

Ask YC: Verifying Gender - stcredzero

I am mulling over the idea of a social news site for women.  These already exist, but they seem to rely on the notion of being so "girly" that supposedly only women would want to read them.  I find this limiting.  (I am male, however, so perhaps this is just my distorted point of view.)  Is there a good way to verify the gender of users that won't turn them off?  Perhaps using Facebook?<p>I also seem to remember mentions of moderated women-only websites in Japan.
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neilk
I'm not sure why you would want to do this. What's better about a site that
verifies that all members are women? Protection from invading anti-feminists?
Safe space, like an online women's center?

A good strategy might be to make the site invite-only, and distribute invite
codes to early members stressing that it is supposed to only be for women.
That might actually generate a sort of buzz, if you _forbid_ it to men.

~~~
stcredzero
Making the site invite-only is a good strategy. But it will not do enough to
prevent men from getting registered. There would have to be another mechanism.

The purpose would be to have a social news site that's oriented towards women,
but which does not accomplish this by actively encouraging "girly" content. I
want the notion of "what's interesting to women" to be emergent, not socially
engineered by the site's designers. Also, I suspect that this will make the
site safer as well.

The mechanism does not have to be foolproof. The ability to flag abusive users
and other moderation mechanisms will still be needed to weed out the "leaks"
and female users who also happen to be abusive.

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lallysingh
Simple, require registration.

Ask gender.

If they answer Male, tell them to fuck off.

~~~
stcredzero
This won't work. There is a sizable population on the net that likes to pose
as female. If all you have to do to forge a female identity online is to
choose female, then lots of guys will do it.

I'm thinking that having an "unverified" status is the way to do it. Users who
are not yet verified can browse and do certain things, but cannot comment or
moderate. Alternatively, they will be able to comment, but at a lower Karma
score, or some such.

~~~
IsaacSchlueter
But gender is ALWAYS "just ask and trust them", isn't it? Are you going to
check their crotch? Or their hormone levels? Or their chromosomes? It's a bit
silly, isn't it?

 _There is a sizable population on the net that likes to pose as female._

Not just on the net. I'd argue that the only reason it's so much more sizable
on the internet is that gender-bending is so much cheaper there.

~~~
stcredzero
In real life, it isn't just "ask and trust them." You have to be invested in
an identity. I figure that maintaining a female Facebook identity is a good
enough analogue. This won't be absolute, but as you point out, neither is
determining gender in real life.

If gender-bending is not so cheap, then by your logic, you should get
different dynamics. I am curious what a social news site for intelligent women
would produce. Not a Digg for women, but a Hacker News for women!

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gojomo
Make registration require an invite from another member. For the initial
users, only invite people you know to be women, and that you trust to follow
your rule of only inviting other women themselves.

It may slow your growth at first but could add to the sense of exclusivity
that you appear to want. A strong community devotion to the idea of women-only
membership might be a side-effect of the self-selecting invite/agree process.

Though beware: there be dragons in online conceptions of gender, and it's sure
to always be a topic of controversy (PR hooks?), especially as a man creating
a women's-only site.

~~~
IsaacSchlueter
_there be dragons in online conceptions of gender_

And how! There are plenty of biomales who nonetheless consider themselves
female, and would probably be well-served by a site like this. What's the
value in keeping them out?

Gender is not always so strictly binary.

I don't think you really need to worry overmuch about keeping out men. If you
just say it's a "site for women" and make sure to have lots of offerings on
topics that you know will attract a largely female audience, you'll probably
find that you don't have a problem. <http://shine.yahoo.com> has an almost
entirely female audience, and they certainly don't do anything to keep out
anyone. Most men won't _want_ to visit a site that's marketed towards women.

And anyway, what's really the harm if men visit your site?

~~~
stcredzero
_There are plenty of biomales who nonetheless consider themselves female, and
would probably be well-served by a site like this. What's the value in keeping
them out?_

If they present themselves in public as bonafide _females_ then I wouldn't.
This would be for people who are female gendered _in real life_. There are
already plenty of places where you can be a female just _online_.

There may not be harm in men visiting the site. But there is potential benefit
in a female-only site. This would only happen if we could keep most men out.

~~~
IsaacSchlueter
_If they present themselves in public as bonafide females then I wouldn't._

And if they present themselves in public sometimes as bonafide females and
sometimes as bonafide males? What then?

 _This would be for people who are female gendered in real life._

Again, how do you even even define that, precisely? Gender is not so binary as
we make it.

 _There are already plenty of places where you can be a female just online._

And your site would, inevitably, be another one of those. _So what?_

 _But there is potential benefit in a female-only site. This would only happen
if we could keep most men out._

Marketing! You're Doing It Wrong!!

Instead of worrying about keeping people out, you should be worrying about who
you're bringing in, and how to target that market. If you get a few extra
page-views, um, is that _really_ a problem?

~~~
stcredzero
Defining gender absolutely precisely is not important. Keeping males out
absolutely is not important either. People deal with the gender issue in real
life just fine without such absolutes. The system only has to work well
enough, like real life. And in real life, it manages to work well enough
because of costs. It will "cost" a lot more to pose as a female on such a
site. Therefore there will be fewer posers.

More page-views is fine. Commenting would be female-only. That is the value
proposition. Female-majority forums aren't all that common.

------
noodle
although its not really "women-only", sugar inc (<http://www.sugarinc.com/>)
is female-focused, somewhat-social news and such.

