I don't know if I'd believe that. Why would someone leave just because one person out of hundreds made a comment that was offensive to them?
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?
Because their comment hurt. If you joined an online community, and immediately someone told you that your opinion is stupid, wouldn't you be hurt? TITS OR GTFO. That's why.
Well I could understand why it'd hurt, but I wouldn't say that it'd be reason to leave a community and never come back. One bad apple doesn't ruin the batch. Also, just someone telling you that your comment was stupid doesn't explain the gender gap between users (Laurelai was saying how many women leave after being offended). I'm sure people tell males their opinions are stupid as well, but apparently we've stuck around. Never knew the backstory to TITS OR GTFO (yeah I read the backstory to thenewgreen's comment), but I couldn't imagine something like that here. I guess I sort of just thought that Hubski was sort of a haven from that sort of thing. Do you get that sort of vibe here? I haven't noticed it, and I surely hope I'm not that ignorant that I don't see it at all.
I don't get that vibe, but I'm not female, so I wouldn't know. We as a community just need to be aware that females on other sites are treated with less respect. We need to not do that.
I plead ignorance on what TITS stands for. GTFO I figured out but have yet to see it on Hubski. So what's the first one? Thanks in advance.
Hey thenewgreen. Tits or GTFO was coined on 4chan back when the site was new. It was pretty much the first community where users could post and be anonymous. If a user was outed as a female, then the male community would gang up on her and pretty much say Tits or Get the fuck out. ( TITS OR GTFO ) The female user in question would have to post a picture of her breasts, or her input would be totally ignored by the community. That's the least that could happen. I've heard stories on where they punished the user for not abiding by that "rule." Punishment could be everything from slandering her name, to DDOSing her website. It's sick, and perverted. That's where it came from. *********EDIT************* Sorry if I seem a bit prickly. These issues really make me upset.
This is not a 100% accurate description of 4chan. For one, on a lighter not, more often than not the woman in question was a guy trolling the community with images drawn from google. Prior to the post ID system across the site there was also no real way to tell if the person posting was the girl in question, nor could they be consistently followed without being present on a site outside of 4chan. When you went in to one of the boards, you were anonymous to other users pretty effectively, so having your identity revealed as a woman was nearly impossible with volunteering the information. Without a user profile or a way to track post history, its very hard to determine if someone is a man or a woman. Understanding 4chan, and specifically /b/ (what people usually refer to when they are talking about 4chan) is very difficult without having experienced it for yourself, but its not a necessarily sick or perverted act. Part of what belonging to the /b/ community was was understanding how to fit in to the circlejerk, and understanding that when you stepped in to the anonymous forums words were wind and you were to be as offensive as possible. Its supposed to be a caustic environment, because its basically a room full of people yelling. That being said, the culture /b/ has is not something to take outside of /b/. The people who did back when I was active there were, to borrow a phrase, "the cancer that is killing /b/." I also don't recall a woman being DDOSed or slandered for not showing her breasts, though I know many, many people have been DDOSed for reasons ranging from being the Westboro baptist church, to being an asshole of a boss, to be a feminist writer that /b/ disagreed with. I suppose, if I had to pick a really good metaphor to accurately describe /b/, its a really fucked up exploitation film from Italy in the 70s that is also fascinatingly immersed in its own genre. The part of me that loves grindhouse and has an appreciation for Italian exploitation films as a subgenre adores it for being just so deliciously messed up and insane, but I would never, ever, EVER bring it to a friends house or show my parents it.
If they existed here, they'd make me upset too. First thing I would do (as a user) would be to "mute" and "ignore" the unfortunate person that acted thus. Thankfully, as of yet, they don't exist here and I'd hope they wouldn't find fertile ground if they visited.Sorry if I seem a bit prickly. These issues really make me upset.