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To be a place to find users from "different backgrounds" it looks to me to only show the political bias of the author. Correct me if I am wrong, but the only s

To be a place to find users from "different backgrounds" it looks to me to only show the political bias of the author. Correct me if I am wrong, but the only sanctioned different background seems to be "POC" (what does that even mean), "LGBTQ+" and "with disability". The home page sports a "check 1.000 inspiring women" but not a "1.000 inspiring men". I guess only inspiring women are worth following. But actually they don't even need to be inspiring, since they also have a "random women" section. I thought propping up some people based solely on their gender was sexist. I guess it's not when we do it for women. Also, a fairly glaring omission in the topics seems to be religion. And I say it as a non believer. It looks like non-religious people won't be allowed to look for someone with a different background. In the end, the site is yours, and you can of course list, or not list, whomever you please. But the claim of discovering people from "different backgrounds" seems to me disingenuous at best. More accurate, given the current content, would be "a few, politically-sanctioned backgrounds".

chiefalchemist 8y ago
Um. Relative to the mainstream / status quo most of these are different. It might also be relative to what Twitter typically suggests. That is, if Twitter's suggestion are a reflection of the composition of the user base and Twitter isn't composed of a fitting percentage of different, then different will be over looked. You might have a point. But trying framing it as useful and constructive instead of bitter and confused.
bemmu 8y ago
Would it be a better solution to let users categorize themselves freely with tags they can type themselves?
- tcodina 8y ago
  Good idea, I wanted to implement dynamic categories in the beginning, but somehow the idea got lost in the way. I simply feared that without enough users, most dynamically created categories would be broken and this would be a major put off for the initial users. As the platform has been growing quite rapidly, it is certainly a feature planned in my roadmap.
tcodina 8y ago
That is a fair perspective on the platform. I initially created the website because of a lack of women in my following list - I had ~80% men and only 20% women, many of which were friends of mine (as a woman myself). I struggled to find women in my field (technology), and this was the origin of Twiverse - allowing you to use filters and categories to find different people. I understand it might feel biased with the current filters, but I could not have endless filters in the platform right on launch, considering the lack of users, so I thought of a few, implemented them, and reached out to as many people I knew with that criteria to try to have a userbase for each. In terms of your concern in regards to men, truth is I made the category for women after receiving a suggestion from a partner of mine who wanted to have a page displaying women to feature in her newsletter, and I decided to implement it as a bit of an extra. See that I did not add any other category like that around, it was a lot of extra work and it did not feel worth it. Other than that, keep in mind you may search for any of the categories for only men by selecting said filter, so I don't think you are so right to call me out on the supposed wrongdoing. Religion & political ideology were 2 filters I wanted to implement prior to launch but I did not fearing controversy, specially as a small & young maker trying to get a (good) reputation. Then again, I might implement those in the future, as the website grows. Thanks for the reminder. Overall, I would say that your comment has a good basis, but you seem to have omitted the fact that the website's core concept is to find diverse users, as in minorities & underprivileged group, and men don't happen to be one of those groups. Nonetheless, if the random women section bothers too many people (I've received a few complaints sadly, in spite of the plenty of positive comments that many people have sent me in regards to it), I might get rid of it and replace it for something a little bit more customizable. I will see. Thank you for the insight.
- nemof 8y ago
  quite honestly i dont need to see more men on my twitter follow list. i already follow 2.8k people and i know it's more than a 50/50 split of men ratio of men to women, so i've gone out of my way to try and diversify my follow list by preferring to follow women, poc and non gender confirming people. you're gonna get some silly uppity people who get all upset about this kinda thing, but personally i think there's real value in preferencing groups which aren't seen as the 'default' when it comes to cultural capital. in that regard whether it was through happy coincidence or otherwise, your service seems pretty cool.
danso 8y ago
You’ve had a problem finding inspiring men worth following on Twitter?
vertis 8y ago
Well done on slamming the 18 yr olds first product. This is very clearly the first release of a product and it is definitely targeting a slice of the functionality, but that's just good sense right. Get it out there for people to try and give feedback on. I appreciate the effort and thinking that has gone into a product like this. Sure there are a whole bunch of features that I would love to see added but I'm sure that will come with time. The fact that it targets PoC, LGBTQ+ and Women is a fantastic start. I remember an article that went around on HN a while back that analyzed the gender balance of twitter follows, and the results were not good. Working on diversity in tech and on twitter and highlighting women over men is not sexist, it's pushing the needle back in a direction that it needs to go in. Men are not default.
- tcodina 8y ago
  Thank you. I have to admit though this is my 5th product this year, I'm on a roll, so I do accept criticism - indeed though I felt that the parent comment was just plain wrong in this case.
  - vertis 8y ago
    Oops, how presumptive of me.

chiefalchemist 8y ago

Um. Relative to the mainstream / status quo most of these are different. It might also be relative to what Twitter typically suggests. That is, if Twitter's suggestion are a reflection of the composition of the user base and Twitter isn't composed of a fitting percentage of different, then different will be over looked. You might have a point. But trying framing it as useful and constructive instead of bitter and confused.

bemmu 8y ago

Would it be a better solution to let users categorize themselves freely with tags they can type themselves?

tcodina 8y ago
Good idea, I wanted to implement dynamic categories in the beginning, but somehow the idea got lost in the way. I simply feared that without enough users, most dynamically created categories would be broken and this would be a major put off for the initial users. As the platform has been growing quite rapidly, it is certainly a feature planned in my roadmap.

tcodina 8y ago

That is a fair perspective on the platform. I initially created the website because of a lack of women in my following list - I had ~80% men and only 20% women, many of which were friends of mine (as a woman myself). I struggled to find women in my field (technology), and this was the origin of Twiverse - allowing you to use filters and categories to find different people. I understand it might feel biased with the current filters, but I could not have endless filters in the platform right on launch, considering the lack of users, so I thought of a few, implemented them, and reached out to as many people I knew with that criteria to try to have a userbase for each. In terms of your concern in regards to men, truth is I made the category for women after receiving a suggestion from a partner of mine who wanted to have a page displaying women to feature in her newsletter, and I decided to implement it as a bit of an extra. See that I did not add any other category like that around, it was a lot of extra work and it did not feel worth it. Other than that, keep in mind you may search for any of the categories for only men by selecting said filter, so I don't think you are so right to call me out on the supposed wrongdoing. Religion & political ideology were 2 filters I wanted to implement prior to launch but I did not fearing controversy, specially as a small & young maker trying to get a (good) reputation. Then again, I might implement those in the future, as the website grows. Thanks for the reminder. Overall, I would say that your comment has a good basis, but you seem to have omitted the fact that the website's core concept is to find diverse users, as in minorities & underprivileged group, and men don't happen to be one of those groups. Nonetheless, if the random women section bothers too many people (I've received a few complaints sadly, in spite of the plenty of positive comments that many people have sent me in regards to it), I might get rid of it and replace it for something a little bit more customizable. I will see. Thank you for the insight.

nemof 8y ago
quite honestly i dont need to see more men on my twitter follow list. i already follow 2.8k people and i know it's more than a 50/50 split of men ratio of men to women, so i've gone out of my way to try and diversify my follow list by preferring to follow women, poc and non gender confirming people. you're gonna get some silly uppity people who get all upset about this kinda thing, but personally i think there's real value in preferencing groups which aren't seen as the 'default' when it comes to cultural capital. in that regard whether it was through happy coincidence or otherwise, your service seems pretty cool.

danso 8y ago

You’ve had a problem finding inspiring men worth following on Twitter?

vertis 8y ago

Well done on slamming the 18 yr olds first product. This is very clearly the first release of a product and it is definitely targeting a slice of the functionality, but that's just good sense right. Get it out there for people to try and give feedback on. I appreciate the effort and thinking that has gone into a product like this. Sure there are a whole bunch of features that I would love to see added but I'm sure that will come with time. The fact that it targets PoC, LGBTQ+ and Women is a fantastic start. I remember an article that went around on HN a while back that analyzed the gender balance of twitter follows, and the results were not good. Working on diversity in tech and on twitter and highlighting women over men is not sexist, it's pushing the needle back in a direction that it needs to go in. Men are not default.

tcodina 8y ago
Thank you. I have to admit though this is my 5th product this year, I'm on a roll, so I do accept criticism - indeed though I felt that the parent comment was just plain wrong in this case.
- vertis 8y ago
  Oops, how presumptive of me.