I've recently removed one (non-gaming) message board from my mental list of regulars and am looking to substitute it for an another gaming-oriented message board to visit routinely in addition to this one. However, I did have an extremely negative experience years ago over on Game FAQs and want to avoid a repeat of anything like that. Said negative experience is what led me to try this place actually and soon thereafter I just abandoned Game FAQs. Bottom line: I need some assurance of two things:
1) That the atmosphere isn't highly toxic, as in serious potential for sexual harassment, threats, that sort of thing. I have high anxiety and need to feel fundamentally safe and be treated like I'm human. AND...
2) That I won't get simply banned for holding the political opinions that I do because I do discuss policy and elections a lot too on forums, as people here have no doubt noticed.
It would also be ideal if there were some other women there besides just me. It's just intrinsically awkward being the only one I ever see here. I mean you guys are pretty cool really for the most part, but still. It would just make me feel more comfortable. I also think there's an extent to which the presence of women affects people's attitudes. Like ideally I'd like to avoid seeing lots of body/waifu-ranking threads and feeling too uncomfortable to respond when clearly "gendered" material like Gal Gun 2 gets brought up and front-paged.
I've been looking at several gaming forums over recent days to try and find a good potential match for my needs and so far the one I'm leaning toward is VGR. The community seems smallish (as in I started recognizing lots of screen names after visiting only a few threads from various sections of the board) and the atmosphere relaxed, easy to keep up with, and cozy and the forum layout is straightforward, efficient, and familiar to me and includes some unique sections like a forum called Video Game Deals that could come in handy actually. Also one of the most prolific contributors is a woman who describes herself as a "white trash" Satanist (
) and displays a naturalism that makes me feel like it would be safe to be the natural me there. That all pretty well sums up what I'm looking for. It just seems like a nice, calm, sane, and unpretentious place with a layout I can figure out.
That said though, I remain open to persuasion as of this hour. Are you on any other gaming forums besides this one and, if so, would you recommend it or them to someone like me?
Last edited by Jaicee - on 24 January 2021
