Nilly had volunteered to count the votes upthread a bit.

Oh! If we want to maintain tradition, Nilly can do it. (NILLY!!)

Otherwise, my profile address is fine.

I probably won't get the vote page up until late this evening. If Nilly doesn't chime in by then, I'll send the votes to you, Jesse.

Late chiming in, but ftr I agree and I like the final revision of the wording.

I'm pretty sure I joined in 2003. No, I joined earlier and lurked, and finally started to interact with the scary smart peoples in 2003.

edit for better accuracy

The more I look at "brought together" the more I think about newbies. By which I mean people who have only been here 15 years.

It me. I joined in 2005! 13 years later I still feel like a Newbie. I supposed that's because I'd already been posting on various boards and chat rooms for over 13 years when I finally joined up with y'all.

The Press announcement is up:

Voting Has Begun!

And with that, I close this thread.

Proposal
A thread for education on, and discussion of, all of the -isms (racism, ableism, sexism, homophobia, etc.) with the goal of being intentional about supporting all of our members and being good citizens in the world at large. This would be a place to ask questions, share educational links, and have difficult discussions (as needed).

I think it's a great idea, Glam. I, personally, have learned a lot of things I didn't know that I didn't know from buffistas (and others, but...) just on FB - sharing articles, videos, following wall convos, etc - and having a thread here as a resource and place to talk would be amazing. I think this is a great idea independent of what happened in the GGR thread. And, I mean, I wouldn't want anyone to feel burdened to educate, and I take responsibility for educating myself (or for having failed to do so, probably more often than not), but I would welcome this thread here.

Agree on the opportunity to discuss with Buffistas being most excellent. I'm envisioning seeing an article or video somewhere and bringing it here to discuss. As part of the LGBTQIA+ community, I love discussing those issues and why things are problematic. I also love when members of other marginalized groups do the same - such good education.

It would be nice to have a safe space to engage in these delicate discussions.

It's important to remember that a lot of these issues are still evolving. Elliott Page's announcement pointed out the awkward space where you don't want to refer to somebody by their dead name, but if you didn't have a picture handy or rattle off their filmography it might be unclear who you were referring to.

I've been called out on this board, and it's not comfortable but I have spent a lot of time thinking about those conversations and their implications.

I mean, sure, why not. If nobody is being forced to participate in the thread, I can’t imagine an objection to it. All for more edification and opportunity for discussion.

My one concern would be that while I don’t want to put any burden on members of whatever community to respond or participate, I also wouldn’t want it to be “here are white people/straight people/cis people explaining what’s right and wrong” either? Not sure how to explain or help that though.