Hello HN, today I’m presenting you Women Make. I use to struggle to find fellow women entrepreneurs so I created a group on Telegram. Since then it grew to 500+ members. I felt it was time to make a website to go with the group. Happens I learned Node JS last year, which I used with mongoDB and Telegram's API to build a forum. Members can interact with the website thanks to a bot. And here is the result! Let me know what you think, any feedback is welcome!
I like the image previews/thumbnails that appear in the threads from the actual site. I assume you're rendering/screenshotting the site for mobile/desktop in order to generate the previews.<p>Is there a particular tool you're using/that you'd recommend? Headless Chrome, PhantomJS, NightmareJS? Do you just wait an arbitrary amount of time to assume the necessary visuals have loaded/rendered, or is there a feedback mechanism to indicate when it's ready to be captured?
Can you please elaborate how does emphasizing gender difference help women in business?<p>Don't get me wrong I do believe it works, I am just curious about the psychology.
From the site guidelines,<p>> Don’t mansplain, be respectful and remember to give the floor to women. That being said, all members are welcome to participate in all discussions... And keep in mind that the purpose of Women Make is to put women at the forefront.<p>Presumably the site is primarily for women, may I suggest perhaps a better choice of words? Although I find it unfortunate that we have to create a separate community based on gender, I hope you succeed in creating a positive community for women.
@mariedm awesome community, curious on what tech stack you used? back end and front end. Congrats, looking forward to hear about how it goes with this project.
This looks great! I’m not a woman but my daughter will be eventually and she already likes to make.<p>Any reason why you chose to build your own vs use existing infrastructure (ie your own subreddit you moderate, closed facebook group, etc)? I’m not intending to sound critiquing, I’m interested in learning more about your insight.
Thank you for making this, what you’re doing is so important. I was wondering if your site is inclusive toward trans women? I didn’t see any mention of it on your About page so I thought I would ask. Looks great by the way and I’m excited to see it grow!
I have been wondering why "women" is used as an adjective so much these days -- "women entrepreneurs" -- rather than the word "female." "Women" as an adjective has a very 1950s, almost Ralph Kramden-type vibe to it. "Women drivers" and the like. We wouldn't say "men nurses."
In case you or anyone else is not aware, there's the FEA (Female Entrepreneur Association).<p><a href="https://femaleentrepreneurassociation.com/" rel="nofollow">https://femaleentrepreneurassociation.com/</a>
General advice for mariedm - be prepared to ban quite a lot of accounts at their first offense, think about IP bans, email verification, banning proxies, etc.<p>If some of the various online communities of, um, hard to pick a term here that someone won't take offense to, but you probably know what sort of communities I'm talking about - if they take an interest in your site, you'll need heavy defense, and quick reactions, to avoid major disruption. Maybe all comments from newer accounts should go through moderation before being posted? Or have that as a switch that can be turned on when the attacks happen?<p>Good luck.
In my city I see women conferences, in my work I see women events and women supporting each other and on the internet I see women communities. I am a man but don't think of myself as a man more than as a person. This thought process is a privilege of course but I do end up feeling left out.
Gender-segregated communities seem like a mixed bag.<p>On one hand, like the single-sex schools of yore, they may provide an opportunity for disadvantaged who can’t access “mainstream” communities.<p>On the other hand, their existence appears contrary to the general inclusivity trend, and if “mainstream” communities as a result acquire an excuse to be implicitly pro-male (since there are female communities, and explicitly male communities are considered unacceptable) then it must suck for those who do not strongly identify with either female or male gender.<p>It is hard to admit that our society really is still at a stage where gender exclusivity is necessary—but, given the number of female-only communities, it must be the case.
Honestly, some of the comments here (if you show dead ones) just prove the need for a community like this.<p>@mariedm - congrats! Love the design.<p>Edit: One suggestion - a personal peeve is when a site flashes up a "subscribe" modal when I've only been on the site for a few seconds. Not sure what the conversions are like on that, but personally I'd be more likely to do that if I'd had a chance to look around.
I wish people would stop with throwing up dialogs/alerts/signups when I start to scroll. I can't believe people think this is a good idea.
Nice idea OP, and the design seems very friendly and welcoming. I would only say one thing (and IDK how this is going to go down): but IMO, it makes more sense to me to discourage men from posting completely - and I say that as a guy myself. Why am I saying this? Because there's already plenty of places that are primarily filled with / run by / used by men.<p>I think if you want to have a female only site then no one should really get offended by this. I do think females probably have many different experiences than men in the tech space and having a place where it's more normalized to share them is a good idea. Without rules for a community like this it will just get diluted and you'll end up with Hacker News 2.0.<p>I've seen communities like this work really well in the past but only with good moderation and clear rules. Having a place like this is also a great way to understand people a little better - i.e. listening instead of speaking (if you're not a female.) just my thoughts. let them downboats flow~
Arguably, the people aren't upset that there is a female-oriented space, but rather that the same kind of male-oriented space would likely be seen as "problematic" or "hostile."
> Happens I learned Node JS last year<p>Neat! Have you ever heard of curried functions? I only recently started using them in JS, and they've completely (and positively) revolutionized how I write Javascript (both backend and front).