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comment by lil
lil  ·  4312 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The Results are In.

Good morning all who are responding to these statistics, particularly IntimidatingScones who said this

    What is it about places like this that drive females away?
I would not draw that conclusion from the statistics. Your statement implies that women have visited here and been driven away by the content or attitudes of the posters. We have no evidence for that. In fact, I've been attracted by the content and attitudes of the posters and I belong to the 2% age demographic and the 5% gender demographic.

In a recent conversation with flagamuffin about Hubski as a Third Space we explored how an online community like Hubski is like a familiar coffee shop or bookstore. When you participate here for a while, it becomes like that and you return to see how your friends are doing and what they are thinking. When one of your friends doesn't show up for a while, you worry. Has littlebirdie's cancer returned? How is mk recovering from his flu?

Perhaps male-gendered people 18-24 have a greater capacity for this sort of hanging out, maybe they come back for the music, the news, the coffee. Maybe women prefer face-to-face meetings, maybe they just do not find their way here. Hubski does not give instant gratification and you do have to give a lot before you get back, so it might be frustrating. Intimidating Scones: I've read your posts because 90% of your posts have been text, and I'm interested in what people think and write, moreso than links to videos or articles. That's just me. Other people are looking for science or music or whatever.

1. Re Sexism There may well be offensive people on Hubski. If you could see who I am ignoring and muting, you will see who some of them are. What might be an insensitive comment, might also just be someone whose writing is not 100% clear. If that might be the case, say "What do you mean?" and engage in a dialogue. As you can see here, I was once disturbed by this comment but satisfied with the clarification.



JTHipster  ·  4312 days ago  ·  link  ·  

To explain the nale demographic, men are typically the dominant gender in the IT fields and usually end up at the front of whatever new is happening on the internet, with exceptions of course.

Because a great deal of internet culture developed first with men and has only really started adapting to large numbers of women a couple years back, its to be expected that a new site is going to have a predominantly male userbase, especially a content aggregator. If Hubski hits a reddit like period of growth then you can expect the female userbase to grow in turn.

That being said, I will be sure to invite some women I know on here if they seem like they'd fit. An echo chamber is always a terrible place to be unless you feel like stagnating.

....except that the mindset of echo chambers being negative is just a product of the echo chamber of being in an intellectual community. Circles within circles, all the way down.

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mk  ·  4311 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    How is mk recovering from his flu?

Much better, thanks!

Myabe not clear-headed enough to weigh in here yet, though. :)

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user-inactivated  ·  4312 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Good post; I agree.

    Has littlebirdie's cancer returned?

I haven't heard from her in quite sometime. I've been thinking about that this week.

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thenewgreen  ·  4312 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'm concerned too. Could be she just moved on though.

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user-inactivated  ·  4312 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I hope not! She was going to send me a copy of her book cum memoir, and I was going to send her back something cool and I was really looking forward to that.

Selah, I guess.

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thenewgreen  ·  4312 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I bought one of her books from Amazon about 4 weeks ago and it still hasn't arrived. I should probably look in to that...

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user-inactivated  ·  4312 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yeah, either she never got mine off, or it got waylayed. I messaged her but didn't get a response.

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thenewgreen  ·  4312 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I emailed her. I hope she is well.

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