Ravelry

I believe everyone is entitled to live as they choose and love whom they will. However, I neither believe that any one lifestyle choice has the right to force their opinions and beliefs on others, nor do I care to be lectured to. I also choose not to be confronted with BDSM imagery and sex toys on the main sign in page TO A YARN CRAFTING SITE as a demonstration of "inclusivity", "wokeness" and "LGBTsupport" during pride month. The Ravelry admins are letting their personal causes, interests, and lifestyles interfere with running their business by continuing to exclude, alienate, and lecture. Enough drama; I'm out.

I was part of the Ravelry community for years. While there, I overlooked groups, statements, projects, and profile pictures that I found offensive or vulgar. Choosing instead to utilize their pattern database and mind my own business. Unfortunately, their move to censor and ban certain groups who did not agree with their ideology, while ignoring the vitriol of those who did was too much. Therein lies a slippery slope that I want no part of. Of note: This site claims to be inclusive but they have a management staff that is 100% white. How is that "inclusive"?

After being a user for years I opted to opt out due to a ton of negativity on the site and politicization. Can find patterns elsewhere without the politics.

I will start with the positives. A huge library of both pay for patterns and free patterns. I place to store your project notes. Forums to communicate with groups of people who have the same interests.
I will now move on to the negatives. Over the years, Ravelry has practiced its free speech by posting very polarizing content. I believe this encouraged strife, though most (not all) stayed silent. Ravelry then decided that it could dish it out but could not take it. Ravelry updated their policy. It basically said that if you are not on their side then you either keep your mouth shut or be banned. Though many had kept their mouth shut, for the sake of peace, have decided that this was going too far. I deleted my account.

I was a member of Ravelry for years, contributed many pattern books from the 60s-80s to their database.

My favorite button was "ignore this thread" which I clicked whenever subjects or commentary disturbed me. Obviously not enough members used this feature because the community imploded, and rather than getting control the owners threw gasoline on the fire.

I empathize with the advertisers and independent business owners that were heavily invested here. Several have publicly stated this has hurt their business, they had no warning and choosing political sides is unprofessional.

Since I started tracking they've lost 30,085 members, and I've attached screen shots to prove it. As members close their accounts, their data leaves with them and participation numbers continue to plummet.

They can keep their illusion of superiority; better sites that are truly neutral and inclusive are quickly stepping up to replace them.

I used to buy a ton of patterns and buy from Amazon through their link. Now I don't. Their supposed motto is "Be excellent to each other" but if you dare ask a question, be prepared to be attacked and possibly become fodder for a bunch of horrible, mean people with zero lives. Some of these "mean girls" will follow everything you do on Ravelry and make nasty comments. Ravelry lost all the money I was sending their way because apparently only a few people should be excellent; everyone else gets a free pass to be nasty and mean. Until it cleans house of all of the constant bullying and negativity, they won't see another penny from me.

This site used to be great. Sure it is a simply a useful data storage site at it's core but the heart if this place is the community. At least, it was... then "Cassidy" happened.

Jessica and Casey Forbes started it back in May of 2007. I joined not long after. It was great. The folks that came in were kind, helpful, accepting, open, and tolerant of all... naturally just loving folks.

About three years ago, things started to get weird. A witch hunt on specific designers occurred, then the banning of all conservatives, the gay pride flag that has been flying for over a year, the constant forcing down your throat of political agendas by the Forbes, and now they are abusing a marginalized community who have been effected by their web redesign that has been causing migraines, eye strain, and seizures in users. Their response was to call those effected liars... literally, Casey (now Cassidy) tweeted that this group of disabled users are liars.

He came out as transgender in the middle of all of this mess. You do you. If that is what you need to be your true and authentic self then go for it. However, Casey was always polite, considerate, kind, and compassionate. Cassidy is behaving like Regina George without the posse or position. She is mean, rude, and an overall b*tch towards the community.

They have lost their focus. They have lost the trust of the community. They have lost the respect of the community. Their monopoly on this is coming to an end... soon. All because they forgot the golden rule.

At first I was hopeful but now my experience is now so good. Wanted to get inspiration since I was a new knitter but did find some hostile people and wasn't so welcoming

The political patterns and forum posts have gotten out of hand in Ravelry. And if you are to comment that Ravelry is supposed to be for fiber arts, not mean, hateful political stuff, you are bullied and attacked. Never mind that this behavior violates Ravelrys terms of service, they wont do anything about it. Ravelry does not care about a safe, peaceful environment for knitting, crocheting, etc. And why would they? They make money when someone sells a pattern, regardless of its content. If you dont want your kids exposed to such nonsense, keep them away from this site.

What is charity? Giving your knitting patterns to Ravelry so all can see? Yes, that is. Posting your knititng patterns to Ravelry for sale and $250,000 per month profit so Rav can claim all of their support staff is "volunteer?" Or is it fifty bucks to Ravelry favorite charity of the month?

Charity is giving when it's an effort to help those with less. Charity is not writing a check.

My early years in Ravelry were wonderful. Through the site, I communicated regularly with fibercrafters around the planet. We collaborated on various charity events to help like-minded people who needed help with their own inescapable charitable pursuits. We were grand.
But then the climate changed. People with no real knowledge of politics suddenly announced themselves experts, and declared all who disagreed with their uneducated ideologies as white supremacists. HUH? Anything remotely supporting any ideology veering to the right of extreme leftist thought was pronounced unwelcome. Anyone who has a politically moderate point of view, or a conservative mindset, or is a Libertarian is despised on this site. These people are silenced while the ultra-progressives are encouraged to be nasty. In all my searching through the site's forae, I never located anything as profoundly hateful as the anti-white, anti-right rhetoric that now had a clear path to scorch anything within which PERCEIVED conservatism existed. Several people were driven away. Still, the majority of members are dewy-eyed innocents who would rather lie and hate and gang up on others so the site retains most of its enormous membership.
Then a major site redesign was thrust upon members. Even the far left members complained bitterly on the new design, a design which had not been subjected to usability or accessibility testing. The redesign was notably uncomfortable for many. Several members complained of discomfort or even outright pain from having to use the new design. When the complaints were laid upon Ravelry, its founder Cassidy went into a whiny rage, accusing people afflicted with pain of being liars, citing a half-baked article by a non-medical doctor stating that epilepsy with visual triggers was an unlikely cause of issues and reinforcing Cassidy's notion that the world was out to get her. I saw few member scomp-laints concerning epilepsy. Some seizure disturbances were reported but complaints were mainly issues with migraines and non-seizure visual disorders. The article was a poor choice of rebuttal, and why in hell would Cassidy do that to her members? Anti-white, anti-right-of-far-left, "inclusivity" does not include folks with various disabilities. This wasn't Cassidy's first assault on members' visual abilities, but it was the most egregious. Little effort has been made to help ease complainers' difficulties. According to Cassidy, visual disturbances do not exist.
I still check in on the forae in which I became acquainted with many good people. They are now generally quiet sad places. The ultra-left membership do not support the charity events we used to enjoy building. All the cameraderie is gone, replaced by suspicion and finger-pointing. Even in forae remote from the main boards. Ravelry is becoming a bleak wasteland.

While Ravelry is a great resource for patterns and information concerning knitting and crocheting, the owners have allowed multiple cases of bullying to go on within the site and have not done anything to stop it. If you are Liberal, then you will find it welcoming. If you are Conservative, you will not. While hiding behind a statement of inclusiveness, the owners have allowed their cult-like followers to bully and harass the more conservative people. Even going so far as to take down forums and block any USA related icons. In one such instance, they removed a hat pattern that said "God Is Love" on it and branded it as hate speech.

They recently released a statement that support for President Trump and his administration would not be welcome as they felt that it was support for white supremacy. While they did not say that anyone who supported is a white supremacist, their followers decided that's what it meant and the owners of the site have yet to correct that.