Hello HN, today I’m presenting you Women Make. I use to struggle to find fellow women entrepreneurs so I created a group on Telegram. Since then it grew to 500+ members. I felt it was time to make a website to go with the group. Happens I learned Node JS last year, which I used with mongoDB and Telegram's API to build a forum. Members can interact with the website thanks to a bot. And here is the result! Let me know what you think, any feedback is welcome!

Good to know you found a case there people actually desire to join your community. I tried a few attempts to build platforms for some niche or relatively general communities but failed to reach critical mass. That turn into 'speaking with the air'.

The platforms I built are not for profile, not even having any ads, just made with good mind but seems I didn't catch a real need.

Congrats! I am curious, does having 500 people in a single channel present any challenges?

This may be a dumb question, but I'm assuming this is a women-only community?

It's not a dumb question. I made Women Make open because I think a change is only possible together (making women and other underrepresented folks more visible). Which means everyone is welcome, including men, as long as they are here to empower women.

what would empowering women entail? Helping them to make stuff, answer there questions? So does that mean men are not allowed to get questions answered? Or is it about the community/morality guidelines? Because if its not an exclusively female forum, I don't understand it's purpose.

What I understood from it: We are still dealing with heavy inequalities today. To change this we need anybody wiling to change this.

A few examples of what it means: answering questions, listening, offering your help and advice. Men are allowed to ask questions as long as they are contributing to the community. That being said, Women Make is here to promote women, and on a moderation level, I will always make sure women are being put at the forefront.

Could you explain a bit more about the specific problems / challenges your policies (e.g. women-first moderation) are meant to address?

I'm a man working in the tech industry, and I feel like I still don't 100% understand the concerns or frustrations that motivate a project like yours. I'd like to better understand where you (and presumably some other women) are coming from.

Does this comment I posted earlier answers your question? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22128957

Thanks! That comment was helpful. If you don't mind I have some more questions still:

Gathering us is an opportunity to find allies, but also models, people from who you can inspire from and find the strength to do what you want to do.

IIUC, you're saying that you see value in having (specifically) women as allies and sources of inspiration / strength. If that's true, why would that be?

But I’m glad I have a place like Women Make for certain topics and to know I’m not alone in this.

Would you mind sharing a bit about what those topics are?

"What would that be?", what do you mean by that? What I'm trying to say is that obviously I identify myself better with other women. And I want to be able to find other women entrepreneurs specifically because we face certain common issues. I think this comment sums up pretty well what it's like: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22129625.

This structure makes your community far more constructive than most similar sites that actively discriminate against men. The goal should not be to suppress the competition, but to produce an environment where everyone can flourish.

Thank you. I wish you the best of luck with your project.

@mariedm awesome community, curious on what tech stack you used? back end and front end. Congrats, looking forward to hear about how it goes with this project.

I like the site, it's quite fast. Seems to be similar to dev.to in speed and functionality.

Thank you, I used nodejs + mongodb for the back end and jquery for the front end.

Can you please elaborate how does emphasizing gender difference help women in business?

Don't get me wrong I do believe it works, I am just curious about the psychology.

Like I said the first reason why I created Women Make is because I couldn’t find fellow women makers. There are several reasons for this: women are less visible in general, and also tend to less promote themselves. Gathering us is an opportunity to find allies, but also models, people from who you can inspire from and find the strength to do what you want to do. That being said, it doesn’t have to be exclusive. I am myself part of several communities, and most of them are not emphasizing on women. But I’m glad I have a place like Women Make for certain topics and to know I’m not alone in this.

I see, thanks.

"People from who you can inspire from" - do you mean you might have higher "basic level" of connection with the same sex?

Or are there also topics you can get into?

Seeing im downvoted up there: these are honest curious questions, I want to understand better how these social things work. And I'd be glad if I could understand more here, because unfortunately my previous attempts to understand similar social constructs failed (unfortunately I've been told multiple times by women that as a man something is not my business at all and I was not even let understand the nature of the relations.)

If I had to guess, you're not being down voted for intellectual curiosity, but rather how you frame the question.

There are many ways you could have framed the question, but the way you did sounds like you're challenging the premise of what OP is trying to do.

Someone built something. If your first response is "Why did you build this thing?" or in your case "Please elaborate why you think building this thing helps?" it comes across as being intentionally and unnecessarily negative, even if perhaps your intent is not to do so.

If you are actually curious, a few similar ways to frame the question:

- How have you seen your work impact women?

- What are the most meaningful ways this community has helped your users?

All positive ways of framing the similar "I'm curious how or why this works" question.

Okay I see, I am just surprised, because that's why I put that part to the end:

"Don't get me wrong I do believe it works, I am just curious about the psychology."

These same questions get asked every time something geared towards women in tech is presented. At some point it becomes disruptive to continually ask the same questions and receive the same justifications. Not that I think its the same people asking, but even well-meaning questions contribute to an environment that is counter-productive.

Hm, what is the point? It feels like you're saying it's not my business and I am not even allowed to understand it. If you know some anwsers please share it to me and believe me I won't ask it over and over again once I get it.

I'm not sure it's really specific to the sex or gender. My personal opinion is that society and education have a huge effect on how we behave and are perceived, depending on your sex. So yes, in a way it makes you closer to people from the same sex because you have something in common, but it's more than just your sex, and there are so many different criteria.

Basically, the idea is that you often identify better to someone who has common points with you, including sex.

I live in Hong Kong and I don't feel businesswoman are less visible than businessman here, maybe here is a nice place for you to visit and look for cooperation opportunity.

(I suppose the terms entrepreneur, maker, and business(wo)man are interexchange in some sense)

Honestly, some of the comments here (if you show dead ones) just prove the need for a community like this.

@mariedm - congrats! Love the design.

Edit: One suggestion - a personal peeve is when a site flashes up a "subscribe" modal when I've only been on the site for a few seconds. Not sure what the conversions are like on that, but personally I'd be more likely to do that if I'd had a chance to look around.

Thank you. And you're right. I implemented this popup and wanted to change the timing because I also think it's too fast to appear. I just didn't take care of it yet.

Ooh, I hate these. Maybe I hate these even more than the ones that appear immediately.

I don't know how most people react to these popups. I think there are stats since I guess that people who put these on their websites also put all sorts of trackers, but for me, it is often a signal to simply close the tab and never come back.

The reason is that it completely breaks my focus. I am reading an article, browsing stuff, and find it interesting. Then the popup pops. Now, I am distracted and start to think. Is it that interesting? What am I doing here? Then tell myself I have better things to do than stay on a website with aggressive popups.

And if the content really is good, I will just close the popup and continue reading. I mean, I am in the middle of a good article right now, I have better things to do than filling some form.

Don't worry, if your content is so good that I want to subscribe, I will find your button, you don't need to shove it in my face.

What do you not get from, say, Hacker News or StackOverflow that you're trying to fill with WomenMake? Genuine question, not a snark.

I'll give you an example that I personally deal with. I have a Tesla Model S and I use the /r/teslamotors subreddit daily. Ever since the Model 3 came out, a HUGE majority of users are Model 3 owners and they drown out any specific discussion on the Model S or X. Any time I ask a question on the daily thread, I get answers from people who don't really know what they're talking about in regards to specifics of my car. I can't easily ask if anyone's had this issue with their S like mine because 1 out of every 100 user owns an S and all the Model 3 discussion drowns us out.

Having a community specifically targeting a small sect of people can be a great thing. They feel like they'll get answers from people just like them.

but isn't that exactly how reddit works?

Model S owners need to populate something like /r/TeslaModelS and then your issues are solved.

Sounds like the implication is HackerNews shouldn't be a website, it should just be a subreddit.

I find the difference between Reddit and HN is the quality of moderation. HN is fantastic at removing the low-value stuff like memes, "me too", snarky comments, etc. As a result, the signal-to-noise ratio is much higher, and it doesn't need loads of subreddits.

And that's what this person did until they got big enough to warrant their own site. They have plenty of Patreon support so what's the problem?

Just the fact that StackOverflow have been accused of not being inclusive at all is enough to create something else. They also have moderation issues. I’m trying to keep a high quality standard on Women Make, just like dang and sctb here with the moderation.

Also, like I said in another comment, women tend to promote themselves/put themselves in front of others much less. The idea of Women Make is really to show them they can and they should. So basically it’s giving women confidence, and the specific support they don’t necessarily get from other places.

Just the fact that StackOverflow have been accused of not being inclusive at all.

Can you clarify this? Anyone can sign up with an account and the whole thing is meritocratic.

Maybe it's best if we don't go off topic into that. HN has had massive discussions about it and this wouldn't be a great place for another.

Can you please share a link? It would help a lot!

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

I was asking her why she thought that. Not what other people thought.

And you don't see any issue with suppressing the discussion around this clearly sensitive issue? You taking one side is a sure way to alienate many on the opposing side. Let's have an unbiased discussion while maintaining civility.

It seems like you're trying to tell people what they can and cannot discuss more and more on HN.

Can you clarify this? Anyone can sign up with an account and the whole thing is meritocratic.

This seems like a perfectly reasonable question.

What could us men do to improve the support they give on sites other than Women Make? I'm always afraid that my attempt at a supportive gesture will feel like I'm patronising or mansplaining.

One thing I think is key to being a good ally is to work mostly in the background, to avoid the spotlight unless necessary, and to yield or share it when possible. Speak less, listen more, trust what you hear and defer to the judgment of the underrepresented party.

There was a moment in college when I was participating in a Take Back the Night march, and I was leading the call-and-response chant "What do we want? Safety! When do we want it? Now!" It felt awkward and wrong. Once I stopped leading the chant and started participating vigorously in the response of the call-and-response, it felt right.

but you were able to lead the group into a chant in the first place so how would that have happened if you would have instead favored being in the background from the beginning?

Maybe your sentiment can be enhanced by not gatekeeping participation - but by promoing a handover of leadership to more symbolic choices once the work of buuilding momentum is done. This is a rule that could be applied to any demographic-based leadership that needs to organize its aesthetic as it grows

This comment is incredibly cringy. GP do _not_ think this way. Be careful.

Take a look at the level of conversation that's being had in this thread; most of the posts read to me as good-natured curiosity at the level of "please explain to me why there is a need for this community". Some are a touch confused/defensive and think the site might be sexist in some way. And there are some openly positive and supportive posts too.

Now put yourself in the shoes of a woman in tech/entrepreneurship/makerdom. Would you rather hang out in a community where everyone fundamentally understands the challenges you face daily, or one where you have to explain the basic premise of your daily challenges when you initiate a conversation about them? (Or rather, would you prefer to hang out in both, or just the latter, since it's not really an either/or.)

Now I'm sure there is some selection bias in the posts in this thread (i.e. they don't reflect the distribution of opinions of HN viewers), but that's kind of the point; the selection bias for posting filters the other way in communities like womenmake.

Wait, is not that a bit recursive thought? To me it is a bit like: - Why? - Because you asked why.

Edit: - Because you don't know "fundamentally" why

To put more concretely, I've observed, especaily among tech circles, the tendency to assume "if the system works for me, it must work for everyone". I'd propose that that kind of mindset is what is what drives a lot of the negative reactions in this thread. It's the kind of mindset that drives thoughts like "we;re not hiring many women it must be [their abilities | the funnel | ~biology~ | etc]" never "maybe our process isn't set up well". There;s value in having a space where you don't have to start every conversation explaining your struggles from first principles (very clearly given the user count the community has a need for this kind of space, so the "why is this needed" question feels spurious).

My thoughts from the uncomfortably unique prospective of a trans woman in tech; I can only speak for why I find these sorts of spaces valuable.

"Because you asked why" => "Because you don't already know" => "Because it's exhausting to have to explain this all the time" / "Because I want somewhere to practice, not just places to teach."

At least part of it is the same reason you might want to hang out with people already skilled in your disciplines: you get to go do the advanced stuff, instead of getting the other people up to speed.

Edit, presuming some things: You know how it's really annoying how all your non-tech relatives think you can solve all their weird tech problems, and you have to spend all this time explaining to them you why that's annoying, or why it's nice to hang out with people that don't do that?

Yeah, but in that case you can get the requirements, right? That's what is not clear to me here. And you did not clarify either. Why is that if you make it seem so simple?

I'm sorry, I'm not understanding what you're saying on a grammatical level. Can you rephrase?

Yeah, sorry, edited: I omitted the word "get"

Thanks! Hmm. I tried to answer but I'm still finding it unclear. Can you rephrase with less abstraction and more verbose specifics?

Edit: It might not clear what I'm not finding clear. It's not clear to me who you're referring to in the first sentence, or what "get" means in "get the requirements", or what you're referring to when you say "the requirements". It's not clear to me what the "that" is in "that's what's not clear to me". I don't understand what you thought I should have clarified but didn't. I'm not sure even how to begin approaching your last sentence.

I really do think that a more verbose rephrase would resolve all these.

(See branch for clarity)

What I think you're saying is that the requirements don't make sense to you, or that they bother you because you're thinking that they're not requirements you can meet.

IMO, you can at least meet the requirements in spirit.

AFAIK / IMO, most groups that defined themselves as for X or Y group are mostly doing two things: 1) They want to center the conversations around topics not normally in the center 2) They want to avoid issues that people from outside the group commonly have 2b) They want to avoid issues that people from outside the group commonly have when interacting people from inside the group.

#1 is pretty normal and maps well onto any group defined by common experiences. You succeed or fail at this pretty much the way you succeed or fail in any group. Join a ham radio group to talk about not ham radio, and when you don't have any interest in learning more about ham radio? Yeah. Good way to do this on the 'net is to lurk.

#2 is a a lot subtler and harder to hear, particularly when you're likely to have those common issues. Some of them are just communication styles: Ever seen a group of guys excitedly discuss something? Interruptions are the norm. Some are massively problematic even if they're rare, like harassment. Or situation specific, like asking the group to teach you enough for #1. Some groups like to educate newcomers so they can do #1, others just want to do #1 without that.

Resolving #1 takes learning, but resolving #2 takes training, and facing hard things. Both of these are resolvable through dedicated work. Go learn enough about the group that you have something worthwhile to add for #1, go learn enough about yourself and that group so you know what the common issues are, take a hard look at yourself to understand which you have, and then train yourself so you can avoid them.

Most groups (IMO) that define themselves as for A, and/or for excluding B, are doing so to save time, effort and risk. It's a cheap and reliable way to achieve #1 and #2.

"What I think you're saying is that the requirements don't make sense to you, or that they bother you because you're thinking that they're not requirements you can meet."

No, I am for requirements not against them. What are the requirements (or features) of the new platform which does not apply to HN - that is the question.

Welp. My bad. Do you use Telegram? If so, why not go through the sign up process yourself, and explore?

Edit: OP says it's all about moderators: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22129710

Unclear to me if there's any encoded requirements.

That's definitely the problem - I'm lucky enough to never exist in a minority, so I don't know what it's like. I guess I'd like to understand what some of those challenges are, so that I can avoid causing them myself.

Basic challenge: Tech forums thrive on explaining, and providing solutions. We do like doing that even without a full understanding of the situation.

So, if, as a woman, you raise a problem in a space that's mostly male (like pretty much all tech spaces), you'll get a bunch of suggestions of trivial things to try (that you usually already have tried), plus a bunch of questions that amount to "I don't see your problem, so it doesn't exist".

I firmly believe that isn't malevolence - it's lack of knowledge plus some traits that are more pronounced in people in software engineering. (We can have a long debate about why they're pronounced, but for a moment let's just stipulate to their existence)

This means, as a woman (or in general, as part of a minority), you spent the vast amount of time in majority spaces explaining things, over, and over, as opposed to actually diving deeper on your problem.

Again, this is not due to malevolence, or because men are bad - it's an outcome of the situation. Let's say we're all prone to ask questions of other people that seem basic to them if we're sufficiently different - because we just don't know.

Now, if you're in a space where you're the only one in your group (The "yous"), and there are 10 others ("others"), and we all ask on average one such question per day - "yous" get 10 questions/day, "others" get 0.1/day. IOW: You feel you get asked super-basic questions 100 times more often than anybody else. You can see how that wouldn't make feel people very welcome :)

If you want to avoid causing them, there are a couple of fairly easy ways:

* Don't make assumptions about other people. ("You're a man, you should be good at.../bad at...")

* If people talk about their own experiences, just believe them. Don't have them explain every single bit. * Don't offer solutions if you don't fully understand a problem.

* If you want to help, Google at least basic information first. (Let's have an example: If you don't understand why women need a mother's room, head to Google first. Don't just say "I don't understand why there aren't father's rooms, too!". Sounds strange, but literal example I experienced)

* Find common ground, instead of focusing on the differences. (Here, for example: "Yay for launching this. How'd you do X" is much better than "why do you need that space". If you must ask that question, phrase it so it's still on common ground - we're on HN, people care about market fit, so ask "How'd you find out there was a need for it?")

* And if you still need to ask a question, because you truly lack the understanding and can't find the answer, do what you did: Make yourself vulnerable. Admit you really don't know, and you'd like to understand. (But really, Google first :)

I hope that's a somewhat helpful answer?

So, if, as a woman, you raise a problem in a space that's mostly male (like pretty much all tech spaces), you'll get a bunch of suggestions of trivial things to try (that you usually already have tried)

Can you give like 3 examples of this happening on HN? (Since the original question was about what the difference would be to HN), or for example StackOverflow? I mean the basic interface of those websites does even show the gender of the account, dies it? Why would the answers then be different dependent on the gender?

No, I can't, but you're welcome to do it yourself.

I'm not here to do your homework. That was the whole point of the above.

So you claim you know the answer but you don't share with us. That is wtf. You had really good points up there but its not clear at all what is the conclusion for the original question. If you are asked to fill in the blanks you say you won't. Shall we google for your thoughts? (Googling is a main bullet point up there.)

Thank you for being so patient, and for engaging in good faith. If your use of 'wtf' suggests a growing frustration, please know at least one person both sympathizes with you and hopes that you won't let any frustration damage the quality of your discourse.

I’m not sure if this is meant to be a joke. But with your username, replying to a comment about “{GROUP} feels that they are unreasonably asked to prove themselves” with your reply of “can you prove to me that {GROUP} is allowed to feel that way?” is more than a little ironic.

You comment is structured so as to imply an identity or equivalence that doesn't exist. A claim was made without evidence. The respondant made a valid argument for the improbability of the claim being true, given that gender is normally not evident, and simply asked for evidence to justify the claim. There is no irony here, simply an attempt at objectivity.

We should ask for evidence to justify claims like this.

The problem is that the claim is most likely subjective so it doesn’t need evidence. And the act of always being asked for evidence in various situations, and not being respected for knowing what is going on was one of the subjective claims being made.

Someone doesn’t have to justify their feelings or opinions or observations of how they are being treated. If someone says they are always experiencing something, then we should listen instead of asking them to prove to us that they are allowed to feel that way.

I'm confused. Why does being a women give a different set of challenges when troubleshooting a problem? The fact that it's a majority male doesn't explain why people would treat women completely differently.

Where are you getting these assumptions? Why would the same advice not be given to a male? If a male and a female ask the same question, they are given the same answer in my experience. Maybe it's that they are not having the same problems or asking the same questions?

Of course people would respond differently to different questions. It sounds like maybe not knowing the right questions to ask or where to look for those answers, or an inability to communicate about concepts in clear terms. And that's not a knock against women, there are plenty who can do this well. That seems much more straightforward and plausibe than saying that HN gives you trivial answers and gives you the run around because you have female experiences.

That's just different answers being given to different questions.

I'm confused; didn't the entire post you're responding to just explain why all of your questions are unproductive?

Unproductive for who?

For both parties, because one party may be unheard and the other unanswered.

No, that's lumping in a huge amount of genuine disagreement and curiosity into a throw away bucket because a certain perspective doesn't like them. Maybe people should look at having actual conversations and not trying to educate everyone.

Woah, I'm even more confused now. You said you were confused but you don't appear confused at all when I asked what you were doing. Could you please clarify?

Thank you for making this, what you’re doing is so important. I was wondering if your site is inclusive toward trans women? I didn’t see any mention of it on your About page so I thought I would ask. Looks great by the way and I’m excited to see it grow!

Why does it need to be mentioned? If they consider themselves women, isn't 'Women Make' enough?

That'd be nice, but there are some women-only spaces that are specifically hostile to trans women.

Can you give an example?

Like Elpha but better?

I think we are working on different ideas. Women Make is more focused on entrepreneurs and makers, whereas they are more into tech career advice (maybe like a LinkedIn for women). Also, Women Make is an indie project.

I was a member there when they just got started and the idea back then was to make a HN for women and there were more women building stuff in the beginning, now the topics have drifted away from that. (Unfortunate, from my point of view, but maybe people like it more this way)

You're welcome to join Women Make and tell me what you think! I'd love to have your feedback about this.

From the site guidelines,

Don’t mansplain, be respectful and remember to give the floor to women. That being said, all members are welcome to participate in all discussions... And keep in mind that the purpose of Women Make is to put women at the forefront.

Presumably the site is primarily for women, may I suggest perhaps a better choice of words? Although I find it unfortunate that we have to create a separate community based on gender, I hope you succeed in creating a positive community for women.

I'm not English native so copywriting suggestions are more than welcome. How would you have said it?

By avoiding pejorative, sexist words like "mansplaining".

Please don't be a jerk on HN. If you have a point beyond just wanting to lash out, the idea here would be to make it thoughtfully and substantively.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I wasn't being "a jerk". Please read my commenting history to understand that I'm not a troll or a person who goes out of their way to be mean.

I think the word "mansplaining" is sexist and pejorative.

If you have a point beyond just wanting to lash out [...]

I read this as, "If you have a [perspective] other than one I agree with [...]".

Please don't turn hn into a community that just echos opinions you agree with.

It is acceptable in native English. I think your target audience will understand. However, some people not in your target audience will get offended so it's up to you as to whether that's a problem for you.

It is laughable in English

Although I find it unfortunate that we have to create a separate community based on gender

Why? Freedom of association is an important human right. According to wikipedia[0] "Freedom of Association is both an individual right and a collective right, guaranteed by all modern and democratic legal systems".

I think it's great that they are just exercising their rights.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association

Then why are all men-only groups constantly under attack to include women (Boy Scouts of America, etc.)?

Arguably, the people aren't upset that there is a female-oriented space, but rather that the same kind of male-oriented space would likely be seen as "problematic" or "hostile."

Would anyone really want to join a male-oriented space? Most guys probably wish they could get girls to come to their D&D sessions...

Historically, there have been all-male golf clubs, gentlemens' clubs† and working mens' clubs. So there's been demand there at some points in history.

And I assume there are men-only gay bars and erectile-dysfunction support groups.

† https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White%27s not strip clubs.

And didn't feminists call most of those men-only groups sexist and demand they be opened up to women?

I totally see this perspective.

My hunch (no evidence) is that it was fine until people started using these groups for discussing business/politicking. So, basically the groups were corrupted. Once business or decision making starts to happen, the groups become exclusionary.

That's my best guess.

Religious reasons, poor social skills with women, avoiding sexual tensions that naturally arise in such an environment.

Religion

For the most part, leaving that one because there is a whole rat's nest of complexity to untangle that varies by jurisdiction and region of the world. Religious freedom is a generally well-respected (from a legal perspective) philosophy in many countries, but at the end of the day, in most of these countries, those freedoms are seeing a great deal of erosion due to the progression of human rights.

poor social skills with women

Frankly, if someone is bad at speaking with women, then there is an issue of individual social skills. I would argue that if someone is "bad at speaking with women", they are bad at speaking with people in general, but they just assume that because of gender, that they can set aside or be forgiven their poor social skills.

avoiding sexual tension that naturally arise

No. Sexual tension does not "naturally arise" between men and women any more than gay sexual tension arises between men and women participating in gender exclusive communities. If "sexual tension" is a problem for a heterosexual individuals when they are in a mixed gender environment, but not in a restricted gender environment, then those individuals have a self-control problem, not a sexual tension problem, since there is always the possibility that someone from the same gender will find them attractive and create "sexual tension". I don't know if you meant something else, but

Anecdotally I would disagree, I know plenty of men and women who just can't find the right words when it comes to the opposite sex but have no trouble navigating social situations otherwise. I'm skeptical that you've never come across such people.

Sexual tension occurs in all situations that pit people together for any significant length of time, regardless of sexual orientation. It is by definition a result of self-control, I'm not sure your definition of sexual tension is the same as mine based on this statement. It is unexpressed attraction usually because the situation may be inappropriate.

You seem opposed to the idea of gender-exclusive spaces. So I have to ask, do you disagree with women's only gyms? Men's only? Gender specific locker rooms?

Ostensibly, arguing the need for a male-oriented space implies that the default/mainstream spaces aren't already male-oriented. AFAIK, there isn't a huge outcry against male nurse associations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAMN

already male-oriented

If you scroll through the comments here, you may find that it's not a foregone conclusion that the mainstream spaces are necessarily male-oriented. Quite a few people feel the opposite, in fact.

I like the image previews/thumbnails that appear in the threads from the actual site. I assume you're rendering/screenshotting the site for mobile/desktop in order to generate the previews.

Is there a particular tool you're using/that you'd recommend? Headless Chrome, PhantomJS, NightmareJS? Do you just wait an arbitrary amount of time to assume the necessary visuals have loaded/rendered, or is there a feedback mechanism to indicate when it's ready to be captured?

Thank you, I'm using webshot-node (which relies on PhantomJS) but I might actually change. It doesn't always work well. There are different options (like waiting for the website to respond, or waiting for a specific amount of time), but even by tweaking those parameters it's not always reliable. I might give a try to capture-website soon.

Can you define the word woman?

Gender-segregated communities seem like a mixed bag.

On one hand, like the single-sex schools of yore, they may provide an opportunity for disadvantaged who can’t access “mainstream” communities.

On the other hand, their existence appears contrary to the general inclusivity trend, and if “mainstream” communities as a result acquire an excuse to be implicitly pro-male (since there are female communities, and explicitly male communities are considered unacceptable) then it must suck for those who do not strongly identify with either female or male gender.

It is hard to admit that our society really is still at a stage where gender exclusivity is necessary—but, given the number of female-only communities, it must be the case.

Happens I learned Node JS last year

Neat! Have you ever heard of curried functions? I only recently started using them in JS, and they've completely (and positively) revolutionized how I write Javascript (both backend and front).

What's with the downvotes?

I didn't downvote, but your comment seems a bit off-topic (presenting a random js feature in a thread that is not really about this, and there is nothing really extraordinary in the fact that the OP learned NodeJS last year - good for her!). See also steerpike's comment with which I agree. Your intent may have been sharing this feature that makes you enthousiastic so I can understand that you may find the downvotes frustrating. Don't lose your enthousiasm though, it's a great thing.

You may want to review the HN guidelines, they discourage discussing downvotes.

In case you're genuinely curious, I suspect you're being downvoted because your parent comment comes off as incredibly gatekeepery[0].

It's also illustrative of a very common occurrence in tech circles where the moment a woman mentions competence in a certain technology the first response of men around her is to throw technical questions at her in a way they simply don't in instances where a man mentions the same thing.

[0]https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Gatekeeping

I was worried that was the case :/ Thanks for expressing this!

I'd done the same regardless of gender (or experience level); it's really been that much of a game changer.

Edit: Do you know of any ways to share this sort of enthusiasm that won't come off that way? Or is just something that's not possible?

That's a really excellent question and I've sat here way longer than I probably should have over-analysing it to try and think of an answer for you.

I do think it's possible, but it's difficult to provide you with exact steps to follow that I'd class as a catch all.

Enthusiasm is great, but try to make sure that your enthusiasm isn't riding roughshod over the context - in your example it was easy to read your enthusiasm the wrong way because it was so tangentially related to what the OP was discussing. You kind of latched on to a throw away part of the primary topic and rushed into wanting to discuss that small part of. In that context it's easy to assume you're a type of bad actor[0] rather than just enthusiastic. Make it harder for people to assume the worst by taking their conversation seriously before jumping in with your off-topic excitement.

[0]https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/bad+actor

This looks great! I’m not a woman but my daughter will be eventually and she already likes to make.

Any reason why you chose to build your own vs use existing infrastructure (ie your own subreddit you moderate, closed facebook group, etc)? I’m not intending to sound critiquing, I’m interested in learning more about your insight.

I started with a Telegram group so I was relying on an existing infrastructure at first. Then when the community got bigger, I thought we needed a website, as an extension of our private group. I don't think it would have make a lot of sense to create a new group on another platform like Facebook or Reddit (since we were already using one).

I have been wondering why "women" is used as an adjective so much these days -- "women entrepreneurs" -- rather than the word "female." "Women" as an adjective has a very 1950s, almost Ralph Kramden-type vibe to it. "Women drivers" and the like. We wouldn't say "men nurses."