Jersey, could you post a link? I can't find that mentioned anywhere.

That I couldn't tell you; mine's the only way I know.

Would it be practical for me to make a backup of Jim' posts (and possibly the interviews) in the curator's section? Or would it be better to make it on a different site? I've got enough free time to make a backup.

That's your call, brother; whatever you think best. I'm just here to keep the electric fence going.

There is no longer a Touchy Topics subforum, so I can't advise to move it there, and simply moving it behind a spoiler tag doesn't change it from being in the Touchy Topics field. It might have been better to make the opening post broader, such as "Make sure the character's dialogue and internal monologue are consistent with his/her situation", without referring to broad stereotypes. But the moment for that is past, so all that's left is either 1) to drop the subject entirely or 2) be very, very careful with how it develops. You have to admit that stating openly that character X is poorly written because "I've never heard a man/woman talk that way" looks and quacks a lot like sexism. I can't think that it was your intent, but since gender roles are a hot-button issue for a number of forumgoers here (not to mention people in general), that button can get inadvertently pressed awfully easily.

... which is part of the reason Touchy Topics were defined and placed off-limits here in the first place: too often, those hot buttons got pressed and people had powerful emotional reactions that led to completely avoidable dust-ups. Deliberate or otherwise, it really doesn't matter in the end—we've placed maintaining the peace in here in everyone's hands. So, you can certainly proceed if you wish, but please do be careful in guiding this thread's direction.

For what it's worth, words fundamentally do still mean what they mean once you strip a lot of stereotyped "conventions" from them. I'm a straight male, happy and completely at ease with it, yet I can see a guy like Matt Bomer and feel perfectly accurate and appropriate in describing him as "beautiful". Because, dammit, the jerk is. Makes me bullfrog-green with jealousy that some other guy can be that damned gorgeous while I got not one gene in that direction. XD In fact, the lingo you're describing as "not done" may simply belong to the also-stereotyped group of self-proclaimed "man's men", which is a fairly sexist direction to take right out of the gate, anyway.

So, to repeat, if you want to continue with this thread, it's certainly okay; just be aware how close the subject matter and the direction of the conversation are to the borders with TT, and self-monitor accordingly. Sound good?

There is what is considered to be a feminine way of writing and a masculine way of writing even outside of even word choice. There's grammar and sentence structure too. But some men do write what might be considered femininely and some females do write what may be considered in a masculine fashion.

I think this is more a function of genre standards + assumptions than of an actual gender-related style.

Very recently, a select group of fantasy authors anonymously submitted short pieces for a test: a bank of readers were supposed to decide based on the writing whether the author was male or female. Result? The guesses were only as accurate as a random choice between A or B. Random, people.

If you want an excellent example of social-media "self-branding" by an author, check out Myke Cole. The guy lives by Wordmaker's statement of "you are your brand" - he maintains a constant, highly interactive, consistently pleasant and professional presence on the big-name social-networking sites.

*deleted because not-a-real-squee-but-anyway*