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I've been on HN for closing in on fifteen years. I have been open from the start about having been molested and raped as a child and also about being a divorced

I've been on HN for closing in on fifteen years. I have been open from the start about having been molested and raped as a child and also about being a divorced single mom who needs an income. Most men who talk to me more than a little are hoping to get involved with me romantically. Trying to use HN to network professionally and establish an adequate income has been a spectacular failure. While homeless, I was the "most prominent" openly female member of HN and trying to establish an earned income via freelance writing and resume work and couldn't do it. Meanwhile, merely being obviously homeless and not excessively ugly got me offers of cash for sex. The entire world works this way. I have had people here tell me there is something very wrong with a woman talking about topics like sexual assault on an overwhelmingly male forum. I have had that said by someone who essentially positioned themselves as a trans activist which makes me wonder if you are a mtf trans individual, just who are you allowed to talk to about such topics? Only other mtf trans individuals? Why is my gender something of importance here? I have been dismissed for years as not having a valid point that as the apparently highest ranked woman in terms of karma on HN I still cannot manage to use this platform the way plenty of men do so: To earn an adequate living. I shall sit back and wait for the comments insisting that is off-topic and irrelevant to role in. Or other means to try to stomp the point into the ground.

15457345234 3y ago
> I still cannot manage to use this platform the way plenty of men do so: To earn an adequate living. Uh, what on earth gives you the impression that people are using this niche forum to earn an adequate living? Maybe people use it to find jobs in the sector if they have relevant skills but to make a living from the platform itself...? I mean, how would you even go about doing that?
- DoreenMichele 3y ago
  ...what on earth gives you the impression... I have been here nearly fifteen years. I know for a fact that participation here helps line the pockets of some of the men here. I will let others decide if the entire community will, as usual, let someone assert that I am imagining things they know is fact or will for once back me up.
  - 15457345234 3y ago
    I'm not arguing with you, I just don't understand _how_ this is occurring. Self-promotion of products? I can see that. You aren't promoting any products. Did you try that in the past? Self-promotion of written content or a blog? Yeah a lot of the links here are from URLs I've never seen before, are people actually making money or just blowing their own horn? I'm asking you by what mechanism people make money here, as in, actual money, not beer money. Because I can see people making 5 cents a word back through adwords, but beyond that...
    - DoreenMichele 3y ago
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  - salawat 3y ago
    >I have been here nearly fifteen years. I know for a fact that participation here helps line the pockets of some of the men here. Well... Yes. The way it works is the people who established reap ideas from the technically minded, but not necessarily business minded. Once the idea bubbles up sufficiently to be recognized as a viable business opportunity for someone, it is either acted on by onramping the originator to a source of funding/offers of partnership, or just run off with. Back when interest rates were zero, a Unicorn was well worth the risk if it decided to turn into a Pegasus. That it functions as a cadre of technically/business literate individuals is a bonus in a sense. But I tend to limit myself to trying to be a voice for sanity here; as I've found that sometimes the tendency of YC to encourage people to disregard ethical constraints sometimes requires a bucket of cold water to remedy or at least give the Feds a datapoint in the inevitable investigation that someone was told somewhere that X is not a good idea. Plus, it's a great way to keep a finger on what the people I vote "Most likely to facilitate the creation of an unconstrained technical helltopia" are up to. If you're looking for people with a shred of unconditional decency (if such a person exists), mayhaps look elsewhere.
barrysteve 3y ago
I'm a man who wasted twenty years programming with nothing to show for it. I moved on, to a working class job. You're riding false hope and trying to get blood from a stone. HN doesn't pay for commenters, it pays start ups. You should move on. Fifteen years is enough.
- DoreenMichele 3y ago
  I gave up a long time ago on ever making money via HN. I rarely post my own work here. I no longer have my resume service linked in my profile. Trying to get HN to hire me isn't the point of my remarks here. Do note that multiple other people felt some need to shoot me down here and insist my gender isn't an issue and etc. I don't talk about me to try to get anything out of it for me. I talk about me because talking about other people can get you sued for libel and not giving an example at all generally means it's too vague to make any real difference in anyone's mind. Talking about me is the least worst solution I have found even though it routinely gets me attacked and dismissed. I talk about me and my track record on HN because I am on HN and you can verify my claims by checking my comment history under this handle and my previous one. You can see that I spent years trying to make money "honestly" while dirt poor and being offered money for sex while homeless and turning it down because I am celibate for medical reasons. I talk about me because I have been here long enough some people know what I am saying is true, having read my comments for years. Maybe it will get those people to actually think and do things differently. It seemingly worked once before on a different subject. While homeless and on a tablet, I used to complain somewhat frequently "I can't access that/that doesn't work for me. I'm on a tablet." And now design is mobile first. Is that all my doing? Of course not. But I suspect programmers who never spoke to me, never admitted they knew I existed nonetheless kept my complaints in mind and it likely got us there faster. At some point I quit bitching all the time "I'm homeless. I'm on a cheap tablet. I can't do that." Things just began working and stopped being a problem.
  - barrysteve 3y ago
    All good. I have nothing to add to that. Real life people who know you, would have more to say. I hope it works out.

15457345234 3y ago

> I still cannot manage to use this platform the way plenty of men do so: To earn an adequate living. Uh, what on earth gives you the impression that people are using this niche forum to earn an adequate living? Maybe people use it to find jobs in the sector if they have relevant skills but to make a living from the platform itself...? I mean, how would you even go about doing that?

DoreenMichele 3y ago
...what on earth gives you the impression... I have been here nearly fifteen years. I know for a fact that participation here helps line the pockets of some of the men here. I will let others decide if the entire community will, as usual, let someone assert that I am imagining things they know is fact or will for once back me up.
- 15457345234 3y ago
  I'm not arguing with you, I just don't understand _how_ this is occurring. Self-promotion of products? I can see that. You aren't promoting any products. Did you try that in the past? Self-promotion of written content or a blog? Yeah a lot of the links here are from URLs I've never seen before, are people actually making money or just blowing their own horn? I'm asking you by what mechanism people make money here, as in, actual money, not beer money. Because I can see people making 5 cents a word back through adwords, but beyond that...
  - DoreenMichele 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- salawat 3y ago
  >I have been here nearly fifteen years. I know for a fact that participation here helps line the pockets of some of the men here. Well... Yes. The way it works is the people who established reap ideas from the technically minded, but not necessarily business minded. Once the idea bubbles up sufficiently to be recognized as a viable business opportunity for someone, it is either acted on by onramping the originator to a source of funding/offers of partnership, or just run off with. Back when interest rates were zero, a Unicorn was well worth the risk if it decided to turn into a Pegasus. That it functions as a cadre of technically/business literate individuals is a bonus in a sense. But I tend to limit myself to trying to be a voice for sanity here; as I've found that sometimes the tendency of YC to encourage people to disregard ethical constraints sometimes requires a bucket of cold water to remedy or at least give the Feds a datapoint in the inevitable investigation that someone was told somewhere that X is not a good idea. Plus, it's a great way to keep a finger on what the people I vote "Most likely to facilitate the creation of an unconstrained technical helltopia" are up to. If you're looking for people with a shred of unconditional decency (if such a person exists), mayhaps look elsewhere.

barrysteve 3y ago

I'm a man who wasted twenty years programming with nothing to show for it. I moved on, to a working class job. You're riding false hope and trying to get blood from a stone. HN doesn't pay for commenters, it pays start ups. You should move on. Fifteen years is enough.

DoreenMichele 3y ago
I gave up a long time ago on ever making money via HN. I rarely post my own work here. I no longer have my resume service linked in my profile. Trying to get HN to hire me isn't the point of my remarks here. Do note that multiple other people felt some need to shoot me down here and insist my gender isn't an issue and etc. I don't talk about me to try to get anything out of it for me. I talk about me because talking about other people can get you sued for libel and not giving an example at all generally means it's too vague to make any real difference in anyone's mind. Talking about me is the least worst solution I have found even though it routinely gets me attacked and dismissed. I talk about me and my track record on HN because I am on HN and you can verify my claims by checking my comment history under this handle and my previous one. You can see that I spent years trying to make money "honestly" while dirt poor and being offered money for sex while homeless and turning it down because I am celibate for medical reasons. I talk about me because I have been here long enough some people know what I am saying is true, having read my comments for years. Maybe it will get those people to actually think and do things differently. It seemingly worked once before on a different subject. While homeless and on a tablet, I used to complain somewhat frequently "I can't access that/that doesn't work for me. I'm on a tablet." And now design is mobile first. Is that all my doing? Of course not. But I suspect programmers who never spoke to me, never admitted they knew I existed nonetheless kept my complaints in mind and it likely got us there faster. At some point I quit bitching all the time "I'm homeless. I'm on a cheap tablet. I can't do that." Things just began working and stopped being a problem.
- barrysteve 3y ago
  All good. I have nothing to add to that. Real life people who know you, would have more to say. I hope it works out.