Well, i understand your point of view Rainbo1956 but quite frankly, i'm not going to welcome with BIG open arms every new members. I don't know them! And I thought we were doing a very good job everytime replying to every "i'm new here" thread. But like any other situations, i have to know the person better, in this case, the person would have to make a few posts before i take interest in him or her.

We've seen so many new members who just sign up to spam... so i'm not gonna waste my time posting a long welcome post not knowing what are the real intentions of that person are. For me, i think a nice and short welcome message is better than nothing

I also didn't know that the women from the board were feeling excluded?!
If so, well i appologize to them. I reply to everybody equally, no matter they're gay, straight, lesbians, japanese... and i never noticed regular members excluding them also... Someone corrects me if i'm wrong.

One thing for sure is that if new members are not really trying to be part of this community, then i surely won't help them feel more welcome here. They kinda have to earn it, no? Posting more, replying more, being more active... And not just say "hi i'm new here" and then we should big the biggest friends ever. Nah i'm gay, not a teletubby

Now about the designer you were talking about... what happened? Tons of people here are looking for good designers so i'm sure she'd be noticed if she posted more. So maybe she should come back and retry

But that's just me, i'm not a really sociable person at the first place so maybe i'm all wrong who knows


And maybe a newbie forum is not a bad idea.