It is a lot to do with better, and so much to do with new users.

A big part of my point is that when you're new to a site you don't know the norm, you don't know the local trolls (COUGHSEEBELOWCOUGH!) and the only way to do that is to lurk. Which is probably why that's exactly what most people do. But I'm not a wallflower. I prefer to go up to people and say "hi."

But yeah, when I'm very quickly discriminated against, the community pales quickly even if the local moderator did say "Welcome, nice to have you around."

The comment was hurtful to me. I have never seen men and women communicate differently. I don't write that way because I didn't observe that. Could it be possible lil noticed that difference because she is a different generation? Maybe older men and women feel more of a barrier, because in their times issues were still being ironed out? Nowadays, supporting behavior like that is a bit backwards. Let's not undo the work that lil and her generation worked so hard to accomplish.