I see it's been asked before what percentage of women might make up contributors here, with no clear answer. But it seems like there aren't many or they'd rather not make a point about it.
It was started by a female YC employee and she then left YC employment to run it full time, with YC funding it as part of their summer 2019 batch.
The issue is, what then about "white men in tech"? Do they get to have a group to themselves, to discuss issues from, dunno, "dealing with tech Feminazis", or whatever white men in tech struggle with? What about white supremacists in tech? Elite SEs against influx of cheap junior labour?
I'm personally not a member of any such "selective" groups and for these reasons feel a bit ambivalent about them.
But as i say, go ahead as far as I'm concerned...
> The issue is, what then about "white men in tech"? Do they get to have a group to themselves, to discuss issues from [...]
An interesting observation that white men having their own space is an "issue" whereas any other collective is not an issue.
If P, then Q. Not Q. But still, P.
Whatever you might be interested in discussing or reading here, I as a male might be interested in too.
As far as wanting a platform for women specifically, that also seems understandable given how hostile the community here can be towards women and subjects that involve womens' issues. Just see some of the other responses here, or anything approaching certain social or "political" topics which some people, women in particular, might find relevant.
>> that also seems understandable given how hostile the community here can be towards women and subjects that involve) womens' issues
Someone might also propose "HN for Crypto so we don't get bashed in every thread" or "HN for Tesla fanboys so we can talk without getting hate".
I would on the other hand appreciate more widely targeted articles on HN, instead of dozens of "Here's the latest new language" threads.
It's literally the Paradox of Tolerance at play. Contrast Twitter with its "free speech alternatives" and then consider that Twitter is actually historically intentionally hands-off when it comes to content moderation.
I agree that an "HN for women" likely wouldn't solve any of these problems as by that description alone it sounds like the "girlboss feminism" equivalent and would likely inherit many of its problems. But I would also argue that if you try to distill the problematic aspects out of HN it ceases to be HN and you should really just ask about more inclusive tech news communities rather than a pinker version of the orange site.
Not even people on Twitter believe that, according to a poll that Elon Musk ran.
What part of HN have I missed over the last ~decade and a half?
I could be with you on the "libertarian" aspect ... but "right-libertarian leaning"
No way - this site leans notably left (albeit often with a libertarian twist)
I realize that the prevalence of religious fundamentalist opinions in US politics skews the perception of what "left" and "right" mean but NOT being a theocrat or NOT actively wanting a white ethnostate doesn't make anyone "left-wing".
People have different requirements, and this person seems to not find their requirements fulfilled here. No need to take this personal.
The current topic is about having a separate HN with the majority of the community just being women.
I regret having asked now.
Poll: My gender is... (2008) — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=126938
Poll: Male or female? (2009) — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=591309
Poll: Male or female or other (2013) — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5520342
That's what it's like to be the default character model. That's not what it's like not being that.
Heck, for the longest time as a white guy in tech I thought simply treating people who aren't white guys as if they were was good enough. That only changed when I listened to a woman talk about her experience of being on the receiving end of that, with her colleagues being so comfortable treating her as "one of the boys" that they'd openly be misogynist about other women in her presence ("but you're not like them of course").
Not being the default character model sucks. Having a community with a default character model closer to your own is an improvement. Of course even better still would be not having any single default character model but "pink HN" might still be better than nothing.
Do most women feel the same way you do? Because it's their opinion that matters here. Do they feel HN is toxic? Can it be solved on the current HN? Does it REALLY need a separate website with a divided community? Would we also need a separate HN for transgenders and other minorities currently existing in the tech space?
It's an extreme solution that only fosters more discrimination in my opinion. I don't think the question merits the whole thing being flagged, but I definitely don't agree with the idea.
BTW I see that it happened to majority of comments. What the heck is going on here?
Therapy is useless if you're not willing to change. HN doesn't actually show any indication of willigness to change, quite the opposite actually. If how HN is is what's keeping women out, all you're asking of women is to grit their teeth and endure it.
It's just a fact that there's far more men in the industry, it's been like this forever. Even if suddenly we had a women majority of new people, it'd still take many generations for us to hit 50/50.
But in this community, what are the issues that makes women -allegedly- not feeling welcome? Because that would be a poll with merit. "Therapy is useless if you're not willing to change" -> What change has even been suggested?
You're assuming there's less women because "HN is as it is", but isn't it far more likely to be because there's just less women in the industry? It could be either, but we can't just assume and take drastic action. It's not that there's zero women here.
The best way to improve "inclusivity" is by not worrying about "inclusivity"
Let people do what they want
>It's just a fact that there's far more men in the industry, it's been like this forever. Even if suddenly we had a women majority of new people, it'd still take many generations for us to hit 50/50.
Why would a 50/50 split even be desirable? Should there be a 50/50 split in every industry? Why (or why not)? How would that be enforced?
It's been like this forever, for very small values of "forever". Programming literally started as a female career path because it had wasn't a highly regarded profession and seen as similar to being a secretary or office manager. Not to mention needing the men in other professions because we were coming off the tail end of two world wars (and the US was sending its young men to the meat grinder of Vietnam).
That said, this is also very much a cultural phenomenon rather than a global one. Percentages look very different in other countries than the US and Europe. But this is tangential because I'm not talking about HN needing a "50/50 split" and you're claiming HN merely has parity with the industry overall:
> You're assuming there's less women because "HN is as it is", but isn't it far more likely to be because there's just less women in the industry? It could be either, but we can't just assume and take drastic action. It's not that there's zero women here.
Did you look at the polls that were linked?
2008: 17.5%
2009: 0.54%
2013: 0.57%
That 2008 number is somewhat similar to a random number I could find about SV in particular but still well below the 25%-ish figures I'm seeing for tech overall in most other statistics. And that figure came from a poll with an order of magnitude fewer participants. The other two aren't "zero women" but they're a rounding error away from that.
> But in this community, what are the issues that makes women -allegedly- not feeling welcome?
Why do you ask someone on HN instead of looking at what people are saying about HN outside of HN? Of course calling it an issue requires you to actually agree that it is bad or a problem.
If you don't agree that something is a problem, that's literally an unwillingness to change, no matter how justified you think that unwillingness is or how much you disagree with the thing being a problem.
Yes, it was a hyperbole. The point is that it stopped being a "female career path" at some point, and wasn't for a long time, thus there's many more men in the industry and that will take many generations to offset.
>Did you look at the polls that were linked?
Yes, the polls show that there aren't many women here, but you cannot infer the reason for that from the polls. You're being biased or omitting the information that led you to this conclusion.
>Why do you ask someone on HN instead of looking at what people are saying about HN outside of HN? Of course calling it an issue requires you to actually agree that it is bad or a problem.
Because we're having a discussion here right now and if you know that information, it's helpful for everyone if you shared. A debate is not about winning or losing, but for everyone to learn and improve from them.
>If you don't agree that something is a problem, that's literally an unwillingness to change, no matter how justified you think that unwillingness is or how much you disagree with the thing being a problem.
This is wrong. Things can still change for the better despite the lack of a problem.
The lack of women is concerning, depending on the -reason- why they're not here. I still don't see any clear reasoning that HN's culture is the problem, and I'm not just going to blindly agree.
I didn't say that they should do all of the work. But going elsewhere would diminish everybody's experience. Segregation is always the worse option. If the problem is that we're missing a specific perspective, the solution in a vibrant community cannot be to just accept that and let things calcify.
> HN doesn't actually show any indication of willigness to change
HN is not a monolith, this is unnecessarily reductive. Since this is a collaborative effort, it's a bad idea to drive progressive people out and cede the ground to conservatives.
> all you're asking of women is to grit their teeth and endure it.
How on Earth does this reflect what I said?
How is HN keeping women out?
Every comment I've seen in the decade I've been on HN dismissing a woman solely because of the gender has been either downvoted to oblivion, flagged, or even deleted by the mod team.
However for the people that do want it, I think that they need to look further than HN. By its centralized nature HN will guarantee that the over represented voices will drown everyone else.
The only way I see this kind of an effort gathering steam is by using one of the discussion platforms coming from the ActivityPub community as a starting point, but unfortunately that brings all the problems of building a community from scratch to the surface. Even if the community would be connected to the greater mass of the fediverse, it would still require a lot of effort to gather mind share. :(
But I would still be interested in seeing such an effort take root. (And to toot my own horn, I do happen to have a project that can be used for this purpose; details in my bio, anyone feel free to reach out.)
Segregation happens naturally in any human society. It's not something we can avoid. Though, there are supporting elements, and in that regard this site is quite good, as there is not much infrastructure to support community-building here.
> as long as conversation is held in good faith and in a respectful manner.
It's not that simple. Even with good faith and respect can you create an unattractive environment for someone, without being guilty of it. And it's not like discussions here are all in good faith and absolut respectful. Tone and messages here can be very harsh, just with less swearings.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/
otherwise, HN is pretty neutral on gender...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5520342
With numbers like that it would seem impossible not to be.