I personally find 'gay' only communities quite offensive as they discriminate against me on grounds of my sexuality.

Look at it another way, how would you feel if someone said theyd like a straight only area for LRP'ers because they felt threatened by the homos and lezzas?

If you dont like that idea then your own suggestion is equally abhorrent.

As to homophobic LRPers, I doubt that we're any more or less than the rest of society, however we are a lot more tolerent of differences- we're a community who play dressing up for craps sake.

At the end of the day if you want a Gay LRP forum then start one, but if it starts campaigning against the use of the word fairy or camp cross dressing characters in LRP etc we will probably all laugh at you and tell you to grow up.

  I realise that I'm biased on this issue- but I'm afraid I don't find the idea terribly convincing.  If Will was suggesting, for example, that queers who feel discriminated against by larpers should band together and establish a queer-only larp insurance company, then I'd expect straight larpers to be angry because they're now being denied a service based on their sexual orientation.  What specifically are you being denied by not being able to join a forum?  I could see your point if this hypothetical private forum were the only way to get reliable information about British larp, say- but we already have open forums for that, and it seems like a minority discussion forum would exist mainly to discuss things relevant to that minority.

  I don't feel that a queer-only larp discussion forum would be the same thing at all, not least because there are already lots of private forums out there.  For example, I can start a private forum for my circle of friends, and the criterion for joining is that you are my friend.  This is very cliquey and exclusive, but only in the sense that a group of people who meet up to go to the pub together are cliquey and exclusive if they go there to talk to each other rather than to random people at the bar.  So, I don't think private forums are a bad thing per se.

  The next question is: is denying members of a demographic group access to a forum automatically unfair?  I'm not convinced that it is.  Again, the criterion I'd use is whether the excluded group are just being denied access to a social club, or whether they're also being denied other things as an indirect result.  So, for example, a men-only social club is not automatically a bad thing, but a situation where female businesswomen can't compete because all the business deals are made at the men-only social club would be unfair (although I can see that in practice drawing the line and deciding how to respond to the situation is going to be really difficult).

  I think I can see how, hypothetically, a private forum with membership requirements could be useful for people discussing some kinds of discrimination.  For example, I once participated in a forum discussion on sexual harassment.  It seemed like the general pattern was: someone (usually a woman) would post saying "I was sexually harassed once and it made me feel really unhappy".  Then someone (usually a man) would post saying "I don't think sexual harassment is really a major problem in our society, considering factors A, B and C."  I think the people minimising the issue had good intentions- in their eyes, they were being reassuring and preventing the discussion from getting hysterical.  The thing was, this is a really infuriating thing for the people posting about their experience, because if you say "being sexually harassed made me feel really unhappy", and the next three posts are people saying "sexual harassment isn't a major problem in our society", then it's hard to read that as anything other than "you're getting yourself upset over a minor issue"- which in this case, I don't think is a helpful response.

  In this case, I think that the people reporting cases of sexual harassment would have felt happier if they could have discussed their individual experiences in a thread that was completely separate from discussions on the implications of sexual harassment in society at large.  I think that the original poster in this thread did try to get people to do that, but the board had quite a high user turnover and a lot of people didn't seem to read that part before posting.  So, if you're in a similar situation where you're trying to get people to talk about something very personal, and other people keep coming in with (potentially well-intentioned) attempts to argue that the problem described is only a minor one, then I can see why there'd be demand for a private forum.

  If a debate on homophobia in larp started in the General Larp Discussion section of Rule 7, then I think the situation might end up similar to the discussion I just described- some people trying to say "I've experienced homophobia from larpers that made me really uncomfortable", but being drowned out by people saying "I don't think most larp systems are that homophobic."  Even if the latter statement is true, there could still be a significant number of people who have experienced homophobia in larp and would like to discuss it seriously somewhere where people won't keep coming in and saying "but this isn't a major problem in the community as a whole."

  This is a very difficult question, because if someone set up a straight-only area for anti-queer larpers, then my first reaction would be to be very angry- but I'd be angry because it's not in my interests for larpers to be anti-queer.  My problem would be the fact that demand exists for such a forum- the fact that it's also a private forum which I can't join would be very much a secondary concern.

  I'm trying to decide how I'd feel about a straight-only forum which was not explicitly anti-queer- but I find it hard to think of stuff that such a forum could meaningfully discuss.

  Having said all that, I still think that in this particular case it would make sense for a queer larpers' forum to be open rather than private.  This is for two reasons: firstly, if demand exists for this forum (which is something that's yet to be established) then I think that logistically it would be difficult to attract new users if it's private.  Secondly, if it's private then I think that might discourage people who are conflicted over their sexuality and aren't sure whether they're queer or not.  I think someone like that might be intimidated by a private forum.  Open forums are potentially less intimidating because someone can lurk on threads for a long time before they make the mental leap to signing up as a user- and, as I've said, pseudonyms are still an option.

I know of several openly gay LRPers, several bisexuals (again openly so) and am aware of others who are quietly gay, totally in the closet apart from close friends or who I suspect may well be gay/lesbian or bisexual and who just haven't bothered to tell me about it yet. And I am not even starting on the polyamourous and swinger sets who are in the LRP community as well who are occasionally 'recreationally bisexual'. They are out there but I think the problem with gay LRP relationships is that you are not actually telling each other about yourselves and so missing out on all the potential pairings. Which I suspect is the OPs point...

I think a seperate forum for LGB is a fine idea but not a private one - for the reasons stated above, a private forum is too difficult to find and get to be a member of unless you know the person involved. However, it is simplicity itself to set up an added board on a forum like this and allow people who want to join it anonymously to create extra identities to log in with and use on this forum - IDs which are not linked to any other character of that person or otherwise linked to their real name. So, Jonny (real name) could easily have a normal rule7 ID called Solomon Jackson, named from a character he plays in a system which he uses to post on the boards. He could also have a second ID - say Idol - named form something random he made up which he uses to post on the gay boards.

This method allows anonymity for those who want it, those who don't care if they are outed can post using normal IDs, the board requires minimum of admin work as nothing really needs to be done to set it up other than create the board (no approvals etc needed), the board is visible where anyone who wants to join in can see it and so there is no problem with cliquieness. About the only problem is the possibility of homophobes posting on the board but that can be handled by a motivated and strict moderator who is willing to wield the delete button when needed.

And, of course, just because you are posting on a gay board does not mean that you are gay... Non gay LRPers may be interested in posting opinions on some of the issues raised in a gay forum so you cannot make the assumption of sexuality from where you post.

BTW, I am not gay... I just play one in a LRP game

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The Whispering God is your friend... trust the Whispering God...

Ruins of Empire

1st - 3rd Feb, 2008, Gladstone scout centre, Chester

Well, my gut reaction is to say that if straight people genuinely felt seperated or in someway isolated in a community they feel they are part of because of their sexuality then yes, a straight persons forum would be completely justified. I imagine in a community of gay golfers within which straight people decided to operate because they found the company just fabulous there may be a call for a place where they could chat in a place dedicated to 'straight' talk, in much the same way as I imagine some straight male larpers would find it uncomfortable reading a conversation with a load of 'homos' talking about how hot Brad Pitt looked in Troy.

I'm not quite sure that straight people are in a minority though...

Currently I'm feeling people being yesish towards minority forums, but noish towards private forums?

Will Power - Front Desk for Kings Banquet

Will aproached me some weeks ago with this idea and I replied that I wasn't sure that I wanted to grant his request without some discussion as it would fundamentally alter Rule7's ethos.

Currently our forums are primarily about LRP and its related interests - Muggers and the Waiting Room being the exceptions. If Rule7 were to open forums that had a theme that wasn't based on whether you played a particular game, we would be making a shift in our outlook.

Now I am all for supporting minority expression and for encouraging participation within our hobby, but I'm as yet undecided about whether establishing a forum based on criteria that aren't essentially part of the hobby interest is appropriate, so I'd quite like people's thoughts.