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Knight
 
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I had this... thought (don't give me too much credit) and reasoned with advisment that it might be worth throwing said thought open for debate...
I would like to see a forum for gay roleplayers to meet and chat. God knows it's hard enough to meet like minded people anyway, but especially in roleplaying, which I have always found to be strangely a little homophobic, I have found it to be even more difficult, and roleplayers being who we are we tend to want to be with... other roleplayers, which coupled with difficulty meeting people... you see where I'm going...
Now, my catastrophic personal life aside, this brought up the interesting question of minority forums. Is that something that should be encouraged, not because people want to oppress them but because one opens up the dorr to the next dozen and so on. Is this a good thing? Or a potentially chaotic and out of control thing? Obviously I believe that it is a good thing to give groups of people who might sometimes feel left out or in the minority or just generally uneasy a place to feel that they can open up and be themselves. Of course, this could be a complete disaster with only one or two people wanting to put their hands up...
Which of course leads to the inevitable second point: private discussion forums. Is this something that wants to be encouraged? Will it become a very much "oh, you're not part of the in crowd because you're not on x forum" or something that could genuinely be used to protect ideas and people? I feel that private discussion groups have their place, but that it is not their place to be somewhere to bitch and plot evily OOC, rather a place to feel safe, as I might propose above forum should be.
Anyway, those are my thoughts... anyone want to comment?
Will Power - Front Desk for Kings Banquet
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Heroic Knight
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Will Power (8/6/2007)
but especially in roleplaying, which I have always found to be strangely a little homophobic,
Ummm, I have to be honest and say that I find that statement rather shocking. One of the things I love about this hobby is that in general Larpers as a whole have always seemed to me to be a largley friendly, tolerant and unpredjudicial bunch. Mind you as a straight male maybe I'm just being oblivious to the problem, but homophobia isn't something I've encountered at an event. Sure people can be homophobic, but I've always thought and found LARP as a hobby to be pretty indiscrimate.
Maybe you've just been going to the wrong events with the wrong people?
Will Power (8/6/2007)
Obviously I believe that it is a good thing to give groups of people who might sometimes feel left out or in the minority
Are Gay Larpers in the minority? sure in most of the events I've been to gay Larpers rarely amount to more than 50% of attendees, but often you find a higher proportion of LGBT's at events than you do in the general population.
Will Power (8/6/2007)
Which of course leads to the inevitable second point: private discussion forums. Is this something that wants to be encouraged?
Larpers are already a minority group in some respects, so it really comes down to how much more you want to subdivide an already divided group. What constituets a minority group in a larp enviroment and how many such groups would you want to cater for? More importantly do we wish to encourage people to go to events for the purposes of "dating"? surely we go to events to play not to find a partner?
That said, in my experiance the only truely rare and endangered minority group in Larp appears to be "single females" and if anyone can come up with a plan to get then all to gether in one place for weekend I'll be eternally grateful (so long as I can go as well) 
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Squire
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I'm interpreting "Forum" here to mean an on-line forum, like this one. My ideas are basically irrelevant if, instead, you mean a physical meet-up of like-minded people for the purposes of discussion.
I think that forums are cheap enough to set up that the "every minority will want one" argument is irrelevant, and I'm pretty much in favour of every minority having one - people are happier when they can find other people who are like them, which is good.
I'm less convinced of the usefulness of a closed forum for this. Clearly it is useful for people who already know each other to discuss something which they would prefer not to become public - the eidolon forums are an excellent example of this use. However, these all require that you already know that the person who's requesting access to your closed forum should have access to your closed forum. If the purpose of the forum is to help people find like-minded (or similarly embodied) people, a closed forum is rendered entirely useless.
Maelstrom: Seed of the Spine of the World
CUTT: Kelasen Faerveth (formerly a ref)
Eos: Joseph Fitzarundel (formerly Search the Venin, rest in itty bitty pieces)
Insurrection: Dead (formerly Alqualive Tirarno AKA Corporal Elf-boy, very briefly some human)
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Knight
Group: System Moderators
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Feral (8/6/2007)
Will Power (8/6/2007)
but especially in roleplaying, which I have always found to be strangely a little homophobic,
Ummm, I have to be honest and say that I find that statement rather shocking. One of the things I love about this hobby is that in general Larpers as a whole have always seemed to me to be a largley friendly, tolerant and unpredjudicial bunch. Mind you as a straight male maybe I'm just being oblivious to the problem, but homophobia isn't something I've encountered at an event. Sure people can be homophobic, but I've always thought and found LARP as a hobby to be pretty indiscrimate.
Maybe you've just been going to the wrong events with the wrong people?
Maybe... but then, it's been 12 years across at least 6 different systems... I dunno, the harsh person in me wants to say "minority group picking on other minority group". Also note, 'little' homophobic, which is better then... well, many many other groups... I did grow up with a rather untolerant clique system, so maybe that's clouded my vision a bit? I still feel a certain amount of "gays are butts of jokes/insults" (no pun intended) around roleplayers that's rather more marked than around other social circles I drift into...
Will Power (8/6/2007)
Obviously I believe that it is a good thing to give groups of people who might sometimes feel left out or in the minority
Are Gay Larpers in the minority? sure in most of the events I've been to gay Larpers rarely amount to more than 50% of attendees, but often you find a higher proportion of LGBT's at events than you do in the general population.
Not that I've noticed? Please, point me in their direction!  I think I officially know exactly... 0 gay larpers, apart from me. Obviously I probably do know more, but not to my knowledge.
Will Power (8/6/2007)
Which of course leads to the inevitable second point: private discussion forums. Is this something that wants to be encouraged?
Larpers are already a minority group in some respects, so it really comes down to how much more you want to subdivide an already divided group. What constituets a minority group in a larp enviroment and how many such groups would you want to cater for? More importantly do we wish to encourage people to go to events for the purposes of "dating"? surely we go to events to play not to find a partner?
I'm not convinced this would be a case of dividing people? More bringing people of similar tastes closer together.
And well, I was certainly not suggesting people going to events expressly to find dates, and I hope that would never happen! But let's face it, dating does happen/begin at events, and maybe it would open up the floor a bit to homosexuals. Also, a forum is not the same as at an event and instead a place to meet talk outside events, so you could really argue it would lessen the need to look out at events
My main point was that roleplayers tend to like going out with roleplayers, in much the same way that anyone who is deeply involved in a hobby generally likes going out with someone else invovled in said hobby (saves the embarrasing "what do I do at the weekends? Errr...." conversation) and as it stands it's striking me as difficult to find said people, and this might be an opportunity to knock on those gates.
And let us not forget that such a group is not all about dating, and is also very much about just finding like minded people out there to just talk to, sympathise with and make friends with. Humans (almost) always seek out others in which they can validate themselves and assure themselves that they are not alone, and this is just one more potential way forward to achieveing that goal...
That said, in my experiance the only truely rare and endangered minority group in Larp appears to be "single females" and if anyone can come up with a plan to get then all to gether in one place for weekend I'll be eternally grateful (so long as I can go as well)
My sympathies
Will Power - Front Desk for Kings Banquet
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Knight
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Tienelle (8/6/2007)
I'm less convinced of the usefulness of a closed forum for this. Clearly it is useful for people who already know each other to discuss something which they would prefer not to become public - the eidolon forums are an excellent example of this use. However, these all require that you already know that the person who's requesting access to your closed forum should have access to your closed forum. If the purpose of the forum is to help people find like-minded (or similarly embodied) people, a closed forum is rendered entirely useless.
The point of the closed forum was protecting people who might not want their orientation known to the general public, in this case anyway.
Will Power - Front Desk for Kings Banquet
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Knight
Group: System Moderators
Last Login: Tuesday, November 04, 2008 8:35 PM
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Tienelle (8/6/2007)
I'm less convinced of the usefulness of a closed forum for this. Clearly it is useful for people who already know each other to discuss something which they would prefer not to become public - the eidolon forums are an excellent example of this use. However, these all require that you already know that the person who's requesting access to your closed forum should have access to your closed forum. If the purpose of the forum is to help people find like-minded (or similarly embodied) people, a closed forum is rendered entirely useless.
The point of the closed forum was protecting people who might not want their orientation known to the general public, in this case anyway.
Will Power - Front Desk for Kings Banquet
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Heroic Knight
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Will Power (8/6/2007)
Maybe... but then, it's been 12 years across at least 6 different systems... I dunno, the harsh person in me wants to say "minority group picking on other minority group". Also note, 'little' homophobic, which is better then... well, many many other groups... I did grow up with a rather untolerant clique system, so maybe that's clouded my vision a bit?
I'm not gonna ask what system that is, although I'm 25% sure I have met you before and have a sneaking suspicion of who that may be... in which case (in my experiance) they are the exception rather than the rule.
Will Power (8/6/2007)
I still feel a certain amount of "gays are butts of jokes/insults" (no pun intended) around roleplayers that's rather more marked than around other social circles I drift into...
I'll admit that can and does happen..... usually amongst the drunken idiots.
Will Power (8/6/2007)
Not that I've noticed? Please, point me in their direction!
I'll send you a PM.
Will Power (8/6/2007)
I'm not convinced this would be a case of dividing people? More bringing people of similar tastes closer together.
Surely Larp is the common thread that brings us together? Personally I don't give a damn if your Gay, Straight, a Furry or whatever (as long as your not a damn greenskin) as long as your a roleplayer. I think possibly thats why you may not have realised people you've met are Gay, because they go to events to be a Roleplayer not a Gay Roleplayer..... if you know what I mean...
Will Power (8/6/2007)
And let us not forget that such a group is not all about dating, and is also very much about just finding like minded people out there to just talk to, sympathise with and make friends with. Humans (almost) always seek out others in which they can validate themselves and assure themselves that they are not alone, and this is just one more potential way forward to achieveing that goal...
Umm... point taken... I can see where your coming from now.
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Idiots can be so much fun, thats why every village wants one....
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Prodigal
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Will Power (8/6/2007)
The point of the closed forum was protecting people who might not want their orientation known to the general public, in this case anyway. Do you mean that people would worry about other larpers learning their orientation? Or is the concern that non-larpers (e.g. someone's employer) might learn someone's orientation by googling their name or something? If the latter is the issue, then I'm not sure private forums would be necessary- you could just make it a public forum and then remind people to use pseudonyms if they don't want offline acquaintances to read their posts (this is potentially easier for larpers than for most people, because if you post something like "hi, I'm Bob who plays XYZ at LT", then larper acquaintances will know who you are but it won't get picked up by anyone googling your legal name). If it's other larpers who are the issue, then I might be entirely wrong- but I'd be very surprised if there were a substantial number of LGB larpers who are actively worried about other larpers finding out their orientation (transgendered people are a slightly different issue, given that passing as a certain gender is a different process to passing as straight. Having said that, some large systems do seem to have a few uncloseted transvestites, which to me suggests that the atmosphere in those systems is more tolerant towards gender variance than most British social circles). Not being a gay man, it's possible that I've failed to notice homophobia within the larp community, and perhaps the number of closeted larpers i | | | |