy. I used the "nice guy" "not all men" framing hoping the familiarity was already there from online Dem rhetoric. Are you guys actually not familiar with why responding that way is problematic? Are we considering TL.net our immediate surroundings? + Show Spoiler +Is anything gaming related that isn't a lan party or among a circle of offline friends be considered the immediate surrounding?
Also anyone who is even remotely interested in actually improving things and helping the cause would have explained why they think its problematic instead of asking it condescendingly. Remember when I ranted in here about all the US people being all talk and no bite when it comes to trump and his politics? If I had to pick an avatar of that, it would be you. Nothing I have ever read from you gave me the impression that you do anything meaningful to further your causes, only snarky remarks, and if you do something its probably the kind of action that only alienates your target audience and drives everyone away. Your post history is a perfect example for that.
Lets purity check on this, what have you done to further say women in gaming? I can tell you what I have done, I build up and coached some female cs teams. + Show Spoiler +Due to me having a professional background in that area with over a decade of experience, I was able to effectively build up some talent, help them navigate the space and get them into contact with other high skilled male players for scrims to help them improve as well as being shown acceptance from people that matter more than some random online person. I also used my credibility and connections within the scene to have some players, admins, and organisers within the scene/the leagues the teams I coached competed in get reprimanded or even sanctioned for sexist behaviour and boundary crossing, and I would say I hade a lasting positive impact on multiple scenes by that.
I can also say that I directly got at least 18 of the players I coached to feel like they can actually have a place in the scene, and that had considered leaving it all together before joining one of the rosters I coached. Overall its probably more, but I just stick to the ones that directly told me so.
So what have you done? I would not be surprised if you couldn't think of a single person who you directly affected positively in this, and I would be even less surprised if in total you managed to drive more people away and turn the "normal sexism"/ "casual sexists" or whatever you wanna call the average joe who is insensitive and doesn't think much about their behaviour into doubling down on their BS because you come out with garbage like your post right there.
Let me tell you from someone who actually did the work, after the actual sexists, you are the type of person that was my biggest enemy throughout my coaching activities. Which ultimately prompted this post because by god your posting is normally insufferable but you really managed to hit a nerve with that one for me. You are not an ally, your are the enemy. I want to thank you for bringing this issue in the competitive CS scene to my attention. Answer my questions coward or go into hiding. While I'm not sure why he went full-asshole against WombaT in this specific conversation, GH doesn't seem to be interested in having a good-faith conversation right now on this legitimately important topic. I wouldn't be surprised if he purposely answers your statement with a faux-shocked "how dare you tell a person of color to go into hiding; this is exactly what I mean about you all making this a terrible place for us".
Oh I am very much aware, otherwise I wouldn't have come out of the gate as combative and instead tried to convince and be diplomatic. Its the classic "this response is for me and the audience because I know there is no point in talking to this creature as it will never change its ways, but I cannot leave this shit unchallenged in good conscience". I could not read that garbage and leave even the slightest chance that someone casually reads this thread and could get the idea that what he does is actually correct or productive. As little chance as there is for something like that to happen anyway.
Third places like tl are incredibly important when it comes to making people feel accepted and having a place in the scene, and I can't even begin to dream of the world in which hltv was more like tl instead of the absolute cesspool it is and has been. Imagine what that would do for the female cs scene.
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Northern Ireland27148 Posts
On July 04 2026 09:57 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2026 09:39 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 08:43 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 08:36 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 08:10 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 07:10 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 06:15 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I don't think the trans people and sports is the interesting discussion, here. I think the interesting discussion is to what degree we want society to be gender segregated. The trans discussion tends to work as a placeholder for this discussion- people who want society to be less gender segregated tend to be more positive towards trans people while people who want society to be more segregated along gender lines are more negative. Sports happen to be an area where many people think it makes sense to separate men and women because men are biologically superior in most sports, and thus, people who are otherwise entirely trans positive end up being a bit more 'eh I'm not quite sure how to go about this' when talking about trans women competing on a professional level.
But this is an area where there is an ongoing ideological/religious debate, and where I myself - as a teacher- experience that youth today (in norway) are more separated along gender lines than they were 25 years ago. But like, where most people will at least claim that they are in favor of equality of opportunity for men and women, there's a much bigger divide in terms of whether they want equality of outcome, and - the central element dividing people is to what degree differences are biological or cultural. This discussion is one I think is genuinely interesting - and important, because there is a lot of variety between different times and cultures, and it doesn't shape the future of a handful of athletes, but of all humans.
I've also probably adjusted my pov throughout my adult life, in the sense that I've become more accepting of the idea that, for example, men are on average more centered around 'things' and women are on average more centered around 'people' and that this influences which professions they are likely to choose. This means I become less interested in, for example, quotas as a method of creating more equal distribution of men/women in different jobs - but also, more interested in increasing the pay for jobs that have 80%+ women working them. Yeah it’s a curious one, I can’t pretend to have a huge amount of insight there. + Show Spoiler +Been doing conventions (usually setup and casting SC2 tournaments) for like 15 years, and compared to my youth there’s a lot more girls and women who are into nerd culture and proud of it, there’s been a bit of a social or cultural shift there. + Show Spoiler +Equally, despite said shift the eSports events, card game events or tabletop wargaming events are still pretty male dominated, women tend to dominate the art stalls or the cosplay events amongst others that are either less competitive in nature or more social.
Purely anecdotal of course I couldn't help but think of people like cheergurl ( https://www.tiktok.com/@xocheergurlox/video/7637277240115350798 ) and orgs like Black Girl Gamers ( https://www.theblackgirlgamers.com/ ) as an indispensable part of how it got that way. It's worth waiting for the end of cheergurls video if listening is an option imo. You guys really don't appreciate how miserable you (either actively or by what you allow around you) make these spaces for people other than whiteclub/adjacent guys. You have to understand you all are a major reason why there aren't more women and Black people here and around various scenes and why we typically would rather just not be around you whether that means making our own spaces or just abandoning an interest because of the community around that interest is too toxic for an individual to tolerate. Historically/evidently the primary way to get white men (and their lackeys) to be less bigoted shitheads in the US is to force them against their will and let them retroactively explain how it was really their idea/intent all along. That's something that connects all these issues. I can’t generate competitive minded StarCraft players from thin air, and we’ve actively worked to be as welcoming as possible. The general toxicity of online gaming, especially it being disproportionately wielded versus certain groups is certainly a factor, but not something I can particularly shift for the better (although I do try) This is basically the standard "I'm a nice/good guy" combined with "Not all men" response. Right then, I’ve seen the light. We’ll just stop bothering and everything will sort itself out, seems much more sensible. Not sure why I didn’t think of that before This is the textbook tantrum that typically follows.
Is sarcasm a tantrum? I have thrown my fair share over the years, this doesn’t feel one.
I merely felt you were responding to things I didn’t really say. If I had, it would have been an appropriate response.
There’s a difference between acknowledging one’s limitations and actively still trying in this domain, versus not moderating one’s behaviour and going with the ‘I’m a nice guy’ spiel.
I was deficient in certain manners, part personal growth, part hearing the experiences of others caused me to adjust my behaviour. I find many of my vintage have, and have worked to make various spaces more inclusive.
Hell look at TL way back when, even though it wasn’t always with ill intent, hell of a lot more homophobic language, and it’s changed quite a bit as an environment.
I frequently discipline Minibat for general saltiness and gamer rage, which feels a bit rich as I was awful for it as a teen. But one thing I notice and never had to directly tell him is there’s no casual homophobic/racist/sexist language from him. Not just him but his mates too. Perhaps they’re outliers but I find it less prevalent in voice from people who are obviously young teens/tweens than older people, and less than when I was a teen playing myself.
So I think there’s a positive and a negative here. The negative part is online gaming is still frequently a toxic cesspool, which will put many people off. The positive is that it’s at least a less discriminatorily toxic cesspool, although far from ideal.
We’re only a generation or two into kids playing online whose parents also played online, which I think is part of why we’re seeing some positive movement. Provided said parents aren’t themselves arseholes, they know what that environment is like first-hand and can direct their children to better behaviour. Which all adds up on aggregate.
At a localised level, one can cultivate as welcoming an environment as they want, if said groups don’t even show up there’s not much one can do. If the bigger pipeline that feeds into local scenes is broken, and is much larger, it’s hard for an individual or a small group to fix that aspect of things.
We’ve invited anyone any of us encounters from Ireland who plays or expresses any kind of interest in StarCraft to our Facebook, subsequently Discord, and we’re up to a good number of hundreds there, including a fair few UK mainlanders and international folks. There’s simply very few women, for whatever reason.
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On July 04 2026 20:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2026 19:59 Artesimo wrote:On July 04 2026 19:59 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 19:26 Artesimo wrote:On July 04 2026 18:34 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 16:00 Simberto wrote:On July 04 2026 09:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 09:39 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 08:43 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 08:36 WombaT wrote:
[quote]
I can’t generate competitive minded StarCraft players from thin air, and we’ve actively worked to be as welcoming as possible.
The general toxicity of online gaming, especially it being disproportionately wielded versus certain groups is certainly a factor, but not something I can particularly shift for the better (although I do try) This is basically the standard "I'm a nice/good guy" combined with "Not all men" response. Right then, I’ve seen the light. We’ll just stop bothering and everything will sort itself out, seems much more sensible. Not sure why I didn’t think of that before This is the textbook tantrum that typically follows. Okay, then explain what you expect us to do. Not being toxic and working on making your immediate surroundings not toxic seems like a very good thing a person can do, but apparently that isn't good enough for you. So explain, instead of giving semi-toxic oneliners. What is it that you actually expect. I didn't mean to imply that not being toxic and working on making your immediate surroundings not toxic wasn't a good thing to do, same for being a nice guy. I used the "nice guy" "not all men" framing hoping the familiarity was already there from online Dem rhetoric. Are you guys actually not familiar with why responding that way is problematic? Are we considering TL.net our immediate surroundings? + Show Spoiler +Is anything gaming related that isn't a lan party or among a circle of offline friends be considered the immediate surrounding?
Also anyone who is even remotely interested in actually improving things and helping the cause would have explained why they think its problematic instead of asking it condescendingly. Remember when I ranted in here about all the US people being all talk and no bite when it comes to trump and his politics? If I had to pick an avatar of that, it would be you. Nothing I have ever read from you gave me the impression that you do anything meaningful to further your causes, only snarky remarks, and if you do something its probably the kind of action that only alienates your target audience and drives everyone away. Your post history is a perfect example for that.
Lets purity check on this, what have you done to further say women in gaming? I can tell you what I have done, I build up and coached some female cs teams. + Show Spoiler +Due to me having a professional background in that area with over a decade of experience, I was able to effectively build up some talent, help them navigate the space and get them into contact with other high skilled male players for scrims to help them improve as well as being shown acceptance from people that matter more than some random online person. I also used my credibility and connections within the scene to have some players, admins, and organisers within the scene/the leagues the teams I coached competed in get reprimanded or even sanctioned for sexist behaviour and boundary crossing, and I would say I hade a lasting positive impact on multiple scenes by that.
I can also say that I directly got at least 18 of the players I coached to feel like they can actually have a place in the scene, and that had considered leaving it all together before joining one of the rosters I coached. Overall its probably more, but I just stick to the ones that directly told me so.
So what have you done? I would not be surprised if you couldn't think of a single person who you directly affected positively in this, and I would be even less surprised if in total you managed to drive more people away and turn the "normal sexism"/ "casual sexists" or whatever you wanna call the average joe who is insensitive and doesn't think much about their behaviour into doubling down on their BS because you come out with garbage like your post right there.
Let me tell you from someone who actually did the work, after the actual sexists, you are the type of person that was my biggest enemy throughout my coaching activities. Which ultimately prompted this post because by god your posting is normally insufferable but you really managed to hit a nerve with that one for me. You are not an ally, your are the enemy. I want to thank you for bringing this issue in the competitive CS scene to my attention. Answer my questions coward or go into hiding. While I'm not sure why he went full-asshole against WombaT in this specific conversation, GH doesn't seem to be interested in having a good-faith conversation right now on this legitimately important topic. I wouldn't be surprised if he purposely answers your statement with a faux-shocked "how dare you tell a person of color to go into hiding; this is exactly what I mean about you all making this a terrible place for us".
That's a shame. You were one of those I was holding out hope for as not pretending you don't know that/why "female" is a problematic way to refer to women's leagues in order to ignore the systemic critique to focus on the personal.
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On July 04 2026 21:09 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2026 20:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 04 2026 19:59 Artesimo wrote:On July 04 2026 19:59 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 19:26 Artesimo wrote:On July 04 2026 18:34 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 16:00 Simberto wrote:On July 04 2026 09:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 09:39 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 08:43 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
This is basically the standard "I'm a nice/good guy" combined with "Not all men" response. Right then, I’ve seen the light. We’ll just stop bothering and everything will sort itself out, seems much more sensible. Not sure why I didn’t think of that before This is the textbook tantrum that typically follows. Okay, then explain what you expect us to do. Not being toxic and working on making your immediate surroundings not toxic seems like a very good thing a person can do, but apparently that isn't good enough for you. So explain, instead of giving semi-toxic oneliners. What is it that you actually expect. I didn't mean to imply that not being toxic and working on making your immediate surroundings not toxic wasn't a good thing to do, same for being a nice guy. I used the "nice guy" "not all men" framing hoping the familiarity was already there from online Dem rhetoric. Are you guys actually not familiar with why responding that way is problematic? Are we considering TL.net our immediate surroundings? + Show Spoiler +Is anything gaming related that isn't a lan party or among a circle of offline friends be considered the immediate surrounding?
Also anyone who is even remotely interested in actually improving things and helping the cause would have explained why they think its problematic instead of asking it condescendingly. Remember when I ranted in here about all the US people being all talk and no bite when it comes to trump and his politics? If I had to pick an avatar of that, it would be you. Nothing I have ever read from you gave me the impression that you do anything meaningful to further your causes, only snarky remarks, and if you do something its probably the kind of action that only alienates your target audience and drives everyone away. Your post history is a perfect example for that.
Lets purity check on this, what have you done to further say women in gaming? I can tell you what I have done, I build up and coached some female cs teams. + Show Spoiler +Due to me having a professional background in that area with over a decade of experience, I was able to effectively build up some talent, help them navigate the space and get them into contact with other high skilled male players for scrims to help them improve as well as being shown acceptance from people that matter more than some random online person. I also used my credibility and connections within the scene to have some players, admins, and organisers within the scene/the leagues the teams I coached competed in get reprimanded or even sanctioned for sexist behaviour and boundary crossing, and I would say I hade a lasting positive impact on multiple scenes by that.
I can also say that I directly got at least 18 of the players I coached to feel like they can actually have a place in the scene, and that had considered leaving it all together before joining one of the rosters I coached. Overall its probably more, but I just stick to the ones that directly told me so.
So what have you done? I would not be surprised if you couldn't think of a single person who you directly affected positively in this, and I would be even less surprised if in total you managed to drive more people away and turn the "normal sexism"/ "casual sexists" or whatever you wanna call the average joe who is insensitive and doesn't think much about their behaviour into doubling down on their BS because you come out with garbage like your post right there.
Let me tell you from someone who actually did the work, after the actual sexists, you are the type of person that was my biggest enemy throughout my coaching activities. Which ultimately prompted this post because by god your posting is normally insufferable but you really managed to hit a nerve with that one for me. You are not an ally, your are the enemy. I want to thank you for bringing this issue in the competitive CS scene to my attention. Answer my questions coward or go into hiding. While I'm not sure why he went full-asshole against WombaT in this specific conversation, GH doesn't seem to be interested in having a good-faith conversation right now on this legitimately important topic. I wouldn't be surprised if he purposely answers your statement with a faux-shocked "how dare you tell a person of color to go into hiding; this is exactly what I mean about you all making this a terrible place for us". That's a shame. You were one of those I was holding out hope for as not pretending you don't know that/why "female" is a problematic way to refer to women's leagues in order to ignore the systemic critique to focus on the personal.
I am still waiting on some actual responses on what you have done to make things better, aside from screeching "not good enough" at people making a genuine attempt at improving things and thus increasing the chance of them stopping out of frustration with the likes of you.
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On July 04 2026 17:59 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2026 11:22 Fleetfeet wrote:On July 04 2026 08:10 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 07:10 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 06:15 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I don't think the trans people and sports is the interesting discussion, here. I think the interesting discussion is to what degree we want society to be gender segregated. The trans discussion tends to work as a placeholder for this discussion- people who want society to be less gender segregated tend to be more positive towards trans people while people who want society to be more segregated along gender lines are more negative. Sports happen to be an area where many people think it makes sense to separate men and women because men are biologically superior in most sports, and thus, people who are otherwise entirely trans positive end up being a bit more 'eh I'm not quite sure how to go about this' when talking about trans women competing on a professional level.
But this is an area where there is an ongoing ideological/religious debate, and where I myself - as a teacher- experience that youth today (in norway) are more separated along gender lines than they were 25 years ago. But like, where most people will at least claim that they are in favor of equality of opportunity for men and women, there's a much bigger divide in terms of whether they want equality of outcome, and - the central element dividing people is to what degree differences are biological or cultural. This discussion is one I think is genuinely interesting - and important, because there is a lot of variety between different times and cultures, and it doesn't shape the future of a handful of athletes, but of all humans.
I've also probably adjusted my pov throughout my adult life, in the sense that I've become more accepting of the idea that, for example, men are on average more centered around 'things' and women are on average more centered around 'people' and that this influences which professions they are likely to choose. This means I become less interested in, for example, quotas as a method of creating more equal distribution of men/women in different jobs - but also, more interested in increasing the pay for jobs that have 80%+ women working them. Yeah it’s a curious one, I can’t pretend to have a huge amount of insight there. + Show Spoiler +Been doing conventions (usually setup and casting SC2 tournaments) for like 15 years, and compared to my youth there’s a lot more girls and women who are into nerd culture and proud of it, there’s been a bit of a social or cultural shift there. + Show Spoiler +Equally, despite said shift the eSports events, card game events or tabletop wargaming events are still pretty male dominated, women tend to dominate the art stalls or the cosplay events amongst others that are either less competitive in nature or more social.
Purely anecdotal of course I couldn't help but think of people like cheergurl ( https://www.tiktok.com/@xocheergurlox/video/7637277240115350798 ) and orgs like Black Girl Gamers ( https://www.theblackgirlgamers.com/ ) as an indispensable part of how it got that way. It's worth waiting for the end of cheergurls video if listening is an option imo. You guys really don't appreciate how miserable you (either actively or by what you allow around you) make these spaces for people other than whiteclub/adjacent guys. You have to understand you all are a major reason why there aren't more women and Black people here and around various scenes and why we typically would rather just not be around you whether that means making our own spaces or just abandoning an interest because the community around that interest is too toxic for an individual to tolerate. Historically/evidently the primary way to get white men (and their lackeys) to be less bigoted shitheads in the US is to force them against their will and let them retroactively explain how it was really their idea/intent all along. That's something that connects all these issues. Ragebait? Is Black Girl Gamers Ragebait? Yeah I guess, probably to a certain demographic anyway.
You know you know what I mean.
The oblade approach doesn't look good on you. To be fair, it doesn't look good on oblade either so I'm not sure what convinced you to don it.
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On July 04 2026 21:09 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2026 20:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 04 2026 19:59 Artesimo wrote:On July 04 2026 19:59 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 19:26 Artesimo wrote:On July 04 2026 18:34 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 16:00 Simberto wrote:On July 04 2026 09:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 09:39 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 08:43 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
This is basically the standard "I'm a nice/good guy" combined with "Not all men" response. Right then, I’ve seen the light. We’ll just stop bothering and everything will sort itself out, seems much more sensible. Not sure why I didn’t think of that before This is the textbook tantrum that typically follows. Okay, then explain what you expect us to do. Not being toxic and working on making your immediate surroundings not toxic seems like a very good thing a person can do, but apparently that isn't good enough for you. So explain, instead of giving semi-toxic oneliners. What is it that you actually expect. I didn't mean to imply that not being toxic and working on making your immediate surroundings not toxic wasn't a good thing to do, same for being a nice guy. I used the "nice guy" "not all men" framing hoping the familiarity was already there from online Dem rhetoric. Are you guys actually not familiar with why responding that way is problematic? Are we considering TL.net our immediate surroundings? + Show Spoiler +Is anything gaming related that isn't a lan party or among a circle of offline friends be considered the immediate surrounding?
Also anyone who is even remotely interested in actually improving things and helping the cause would have explained why they think its problematic instead of asking it condescendingly. Remember when I ranted in here about all the US people being all talk and no bite when it comes to trump and his politics? If I had to pick an avatar of that, it would be you. Nothing I have ever read from you gave me the impression that you do anything meaningful to further your causes, only snarky remarks, and if you do something its probably the kind of action that only alienates your target audience and drives everyone away. Your post history is a perfect example for that.
Lets purity check on this, what have you done to further say women in gaming? I can tell you what I have done, I build up and coached some female cs teams. + Show Spoiler +Due to me having a professional background in that area with over a decade of experience, I was able to effectively build up some talent, help them navigate the space and get them into contact with other high skilled male players for scrims to help them improve as well as being shown acceptance from people that matter more than some random online person. I also used my credibility and connections within the scene to have some players, admins, and organisers within the scene/the leagues the teams I coached competed in get reprimanded or even sanctioned for sexist behaviour and boundary crossing, and I would say I hade a lasting positive impact on multiple scenes by that.
I can also say that I directly got at least 18 of the players I coached to feel like they can actually have a place in the scene, and that had considered leaving it all together before joining one of the rosters I coached. Overall its probably more, but I just stick to the ones that directly told me so.
So what have you done? I would not be surprised if you couldn't think of a single person who you directly affected positively in this, and I would be even less surprised if in total you managed to drive more people away and turn the "normal sexism"/ "casual sexists" or whatever you wanna call the average joe who is insensitive and doesn't think much about their behaviour into doubling down on their BS because you come out with garbage like your post right there.
Let me tell you from someone who actually did the work, after the actual sexists, you are the type of person that was my biggest enemy throughout my coaching activities. Which ultimately prompted this post because by god your posting is normally insufferable but you really managed to hit a nerve with that one for me. You are not an ally, your are the enemy. I want to thank you for bringing this issue in the competitive CS scene to my attention. Answer my questions coward or go into hiding. While I'm not sure why he went full-asshole against WombaT in this specific conversation, GH doesn't seem to be interested in having a good-faith conversation right now on this legitimately important topic. I wouldn't be surprised if he purposely answers your statement with a faux-shocked "how dare you tell a person of color to go into hiding; this is exactly what I mean about you all making this a terrible place for us". That's a shame. You were one of those I was holding out hope for as not pretending you don't know that/why "female" is a problematic way to refer to women's leagues in order to ignore the systemic critique to focus on the personal.
I think that's a valid criticism and you're right that the identifiers used in labeling leagues can be problematic... but that's not how you approached this discussion at all, and it might be difficult for you to turn this into a productive discussion when you actively sabotaged it at the beginning.
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Northern Ireland27148 Posts
On July 04 2026 21:09 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2026 20:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 04 2026 19:59 Artesimo wrote:On July 04 2026 19:59 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 19:26 Artesimo wrote:On July 04 2026 18:34 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 16:00 Simberto wrote:On July 04 2026 09:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 09:39 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 08:43 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
This is basically the standard "I'm a nice/good guy" combined with "Not all men" response. Right then, I’ve seen the light. We’ll just stop bothering and everything will sort itself out, seems much more sensible. Not sure why I didn’t think of that before This is the textbook tantrum that typically follows. Okay, then explain what you expect us to do. Not being toxic and working on making your immediate surroundings not toxic seems like a very good thing a person can do, but apparently that isn't good enough for you. So explain, instead of giving semi-toxic oneliners. What is it that you actually expect. I didn't mean to imply that not being toxic and working on making your immediate surroundings not toxic wasn't a good thing to do, same for being a nice guy. I used the "nice guy" "not all men" framing hoping the familiarity was already there from online Dem rhetoric. Are you guys actually not familiar with why responding that way is problematic? Are we considering TL.net our immediate surroundings? + Show Spoiler +Is anything gaming related that isn't a lan party or among a circle of offline friends be considered the immediate surrounding?
Also anyone who is even remotely interested in actually improving things and helping the cause would have explained why they think its problematic instead of asking it condescendingly. Remember when I ranted in here about all the US people being all talk and no bite when it comes to trump and his politics? If I had to pick an avatar of that, it would be you. Nothing I have ever read from you gave me the impression that you do anything meaningful to further your causes, only snarky remarks, and if you do something its probably the kind of action that only alienates your target audience and drives everyone away. Your post history is a perfect example for that.
Lets purity check on this, what have you done to further say women in gaming? I can tell you what I have done, I build up and coached some female cs teams. + Show Spoiler +Due to me having a professional background in that area with over a decade of experience, I was able to effectively build up some talent, help them navigate the space and get them into contact with other high skilled male players for scrims to help them improve as well as being shown acceptance from people that matter more than some random online person. I also used my credibility and connections within the scene to have some players, admins, and organisers within the scene/the leagues the teams I coached competed in get reprimanded or even sanctioned for sexist behaviour and boundary crossing, and I would say I hade a lasting positive impact on multiple scenes by that.
I can also say that I directly got at least 18 of the players I coached to feel like they can actually have a place in the scene, and that had considered leaving it all together before joining one of the rosters I coached. Overall its probably more, but I just stick to the ones that directly told me so.
So what have you done? I would not be surprised if you couldn't think of a single person who you directly affected positively in this, and I would be even less surprised if in total you managed to drive more people away and turn the "normal sexism"/ "casual sexists" or whatever you wanna call the average joe who is insensitive and doesn't think much about their behaviour into doubling down on their BS because you come out with garbage like your post right there.
Let me tell you from someone who actually did the work, after the actual sexists, you are the type of person that was my biggest enemy throughout my coaching activities. Which ultimately prompted this post because by god your posting is normally insufferable but you really managed to hit a nerve with that one for me. You are not an ally, your are the enemy. I want to thank you for bringing this issue in the competitive CS scene to my attention. Answer my questions coward or go into hiding. While I'm not sure why he went full-asshole against WombaT in this specific conversation, GH doesn't seem to be interested in having a good-faith conversation right now on this legitimately important topic. I wouldn't be surprised if he purposely answers your statement with a faux-shocked "how dare you tell a person of color to go into hiding; this is exactly what I mean about you all making this a terrible place for us". That's a shame. You were one of those I was holding out hope for as not pretending you don't know that/why "female" is a problematic way to refer to women's leagues in order to ignore the systemic critique to focus on the personal.
What is problematic about it exactly? I’ve seen the word ‘female(s)’ used problematic in other contexts but am unsure what’s wrong in this particular instance.
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On July 04 2026 21:07 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2026 09:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 09:39 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 08:43 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 08:36 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 08:10 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 07:10 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 06:15 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I don't think the trans people and sports is the interesting discussion, here. I think the interesting discussion is to what degree we want society to be gender segregated. The trans discussion tends to work as a placeholder for this discussion- people who want society to be less gender segregated tend to be more positive towards trans people while people who want society to be more segregated along gender lines are more negative. Sports happen to be an area where many people think it makes sense to separate men and women because men are biologically superior in most sports, and thus, people who are otherwise entirely trans positive end up being a bit more 'eh I'm not quite sure how to go about this' when talking about trans women competing on a professional level.
But this is an area where there is an ongoing ideological/religious debate, and where I myself - as a teacher- experience that youth today (in norway) are more separated along gender lines than they were 25 years ago. But like, where most people will at least claim that they are in favor of equality of opportunity for men and women, there's a much bigger divide in terms of whether they want equality of outcome, and - the central element dividing people is to what degree differences are biological or cultural. This discussion is one I think is genuinely interesting - and important, because there is a lot of variety between different times and cultures, and it doesn't shape the future of a handful of athletes, but of all humans.
I've also probably adjusted my pov throughout my adult life, in the sense that I've become more accepting of the idea that, for example, men are on average more centered around 'things' and women are on average more centered around 'people' and that this influences which professions they are likely to choose. This means I become less interested in, for example, quotas as a method of creating more equal distribution of men/women in different jobs - but also, more interested in increasing the pay for jobs that have 80%+ women working them. Yeah it’s a curious one, I can’t pretend to have a huge amount of insight there. + Show Spoiler +Been doing conventions (usually setup and casting SC2 tournaments) for like 15 years, and compared to my youth there’s a lot more girls and women who are into nerd culture and proud of it, there’s been a bit of a social or cultural shift there. + Show Spoiler +Equally, despite said shift the eSports events, card game events or tabletop wargaming events are still pretty male dominated, women tend to dominate the art stalls or the cosplay events amongst others that are either less competitive in nature or more social.
Purely anecdotal of course I couldn't help but think of people like cheergurl ( https://www.tiktok.com/@xocheergurlox/video/7637277240115350798 ) and orgs like Black Girl Gamers ( https://www.theblackgirlgamers.com/ ) as an indispensable part of how it got that way. It's worth waiting for the end of cheergurls video if listening is an option imo. You guys really don't appreciate how miserable you (either actively or by what you allow around you) make these spaces for people other than whiteclub/adjacent guys. You have to understand you all are a major reason why there aren't more women and Black people here and around various scenes and why we typically would rather just not be around you whether that means making our own spaces or just abandoning an interest because of the community around that interest is too toxic for an individual to tolerate. Historically/evidently the primary way to get white men (and their lackeys) to be less bigoted shitheads in the US is to force them against their will and let them retroactively explain how it was really their idea/intent all along. That's something that connects all these issues. I can’t generate competitive minded StarCraft players from thin air, and we’ve actively worked to be as welcoming as possible. The general toxicity of online gaming, especially it being disproportionately wielded versus certain groups is certainly a factor, but not something I can particularly shift for the better (although I do try) This is basically the standard "I'm a nice/good guy" combined with "Not all men" response. Right then, I’ve seen the light. We’ll just stop bothering and everything will sort itself out, seems much more sensible. Not sure why I didn’t think of that before This is the textbook tantrum that typically follows. + Show Spoiler +Is sarcasm a tantrum? I have thrown my fair share over the years, this doesn’t feel one.
I merely felt you were responding to things I didn’t really say. If I had, it would have been an appropriate response.
There’s a difference between acknowledging one’s limitations and actively still trying in this domain, versus not moderating one’s behaviour and going with the ‘I’m a nice guy’ spiel.
I was deficient in certain manners, part personal growth, part hearing the experiences of others caused me to adjust my behaviour. I find many of my vintage have, and have worked to make various spaces more inclusive.
Hell look at TL way back when, even though it wasn’t always with ill intent, hell of a lot more homophobic language, and it’s changed quite a bit as an environment.
I frequently discipline Minibat for general saltiness and gamer rage, which feels a bit rich as I was awful for it as a teen. But one thing I notice and never had to directly tell him is there’s no casual homophobic/racist/sexist language from him. Not just him but his mates too. Perhaps they’re outliers but I find it less prevalent in voice from people who are obviously young teens/tweens than older people, and less than when I was a teen playing myself.
So I think there’s a positive and a negative here. The negative part is online gaming is still frequently a toxic cesspool, which will put many people off. The positive is that it’s at least a less discriminatorily toxic cesspool, although far from ideal.
We’re only a generation or two into kids playing online whose parents also played online, which I think is part of why we’re seeing some positive movement. Provided said parents aren’t themselves arseholes, they know what that environment is like first-hand and can direct their children to better behaviour. Which all adds up on aggregate. At a localised level, one can cultivate as welcoming an environment as they want, if said groups don’t even show up there’s not much one can do. + Show Spoiler +If the bigger pipeline that feeds into local scenes is broken, and is much larger, it’s hard for an individual or a small group to fix that aspect of things.
We’ve invited anyone any of us encounters from Ireland who plays or expresses any kind of interest in StarCraft to our Facebook, subsequently Discord, and we’re up to a good number of hundreds there, including a fair few UK mainlanders and international folks. There’s simply very few women, for whatever reason.
I can't speak to your specific environment, but this sort of "look at all I've done, what more do you want/what are you doing!?" type of responses are basically a textbook example of the same thing oppressed people always deal with when they confront white men and their lackeys/useful idiots in the US about this kind of stuff. Along with blaming us for not broaching it in way that doesn't offend them, making us the "real reason" the oppressors keep oppressing (or "the enemy"). It's tone policing and victim blaming 101.
While I obviously come at this from a socialist perspective, this is rather common feminist and progressive framing generally at this point.
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Is female somehow a negatively connotated construct to arbitrarily categorize what constitutes as "actual women" or something or what am I missing? Or is it heavily associated with sexism? I'm a little out of the loop. Sorry about that. If it's explained in the pages before I'll catch up (maybe).
Also, why can't people just see each other as equal, it's so tiring to fight this uphill battle with people who are dead set on finding tiny differences and then deciding that's enough reason to seperate them out.
Also also, seeing each other as equal can be quite difficult at times especially when everyone lives in their social bubbles (and I had something else to add here but I forgot).
But yeah, it seems that treating each other as decent human beings keeps being a challenge in the 21st century.
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On July 04 2026 21:36 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2026 21:07 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 09:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 09:39 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 08:43 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 08:36 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 08:10 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 07:10 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 06:15 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I don't think the trans people and sports is the interesting discussion, here. I think the interesting discussion is to what degree we want society to be gender segregated. The trans discussion tends to work as a placeholder for this discussion- people who want society to be less gender segregated tend to be more positive towards trans people while people who want society to be more segregated along gender lines are more negative. Sports happen to be an area where many people think it makes sense to separate men and women because men are biologically superior in most sports, and thus, people who are otherwise entirely trans positive end up being a bit more 'eh I'm not quite sure how to go about this' when talking about trans women competing on a professional level.
But this is an area where there is an ongoing ideological/religious debate, and where I myself - as a teacher- experience that youth today (in norway) are more separated along gender lines than they were 25 years ago. But like, where most people will at least claim that they are in favor of equality of opportunity for men and women, there's a much bigger divide in terms of whether they want equality of outcome, and - the central element dividing people is to what degree differences are biological or cultural. This discussion is one I think is genuinely interesting - and important, because there is a lot of variety between different times and cultures, and it doesn't shape the future of a handful of athletes, but of all humans.
I've also probably adjusted my pov throughout my adult life, in the sense that I've become more accepting of the idea that, for example, men are on average more centered around 'things' and women are on average more centered around 'people' and that this influences which professions they are likely to choose. This means I become less interested in, for example, quotas as a method of creating more equal distribution of men/women in different jobs - but also, more interested in increasing the pay for jobs that have 80%+ women working them. Yeah it’s a curious one, I can’t pretend to have a huge amount of insight there. + Show Spoiler +Been doing conventions (usually setup and casting SC2 tournaments) for like 15 years, and compared to my youth there’s a lot more girls and women who are into nerd culture and proud of it, there’s been a bit of a social or cultural shift there. + Show Spoiler +Equally, despite said shift the eSports events, card game events or tabletop wargaming events are still pretty male dominated, women tend to dominate the art stalls or the cosplay events amongst others that are either less competitive in nature or more social.
Purely anecdotal of course I couldn't help but think of people like cheergurl ( https://www.tiktok.com/@xocheergurlox/video/7637277240115350798 ) and orgs like Black Girl Gamers ( https://www.theblackgirlgamers.com/ ) as an indispensable part of how it got that way. It's worth waiting for the end of cheergurls video if listening is an option imo. You guys really don't appreciate how miserable you (either actively or by what you allow around you) make these spaces for people other than whiteclub/adjacent guys. You have to understand you all are a major reason why there aren't more women and Black people here and around various scenes and why we typically would rather just not be around you whether that means making our own spaces or just abandoning an interest because of the community around that interest is too toxic for an individual to tolerate. Historically/evidently the primary way to get white men (and their lackeys) to be less bigoted shitheads in the US is to force them against their will and let them retroactively explain how it was really their idea/intent all along. That's something that connects all these issues. I can’t generate competitive minded StarCraft players from thin air, and we’ve actively worked to be as welcoming as possible. The general toxicity of online gaming, especially it being disproportionately wielded versus certain groups is certainly a factor, but not something I can particularly shift for the better (although I do try) This is basically the standard "I'm a nice/good guy" combined with "Not all men" response. Right then, I’ve seen the light. We’ll just stop bothering and everything will sort itself out, seems much more sensible. Not sure why I didn’t think of that before This is the textbook tantrum that typically follows. + Show Spoiler +Is sarcasm a tantrum? I have thrown my fair share over the years, this doesn’t feel one.
I merely felt you were responding to things I didn’t really say. If I had, it would have been an appropriate response.
There’s a difference between acknowledging one’s limitations and actively still trying in this domain, versus not moderating one’s behaviour and going with the ‘I’m a nice guy’ spiel.
I was deficient in certain manners, part personal growth, part hearing the experiences of others caused me to adjust my behaviour. I find many of my vintage have, and have worked to make various spaces more inclusive.
Hell look at TL way back when, even though it wasn’t always with ill intent, hell of a lot more homophobic language, and it’s changed quite a bit as an environment.
I frequently discipline Minibat for general saltiness and gamer rage, which feels a bit rich as I was awful for it as a teen. But one thing I notice and never had to directly tell him is there’s no casual homophobic/racist/sexist language from him. Not just him but his mates too. Perhaps they’re outliers but I find it less prevalent in voice from people who are obviously young teens/tweens than older people, and less than when I was a teen playing myself.
So I think there’s a positive and a negative here. The negative part is online gaming is still frequently a toxic cesspool, which will put many people off. The positive is that it’s at least a less discriminatorily toxic cesspool, although far from ideal.
We’re only a generation or two into kids playing online whose parents also played online, which I think is part of why we’re seeing some positive movement. Provided said parents aren’t themselves arseholes, they know what that environment is like first-hand and can direct their children to better behaviour. Which all adds up on aggregate. At a localised level, one can cultivate as welcoming an environment as they want, if said groups don’t even show up there’s not much one can do. + Show Spoiler +If the bigger pipeline that feeds into local scenes is broken, and is much larger, it’s hard for an individual or a small group to fix that aspect of things.
We’ve invited anyone any of us encounters from Ireland who plays or expresses any kind of interest in StarCraft to our Facebook, subsequently Discord, and we’re up to a good number of hundreds there, including a fair few UK mainlanders and international folks. There’s simply very few women, for whatever reason. I can't speak to your specific environment, but this sort of "look at all I've done, what more do you want/what are you doing!?" type of responses are basically a textbook example of the same thing oppressed people always deal with when they confront white men and their lackeys/useful idiots in the US about this kind of stuff. Along with blaming us for not broaching it in way that doesn't offend them, making us the "real reason" the oppressors keep oppressing (or "the enemy"). It's tone policing and victim blaming 101. While I obviously come at this from a socialist perspective, this is rather common feminist and progressive framing generally at this point.
So what is the correct approach?
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Northern Ireland27148 Posts
On July 04 2026 21:36 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2026 21:07 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 09:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 09:39 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 08:43 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 08:36 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 08:10 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 07:10 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 06:15 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I don't think the trans people and sports is the interesting discussion, here. I think the interesting discussion is to what degree we want society to be gender segregated. The trans discussion tends to work as a placeholder for this discussion- people who want society to be less gender segregated tend to be more positive towards trans people while people who want society to be more segregated along gender lines are more negative. Sports happen to be an area where many people think it makes sense to separate men and women because men are biologically superior in most sports, and thus, people who are otherwise entirely trans positive end up being a bit more 'eh I'm not quite sure how to go about this' when talking about trans women competing on a professional level.
But this is an area where there is an ongoing ideological/religious debate, and where I myself - as a teacher- experience that youth today (in norway) are more separated along gender lines than they were 25 years ago. But like, where most people will at least claim that they are in favor of equality of opportunity for men and women, there's a much bigger divide in terms of whether they want equality of outcome, and - the central element dividing people is to what degree differences are biological or cultural. This discussion is one I think is genuinely interesting - and important, because there is a lot of variety between different times and cultures, and it doesn't shape the future of a handful of athletes, but of all humans.
I've also probably adjusted my pov throughout my adult life, in the sense that I've become more accepting of the idea that, for example, men are on average more centered around 'things' and women are on average more centered around 'people' and that this influences which professions they are likely to choose. This means I become less interested in, for example, quotas as a method of creating more equal distribution of men/women in different jobs - but also, more interested in increasing the pay for jobs that have 80%+ women working them. Yeah it’s a curious one, I can’t pretend to have a huge amount of insight there. + Show Spoiler +Been doing conventions (usually setup and casting SC2 tournaments) for like 15 years, and compared to my youth there’s a lot more girls and women who are into nerd culture and proud of it, there’s been a bit of a social or cultural shift there. + Show Spoiler +Equally, despite said shift the eSports events, card game events or tabletop wargaming events are still pretty male dominated, women tend to dominate the art stalls or the cosplay events amongst others that are either less competitive in nature or more social.
Purely anecdotal of course I couldn't help but think of people like cheergurl ( https://www.tiktok.com/@xocheergurlox/video/7637277240115350798 ) and orgs like Black Girl Gamers ( https://www.theblackgirlgamers.com/ ) as an indispensable part of how it got that way. It's worth waiting for the end of cheergurls video if listening is an option imo. You guys really don't appreciate how miserable you (either actively or by what you allow around you) make these spaces for people other than whiteclub/adjacent guys. You have to understand you all are a major reason why there aren't more women and Black people here and around various scenes and why we typically would rather just not be around you whether that means making our own spaces or just abandoning an interest because of the community around that interest is too toxic for an individual to tolerate. Historically/evidently the primary way to get white men (and their lackeys) to be less bigoted shitheads in the US is to force them against their will and let them retroactively explain how it was really their idea/intent all along. That's something that connects all these issues. I can’t generate competitive minded StarCraft players from thin air, and we’ve actively worked to be as welcoming as possible. The general toxicity of online gaming, especially it being disproportionately wielded versus certain groups is certainly a factor, but not something I can particularly shift for the better (although I do try) This is basically the standard "I'm a nice/good guy" combined with "Not all men" response. Right then, I’ve seen the light. We’ll just stop bothering and everything will sort itself out, seems much more sensible. Not sure why I didn’t think of that before This is the textbook tantrum that typically follows. + Show Spoiler +Is sarcasm a tantrum? I have thrown my fair share over the years, this doesn’t feel one.
I merely felt you were responding to things I didn’t really say. If I had, it would have been an appropriate response.
There’s a difference between acknowledging one’s limitations and actively still trying in this domain, versus not moderating one’s behaviour and going with the ‘I’m a nice guy’ spiel.
I was deficient in certain manners, part personal growth, part hearing the experiences of others caused me to adjust my behaviour. I find many of my vintage have, and have worked to make various spaces more inclusive.
Hell look at TL way back when, even though it wasn’t always with ill intent, hell of a lot more homophobic language, and it’s changed quite a bit as an environment.
I frequently discipline Minibat for general saltiness and gamer rage, which feels a bit rich as I was awful for it as a teen. But one thing I notice and never had to directly tell him is there’s no casual homophobic/racist/sexist language from him. Not just him but his mates too. Perhaps they’re outliers but I find it less prevalent in voice from people who are obviously young teens/tweens than older people, and less than when I was a teen playing myself.
So I think there’s a positive and a negative here. The negative part is online gaming is still frequently a toxic cesspool, which will put many people off. The positive is that it’s at least a less discriminatorily toxic cesspool, although far from ideal.
We’re only a generation or two into kids playing online whose parents also played online, which I think is part of why we’re seeing some positive movement. Provided said parents aren’t themselves arseholes, they know what that environment is like first-hand and can direct their children to better behaviour. Which all adds up on aggregate. At a localised level, one can cultivate as welcoming an environment as they want, if said groups don’t even show up there’s not much one can do. + Show Spoiler +If the bigger pipeline that feeds into local scenes is broken, and is much larger, it’s hard for an individual or a small group to fix that aspect of things.
We’ve invited anyone any of us encounters from Ireland who plays or expresses any kind of interest in StarCraft to our Facebook, subsequently Discord, and we’re up to a good number of hundreds there, including a fair few UK mainlanders and international folks. There’s simply very few women, for whatever reason. I can't speak to your specific environment, but this sort of "look at all I've done, what more do you want/what are you doing!?" type of responses are basically a textbook example of the same thing oppressed people always deal with when they confront white men and their lackeys/useful idiots in the US about this kind of stuff. Along with blaming us for not broaching it in way that doesn't offend them, making us the "real reason" the oppressors keep oppressing (or "the enemy"). It's tone policing and victim blaming 101. While I obviously come at this from a socialist perspective, this is rather common feminist and progressive framing generally at this point.
You’re mistaking disagreement with your approach for offence.
If one is going to come out swinging so to speak, they better have either walked the walk, or have some actionable suggestions and different potential approaches to address the problem being discussed.
To wit, you have neither here thus far. Which I find surprising as it’s very unlike ye
The whole purpose of my observations, and I assume Art’s as well was to illustrate that one can improve things on a micro level, but that there are limitations to what can be accomplished if there are problems at the macro.
If, to take an arbitrary number, 60% of women who touch competitive SC or CS online drop it because toxicity, there will be naturally fewer to even consider playing in LANs or joining leagues. Even if those specific environments are great, if nobody’s coming in the door well, it’s immaterial.
I personally think women get it worse than any other group (intersectionality aside) because they both get abuse, but also have the opposite where people fawn over them. Some resent both ends of that particular spectrum, in both scenarios they’re not just another player.
I mean, I get it, you’re preaching to the converted there, but at least with online matchmaking those wheels turn very slowly. Local groups, Discords, TL etc can actively cultivate better environments, in a way that’s just not feasible with a popular online game with thousands of matches going on at any time of the day.
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Chess is probably the best example with long history to compare to esport games. Though not sure how to isolate any conclusions from overall societal changes over time.
I have played with a few women on teams over the years and try to treat them the same as anybody else. When going to LANs or competitions it does stick out a bit but tends to work fine from what I saw. The problem is more with random match making and its lack of consequences, how do you improve people that are looking to lash out and find something "other"?
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Northern Ireland27148 Posts
On July 04 2026 22:32 Yurie wrote:
Chess is probably the best example with long history to compare to esport games. Though not sure how to isolate any conclusions from overall societal changes over time.
I have played with a few women on teams over the years and try to treat them the same as anybody else. When going to LANs or competitions it does stick out a bit but tends to work fine from what I saw. The problem is more with random match making and its lack of consequences, how do you improve people that are looking to lash out and find something "other"?
Indeed, although it is worth noting that absolutely everyone gets shit on in that environment, it’s not like I escaped trash talk because I’m a white bloke or anything.
Although that was generally generic stuff and not really especially targeted at any of my characteristics. Apart from when people could pick my (quite mild) Norn Irish accent and give me IRA/Irish ‘banter’ to try and wind me up.
Whereas if your voice gives away that you’re a woman, or you have an accent associated with being non-white, you’ll get specific sexist or racist shit flung your way.
Some will try to paint the online sphere as like, the Wild West, but to quote Duke Nukem, ‘an equal-opportunity ass-kicker’ but I’d broadly disagree. Pretty equally toxic perhaps, but it manifests in different ways.
I don’t have it to hand right now, I recall a fun little experiment where a chick was playing some shooter, and had some voice gizmo. The reactions of her teammates were markedly different to her play depending on if she went chick or dude voice. In both positive and negative ways.
I think it’s a two-fold thing, least with gaming. Lack of real social consequence and you see society’s anger and prejudices more accurately represented with the filter off. The second is the historic culture of online gaming is hugely toxic, and it perpetuates. I think it’s somewhat better now but way off ideal. You’ll often run into comments from ‘old timers’ bemoaning people being soft and reminiscing about the days you could throw the n word around in Call of Duty lobbies without consequence. A lot of such-minded people somewhat set the cultural tone back in the day, and hell some of them are still around and reinforcing that culture for the next generation to ape.
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On July 04 2026 22:16 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2026 21:36 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 21:07 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 09:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 09:39 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 08:43 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 08:36 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 08:10 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 07:10 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 06:15 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I don't think the trans people and sports is the interesting discussion, here. I think the interesting discussion is to what degree we want society to be gender segregated. The trans discussion tends to work as a placeholder for this discussion- people who want society to be less gender segregated tend to be more positive towards trans people while people who want society to be more segregated along gender lines are more negative. Sports happen to be an area where many people think it makes sense to separate men and women because men are biologically superior in most sports, and thus, people who are otherwise entirely trans positive end up being a bit more 'eh I'm not quite sure how to go about this' when talking about trans women competing on a professional level.
But this is an area where there is an ongoing ideological/religious debate, and where I myself - as a teacher- experience that youth today (in norway) are more separated along gender lines than they were 25 years ago. But like, where most people will at least claim that they are in favor of equality of opportunity for men and women, there's a much bigger divide in terms of whether they want equality of outcome, and - the central element dividing people is to what degree differences are biological or cultural. This discussion is one I think is genuinely interesting - and important, because there is a lot of variety between different times and cultures, and it doesn't shape the future of a handful of athletes, but of all humans.
I've also probably adjusted my pov throughout my adult life, in the sense that I've become more accepting of the idea that, for example, men are on average more centered around 'things' and women are on average more centered around 'people' and that this influences which professions they are likely to choose. This means I become less interested in, for example, quotas as a method of creating more equal distribution of men/women in different jobs - but also, more interested in increasing the pay for jobs that have 80%+ women working them. Yeah it’s a curious one, I can’t pretend to have a huge amount of insight there. + Show Spoiler +Been doing conventions (usually setup and casting SC2 tournaments) for like 15 years, and compared to my youth there’s a lot more girls and women who are into nerd culture and proud of it, there’s been a bit of a social or cultural shift there. + Show Spoiler +Equally, despite said shift the eSports events, card game events or tabletop wargaming events are still pretty male dominated, women tend to dominate the art stalls or the cosplay events amongst others that are either less competitive in nature or more social.
Purely anecdotal of course I couldn't help but think of people like cheergurl ( https://www.tiktok.com/@xocheergurlox/video/7637277240115350798 ) and orgs like Black Girl Gamers ( https://www.theblackgirlgamers.com/ ) as an indispensable part of how it got that way. It's worth waiting for the end of cheergurls video if listening is an option imo. You guys really don't appreciate how miserable you (either actively or by what you allow around you) make these spaces for people other than whiteclub/adjacent guys. You have to understand you all are a major reason why there aren't more women and Black people here and around various scenes and why we typically would rather just not be around you whether that means making our own spaces or just abandoning an interest because of the community around that interest is too toxic for an individual to tolerate. Historically/evidently the primary way to get white men (and their lackeys) to be less bigoted shitheads in the US is to force them against their will and let them retroactively explain how it was really their idea/intent all along. That's something that connects all these issues. I can’t generate competitive minded StarCraft players from thin air, and we’ve actively worked to be as welcoming as possible. The general toxicity of online gaming, especially it being disproportionately wielded versus certain groups is certainly a factor, but not something I can particularly shift for the better (although I do try) This is basically the standard "I'm a nice/good guy" combined with "Not all men" response. Right then, I’ve seen the light. We’ll just stop bothering and everything will sort itself out, seems much more sensible. Not sure why I didn’t think of that before This is the textbook tantrum that typically follows. + Show Spoiler +Is sarcasm a tantrum? I have thrown my fair share over the years, this doesn’t feel one.
I merely felt you were responding to things I didn’t really say. If I had, it would have been an appropriate response.
There’s a difference between acknowledging one’s limitations and actively still trying in this domain, versus not moderating one’s behaviour and going with the ‘I’m a nice guy’ spiel.
I was deficient in certain manners, part personal growth, part hearing the experiences of others caused me to adjust my behaviour. I find many of my vintage have, and have worked to make various spaces more inclusive.
Hell look at TL way back when, even though it wasn’t always with ill intent, hell of a lot more homophobic language, and it’s changed quite a bit as an environment.
I frequently discipline Minibat for general saltiness and gamer rage, which feels a bit rich as I was awful for it as a teen. But one thing I notice and never had to directly tell him is there’s no casual homophobic/racist/sexist language from him. Not just him but his mates too. Perhaps they’re outliers but I find it less prevalent in voice from people who are obviously young teens/tweens than older people, and less than when I was a teen playing myself.
So I think there’s a positive and a negative here. The negative part is online gaming is still frequently a toxic cesspool, which will put many people off. The positive is that it’s at least a less discriminatorily toxic cesspool, although far from ideal.
We’re only a generation or two into kids playing online whose parents also played online, which I think is part of why we’re seeing some positive movement. Provided said parents aren’t themselves arseholes, they know what that environment is like first-hand and can direct their children to better behaviour. Which all adds up on aggregate. At a localised level, one can cultivate as welcoming an environment as they want, if said groups don’t even show up there’s not much one can do. + Show Spoiler +If the bigger pipeline that feeds into local scenes is broken, and is much larger, it’s hard for an individual or a small group to fix that aspect of things.
We’ve invited anyone any of us encounters from Ireland who plays or expresses any kind of interest in StarCraft to our Facebook, subsequently Discord, and we’re up to a good number of hundreds there, including a fair few UK mainlanders and international folks. There’s simply very few women, for whatever reason. I can't speak to your specific environment, but this sort of "look at all I've done, what more do you want/what are you doing!?" type of responses are basically a textbook example of the same thing oppressed people always deal with when they confront white men and their lackeys/useful idiots in the US about this kind of stuff. Along with blaming us for not broaching it in way that doesn't offend them, making us the "real reason" the oppressors keep oppressing (or "the enemy"). It's tone policing and victim blaming 101. While I obviously come at this from a socialist perspective, this is rather common feminist and progressive framing generally at this point. You’re mistaking disagreement with your approach for offence. If one is going to come out swinging so to speak, they better have either walked the walk, or have some actionable suggestions and different potential approaches to address the problem being discussed. To wit, you have neither here thus far. Which I find surprising as it’s very unlike ye The whole purpose of my observations, and I assume Art’s as well was to illustrate that one can improve things on a micro level, but that there are limitations to what can be accomplished if there are problems at the macro. If, to take an arbitrary number, 60% of women who touch competitive SC or CS online drop it because toxicity, there will be naturally fewer to even consider playing in LANs or joining leagues. Even if those specific environments are great, if nobody’s coming in the door well, it’s immaterial. I personally think women get it worse than any other group (intersectionality aside) because they both get abuse, but also have the opposite where people fawn over them. Some resent both ends of that particular spectrum, in both scenarios they’re not just another player. I mean, I get it, you’re preaching to the converted there, but at least with online matchmaking those wheels turn very slowly. Local groups, Discords, TL etc can actively cultivate better environments, in a way that’s just not feasible with a popular online game with thousands of matches going on at any time of the day.
I mean it makes perfect sense that he hasn't done anything, or has no real insight here. "You have used the wrong magic word, therefore all your deeds shall be worthless. not good enough, not good enough, craw craw craw!". Doing nothing but berating everyone else for not doing enough is the only way to win with the mindset of his like.
Anyone who is genuinely interested in making things better / who isn't incredibly stupid would see someone marching in the right direction, but maybe a bit off the path, or just generally in the right direction but not quite, and be like "hey, nicely done so far! You made some good progress, but may I suggest going a little over to the left here? If you keep going that way there is gonna be a patch along the way where we are trying to sow out some flowers and you might trample some of them by accident."
Instead this little troll sits somewhere in a distance with a megaphone, shouting at you being stupid for walking where you walk. You have to press him for any reason why he objects to your path, and when you ask him if he can tell you about any nice places along the way he will tell you that he hasn't made any of the journey yet because the path is currently maintained by a company owned by a friend of the 2nd great cousin of the chairman of the democratic party and walking it thus would make him complicit in genocide, much like you are right now as you already stepped on the part. Right after that he will bemoan that nobody is willing to extend the hand to his side, which ofc the blame is exclusively with the other side. They are just not good enough, its so tragic.
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This is just GH, same as he always was. It’s only surprising for those who fell for his self created myth.
When the group was larger he could just pick on a couple of people and others would feel sorry for him because those he picked on would come back more straight forward. Rinse repeat. But now with the group size he has basically attacked everyone and no one gives him the time of day.
So now when he isn’t getting the attention he craves he just goes full asshole. The only downside compared to the past, is some of his past defenders had actual good points about the subject and GH could pretend that’s what he meant. Now he brings less value to the thread than Oblade and he’s still the arrogant, say nothing unkind prick he’s always been.
The nice thing is now everybody knows GH is not the victim and he gets what he earns from others, so we don't have to deal with the poor GH bullshit.
Positives and negatives with everything.
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Northern Ireland27148 Posts
On July 04 2026 23:30 Artesimo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2026 22:16 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 21:36 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 21:07 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 09:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 09:39 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 08:43 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 08:36 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2026 08:10 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 04 2026 07:10 WombaT wrote:[quote] Yeah it’s a curious one, I can’t pretend to have a huge amount of insight there. + Show Spoiler +Been doing conventions (usually setup and casting SC2 tournaments) for like 15 years, and compared to my youth there’s a lot more girls and women who are into nerd culture and proud of it, there’s been a bit of a social or cultural shift there. + Show Spoiler +Equally, despite said shift the eSports events, card game events or tabletop wargaming events are still pretty male dominated, women tend to dominate the art stalls or the cosplay events amongst others that are either less competitive in nature or more social.
Purely anecdotal of course I couldn't help but think of people like cheergurl ( https://www.tiktok.com/@xocheergurlox/video/7637277240115350798 ) and orgs like Black Girl Gamers ( https://www.theblackgirlgamers.com/ ) as an indispensable part of how it got that way. It's worth waiting for the end of cheergurls video if listening is an option imo. You guys really don't appreciate how miserable you (either actively or by what you allow around you) make these spaces for people other than whiteclub/adjacent guys. You have to understand you all are a major reason why there aren't more women and Black people here and around various scenes and why we typically would rather just not be around you whether that means making our own spaces or just abandoning an interest because of the community around that interest is too toxic for an individual to tolerate. Historically/evidently the primary way to get white men (and their lackeys) to be less bigoted shitheads in the US is to force them against their will and let them retroactively explain how it was really their idea/intent all along. That's something that connects all these issues. I can’t generate competitive minded StarCraft players from thin air, and we’ve actively worked to be as welcoming as possible. The general toxicity of online gaming, especially it being disproportionately wielded versus certain groups is certainly a factor, but not something I can particularly shift for the better (although I do try) This is basically the standard "I'm a nice/good guy" combined with "Not all men" response. Right then, I’ve seen the light. We’ll just stop bothering and everything will sort itself out, seems much more sensible. Not sure why I didn’t think of that before This is the textbook tantrum that typically follows. + Show Spoiler +Is sarcasm a tantrum? I have thrown my fair share over the years, this doesn’t feel one.
I merely felt you were responding to things I didn’t really say. If I had, it would have been an appropriate response.
There’s a difference between acknowledging one’s limitations and actively still trying in this domain, versus not moderating one’s behaviour and going with the ‘I’m a nice guy’ spiel.
I was deficient in certain manners, part personal growth, part hearing the experiences of others caused me to adjust my behaviour. I find many of my vintage have, and have worked to make various spaces more inclusive.
Hell look at TL way back when, even though it wasn’t always with ill intent, hell of a lot more homophobic language, and it’s changed quite a bit as an environment.
I frequently discipline Minibat for general saltiness and gamer rage, which feels a bit rich as I was awful for it as a teen. But one thing I notice and never had to directly tell him is there’s no casual homophobic/racist/sexist language from him. Not just him but his mates too. Perhaps they’re outliers but I find it less prevalent in voice from people who are obviously young teens/tweens than older people, and less than when I was a teen playing myself.
So I think there’s a positive and a negative here. The negative part is online gaming is still frequently a toxic cesspool, which will put many people off. The positive is that it’s at least a less discriminatorily toxic cesspool, although far from ideal.
We’re only a generation or two into kids playing online whose parents also played online, which I think is part of why we’re seeing some positive movement. Provided said parents aren’t themselves arseholes, they know what that environment is like first-hand and can direct their children to better behaviour. Which all adds up on aggregate. At a localised level, one can cultivate as welcoming an environment as they want, if said groups don’t even show up there’s not much one can do. + Show Spoiler +If the bigger pipeline that feeds into local scenes is broken, and is much larger, it’s hard for an individual or a small group to fix that aspect of things.
We’ve invited anyone any of us encounters from Ireland who plays or expresses any kind of interest in StarCraft to our Facebook, subsequently Discord, and we’re up to a good number of hundreds there, including a fair few UK mainlanders and international folks. There’s simply very few women, for whatever reason. I can't speak to your specific environment, but this sort of "look at all I've done, what more do you want/what are you doing!?" type of responses are basically a textbook example of the same thing oppressed people always deal with when they confront white men and their lackeys/useful idiots in the US about this kind of stuff. Along with blaming us for not broaching it in way that doesn't offend them, making us the "real reason" the oppressors keep oppressing (or "the enemy"). It's tone policing and victim blaming 101. While I obviously come at this from a socialist perspective, this is rather common feminist and progressive framing generally at this point. You’re mistaking disagreement with your approach for offence. If one is going to come out swinging so to speak, they better have either walked the walk, or have some actionable suggestions and different potential approaches to address the problem being discussed. To wit, you have neither here thus far. Which I find surprising as it’s very unlike ye The whole purpose of my observations, and I assume Art’s as well was to illustrate that one can improve things on a micro level, but that there are limitations to what can be accomplished if there are problems at the macro. If, to take an arbitrary number, 60% of women who touch competitive SC or CS online drop it because toxicity, there will be naturally fewer to even consider playing in LANs or joining leagues. Even if those specific environments are great, if nobody’s coming in the door well, it’s immaterial. I personally think women get it worse than any other group (intersectionality aside) because they both get abuse, but also have the opposite where people fawn over them. Some resent both ends of that particular spectrum, in both scenarios they’re not just another player. I mean, I get it, you’re preaching to the converted there, but at least with online matchmaking those wheels turn very slowly. Local groups, Discords, TL etc can actively cultivate better environments, in a way that’s just not feasible with a popular online game with thousands of matches going on at any time of the day. I mean it makes perfect sense that he hasn't done anything, or has no real insight here. "You have used the wrong magic word, therefore all your deeds shall be worthless. not good enough, not good enough, craw craw craw!". Doing nothing but berating everyone else for not doing enough is the only way to win with the mindset of his like. Anyone who is genuinely interested in making things better / who isn't incredibly stupid would see someone marching in the right direction, but maybe a bit off the path, or just generally in the right direction but not quite, and be like "hey, nicely done so far! You made some good progress, but may I suggest going a little over to the left here? If you keep going that way there is gonna be a patch along the way where we are trying to sow out some flowers and you might trample some of them by accident." Instead this little troll sits somewhere in a distance with a megaphone, shouting at you being stupid for walking where you walk. You have to press him for any reason why he objects to your path, and when you ask him if he can tell you about any nice places along the way he will tell you that he hasn't made any of the journey yet because the path is currently maintained by a company owned by a friend of the 2nd great cousin of the chairman of the democratic party and walking it thus would make him complicit in genocide, much like you are right now as you already stepped on the part. Right after that he will bemoan that nobody is willing to extend the hand to his side, which ofc the blame is exclusively with the other side. They are just not good enough, it’s so tragic.
Tell us how you really feel haha.
Again I’m not Mr Egalitarian Activist, I’ve merely run/helped run a StarCraft group and done annual tournaments for 15 years (and some extra runs), and one year managed an area at Ireland’s biggest nerd convention. These aren’t me flexing at all, they’re just my experiences in these particular domains. Including some degree of learning and evolution from effectively a ‘shock jock’ as a caster to something more convivial.
Perhaps not absolutely directly, but you basically do what GH says you should do, and then get criticised for not doing something else that he can’t even codify. Fine, that’s helpful.
It’s worth bearing in mind that Northern Ireland is very, very bloody white. Nonetheless we’ve plenty of group stalwarts who’ve competed every year across a wide range of ethnicities. Gay players including a multiple times champion. A player with pretty debilitating autism who we cut some slack on timekeeping to the detriment of our schedule, also a multiple times champion.
Just no women. We had one interested one year but she was too much of a newbie to want to compete but my co-caster coached her in our downtime. I mean we’ve had plenty of women pop in to watch proceedings but not to play.
StarCraft2 even when it was big was relatively niche compared to some games like LoL and CS, or Overwatch at its peak or DoTA or Fortnite etc. it’s less so now, so the chances of some lass we don’t know about taking it up and being in shape for next June feel quite slim, but it would be cool!
From your experiences in a considerably ‘bigger’ game and actively working with women players, what kind of feedback are you getting in terms of their experiences and hurdles, if indeed you discuss that much?
I could make an educated guess I suppose, but I don’t really have anyone to directly ask such things.
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I coached the women's handball team when I was in the UK, in both teams I played for. Not expecting an attaboy or anything, I think most of us try to make our environment a little bit better and more inclusive.
I'm still wondering if that's not the right approach, then what is?
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EPT
