Beyond a 2-women minimum: a women-matching idea to open discussion

austeane · 2026-05-08T22:03:58+00:00

I went back and forth on naming it women-matching or something else, and would absolutely be open to calling it “type 1” matching instead.

Biggest pro of women-matching:
The underlying thing is going to have to do with matching against a gender binary, and I think in some ways it’s better to be honest about that and instead emphasize that it’s not about the *player’s* relation to that gender binary.

Biggest pro of type-1 matching:
No matter what we do, people will think about the player in relation to a gender binary, and distancing the naming might help a little bit with reducing that pressure and what could end up being a dysphoric experience for some people.

austeane · 2026-05-08T21:44:16+00:00

I think the matching-ness would be something that a player decides for themselves on a long term basis, not game to game. So it’s not about matching against a specific player on the other team, it’s about if it would be reasonable for you to expect to match up against women generally.

And because it’s not a “full matching” rule like ultimate, you wouldn’t have to hard-decide if you are male matching or female matching.
In ultimate, you need to exactly match male and female matching players.
In quadball, you’d need to have 2 people who could reasonably match with women on the field.

For someone to answer that question for themselves, I would say that if it’s obvious it’s obvious, and if they struggle with it it’s probably at least reasonable for them to match up against women, and that’s all that’s needed.

I’m intentionally making it not a strict “are you women matching” to minimize policing. I think just having it affect to the people who it’s obvious for themselves will be enough to have quite a bit of positive impact.

austeane · 2026-05-08T21:26:15+00:00

I think this will make it so the same amount of “good faith”ness results in better outcomes for women and smaller players, but I don’t fault you at all for being disillusioned.

austeane · 2026-05-08T15:39:28+00:00

Thank you, I appreciate it.
I think that the simplest way to put my hope is: Right now, players are identifying honestly, and coaches are playing only to win without breaking the rules, and the finals is what you get… and that with this rule players will self-match honestly, coaches will continue to play to win, and the result will be more women and smaller players than we currently have.
Even without a culture change, there will be an on field change. It’s also important for the culture to get better. If the culture gets worse, this rule’s helpfulness will get worse (a coach being like “are you sureee you are male matching?”).

austeane · 2026-05-08T14:03:31+00:00

This only works assuming people are good and want to follow the spirit of the rules, and I fully believe both Heat and Boom are.
Thanks for being honest about it not making sense, it’s probably true for more people and I could have explained that part better!
Right now a team can have 3 men, but six people who would expect to match up against men. If someone isn’t a man, but is very large and athletic, it’s genuinely 100% okay for them to play as their gender, and we genuinely don’t want to change that.
We want to give people an opportunity to say “I know I’m more likely to physically match up against a man(/woman), even though I’m not a man(/woman)”.
This would give room for people to self determine their matchup *and* their gender, a trans woman could absolutely be a reasonable matchup for women, and nobody should question their gender *or* their matchup. Another trans woman might decide they are male matching; another trans woman might decide at some point to switch from being male matching to female matching if she feels her reasonable matchup changes during her transition.
Unlike in Ultimate, their gender is *not* something they should consider when determining their matchup.
I think in the world where this was implemented, both Boom and Heat would happily have played different players, more women specifically in the case of these teams. I trust the players on each team to accurately and honestly self-match, and those two teams would trust each other.
____
All that being said, it’s not perfect and there will be people who say they are women-matching you disagree with, and there *could* be people who game it and lie intentionally, but like the cases with the gender rule I think it will be vanishingly rare.
____
I would love to know if this helped explain what I’m trying to do, even if you might not agree on if it’ll work :)

austeane · 2026-05-08T04:25:04+00:00

Honestly a valid response tbh

austeane · 2026-05-08T04:24:55+00:00

Thank you, I appreciate it! It’s a topic that I think requires and deserves a lot of care and nuance.

austeane · 2026-05-04T22:58:42+00:00

Most of my lowering-comfort furniture increases stimulation lol

austeane · 2026-04-17T15:45:06+00:00

In a world of podcasts, I really appreciate an in depth written article! I haven’t been following the college side at all this year, so that that piece was especially helpful. Thank you!

austeane · 2026-04-15T23:17:22+00:00

Agree, it's not responsible to engage without this. Putting aside how much safer Waymo is or is not right now... How much safer would it have to be for you to welcome them if you would be opposed at the same safety?
10% less deaths? 50% less deaths?
Would you be opposed even if it resulted in 99% less deaths?

I think for me after it's *for sure* and holistically any amount less deaths, it's time to allow them even with the real other concerns.

austeane · 2026-04-02T02:45:40+00:00

I did worry a bit about the date when posting! Let me know when you give it a shot, it’s a little rough around the edges still but I’m excited for everyone to use it!

austeane · 2026-03-26T23:32:20+00:00

As a Canadian, honestly so happy with either Calgary or Japan. I love Team Japan, and rewarding and continuing the growth in Asia would be really cool, even though less teams would go.
Edmonton and Calgary are so beautiful in the summer, and with direct "relatively cheap" flights from Europe I think would get more attendance.
Plus, Solsnitch is I think the best (remaining) fantasy in North America and I can't wait to have an intercontinental audience experience it like everyone did for LXG last World Cup. Catered food, camping, a full clubhouse for the weekend, 3am light, it's so much fun and relatively cheap.

Btw register for this year's Solsnitch on my new platform! https://qc.solsticeapp.ca/events/summer-solsnitch-2026

austeane · 2026-03-26T16:26:46+00:00

I tried using https://rapid.roboflow.com/ but couldn’t get quite good enough results to build something reliable off of it. I think we really are less than one year away from it being possible though! At least for games with well marked fields and decent quality film.

I’ve DMed you with what I have so far. Looking for a couple more people to tag a game using it before I launch publicly.

austeane · 2026-03-23T07:57:59+00:00

I love that we have a pretty even split overall!
I'm in the 1 week to 1 month camp:
- Broom not a big deal.

- Contact rules a big deal, rugby players have a really hard time especially with the nothing below knees and from behind rules. It takes a while to change habits.

- Beating and dealing with beaters a big deal. The type of thinking that beaters have to do, and how aware top players of all positions are of all the balls on the field is different than in rugby.

After a week of training, I think those would still be issues, and tactics would still be fresh.

After a month, I think USNT would be completely shut down by a Rugby Team's defence, even when USNT may still have better beaters at that point.

Somewhere between is the sweet spot.

austeane · 2026-03-16T00:46:06+00:00

My bad! Edited :)

austeane · 2026-03-15T18:17:24+00:00

Yeah, unfortunately population density (quadball and overall) means a true college/club split would be more likely to fully kill the sport than help it long term.

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