Notice on "lady" thread deletion

[TheOrcKing]

A couple of days ago, I had started a thread which was meant to be a friendly notice for all female members about the optional "Ms. Brick" award (or tag) specially designed for the fairer gender as a way of standing out in a crowd of 'just a bunch of guys'. As I stated, it was not mandatory and no one is trying to discriminate or make anybody feel uncomfortable in any way, shape, or form. The thread was simply meant to be a way of raising your hand and graciously asking for the designated award if you had wanted to. We would never force such a thing on anyone so that was why I took Eurobricks example by starting the thread to begin with. Unfortunately, it had not taken long for the thread to go way down south, amusingly enough by other men.

I know of and have seen the ill treatment women receive on a daily basis at work, in the home, and on the internet in forums similar to this, so I can understand why the "Ms. Brick" award could be seen as a ‘label’ and end up making the member a target of specific chauvinistic abuse. However, whether intentional or not, stating that such sexist actions would even be allowed to happen here at all or go unchecked to start with is offensive and sounds as though you have little faith in the other contributing members of the site let alone the original owners who run it.

While I cannot promise there will never be any potentially sexist, chauvinistic, or even racist people that have or will join, I can say between us moderators and administrators, we will not stand for such distasteful and vulgar acts of aggression and anyone that is verbally abusing another in that way is not a wanted member by any means and they will be shown the door and banned immediately. I don’t care if you are the biggest seller on both eBay and BrickLink; we will not tolerate sexist pigs.

On a side note, out of every topic and post I have started, do you realize the "Lady Brickpickers" thread was the first of mine to ever be deleted? Yeah, how do you think that feels? Just to give you an idea of how ridiculously out of hand things became the other day (from the guys no less), let us compare my thread to Eurobricks similar one of which I took inspiration from.

On November 1st, 2005 at 8:22 pm, member, Jipay, started a thread titled "Girls, stand up!" Currently at 548 posts later, it still is up and running to this very day with the last post time stamped April 26th, 2013. That is basically eight years from the original posting date and all responses have been positive and supportive.

Now compare that to mine which was only posted barely two days ago and deleted before even reaching the full twenty four hours in a single day. Let that sink in for a while.

Anyway, this is a closed thread (meaning you can’t post a response) leaving a friendly reminder for all lady members to send Ed Mack a private message if you would like to be presented with the “Ms. Brick” award and have it show up in your profile and replies. Now again, this is just an optional feature. No one is or ever will force anyone to do anything they do not want to.

Thank you, and may sexism everywhere die a horrible and lonely death.

Honestly though, I don't know how you women put up with us men's crap every day.

[Diabolos80]

Yes, by now most of us are aware of the Lady Brickpicker introduction fiasco. Another thread might seem ridiculous, but I'd just like to throw out some observations to see if anyone agrees. First, No ladies were harmed in the making of the original thread. There were no sexual overtones, no jokes at the females' expense, and the only insult was "hypocrite," which was directed at a male.

Second, it actually developed into an intelligent, interesting discussion on gender equality and bias. Again, in a totally academic, impersonal manner. Sure, it was a passionate, emotional debate, but it was NOT personal.

Third, the eurobricks thread OrcKing refers to is 7 years of basically everyone saying they like Lego, too, and singing Aqua's song Barbie Girl. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'll take 24 hours of controversial opinion over 7 years of fluff anyday.

Fourth, this forum is obviously very tightly monitered and controlled. Almost every thread has a moderator or admin post present, and they are always available to advise or admonish. I applaud their efforts. But in this case I think they were a bit overprotective of the forum's sanctity.

[TheOrcKing]

Unfortunately since the original thread was deleted by another while I was away, I'll just have to take your word for it unless someone can correct me here.

[sadowsk1]

I don't know about any threads being deleted but my overall view is that we are collectors.  Whether we are male of female is irrelevant and has no true value to discriminate between the two in any thread or forum.  

[Fcbarcelona101]

I don't know about any threads being deleted but my overall view is that we are collectors.  Whether we are male of female is irrelevant and has no true value to discriminate between the two in any thread or forum.  

 

I agree 100%, but that was never the issue with the thread. It was intended as a way to let our female members know about the existence of the Ms.Brick icon and how they could ask for it if they wanted to have it.

[Coneil21]

I would just like to apologize if my posts yesterday offended anyone or if anyone felt attacked. That was not my intent.

My issue was simple: should we worry about protecting women or empowering women, if at all we should be worrying about women in the first place.

Since I joined this website, I have been borderline addicted to forum posts. There are a few people whose posts I particularly enjoy reading. LFoW is one of those people. Although I didn't agree with the substance of his posts yesterday, there is no question in my mind that the intention behind those posts was only to be helpful. I do not know much about LFoW, but having read his posts the past couple of months my impression of him is that he is a thoughful, intelligent, compassionate and creative person (also that he is one lucky bastard when it comes to lego clearance finds). After yesterday, my impression has not changed one bit.

[wholovesboo]

Yeah, I was surprised that thread was deleted, but I can understand why. It quickly got away from its purpose (and yet I couldn't stop reading it in that it's-a-train-wreck-waiting-to-happen-but-I-just-can't-look-away kind of a way). I would have kept the thread up though. It seemed like it was on its way to dying a slow death. I was about to hit the unfollow button anyway (but again, train wreck...)

 

I opted to get the Ms. Brick award under my profile pic because I found it to be fun and not offensive, and I like collecting things. If I can collect awards, I'll take it. If it's turning out to be more trouble than it's worth, I'm fine with it going away too. (Incidentally, how many users have opted in anyway?)

 

In the short time that I've been on this forum, I've appreciated its welcoming atmosphere and the diligence of its moderators. As a female, I've never felt uncomfortable posting on here. I was delighted to find that there was a board dedicated to Lego Friends, and the majority of my posts have been about Friends because they are my current favorite. I think they are clever and imaginative builds as well as being unapologetically girly . I noticed some head scratching over the Friends phenomenon, so I thought I would offer my thoughts as a diehard fan and as a member of their target audience.

 

Anyway, at least you called it "Ms. Brick" and not "Brick Babe"

[LowestFormOfWit]

Aside from being called a hypocrite by a couple of our male members, (a matter which emes' last post in the thread addressed perfectly, wish I had saved it) I will say I enjoyed seeing the amount of opinions on the matter.

That said, I think the deletion was probably the right move. Removing the battleground by force seemed to allow the charged level of some of the posting come down.

At the end of the day, this is an investment forum. Making money is primary. Fandom of LEGO, and all that comes with it is secondary. Anything else is tertiary, really.

I apologize if my poor diction may have contributed to how my overarching thoughts came across to people, or if I offended anyone.

For the record, though, I am not a hypocrite, and I have no problems with the female (or whatever other demographic minority) members of this, or any site.

Also, since it was a point of ignorant contention for some people, if you want to talk to me about my avatar choice, I'd be more than willing to explain the meanings behind it.

[Ed Mack]

I enjoy heated debate more than anyone, but this sort of debate is best left for somewhere else.  We are here to welcome women members and to increase women in the hobby.  They are entering a mostly male hobby and business and it is difficult to be treated as an equal or accepted by some in the LEGO community.  To Jeff and I, promoting women in the LEGO world is something we would like to do more of and if the Friends theme is any indication of The LEGO Group's philosophy on the topic, I would say they agree with us.  

 

I think everyone should be treated as equals, so in order to correct this, we added a "Mr. Brick" icon to show that you are a male LEGO collector/investor.  You can see the icon in my information.  Feel free to PM me to request one.  I also have the "Old Geezer" icon to show that I have been collecting LEGO sets for 30 plus years.  

[emes]

Surprised to see this thread...

 

For my part I find it amusing that someone with the handle "Damnation666" thinks my avatar is "sending the wrong message". I love the Internet.

 

In any event, I enjoy the site, but I don't enjoy seeing members who contribute useful things being called a hypocrite, and then very few people here standing up and saying that that's wrong. I think deleting the thread was the right thing to do...it just should have happened much sooner. The award was never an issue for me, and I think if people want that on their profile then that's their business...same if they don't want it.

[TheDarkness]

The whole thing has been ridiculously blown out of proportion. Time to move along.

[TheOrcKing]

The whole thing has been ridiculously blown out of proportion. Time to move along.

Yes, what is done is done. Many things were said both good and bad, and I would like to think we as a community matured.

Let us shake hands and let bygones be bygones, all of us.

Hey, Ed. How about you slap me with that "Mr. Brick" award, huh? I brought up this whole thing to begin with and strongly encouraged the "Ms. Brick" one so much it would seem hypocritical of me to not make a request for the "Mr. Brick" tag.

And emes, call me ignorant but I haven't the foggiest as to who is in your avatar at all. I've been curious to ask but never got around to it.

[LowestFormOfWit]

And emes, call me ignorant but I haven't the foggiest as to who is in your avatar at all. I've been curious to ask but never got around to it.

My girlfriend says she recognizes it, but can't place it, and it's driving her crazy. I think he explained it in his aforementioned deleted post in the original thread, but I didn't commit it to memory.

[Fcbarcelona101]

Yes, what is done is done. Many things were said both good and bad, and I would like to think we as a community matured.Let us shake hands and let bygones be bygones, all of us.Hey, Ed. How about you slap me with that "Mr. Brick" award, huh? I brought up this whole thing to begin with and strongly encouraged the "Ms. Brick" one so much it would seem hypocritical of me to not make a request for the "Mr. Brick" tag.And emes, call me ignorant but I haven't the foggiest as to who is in your avatar at all. I've been curious to ask but never got around to it.

Make that 2, I'll take the Mr. Brick as well.

[Happyblue22]

Well I'm just glad to know what happened to the thread. I got locked out of my computer Fri. night and didn't get back on till sun. afternoon, looked for the Lady Brickpicker thread and gone, nothing. I like my Ms. Brickpicker award and I want to thank Ed for seeing my request and giving it to me.  I'm with wholovesboo, I thought the award was fun and I wanted one, and every Friends Set.

[JoshTX]

The girl in the pic looks a bit like Asia Argento, but I don't think it's actually her. However I also feel like I've seen the pic before.

 

My avatar, by the way, is some famous guy. I heard he invented the spork, was the first person to ever eat a ghost chili, saved mankind from a chia pet invasion, and had Michael Jordan over at his house for dinner last night.

[Diabolos80]

The girl in the pic looks a bit like Asia Argento, but I don't think it's actually her. However I also feel like I've seen the pic before.

My avatar, by the way, is some famous guy. I heard he invented the spork, was the first person to ever eat a ghost chili, saved mankind from a chia pet invasion, and had Michael Jordan over at his house for dinner last night.

He also saved my dog from a burning building. While he was on the phone. With the President.

[TheOrcKing]

He also saved my dog from a burning building. While he was on the phone. With the President.

Don't forget he stopped an alien invasion on Jupiter in a spacesuit made from duct tape while playing Gears of War on his iPad.

[wholovesboo]

The girl in the pic looks a bit like Asia Argento, but I don't think it's actually her. However I also feel like I've seen the pic before.

 

Oddly enough, the person in the pic reminds me of Robert Smith of The Cure. I'm assuming it's a woman though.

[Grolim]

I think everyone should be treated as equals, so in order to correct this, we added a "Mr. Brick" icon to show that you are a male LEGO collector/investor.  You can see the icon in my information.  Feel free to PM me to request one.  

 

 

Gimme a Mr. Brick, Brick Mr   

[Diabolos80]

The girl in the pic looks a bit like Asia Argento, but I don't think it's actually her. However I also feel like I've seen the pic before.

 

My avatar, by the way, is some famous guy. I heard he invented the spork, was the first person to ever eat a ghost chili, saved mankind from a chia pet invasion, and had Michael Jordan over at his house for dinner last night.

  

He also saved my dog from a burning building. While he was on the phone. With the President.

  

Don't forget he stopped an alien invasion on Jupiter in a spacesuit made from duct tape while playing Gears of War on his iPad.

He is... The most interesting BrickPicker in the world. Stay savvy, my friends.

[emes]

Oddly enough, the person in the pic reminds me of Robert Smith of The Cure. I'm assuming it's a woman though.

 

LOL

 

My Internet died last night hence the delayed response.

 

Her name is Ambrosia Parsley and the band was Shivaree. They had what I think was the best song of 1999:

 

 

Unfortunately the song wasn't noticed much back then. The song got recycled a few years later in Kill Bill Vol. 2, so most of you would have heard it there: 

 

 

She has a really interesting back story/life story...at the moment she's a barber, but she still performs, mostly in NYC. When I happen to be in NYC at the same time she's performing I always make time to go see her.

 

Shivaree's 3rd and 4th albums were really excellent, but no major hits.

[Coneil21]

Mystery. Solved.

btw I love the song