Disappointed with LQ regarding the "female" thread.

Can we delete said thread and start over?

No. I do NOT want to revisit the subject here.

Simply "delete" it and maybe we can do better next time around.

I commend Xavier P for his patience and diplomacy.

I vote to leave it up and everyone can see how *not* to welcome a new member.

ditto--while moderately annoying it is not really a big problem.

Speaking only for myself, I do not really want or need to know the gender of the members.

That is an interesting thread, a good psychological case study. It's hard to say who is at fault, but I think the blame lies on more than one person.

1) If you are a female, do NOT under any circumstances start a thread called "female", or "hello all you sexy men", or other such trollish titles. You're asking for a flame war.

2) If someone happens to start such a thread, do NOT under any circumstances say "available tonight ?", "can we meet ?", "can I have your pic ?", "are you fat ?", if you do this your are as much a troll as the OP.

3) I also am not thrilled with the handling of this thread, I would have liked to see it cleaned up rather than shut down, but who knows, maybe the mods with their more years of experience know better. Either way, earlier detection and action might save the thread. Maybe the OP had good intentions ... I dunno.

Originally Posted by H_TeXMeX_H 3) I also am not thrilled with the handling of this thread, I would have liked to see it cleaned up rather than shut down, but who knows, maybe the mods with their more years of experience know better. Either way, earlier detection and action might save the thread. Maybe the OP had good intentions ... I dunno.

There is no easy answer to this. Leaping in early and cleaning up can seem very heavy handed, similarly doing what I did do can come off as not doing enough.

I like that it's there so it can be used to teach others the error of their ways. While I do, in part agree with your point one, we are supposed to be a little smarter than the average bear here and the sheer hostility that came across in that post far outweighed the possible naivety of announcing oneself as female.

Also, we have had "what's your gender" threads here before and they went off very politely and considerately. So really, as far as the responses from our regulars in that thread went, I am forced to assume that it was their "time of the month" and they were feeling somewhat grumpy. Maybe the punishment should be that they should all eat some chocolate....

Glad I didn't start my introduction with:

Male
Bald
Unattached

God knows what sort of reception I would have got.

That should be "Bald Unattached Male" (B.U.M.) - that'll really set off the thread.

Well, I'm glad I didn't look at the "female" thread after about 4 or 5 posts; I'm sure I had better things to do anyway.

I'd have got too much attention from hairy leather-clad biker geeks singing "Y.M.C.A".

Originally Posted by brianL Glad I didn't start my introduction with: Male Bald Unattached God knows what sort of reception I would have got.

Yeah, well, you see that's what bothers me about that thread. Who would start an intro thread with that. I sure as hell wouldn't, even tho I'm not bald. I mean come on, who here needs to know the color of my hair or my marital status or even my gender ? What use could that serve ? And even if it would serve some purpose who can verify it ? I could be lying. I think the female thread was trollish in that it provoked inappropriate responses and general flame war. I bet the same thing would happen if I started a 'male' thread. Imagine that. The next thing I would ask ... any ladies here wanna meet me ? And if there were more ladies here ... it may start a flame war as well. This is not a dating forum, so we don't need to know this kind of info ... else it might turn into one or worse.

It is possible that dxangel was trying to head off future questions. I have been on boards where, over time, a member is discovered to be female and then the questioning begins - how old, pics please and so on. She may have thought she was clearing this up.

There is no standard template for an intro - they range from a simple hello all the way up to a full resume/CV.

Originally Posted by XavierP I vote to leave it up and everyone can see how *not* to welcome a new member.

I agree. Also, could it be possible that we're making a mountain out of a molehill, just like the posters in that thread? Quite frankly, I found it rather humorous. Childish and silly, but humorous, nonetheless.

Did you ever see the cartoon? "On the Internet, no one knows that you are a dog."
By the way, this was meant literally.

I in no - way condon the suggestive trollish posts made but agree with H TeXMeX H that at the age of 29 I do not believe she was completely surprised at the responses. The posted remarks even if asked for can only down grade the site.

I do believe XP did the right thing and that maybe can be a lesson as to what can happen to this site. It is about helping people with their linux and 'General lite' problems and keeping flame wars and trash to a minimum.

There are women (even exciting, sexy ones) here who have no such problems. The "Female" OP deserved exactly the treatment he/she got.

Nope - I absolutely disagree with you. A look at her other posts would show that she is genuine. What happened was that a number of people in that thread jumped ahead a few imaginary steps, assigned a motive and then attacked based on that assumed motive. Doing that makes you shoot the mailman when he comes to your doorstep.

Before leaping in and assuming a troll look at the other posts and make a rational balanced decision based on the evidence. Yes, on other boards that may have been a classic opening for a troll or spammer, but dxangel has other genuine posts and so we should make the assumption that they are also genuine.

We have to move beyond the early mentality that new members have to run the gauntlet and prove themselves worthy. As Linux gets more and more popular we have and are going to get more and more posters with different mentalities. In a way, dxangel also made a few steps and jumped ahead - by laying all her cards on the table at the start she assumed that we would end up asking the question when, by and large, no one here would.

My point stands though, we should be encouraging new members, not running them off because they don't appear to be our sort of people. If a member is prepared to do their own thinking and to ask us for our help, we should help them.