There have been some topics that have caused continued confusion on the site. One is the misconception that some people have had that Ovarit is a women-only website (that users are all women, or that men are told not to register or somehow are barred, or that men are site-banned for admitting they are men). This is not the case. It's not that we didn't consider trying it, it's that we considered it and decided not to do that.

This disappoints some, but we did make sure this was stated in our documentation before we launched.

We require that moderators are women. The Ovarit admins are radical feminist women. Communities must be women-centered, but we do not currently believe that we have to somehow ban every male from the site to achieve that. We do not believe it is possible on a site like this to do that. All posts and comments are public to anyone on the internet, and although we currently have invite codes, they are not permanent and eventually anyone will be able to register an account. This is, ultimately, a public internet forum. This is not a "safe space," though it will always be women-run and women-centered.

We do not have policies on banning people for their characteristics - or supposed characteristics. We cannot actually know user's characteristics, only what they claim their characteristics are. Policies have to be based on something observable, like a user's actions on the site. Banning men for admitting they are men, is in function, making a rule that men cannot tell the truth about being men. Men who lie remain. We have a lot of experience banning men for failing to avoid breaking the most basic of rules. We believe banning men for rule-breaking behavior is sufficient, and wastes less of our time.

We have no intention on creating shadow policies that are not published. We're not Reddit.

Ovarit is a platform for different communities. We are trying to keep our scope broad enough that we can platform a variety of communities that appeal to women with a broad range of ideas. This means giving moderators as much control over the circles they moderate as possible while still maintaining our Mission.

We are not trying to create a hive of group think. The only way to avoid a group think spiral is to permit a range of ideas and disagreement. This means we have to be careful about the things we say "no" to with each additional constraint we give to moderators.

If you think a user is breaking the rules, or if you think a circle isn't in line with the site Mission or rules, you can message the relevant moderators, or if necessary, you can send a private message to one of the admins. (A feature to message all mods of a circle or all the admins will be added eventually, but admins already discuss all relevant messages as a group).

Starting threads calling out specific users or specific circles is not in line with our culture. We do not wish to have a culture where public call out posts bully or shame users or pressure moderators into complying with a narrow view they did not sign up for.

Civility is a rule in the meta circles. Policies are up for discussion - do not make it personal, though.

Edit: For clarification, each circle can add rules on top of the site-wide rules. Circles can make rules prohibiting men from posting.