I think the lack of women here and on reddit speaks for itself.
I don't think that necessarily means that a site is sexist, especially a site like hubski with a very small community for what the site is. Reddit is a much stronger case; reddit is very large and the majority of users are very immature and thus a great deal of 14 year old sexism is passed around which will naturally drive a portion of women away (though there is still a good segment of reddit that is female). Since hubski is still in its very early stages in terms of population growth, the lack of women may just be something of a coincidence, the natural result of a small website which is not designed for casual use. Bear in mind, at least in the United States, women were not a large part of the internet until social media has really kicked off, and it is only with tumblr and pintrest that women have really started to hit deeper segments of the internet in the same force as men. That being said, what we can conclude from the lack of women on hubski is that there is a lack of women on hubski. Without feedback from either dissatisfied users, random visitors, or members of the community, we cannot really draw conclusions regarding whether or not the ratio is due to sexism, lack of interesting content for the women who have visited, or just a lack of exposure. Or another reason entirely.
So women are likely to leave after seeing one offensive comment, but not men? Edit: I feel like my post sounds almost confrontational. I sincerely don't mean it to sound that way (sorry if it does).
Its not just seeing one offensive comment in itself, its lack of moderation. Women face far more harassment in general just for admitting being women online than men do. Here this video will help explain things better than I can.
Hi Laurelai, you say two things above that I disagree with: I think the lack of women here and on reddit speaks for itself.
again, I'm not sure it's because women have visited and decided to stay away or if they have never been here or are just not interested in this kind of site. and If you want more women here make the space welcoming to women.
I don't think the space is unwelcoming to women. Here's why:
I've been female since I started on Hubski. I've been completely out as a woman because my name is kind of girlly and my website is posted here and there are girlly pics of me on it.
Nonetheless, over 100 people seem to want to hear what I have to say and of my last dozen posts, quite a few people have shared them with their followers, (and like everybody else, quite a few have been of interest only to me.) My guess is that at least 95% of my followers are currently male-gendered and at least 40% of them are probably under 25. Maybe I remind them of their mother. People have disagreed with me. People have said hostile things to me. You know what I do: I edit my posts constantly. Someone objected to one of my tags, I changed it. Someone objected to the title of a post (Sex and Art at Burning Man), he had a point, so I changed it. Did I run away from Hubski? No.
But people whose needs (for attention, community, conversation, acceptance, stimulation, ideas, science, literature or whatever) are NOT being met, should definitely NOT stay here.
Is it my responsibility to try and get women here? No. I am actually connected to huge communities of women in IT. I go to conferences for women in IT and science. It never crossed my mind to suggest they visit Hubski.
I guess, if I have a point, it's this: I have no idea why people are blaming Hubski for their own unhappiness with it. I think Hubski bends over backwards to be welcoming. If people are critical or unhappy, perhaps it is because they need to be critical and unhappy right now. I could be wrong, and I'm interested in hearing examples or evidence of how Hubski is unwelcoming.
I guess my question is, do you still get that feeling here? Because I don't notice it. But I'm also a guy.
There is no report button among other things, plus ignoring isnt really a good solution for moderation. Say you have one guy who harasses women, each woman here has to block this person instead of one person reporting him. It puts the burden on those who get attacked or have verbal abuse thrown at them.
The ignore button is a report button. Enough ignores flags a user. Also, at this point you or anyone else should feel free to contact us with any concerns. -obviously this second bit will not scale well but the first bit should. In the interim if anyone ever feels harassed, please let us know.
thenewgreen, two things I agree with Laurelai in that the ignore button solves some but not all problems, You have to be harassed by the person to know that person should be ignored, and If you ignore someone likely to harass people, you won't see other people getting harassed by them and be there to stand up for them. This is why I've chosen to mute but not ignore.
Good points. Thank you.
That's true. But what happens when someone uses a "report" button as a "they hurt my feelings" button? When people "cry wolf", do they lose the ability to "flag" someone? How does that work?