I feel like I've wrongfully been made to feel unwelcome...for requesting a female RP partner.

[KleineVampir]

I made probably the most basic post possible, and it seems like I'm being pressured to leave the site because of it.  I dunno, the whole thing doesn't sit right with me.  All I did was ask that my roleplayer be female.  That's it.  Next thing I know, people are putting tons of words into my mouth.  Like, what's going on here?  Could a member of staff other than Aura please take a look at this?  Seems like some of what I said (especially in the first post) was construed to be more negative than I meant...had I known then how people would take things like this I would never have said the first post the way I did.  But it just doesn't sit right with me that I would be made to feel unwelcome on this site because of such a simple request.  Is it wrong to ask that my RP partner be female?  Honestly that's just what I'm used to!  That's how I've always done it and it's just what I'm comfortable with.  It has nothing to do with trying to date them or get pictures of them or anything like that.  Even though a staff member put words into my mouth by suggesting it did.  I find that extremely unprofessional to be honest.

The thread in question:

https://ecchidreams.com/roleplayer-services/private-roleplayers-bulletin/looking-for-females-to-rp-with-r2988/

[Aura]

I'll give the benefit of the doubt and apologize for the unfair assumptions I had made about you. Admittedly, I definitely should've looked a bit deeper into the discussion myself and do regret jumping in so quickly without thinking things through.

With the way our Terms of Service are structured, it is unfortunately a very common occurrence for disputes between users to get out of hand, especially when you have certain users try to "spice things up" as it were. We hold freedom of speech to a very high degree of importance but a consequence of that is that sometimes users take those freedoms to an absurd degree. Things like offensive language is a criticism we're faced with often for not addressing, so seeing such language in the discussion urged me to try and put an end to the discussion asap by making a statement and hopefully allowing everyone to let go and move on. In hindsight, the approach I took was unfairly weighted against you and mostly fueled by the response of the other users.

One thing I do still hold my ground on, however, is that I wanted to make it clear why (I believe) people seemed to get so upset so quickly. While your intention may have been just to seek female rp partners, which there is nothing inherently wrong about, the approach you took with it was to state the assumption that the majority of women on the site are actually men. Many people see that as a rude thing to say. I mean, imagine being a woman and reading that line. Even if the woman isn't insulted, you're already putting a pretty bad foot forward by making them feel like you're going to be skeptical of them if they even bother approaching, right?

My intention here isn't necessarily to scold you or anything like that, but to hopefully help prevent this sort of confusion from happening again.

[KleineVampir]

2 minutes ago, Aura said:

I'll give the benefit of the doubt and apologize for the unfair assumptions I had made about you. Admittedly, I definitely should've looked a bit deeper into the discussion myself and do regret jumping in so quickly without thinking things through.

With the way our Terms of Service are structured, it is unfortunately a very common occurrence for disputes between users to get out of hand, especially when you have certain users try to "spice things up" as it were. We hold freedom of speech to a very high degree of importance but a consequence of that is that sometimes users take those freedoms to an absurd degree. Things like offensive language is a criticism we're faced with often for not addressing, so seeing such language in the discussion urged me to try and put an end to the discussion asap by making a statement and hopefully allowing everyone to let go and move on. In hindsight, the approach I took was unfairly weighted against you and mostly fueled by the response of the other users.

One thing I do still hold my ground on, however, is that I wanted to make it clear why (I believe) people seemed to get so upset so quickly. While your intention may have been just to seek female rp partners, which there is nothing inherently wrong about, the approach you took with it was to state the assumption that the majority of women on the site are actually men. Many people see that as a rude thing to say. I mean, imagine being a woman and reading that line. Even if the woman isn't insulted, you're already putting a pretty bad foot forward by making them feel like you're going to be skeptical of them if they even bother approaching, right?

My intention here isn't necessarily to scold you or anything like that, but to hopefully help prevent this sort of confusion from happening again.

But see, I never said that most of the women on here are men.  I said that I would assume 99% of the people on here were men.  Meaning it could be 100 men for every 1 woman.  All of which could very well be real.  I never said or meant to imply that 99% of the women on here are actually men.  It would be rude to say that I agree.  It would be saying that your user base is almost entirely dishonest.  But it's not what I said.  And I'm tired of being accused of saying things that I haven't.  I mean what I say and I don't say what I don't mean.  The way you guys interpret what I say has been completely wrong and I don't appreciate it.  Not to mention I had to straight up endure attacks against my person for basically no reason.

I think you guys should definitely work towards creating a more welcoming environment, and that's putting it lightly.  I too greatly appreciate freedom of speech, but who wants to come on here to be treated like this?  This is supposed to be fun and enjoyable.  So I don't think this kind of toxic behavior should be allowed.

[Novaer]

I feel like whatever I'm going to say on this will be taken out of context or misconstrued one way or the other. It usually is in matters of abstract. Seems like there is a lot of misunderstanding is abound to be honest.

We have roleplayers from all kinds of backgrounds here, some are professionals such as lawyers, doctors, business owners, etc. Some work mundane 9-5's. Some are unemployed. Some are in college or university. And everything in-between. Some aren't interested in anime, hentai or manga, they're only interested in roleplaying, some are only interested in being part of the community. We're a kind of a mix of a lot of different people who come from wildly different backgrounds, looking wildly different things. 

I will say, as you're new here that the very subject is kind of a polarising issue here on EcchiDreams that does come up from time to time. I will also say that this has been touched on in the Statistically Dreaming article done at the end of 2020 where it was found that:

• According to data given by Dreamers on their profiles, for anyone who filled out the "Sex" field in their profiles:
  • 48.6% of our Dreamers are Male
  • 44.8% of our Dreamers are Female
  • 6.6% of our Dreamers are Undisclosed
• According to Google Analytics, however it's more closer to:
  • 73.1% Male
  • 26.9% Female

So this does at least bring up one interesting question; which was pointed out in the topic you referenced. How would know what the specific attribute of the person your roleplaying with is, without some kind of confirmation or verification? If you're not asking for this, then fair play to you. But it is a valid question.

I personally don't give two shits what the 'Gender' or 'Sex' is of the person I roleplay with is, nor do I particularly care about other physical characteristics either; such as race, ethnicity, sexuality, and so on. I'm not saying you do; I'm just saying what my stance is from the offset. I am also indifferent to those that do and don't care about any of these attributes, be that all of them, one of them or somewhere between. I don't really fully understand why anyone who is, does, but I am not required to understand the reasons. Everyone has different... requirements. As it were. Basically: I am neutral on this topic.

• Is it against the rules to ask for any potential roleplay partners to be specifically gendered? No, it's not.
• Should or will it be against the rules? No, I can't foresee that ever being likely.

There are, from my experience going to be some people who want to roleplay with a person of any given attribute for any given reason, and that's okay. However there are some that are going to feel: 

• That they are being targeted by "Predatory" behaviour that usually starts off like this. 
• That they are going to be asked to "Prove" they are who they say they are. (Gender Confirmations)
• That they feel like "Meat" as it were, only valuable because of the attribute that they were born with.
• That someone is looking for more than just roleplaying, like Nudes, Relationships, etc.

Am I saying you fit into any of these categories? Absolutely not. Nor am I saying that this is the complete catalogue. But I am trying to explain why this a contentious issue.

This is normally what Section 10 is for; if someone tells someone repeatedly to stop talking to them, and they don't stop, then they can be reported and it will be dealt with under the Terms of Service. I'm not really sure what the problem is, you're not harassing anyone as far as I am aware. So I don't really see a problem here. What started off as an innocent question from another Dreamer has spiralled out all reason and I feel like there is a lot of misunderstandings going on here from all sides involved.

What I do take exception to here however is:

27 minutes ago, KleineVampir said:

I find that extremely unprofessional to be honest.

Oh do come off it. Slightly unprofessional, maybe, and that's a good thing seeing as Aura isn't being paid to work here. Unless they're acting within the bounds of being a staff member they're not required to be professional. Our staff are just "Dreamers with extra responsibilities" and unless they're acting in the capacity of being staff such as giving out bans, warning people or otherwise moderating the site: He has the right of free speech and the right to comment on things like any other Dreamer would. If he was being extremely unprofessional I'd expect to see him cussing you out, and being outright obscene, he isn't.

Aura shared his opinion, nothing more. If this is 'Extreme' to you, then frankly, that is your problem and I suggest very highly that you deal with it. I will not entertain this assertion. 

[Aura]

Okay, I think I understand where the issue actually lies here.

@KleineVampir never did actually suggest men were pretending to be women, I think I did actually misunderstand what he had initially wrote. He only wrote that he thought the majority of people on a site like this would be men. Quite frankly, I actually am pretty embarrassed I made this mistake because it's the type of mistake I get angry about a lot of other people making.

Essentially, he said X therefore Y which does NOT imply Y therefore X, but that's a common logical fallacy a lot of people end up making and what seems to be at play here, and even I am evidently guilty of.

I think I made this error because, as @Novaer said, this is not at all the first time the issue has come up so I suppose I just saw it as one of the multitude. Now that I see this, I actually do apologize for that part, too. As far as I can tell, you haven't actually done anything wrong, it really does look to be a case of words being put in your mouth.

For the record, in the future, if you find any particular users troublesome, please ask for them not to contact you. If, after repeated requests for them to stop contacting you, they persist, they can be penalized for harassment. Hopefully as the site evolves going forward we'll eventually have a block system that's worth a rat's ass. Other than building a harassment case, the best thing to do is to just block a user you don't like and do your best to ignore them. In extreme cases, we can step in and issue a no contact order as well. Though it might not seem so on the surface due to a lot of really frustrating limitations of the systems we're working with, we do value your comfort and try our best to reduce toxicity. Every once in a while, though, somebody says something stupid and pandora's box opens up.

[KleineVampir]

6 minutes ago, Novaer said:

I feel like whatever I'm going to say on this will be taken out of context or misconstrued one way or the other. It usually is in matters of abstract. Seems like there is a lot of misunderstanding is abound to be honest.

We have roleplayers from all kinds of backgrounds here, some are professionals such as lawyers, doctors, business owners, etc. Some work mundane 9-5's. Some are unemployed. Some are in college or university. And everything in-between. Some aren't interested in anime, hentai or manga, they're only interested in roleplaying, some are only interested in being part of the community. We're a kind of a mix of a lot of different people who come from wildly different backgrounds, looking wildly different things. 

I will say, as you're new here that the very subject is kind of a polarising issue here on EcchiDreams that does come up from time to time. I will also say that this has been touched on in the Statistically Dreaming article done at the end of 2020 where it was found that:

• According to data given by Dreamers on their profiles, for anyone who filled out the "Sex" field in their profiles:
  • 48.6% of our Dreamers are Male
  • 44.8% of our Dreamers are Female
  • 6.6% of our Dreamers are Undisclosed
• According to Google Analytics, however it's more closer to:
  • 73.1% Male
  • 26.9% Female

So this does at least bring up one interesting question; which was pointed out in the topic you referenced. How would know what the specific attribute of the person your roleplaying with is, without some kind of confirmation or verification? If you're not asking for this, then fair play to you. But it is a valid question.

I personally don't give two shits what the 'Gender' or 'Sex' is of the person I roleplay with is, nor do I particularly care about other physical characteristics either; such as race, ethnicity, sexuality, and so on. I'm not saying you do; I'm just saying what my stance is from the offset. I am also indifferent to those that do and don't care about any of these attributes, be that all of them, one of them or somewhere between. I don't really fully understand why anyone who is, does, but I am not required to understand the reasons. Everyone has different... requirements. As it were. Basically: I am neutral on this topic.

• Is it against the rules to ask for any potential roleplay partners to be specifically gendered? No, it's not.
• Should or will it be against the rules? No, I can't foresee that ever being likely.

There are, from my experience going to be some people who want to roleplay with a person of any given attribute for any given reason, and that's okay. However there are some that are going to feel: 

• That they are being targeted by "Predatory" behaviour that usually starts off like this. 
• That they are going to be asked to "Prove" they are who they say they are. (Gender Confirmations)
• That they feel like "Meat" as it were, only valuable because of the attribute that they were born with.
• That someone is looking for more than just roleplaying, like Nudes, Relationships, etc.

Am I saying you fit into any of these categories? Absolutely not. Nor am I saying that this is the complete catalogue. But I am trying to explain why this a contentious issue.

This is normally what Section 10 is for; if someone tells someone repeatedly to stop talking to them, and they don't stop, then they can be reported and it will be dealt with under the Terms of Service. I'm not really sure what the problem is, you're not harassing anyone as far as I am aware. So I don't really see a problem here. What started off as an innocent question from another Dreamer has spiralled out all reason and I feel like there is a lot of misunderstandings going on here from all sides involved.

What I do take exception to here however is:

Oh do come off it. Slightly unprofessional, maybe, and that's a good thing seeing as Aura isn't being paid to work here. Unless they're acting within the bounds of being a staff member they're not required to be professional. Our staff are just "Dreamers with extra responsibilities" and unless they're acting in the capacity of being staff such as giving out bans, warning people or otherwise moderating the site: He has the right of free speech and the right to comment on things like any other Dreamer would. If he was being extremely unprofessional I'd expect to see him cussing you out, and being outright obscene, he isn't.

Aura shared his opinion, nothing more. If this is 'Extreme' to you, then frankly, that is your problem and I suggest very highly that you deal with it. I will not entertain this assertion. 

Hm, well..  I guess "staff" gets used pretty loosely around these parts.  In all honesty I didn't realize that.  That said I'm not sure it's a good idea to be handing out the staff designation to just anybody.  But I suppose this is all fun and games, not a starbucks.  Fair enough.

You're right that misunderstandings happen, but do you believe that excuses the way everybody on here has been behaving?  I don't.  Also I can't help but feel like the 'misunderstandings' are just them seeing what they want to see so that they can bash me over the head with what I "said".  That is extremely hostile and toxic.

Also I can't help but find it amusing that what people accidentally thought I was saying actually turned out to be true to an extent.  Ok forgive me, I'm not a mathematician, but doesn't that mean like 30 percent of females on here are actually male?  Hey you know...honestly if you ask me, "don't ask don't tell." is fine by me.  If you say you're a girl you're a girl.  Not sure what everybody is talking about with proving anything.  Obviously I can't force such a thing to happen, I was just going to go by the honor system here.  This was just meant for fun, it's not a background check.

I literally just wanted a female roleplayer.  You don't think it's weird and unreasonable that all of this has happened over that?  I can't help but feel that points to some pretty serious issues on this site.

[KleineVampir]

2 minutes ago, Aura said:

Okay, I think I understand where the issue actually lies here.

@KleineVampir never did actually suggest men were pretending to be women, I think I did actually misunderstand what he had initially wrote. He only wrote that he thought the majority of people on a site like this would be men. Quite frankly, I actually am pretty embarrassed I made this mistake because it's the type of mistake I get angry about a lot of other people making.

Essentially, he said X therefore Y which does NOT imply Y therefore X, but that's a common logical fallacy a lot of people end up making and what seems to be at play here, and even I am evidently guilty of.

I think I made this error because, as @Novaer said, this is not at all the first time the issue has come up so I suppose I just saw it as one of the multitude. Now that I see this, I actually do apologize for that part, too. As far as I can tell, you haven't actually done anything wrong, it really does look to be a case of words being put in your mouth.

For the record, in the future, if you find any particular users troublesome, please ask for them not to contact you. If, after repeated requests for them to stop contacting you, they persist, they can be penalized for harassment. Hopefully as the site evolves going forward we'll eventually have a block system that's worth a rat's ass. Other than building a harassment case, the best thing to do is to just block a user you don't like and do your best to ignore them. In extreme cases, we can step in and issue a no contact order as well. Though it might not seem so on the surface due to a lot of really frustrating limitations of the systems we're working with, we do value your comfort and try our best to reduce toxicity. Every once in a while, though, somebody says something stupid and pandora's box opens up.

Just when I thought some sunshine was finally happening, you said that last part.  Surely you aren't implying that I said something stupid!

I suppose if I overlook that I will say what you just said is finally what I've been looking for!  In light of what you just said, can you not see how I feel as though I've been treated unfairly for no reason?  I never actually said anything wrong this entire time and yet I feel like I just keep getting beaten up over and over.  And nobody seemed to care this entire time.  This whole time what you just said is the only time anybody has ever almost said anything vaguely positive to me on here.  If that's not a problem I don't know what is.  This subforum does say if something sucks then put it on here.  And this is what I think sucks, so that's what I'm putting out here.

[Aura]

Lol, no, I wasn't saying you said anything stupid. I was referring to those who made the logical fallacy I had just commented on, including myself. I thought that'd be clear from the rest of the post, no?

[Novaer]

37 minutes ago, KleineVampir said:

Hm, well..  I guess "staff" gets used pretty loosely around these parts.  In all honesty I didn't realize that.  That said I'm not sure it's a good idea to be handing out the staff designation to just anybody.  But I suppose this is all fun and games, not a starbucks.  Fair enough.

You're right that misunderstandings happen, but do you believe that excuses the way everybody on here has been behaving?  I don't.  Also I can't help but feel like the 'misunderstandings' are just them seeing what they want to see so that they can bash me over the head with what I "said".  That is extremely hostile and toxic.

Also I can't help but find it amusing that what people accidentally thought I was saying actually turned out to be true to an extent.  Ok forgive me, I'm not a mathematician, but doesn't that mean like 30 percent of females on here are actually male?  Hey you know...honestly if you ask me, "don't ask don't tell." is fine by me.  If you say you're a girl you're a girl.  Not sure what everybody is talking about with proving anything.  Obviously I can't force such a thing to happen, I was just going to go by the honor system here.  This was just meant for fun, it's not a background check.

I literally just wanted a female roleplayer.  You don't think it's weird and unreasonable that all of this has happened over that?  I can't help but feel that points to some pretty serious issues on this site.

I was offering a neutral view point that explained - as best as I can - an explanation as to why it is what it is. I wasn't excusing anything or anyone. Not sure where this adversarial response is coming from to be honest. I've not been hostile, and I wouldn't be in this situation because you have a preference that doesn't violate Terms of Service, therefore I couldn't care less. As I said, I am neutral in all this. 

Yes there are issues on this site, there are issues on most sites. The issue here however is a misunderstanding that has been blown up beyond reason as I have stated. You are right that this isn't a Starbucks. We don't take your money, we don't sell your data, we don't profit from you at all. You don't have to pay to use the site, we don't even ask you to pay, even premium memberships can't be purchased for real money. Money we get from the privacy focused advertising we do have on here is reinvested in advertising. We don't ask for donations. We are not paid. None of the staff are; we all work voluntarily. We're not a business, we're not a corporation. We don't have a PR department and everything typed is typed by a real human and not some soul corporate spin doctor. @Neptune and I pay for all of this out of our own pockets.

Staff titles aren't handed out without any regard either. We are exceptionally picky about who we have on as staff here. As such this administration consists of two community administrators, and three members of staff, who have been with us for such a long time that they are all senior members of staff, that's five members of staff to a community of over a hundred and fifty daily users.

As for "Toxic", that is subjective. I agree that it's unpleasant, but you've not exactly helped your case here. There are plenty of misunderstandings all over the place, from all parties involved. I think the whole thing is pretty stupid, in my opinion. You have a preference; you stated your preference - there is nothing wrong with that. Someone asked why this was important, you answered. They asked for a clarification of the explanation, you answered it. It all degenerated from there. But it isn't actionable under the Terms of Service. Granted it's off topic, but you've dealt with that finely in your last post there. At the time of writing this anyway.

30 minutes ago, KleineVampir said:

Just when I thought some sunshine was finally happening, you said that last part.  Surely you aren't implying that I said something stupid!

No, I don't believe he did imply that.

Edited June 22, 2022 by Tema
Fixed.

[KleineVampir]

Hm, nobody understands why I might be on the defensive?  Really?

Wait there are only 150 daily users?  Wow that is much less than I expected.  I mean, arguably it could be bigger if it didn't have the problems I've brought up.  Quite generous of me to take what I have from the people on here and still try to help your site, don't you think?

No, Aura did not mean that.  The way the day had been going I definitely could not rule it out!  But I did kinda suspect that he wouldn't actually mean something like that.

[Novaer]

1 hour ago, KleineVampir said:

Hm, nobody understands why I might be on the defensive?  Really?

I never said that. I understand why you might be defensive, sure. But I don't understand why you're being adversarial with me, I've done nothing to you. I'm not on your side, but I'm not on theirs either. As someone who has been here for a very long time, I merely offered an explanation to help you understand which is what you originally asked for.

1 hour ago, KleineVampir said:

Wait there are only 150 daily users?  Wow that is much less than I expected.  I mean, arguably it could be bigger if it didn't have the problems I've brought up.  Quite generous of me to take what I have from the people on here and still try to help your site, don't you think?

Well we certainly don't have 1,000's of daily users. If you were lead to believe that this was the case, then I'm sorry to disappoint. Most of the time interactions between dreamers are usually fine. I'm not saying you're the only one with a problem, that's not an accurate representation of reality, but what I am saying is that these kinds of clashes are quite rare.

There isn't really much else I can say here.

[KleineVampir]

To be fair, the feeling that I'm being adversarial towards you is just a perception.  People on here seem pretty darn critical of me.  Why shouldn't I be critical of you guys?

Also I gotta say I don't think being neutral is as good as you think it is.  I appreciate that you tried looking at this from a neutral perspective to begin with, but at a certain point why wouldn't you be on my side?  I'm a guy who came onto your site with one little preference and ended up being treated like crap for no reason.  Are you really ok with that?

[Aura]

It's not really our responsibility to police people's feelings so, yeah, pretty okay with it. You didn't seem to want us to take sides when you thought we were against you. Curious.

[KleineVampir]

51 minutes ago, Aura said:

It's not really our responsibility to police people's feelings so, yeah, pretty okay with it. You didn't seem to want us to take sides when you thought we were against you. Curious.

Sure and look at where that has gotten you.  This whole website is a complete failure.  150 active users a day is a joke.  I guess I had better hopes for this site than this.  I thought it was somewhere I could finally roleplay without being bothered but man that is clearly the opposite of the case.  Looks like I'll need to find a site where people aren't inclined to gang up on new members for the the smallest preferences, and the staff absolutely will not help in any way.  I guess I'm finally going to have to give up.  Congrats, enjoy your forums.

[Aura]

I don't know if you realize, but we have next to zero interest in becoming some multi-million user industry. Especially with all the laws and regulations we'd have to work around with such branding. It sounds like a corporate nightmare imo. No thank you.

Anyway, if our community is not to your liking then I wish you luck on finding one that fits your needs.

[Whoreo]

2 hours ago, KleineVampir said:

Sure and look at where that has gotten you.  This whole website is a complete failure.  150 active users a day is a joke.  I guess I had better hopes for this site than this.  I thought it was somewhere I could finally roleplay without being bothered but man that is clearly the opposite of the case.  Looks like I'll need to find a site where people aren't inclined to gang up on new members for the the smallest preferences, and the staff absolutely will not help in any way.  I guess I'm finally going to have to give up.  Congrats, enjoy your forums.

https://ecchidreams.com/settings/deactivate/

K'thxbai.

[JennyDK]

[Starcry]

Here is a community that would probably suit you better:

(Mod Removed: Section 14 Violation)

Edited June 22, 2022 by Tema
Removed Section 14 violating content.

[JennyDK]

1 minute ago, Starcry said:

Here is a community that would probably suit you better:

(Mod Removed: Section 14 Violating Content)

Ah yes, the cesspool community of grand stature! xD

Edited June 22, 2022 by Tema
Removed Section 14 violating content.

[Elena Ichinomiya]

So...a person just say what he prefer and got burned alive when he didn't even start any case? Talk about blind justice.

[IsabellaRose]

Reading through the two relevant threads, it sounds like someone had zero interest in understanding the community and just wanted to argue with someone. 

[Novaer]

On 01/07/2022 at 01:47, Elena Ichinomiya said:

So...a person just say what he prefer and got burned alive when he didn't even start any case? Talk about blind justice.

What utter nonsense, no one was burnt alive.

On 01/07/2022 at 18:14, IsabellaRose said:

Reading through the two relevant threads, it sounds like someone had zero interest in understanding the community and just wanted to argue with someone. 

That was the impression I got, which is why I stopped replying completely. I said all I could say and there was nothing left. If he doesn't want to accept my answers to his questions then that's not my problem at the end of the day.