loudwhisper

I wasn’t referring to technical communities and it’s strange you would assume that.

I didn't assume it. I made an example using those. You said "I have no relevant knowledge or experience", and technical communities are a perfect example of communities in which someone might not have "relevant knowledge or experience".

There’s a difference between not participating and being told not to participate. One requires self-moderation, and not everyone is great at it.

Yes, that is my whole point. However you answered to someone that said:

Being set to public is for a community that everyone in the public can participate in, while being set to private is for a community that only some people can participate in.

with (paraphrasing) "there are plenty of communities I can see that I don't participate in", which confuses me now in light of your acknowledgement that it's completely different choosing not to engage and being told not to engage (via rules).

The existence of exclusive, toxic groups doesn’t make exclusivity toxic.

Which is also not what I said. I said that "harsh form of gatekeeping" is considered toxic.

Weird you’re comparing a women’s only instance to communities who are cruel to outsiders/beginners.

I am not. I made you examples of toxic forms of harsh gatekeeping since you said:

Do we? And is that form of gatekeeping harsh, or do you think anything that excludes you is “toxic?”

The rest of your comment is completely off topic, since this whole comment chain was holding on the whole idea of "make the thing private instead". I don't have any problem, in fact I perfectly agree and support, with the creation of private, exclusive spaces. I have no problem with a women shelter not allowing me in, but if a hotel does that, I probably won't take it as well.

P.s. Maybe hold off on the assumptions, because you made a lot of them in your comment about my positions.

No it doesn't exclude that, but it also unnecessarily mixes racial with gender discrimination, and in a general statement like that is odd to do that. The intention I perceived was to link the creation of spaces that women (or minorities) require to white men discrimination only, which is absurd in my opinion.

To make a similar example, saying "gay people need their spaces, because they are historically discriminated by black women" doesn't "exclude" that also men discriminate them, or that also white women do, but I hope you can see what an odd statement that is, and if someone would find it misogynistic or racist, I think they would be right.

Thinking maliciously, I would say that's the classic way for a white guy (the commenter stated that about himself) to make a statement that is less controversial because it only "accuses" their own demographic and the most acceptable demographic to critique.

Can you please then elaborate on what the following means, according to your interpretation?

Women and minority only spaces exist because white men as a group have historically discriminated against them

We do, look at how many critique posts there are about toxic neckbeard groups, for example about hardcore technical topics where beginners are ridiculed and excluded (i.e., gatekeeping). Or about gym buff communities, where beginners are ignored or made fun of.

Wouldn't you call those communities toxic?

any group I'm a part of that doesn't have rules around who can participate.

Rules about who can participate are absolutely fine, necessary even. Generally those rules are based on what you do, not who you are, though.

well documented that this particular group has had their voices overpowered by the group they're excluding.

I believe that forcing to identify yourself in some way and heavy moderation would be enough (moderation based on what you do) for an online community. But anyway, I don't have a problem with those rules in general. However, in your original comment you compared a community keeping you out to your own restraint into participating in a community you feel you have nothing to contribute to. To go back to my example, there is a huge difference between not participating in a technical post that goes over your head and just reading other people's opinion vs being banned for having demonstrated to be at a lower level of understanding (gatekeeping).

or do you think anything that excludes you is "toxic?"

To address this tiny veiled provocation, I don't like to participate in communities that gatekeep people, whether I am in the ingroup or not. In fact, I heavily dislike purists in fields I deal with (e.g., selfhosting, tech in general), which is the most common form of gate keeping, and I definitely don't participate in their communities.

It's more like that stage only allows women participants. But the stage example doesn't work well because a forum is not a stage.

Either way, I take issue with the idea that a male participation makes a space inherently unsafe. You didn't say it explicitly, but you kinda implied it.

I think this is not only false, but it's divisive and it's a terrible narrative to build that harms cohesion in the face of class struggle.

~~white~~ men as a group

Unless you are suggesting women have not being discriminated in non-white communities?

Do you/did you feel that random members of a demographic "speak for you"? Why would that be the case for people you have nothing in common with except some amount of genetic material?

That's your choice. It's a completely different thing.

In fact, we generally consider toxic communities where there is a harsh form of gatekeeping (which in your example would be same result, but the result of the community's choice, not yours).

To be fair the vast, vast majority of the rules are simply common sense stuff. If you are not an asshole, you can avoid reading community rules and in 99% of case you won't violate any.

Thanks. Absolutely my experience too. The ones where you can't edit the email I noticed often used the email as username, and probably god knows how bad is the code on the backend.

Hey, I haven't, but to be honest, the answers I got from most companies showed me that the processes were handled by people who barely understood the legal and technical aspects around data collection (e.g., often support agents were on the other side of privacy@), which means I wouldn't trust them with their answer anyway AND I doubt many of these companies will have effective way to even check that.

From the data being sold point of view, I think unfortunately it's way more effective reaching out to the few big data brokers to request cancelations or pay one of the companies who offer such service...

Thank you for sharing. I have become weirdly fascinated with the weird or horrific processes to delete your data, so I am very interesting in hearing other people similar experiences!