Promoting the Women's Forum

Goose Egg and I would like to promote the Women’s Forum, and make more women aware of it. Would anyone be interested in doing a bit of pro bono work and designing some banners for us? There would be free drinks at the next Happy Hour in it for you! :slight_smile:

We would need banners in 4 sizes: Leaderboard Banner (728x90), Skyscraper Banner (120x600), Medium Rectangle Banner (300x250), and Rectangle Banner (180x150).

Thanks for any help!

Does it matter that it is slow there? You guys thinking about closing it down? I don’t know much about computers, just wondering if it takes up a lot of space to have a link that doesn’t get used much. Or much time…

[quote=“Battery9”]Does it matter that it is slow there? You guys thinking about closing it down? I don’t know much about computers, just wondering if it takes up a lot of space to have a link that doesn’t get used much. Or much time…[/quote]No, it doesn’t matter that it is slow there. But we think if more women knew about it, it might be a more valuable resource. We’re not thinking of shutting it down, either. And space isn’t an issue with us either.

I wish there were more women posting here. They act as a civilising influence on us men. Any ideas why there aren’t more women posting on forumosa?

Because women don’t need to desperately prowl online for friends. Merely walking into a 7-11 or coffee shop sometimes leads to at least 5 or 6 phone numbers, and that’s just from the staff.

There are more women than you think, almas john…Posting can be deceiving…

:laughing:

[quote=“almas john”] Any ideas why there aren’t more women posting on forumosa?[/quote] :roflmao: surely you’ve been around long enough to know the answer to that!?

I appreciate it is there for when we do need it. Certainly hope it doesn’t get shut down.
Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that it is only visible when I am logged on.
Yeah, I guess promotion isn’t a bad idea. It took me a couple years to even know it existed…

The women’s forum is good. It’s a resource for useful information, venting, support chatting about Taiwan/other stuff and generally hanging out. People post there that don’t post on the main board.

None of the comments below criticise any work that any of you do for flob. Please take them in the constructive spirit that they meant in.

You* can choose a day at random and find at least half a dozen seriously nasty, sexist truly female-repelling comments, by ‘mainstream’ posters. If the modmins ever figure out a way to deal with that then women would be more likely to hit the women’s forum, because there would be more on the site at large, so they’d be in more of a position to know about it.

Everyone has got to admit, the site’s ‘humour’ is slightly raw for a lot of non-native English speakers to deal with. Even native speakers don’t want to engage with the ‘Oohh, boobies!’ mentality a lot of the time. Women respect your freedom of speech, they just aren’t interested in participating.

You could co-opt sympathetic, capable and time-committed females as Mods, and ask them to expand the readership? Groom the newbs?

Make the HH’s more accesssible so that women come? I would guess that many women don’t go because they don’t really want to spend their free time hanging out in furriner bars with old married guys or newb teachers: think of ways to promote diversity. Get people to expand the ‘real life’ parts of flob in the same way as many flobbers have promoted hiking, etc. It’s sometimes counter-productive to have one ‘flob community’, because people who aren’t interested just stay away; we should think of it as a network, rather than a group. Flob has a lot of diversity, but maybe this isn’t reflected in things like ‘Family Xmas Lunch’ or ‘hiking’ or ‘pet rescue’ (not criticising those activities which have grown up without any ‘push’, just that other events or groups that might attract women may need more artificial help to get going). Pretty much none of my FFs would have dreamed of presenting for any of that, but would still have been good folk to have on board. I recognise that it is very difficult to change that, organically, though.

It also looks a bit shite (burgundy, for Chrissakes; if that ain’t an ‘old man’ colour, I don’t know what is), with a line of daft gurlies along the bottom, all the trekkie-boy avatars, etc. I’m NOT suggesting you should ‘Hello Kittify’ it, but perhaps make it more visually attractive?

There isn’t much specific info here that’s organised in any meaningful way. The problem with the women’s site is that most of the people who post on it have actually left Taiwan, now. if people ask a question, there’s not much chance of getting a useful answer. You have to reach a sort of tipping point/momentum with these things; the wider site ‘works’ because it has lots of traffic, so more people come, so more people help out, so…

It’s a little difficult to get that momentum and buzz going, I guess. I also think there are a LOT fewer overseas’ women in Taiwan, these days, of the English speaking variety, for the same reasons that a lot of guys are leaving or staying away. The levelling off of the ESL teaching industry, the lack of investment in learning Chinese here paired with huge investment in this in China, fewer companies sending people to Taiwan, etc.

kage, you have to log on to see it because you need to prove that you is a wimmin.

*I mean you could, if you wanted to, not I have to defend my statement by actually doing it myself.

Silly question maybe, but if I set up a new username and say I am a wimmin can I automatically join the Wimmin’s forum or is it subject to meeting someone IRL, or perhaps a quiz about tides, moon phases and other things that us chaps would surely fail?

That would be fairly obnoxious. There is a certain degree of honour invloved, if you are not able to present yourself to the Mod…

No more obnoxious than say a girl poster pretending to be a boy and talking about getting laid etc right? I mean stuff happens here on Flob I just wondered whether there are controls in place - and if not would suggest there are.

There are - it usually just involves a phone call to Lupillus, and a question that only women would know the answer to.

I used to post on here as a guy…or rather, I just never revealed my gender, and for some reason everyone assumed I was a guy. Then I went to a Happy Hour and I kind of regretted it. I used to get into all kinds of cool arguments…people used to say some really nasty stuff to me…but as soon as they found out I was actually female the complete way they talked to me changed. Kind of killed the fun a bit.
I didn’t take to the women’s forum at all and left it after a while. I was actually surprised to hear that it still existed.

That makes sense, but the thread title isn’t even visible to someone who is not logged on. So people who do not regularly log on, or haven’t signed up, will have no idea the thread even exists.

I think there are a lot of women that would look at the misogynist tone that crops up daily on this site and not want to participate. That was the case for me, anyway. For years, I came here only when I really needed to find some information about something specific. When the women’s thread and hiking club were pointed out to me, I saw a reason to actually participate.

Would it be possible, Maoman and Goose Egg, to make the thread title visible to everyone (even if not logged on), but the link only works if lupillus has already approved you.
I think that alone would get a lot more visibility. Well, more than none, anyway.

I don’t like the idea of a separate women’s forum, though. Having a special forum makes one feel that one has leprosy or some kind of horrific disability. But it would be cool to have a visible link for those who want special treatment as few women seem to know about it now, yeah.

[quote=“kage”][
Would it be possible, Maoman and Goose Egg, to make the thread title visible to everyone (even if not logged on), but the link only works if lupillus has already approved you.
I think that alone would get a lot more visibility. Well, more than none, anyway.[/quote]

I believe that already happens. When you post in the Women’s forum it shows up in New threads, but if you aren’t approved you can’t get in. Problem,IMO, is there isn’t just enough conversation in the forum. It’s a good resource but not enough activity.

The Women’s Forum is completely private - no one[color=#FF0000]*[/color] can see new threads or any threads unless they are approved members. We want the banners to make more women aware that the forum exists.

[color=#FF0000]*[/color]As admin, Goose Egg and I could go in, but we have agreed not to. We DO see new thread titles when they come up, as well as who posted them.

[quote=“Maoman”]The Women’s Forum is completely private - no one[color=#FF0000]*[/color] can see new threads or any threads unless they are approved members. We want the banners to make more women aware that the forum exists.

[color=#FF0000]*[/color]As admin, Goose Egg and I could go in, but we have agreed not to. We DO see new thread titles when they come up, as well as who posted them.
[/quote]

Is that something that’s just changed? The non visibility of the forum?

[quote=“Namahottie”][quote=“Maoman”]The Women’s Forum is completely private - no one[color=#FF0000]*[/color] can see new threads or any threads unless they are approved members. We want the banners to make more women aware that the forum exists.

[color=#FF0000]*[/color]As admin, Goose Egg and I could go in, but we have agreed not to. We DO see new thread titles when they come up, as well as who posted them.
[/quote]

Is that something that’s just changed? The non visibility of the forum?[/quote]
No, it’s always been like that.

[quote=“Maoman”]The Women’s Forum is completely private - no one[color=#FF0000]*[/color] can see new threads or any threads unless they are approved members. We want the banners to make more women aware that the forum exists.

[color=#FF0000]*[/color]As admin, Goose Egg and I could go in, but we have agreed not to. We DO see new thread titles when they come up, as well as who posted them.
[/quote]
I think Kage meant ‘forum’ rather than the specific threads within the forum. Could the existence of the WF not be revealed on the front page with a “members only” tag?