No hard feelings. I lived through a fair share of flamewars, and stuff like karma holds little meaning to my overall well being.
"while certainly there are women and minorities on IRC, I've seen few environments that could turn incredibly ugly and sexist and bigoted so quickly, or that could wear women in particular down so quickly and drive them away."
Here is the whole problem - claiming that IRC is bad for minorities is like claiming that all establishments serving food and drinks are.. and while this may be true for pubs, it certainly is not for restaurants.
It all depends where you hang out, and on technical channels, I have never seen anything that would suggest that minorities are not welcomed.. in fact nobody cares who or what you are, and you have no reason to share that information if you believe that this somehow may affect how people treat you.
No hard feelings. I lived through a fair share of flamewars, and stuff like karma holds little meaning to my overall well being.
"while certainly there are women and minorities on IRC, I've seen few environments that could turn incredibly ugly and sexist and bigoted so quickly, or that could wear women in particular down so quickly and drive them away."
Here is the whole problem - claiming that IRC is bad for minorities is like claiming that all establishments serving food and drinks are.. and while this may be true for pubs, it certainly is not for restaurants.
It all depends where you hang out, and on technical channels, I have never seen anything that would suggest that minorities are not welcomed.. in fact nobody cares who or what you are, and you have no reason to share that information if you believe that this somehow may affect how people treat you.