On the prominence of women on HN

novemberwest.com

6 points·luu··4 comments

High karma is, to a first order of approximation, proportional to the amount of time spent on hn. Secondly, many leaders, over time, gather a following--users look for their commentary as part of their browsing pattern.

I also like to sit up front. I didn't always, but later in life took to that habit. It is a corralary to "90% of success is just showing up".

Hmm. I checked a few of the names that occurred to me immediately -- jl, DaniFong, rachelbythebay -- and you're right, none of them are high score candidates here.

Still though, I'm not sure if that's evidence of some kind of discrimination, or just evidence that more women have the good sense not to spend too much time on HN.

In my case, it's mostly a matter of browsing HN late at night, so I come in late to most discussions and usually don't have anything to add that hasn't already been said. Replying with "I agree" doesn't exactly add to the conversation, so I just upvote and move on.

I've never felt any sort of discrimination on HN, or in the industry in general. There was one occasion (working on a contract at a young startup) where I felt out of place, but it wasn't intentional alienation, just different interests/priorities, and it had as much to do with age as it was gender. I had probably 10yrs on almost everyone else there and was just at a different point in my life.

So, what the op wanted in the end is have a sort of denial that women do not have big amount of karma as most of men...

Interesting, and the motivations for that alone might be a interesting subject.

I had a girlfriend once that wanted to stop working to having kids, other women frequently mistreated her when she voiced that opinion, usually with tones that implied that all women have a duty to be equal to men, even if they don't want to.

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