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> 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 ar

> 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.
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  > I know for a fact that participation here helps line the pockets of some of the men here. This is so vague as to be unusable. Firstly, I (sadly) have absolutely no doubt as to much of what you said. Offers of cash for sex, flirtations, white knighting. > trying to establish an earned income via freelance writing and resume work and couldn't do it HN isn't - as you know - really about soliciting work for yourself, outside a few sanctioned threads a month. There may be random people here and there who might make an ad hoc mention of it with a "reach out to me" message. But if done too much, they get sanctioned and censured. Regardless of gender. I would not be surprised if you had said you could not earn income from HN as a freelance writer if your name was John Smith. I fail to surmise that it has anything to do with your gender. But back to your comment, participation here lining the pockets of some of the men: The biggest way I see for anyone to earn income here is networking. But this place is also very specifically not LinkedIn. There is an acceptance, even encouragement of it as far as it doesn't interfere with the general discourse on posted submissions. Beyond that, job posts and similar? I can tell you that I have responded to dozens (realistically a couple of hundred) hiring and other posts in my time here. I have reached out to people with ideas, offered assistance and input. And of that, nothing has come. Not one thing. I'm not saying your experience is wrong: I'm just not seeing evidence to support your conclusion that your gender is what is limiting things here.
  - DoreenMichele 3y ago
    I'm just not seeing evidence to support your conclusion that your gender is what is limiting things here. Okay, give me a list of openly female members who are "doing it right" and managing to successfully use Hacker News as a networking tool the way I know for a fact some of the longtime male members have done. Show me an example I can follow. Of course my gender is not the only factor. You can chalk some portion of it up to other factors and me failing doesn't prove it can't be done by any women. But I'm not personally seeing other women doing it. But men certainly are. My argument isn't that my gender is the only issue here. My argument is that as far as I can tell, I fit in here better than other women based on objective metrics like my karma count and I can't manage to break the HN "glass ceiling." So if I can't, who can? Point me to some examples. A quick search tells me 10.4 percent of CEOs are women and 22 percent of C-suite executives are women. As far as I can tell, in nearly fifteen years of participation, I am the only openly female member that I know of who has spent time on the leader board and I've done it twice under two different handles. So if the goal is "first fit in" I appear to do that better than most women. And I am unable to turn it into a means to make an adequate income. Ergo I think it is reasonable to conclude that my gender is, in fact, a factor. I will grant you it's "unprovable." How convenient for people who don't want change and want an easy out for dismissing critiques that might lead to constructive progress.

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.
FireBeyond 3y ago
> I know for a fact that participation here helps line the pockets of some of the men here. This is so vague as to be unusable. Firstly, I (sadly) have absolutely no doubt as to much of what you said. Offers of cash for sex, flirtations, white knighting. > trying to establish an earned income via freelance writing and resume work and couldn't do it HN isn't - as you know - really about soliciting work for yourself, outside a few sanctioned threads a month. There may be random people here and there who might make an ad hoc mention of it with a "reach out to me" message. But if done too much, they get sanctioned and censured. Regardless of gender. I would not be surprised if you had said you could not earn income from HN as a freelance writer if your name was John Smith. I fail to surmise that it has anything to do with your gender. But back to your comment, participation here lining the pockets of some of the men: The biggest way I see for anyone to earn income here is networking. But this place is also very specifically not LinkedIn. There is an acceptance, even encouragement of it as far as it doesn't interfere with the general discourse on posted submissions. Beyond that, job posts and similar? I can tell you that I have responded to dozens (realistically a couple of hundred) hiring and other posts in my time here. I have reached out to people with ideas, offered assistance and input. And of that, nothing has come. Not one thing. I'm not saying your experience is wrong: I'm just not seeing evidence to support your conclusion that your gender is what is limiting things here.
- DoreenMichele 3y ago
  I'm just not seeing evidence to support your conclusion that your gender is what is limiting things here. Okay, give me a list of openly female members who are "doing it right" and managing to successfully use Hacker News as a networking tool the way I know for a fact some of the longtime male members have done. Show me an example I can follow. Of course my gender is not the only factor. You can chalk some portion of it up to other factors and me failing doesn't prove it can't be done by any women. But I'm not personally seeing other women doing it. But men certainly are. My argument isn't that my gender is the only issue here. My argument is that as far as I can tell, I fit in here better than other women based on objective metrics like my karma count and I can't manage to break the HN "glass ceiling." So if I can't, who can? Point me to some examples. A quick search tells me 10.4 percent of CEOs are women and 22 percent of C-suite executives are women. As far as I can tell, in nearly fifteen years of participation, I am the only openly female member that I know of who has spent time on the leader board and I've done it twice under two different handles. So if the goal is "first fit in" I appear to do that better than most women. And I am unable to turn it into a means to make an adequate income. Ergo I think it is reasonable to conclude that my gender is, in fact, a factor. I will grant you it's "unprovable." How convenient for people who don't want change and want an easy out for dismissing critiques that might lead to constructive progress.