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[Lenglon]

He never said that...

TFW a police officer is casually strolling down the street and carrying an AK like it's a bag of produce. Makes you feel that much more safe and secure when people are taking their job seriously.

I remember being in Indonesia and seeing a lot of cops/security guards standing/sitting around with what looked like MP5s.
It was... kinda jarring, since I'd never seen a (presumably) real automatic gun of any kind before, as far as I can remember.    

How did you get so far without seeing one? I can understand people who haven't seen snow better

In the US police don't carry anything bigger than a handgun normally, and the military keeps our equipment out of the public eye, inside vehicles on the rare occasions we take them off-post. civilian gun owners require special permits for automatic weapons, and even with the permit they are only carried directly to or from a gun range. as a result a US civilian that has never left the country has probably never seen a fully-automatic weapon outside their TV or computer screens unless they are personally interested in gun ownership/use.

[ChairmanPoo]

Your average GP might not, but a surgeon or specialist absolutely should have a PhD.

You're mistaken. Being a specialist does not necessarily imply having a PhD either. I'd hazard that most do not.

Also and for the record: General Practice works as a separate speciality with it's own residency period, in most places

[Reelya]

Are you trying to imply that women can't play dwarf fortress and as such are not in the community?
Sim City and The Sims are popular among females so there is no reason women wouldn't like DF.

I think it's an accurate representation -- which i assume -- or guys are just more forward about it. I just started comsci and the ratio there is more like 30:1. :/

We can do better than guessing, we can look at research:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

http://usabilitynews.org/video-games-males-prefer-violence-while-females-prefer-social/


- frequent or expert players make up 25% of women, 80% of men. Call that a factor of 3. Let's assume people who consider themselves casual probably don't have much roguelike exposure, or they're playing more accessible graphical roguelikes.


- playing on a PC is fairly heavily skewed male. call that a factor of 2. Kind of a pre-requisite for Dwarf Fortress right there.


About twice as many men as women like games which include violence. With all else being equal, a game with a potential for violence would attract more men. Call that a factor of 2.

So, just on those three variables alone, a ballpark figure would be a 12 to 1 male to female skew of Dwarf fortress players, which is real close to the forum numbers. Some estimates are that about 70% of female gamers hide/change their genders when playing online games to avoid harassment.

So, out of curiosity I clicked the forum stats button...
Male:Female ratio = 12.9:1
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK? nearly 13 dudes to one gal? There can't be that many males as opposed to females here (Male here, BTW)

Guys tend to not notice a gender-skew in the first place. Default human = white male and all that. Women are probably more aware of that.

[hector13]

I shall now use this as an example of how you can make statistics say whatever you want them to say

[Shadowlord]

"Novice, Occasional, Frequent, Expert"

Expert? :V

[TempAcc]

Are vidja game experts like the guy from the King of Kong documentary?

[Reelya]

"Novice, Occasional, Frequent, Expert"

Expert? :V

It's relevant because these are self-assessment categories. e.g. people who ticked "expert" consider themselves "expert" gamers. And those types of people are much more likely to be the ones playing idiotically nerdy games like DF.

I shall now use this as an example of how you can make statistics say whatever you want them to say

- If twice as many men play on PC, and Dwarf Fortress is only on PC, there's no twisting of logic to say that all else being equal, twice as many men as women will end up as Dwarf Fortress players. "Playing on a PC" isn't a gender-bias, it's just the raw numbers.

- If three times as many men consider themselves non-casual players as women, and being a non-casual player is a good predictor of liking obscure genres such as Ascii roguelikes, then you'd find that this skews the numbers 3:1. These are self-reported numbers too. I'm not calling women casuals, they self-report as casuals much more than men.

- If a game has a violent theme, and about twice as many men prefer games with a violent theme, then that would also skew the numbers 2:1, all else being equal. Again, this is about a thematic preference each gender self-reports, and not any assumption about what men and women should like.

- any independent factors would presumably be multiplied together. If you look at the data, then calculate the amount of male "non-casual PC players who like violent games" it's about 12 times the number of female "non-casual PC players who like violent games". And I'd argue those demographic groups form the core of potential DF players.

[scrdest]

Your average GP might not, but a surgeon or specialist absolutely should have a PhD.

You're mistaken. Being a specialist does not necessarily imply having a PhD either. I'd hazard that most do not.

Also and for the record: General Practice works as a separate speciality with it's own residency period, in most places

Both of my parents are doctors, one's an anaesthesiologist practicing (though not educated) in the UK, the other's a surgeon. Neither of them has a PhD, both have Master's-equivalent degrees; the specialist qualifications are separate from the university degree altogether.

[hector13]

"Novice, Occasional, Frequent, Expert"

Expert? :V

It's relevant because these are self-assessment categories. e.g. people who ticked "expert" consider themselves "expert" gamers. And those types of people are much more likely to be the ones playing idiotically nerdy games like DF.

I shall now use this as an example of how you can make statistics say whatever you want them to say

- If twice as many men play on PC, and Dwarf Fortress is only on PC, there's no twisting of logic to say that all else being equal, twice as many men as women will end up as Dwarf Fortress players. "Playing on a PC" isn't a gender-bias, it's just the raw numbers.

- If three times as many men consider themselves non-casual players as women, and being a non-casual player is a good predictor of liking obscure genres such as Ascii roguelikes, then you'd find that this skews the numbers 3:1. These are self-reported numbers too. I'm not calling women casuals, they self-report as casuals much more than men.

- If a game has a violent theme, and about twice as many men prefer games with a violent theme, then that would also skew the numbers 2:1, all else being equal. Again, this is about a thematic preference each gender self-reports, and not any assumption about what men and women should like.

- any independent factors would presumably be multiplied together. If you look at the data, then calculate the amount of male "non-casual PC players who like violent games" it's about 12 times the number of female "non-casual PC players who like violent games". And I'd argue those demographic groups form the core of potential DF players.

Those are all very broad things, however. There are also issues with self reporting, and the broad groups involved (men and women) are likely to skew things too. Are women less likely to report indulging in masculine behaviours like gaming, for example.

It doesn't say anything about independent games, nor ASCII games, nor genre, nor how likely people are going to go out of their way to try something different. You may find hardcore gamers are more inclined to play games like DF, but that doesn't mean they will, or go out of their way to find it (I found DF through a roguelike database thing)

Then there's consideration of joining the forum, too, which was what encouraged you to go to the stats. I don't think all the DF players are going to join the B12 forum, and even then, DF isn't the only game that Toady has made. So... yeah. I think it's reasonable for someone to say you might be interpreting stats to suit your argument.

[NJW2000]

I wonder if women are statistically less likely to find DF in the first place? Something to consider.

[Shadowlord]

How many of us talking here even play DF?

Nowadays I only try it for a couple days every year or two, usually when there's a new release, and I inevitably quit because the interface only seems to get more difficult to use, and more complicated, never simpler.

[ChairmanPoo]

Your average GP might not, but a surgeon or specialist absolutely should have a PhD.

You're mistaken. Being a specialist does not necessarily imply having a PhD either. I'd hazard that most do not.

Also and for the record: General Practice works as a separate speciality with it's own residency period, in most places

Both of my parents are doctors, one's an anaesthesiologist practicing (though not educated) in the UK, the other's a surgeon. Neither of them has a PhD, both have Master's-equivalent degrees; the specialist qualifications are separate from the university degree altogether.

My point exactly.

... incidentally, could you ask your parents what's the current etiquette in looking for jobs in the UK & post their reply in this other thread?

[Avis-Mergulus]

- If twice as many men play on PC, and Dwarf Fortress is only on PC, there's no twisting of logic to say that all else being equal, twice as many men as women will end up as Dwarf Fortress players. "Playing on a PC" isn't a gender-bias, it's just the raw numbers.

No? Suppose you have 9 players total, of which three are women and six are men. Your pool of games is, for example, DF, COD, and Dark Souls. Of these, suppose all three women play DF, and only one dude plays DF while the rest play COD and Dark Souls. You have more women playing DF in this example than men, despite there being two times less women than men (presumably because the rest of the women are off playing Halo on a console or something). You did say "all else being equal"... and then proceeded to show that all else isn't equal in the rest of your data.

Note that I don't protest against your inference that women play less DF than men, I just don't think that your exact factor of 12 actually means anything.

[Reelya]

Then there's consideration of joining the forum, too, which was what encouraged you to go to the stats.

I wasn't the one who brought up the forum stats in the first place, I was just pointing out that the various aspects of DF are all factors with a large gender skew against women. If you have three of those factors which are independent, then the overall gender-skew is going to be much larger, and in the ballpark of the cited forum ratios. I'd argue that the three factors in the study were largely independent.

independent games

I don't really see where that is very relevant. PC vs non-PC, casual vs hardcore, violent vs non-violent are much more relevant for whether someone would like something than who published it. Basically people who care about "indie cred" enough to only check out things based on them being "indie" are more likely to be a minority of gamer hipsters, and probably not a large enough population segment to affect overall stats very much.

Nor how likely people are going to go out of their way to try something different. You may find hardcore gamers are more inclined to play games like DF, but that doesn't mean they will, or go out of their way to find it (I found DF through a roguelike database thing)

This isn't really coherent. Normal people are not casually browsing roguelike databases hoping to find that one The Sims-style roguelike. And regular people used to graphical games rarely get into Ascii games for "something different". They have enough graphical choices.

I don't think all the DF players are going to join the B12 forum, and even then

Again there's not a really good argument in there. A proportion of both genders could join the forums, women are generally more into the social aspects of gaming than men are, thus no less likely to join communities than male gamers.

DF isn't the only game that Toady has made.

What exactly is the argument here? Are you saying that LCS could account for the gender-skew, but not DF? It seems kind of silly to say other Toady games are responsible for the forum gender skew.

- If twice as many men play on PC, and Dwarf Fortress is only on PC, there's no twisting of logic to say that all else being equal, twice as many men as women will end up as Dwarf Fortress players. "Playing on a PC" isn't a gender-bias, it's just the raw numbers.

No? Suppose you have 9 players total, of which three are women and six are men. Your pool of games is, for example, DF, COD, and Dark Souls. Of these, suppose all three women play DF, and only one dude plays DF while the rest play COD and Dark Souls. You have more women playing DF in this example than men, despite there being two times less women than men (presumably because the rest of the women are off playing Halo on a console or something). You did say "all else being equal"... and then proceeded to show that all else isn't equal in the rest of your data.

... except that this flies in the face of pretty much everything we know about gamer habits from all the research. It's an incredibly contrived example you've made there which excludes all the categories of games where the players are overwhelmingly women.

What was COD again? 15% female players I think it was. And that's available on consoles, which is a preferred platform for women. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say DF is less accessible to women than COD is.

[Neonivek]

I've been thinking about Culture Appropriation and kind of thought about and kind of realized that beyond the whole "it is segregation in disguise"

It is also kind of a huge practice in cultural imperialism. As it requires you to say one culture is "greater" then another. Watch anime? Cultural appropriation... Why? Because of COURSE Japan is worse then America.