Moderation question: When if ever should we allow the discussion of someone else's body/appearance on LetsRun?

swilson40 wrote:

I’m late to this post because I actually have cut back on my time spent on the boards but saw a link to this question in the recent Outside article. I’m a woman and over the years the toxicity of the boards has really gotten to me and felt unhealthy. So I try not to read them as often, which is a bummer bc sometimes there is some really great running commentary but I’m not willing to take the time to weed through the trolls to get to that content.

Anyways, Brojos, I think if you really are interested in making a change to the boards in an effort to reach a wider audience and make these conversations more productive/healthier, then you should be having in-person/phone conversations with the demographic you are trying to help. Posting on the message board that you already know is biased/toxic isn’t helping. You should be talking to professional female runners, hobby jogger women, women in the industry, etc. Those are the people (I’m assuming) you want to make these boards more accessible to. Having those conversations in real life will help give you an understanding of what might make these boards a better place for women/minorities. I would love to see some sort of feature or podcast where you guys really try to solicit those opinions and hear that point of view, bc I don’t think it is reflected here often.

I think if the draw of the boards is to have productive conversations in the running community then it’s doing a disservice to be potentially excluding that community bc you aren’t willing to make some tougher moderation choices. If you don’t really want to change then none of this matters and some women might continue to ignore the boards/site (which probably isn’t a great business option)

I also think having women on staff (even potentially as volunteers) would help a lot.

Feel free to email me if you want to discuss further.