The person who submitted this followed HN guidelines which state to use the original title of the article. I'm not sure why people need to freak out. HN didn't name the content, the content publisher did.
Look harder, there are several- at least three comments older than yours say "woke" in them. Several comments have also been flag killed and the replies suggest they said something effectively synonomous
Well, your username certainly checks out. I am not sure how many solo projects you have embarked on, but providing a product to 2 million people is no small feat even for a team. Iterating to product market fit takes a lot and not many people are ever able to do it.
Whether it is simple or not it's obviously providing value for the users that are using it, and is reliable enough because it keeps growing.
I actually emailed the story graph with a support question and got a prompt response. I imagine you do have to provide it since you have paying customers.
This was a thoughtful comment but I’m not sure how useful it is at all due to the typo. Commendable vs commandable? I have a pet peeve for typos so your highly accomplished comment is really unworthy of the photons used to display it.
Or maybe we can be more supportive of each other and our accomplishments.
Uh. So you're saying that this person made a smart decision by building a thing which is valued by users, and which they are able to create and support as a single individual?
Meta: It's a shame all the [dead] comments here over the title of this post are hidden to most. I think it's a good reminder of the opposition some face in this (and other) industries for merely existing.
I understand your point, but in reality we all know the world is full of mean and petty people. I am thankful for the moderation on the platforms I read for (at least some of the time) sparing me the frustration and sadness I would get from otherwise constantly reading their opinions.
I don't have them hidden. I can't find anything derogatory about women; rather, the comments point out perceived hypocrisy around naming genders in titles. The comments about Nadia specifically were great, including a dead comment saying what a blessing she is to the rails community.
> Ruby on Rails community is so lucky to have Nadia
Another dead comment says it's not impressive, but doesn't mention gender.
Two dead comments calls the title sexist.
One dead comment predicts there will be misogyny.
Two comments say "who cares if it was a woman"
One comment laughs about "woke" complaints while being the only comment to use the word.
I think that's all of them.
I understand that putting "woman" in the title triggers a lot of talk about gender, which is off-topic and boring, but I don't really find any of the specific comments notable, hateful, or oppositional.
> Are we not at a point where it would be vastly more appropriate to title this "one person dev team"?
People see person and man as synonyms. One man dev team and one person dev team would illicit the same response but one woman dev team forces people to comment on the title.
>Are we not at a point where it would be vastly more appropriate to title this "one person dev team"?
Sure! I just find it interesting that these discussions only happen when "woman" is in the title, and never when "man" is in the title.
>There is definitely a certain subset of society that feels it necessary to thrust gender into discussions where they have no place - such as this article.
As long as you feel the same way whenever you see "one man dev team" or similar, I think that can be a good discussion.
I agree with you entirely - however allow me to illustrate a point:
I think the difference often is the intention of the writer. We get these types of headlines when people want to really promote how cool it is a female is capable of doing something - and we're all supposed to be amazed. That's pretty sexist if you think about it... of course a female is capable of writing high quality software! We should be amazed at what this person achieved because it is impressive on it's own merit - not because of the person's gender.
However, nobody is reading a headline like "one man dev team" and thinking "you go dude!".
It's a two-way double-standard that we should work on ending.
> We get these types of headlines when people want to really promote how cool it is a female is capable of doing something - and we're all supposed to be amazed
I think you're reading way too much into it.
Maybe they're just a women, and they did a turn on the phrase "one man team" to acknowledge that they're not a man?
It adds nothing of value to their accomplishments, nor the article.
If anything, it detracts from the accomplishment. "Look how cute it is that the females are trying to code, applaud them!" - is the sentiment that comes out of it. It's the same affect as these all-female movie casts that then get promoted as "look how great it is that the cast is all female" instead of "look how great this movie is".
In general, we should just say person. Allow the accomplishments to carry themselves. If they are good, people will respond.
I think there is a lot of reactionary sentiment, sometimes misplaced, stemming from decades of articles where gender is the newsworthy aspect of the article.
Almost no one will read "one man Dev team" and think that gender is the central point, opposed to a simple descriptor.
The same phenomenon occurs with race fairly often. It is not uncommon for professionals to take offense or question gender or racial qualifiers when other people describe them.
Yes, it implies that calling attention to things done by women is a trigger for gender discussions. I think trying to make arguments about why they are triggering requires you to make a lot of assumptions about people who aren't yourself.
My take as well. People seem to think this should be a noteworthy accomplishment irrespective of gender. The source seems to be objection to perceived patronization of women, not not hate or disparagement of women.
I don't think it would be less or more appropriate. Gender is not something to hide or be ashamed of - the opposite! Any progressive movement here is on acknowledging gender, and de-gendering when unknown or mixed.
I think everyone making it out to be some big thing (which, the [dead] comments are bringing it up in a negative light for one reason or another) is the 'remarkable' thing.
People don't notice the word "man" getting shoved everywhere but if you dare to replace it they definitely take notice. Sociological Images did an interesting collection of these defaults
The more popular HN gets the more clickbait-y, attention-seeking and polarising titles and articles we're getting. I also think the more popular it is the less weight each down-vote/flag has, we will see more and more of such content being posted.
I and most of the people I know or work with really don't care whether something is/was made by a man or a woman. IMO that's totally unnecessary part of the title and its some kind of the usual "clickbait" you see in the news titles everywhere.
BTW: I was used to seeing "one-man" being used everywhere regardless whether the person in context was a man or a woman and only today I've discovered that both one-woman and one-person are valid by couple of UK/US dictionaries (even the older ones).
Maybe that's one of the reason why some non-native speakers see this as an clickbait/attention seeking.
This isn't a clickbaity, attention-seeking or polarizing title, it's a completely generic title that happens to generate a lot of confected umbrage. The problem is the confected umbrage, not the title which is why the article is where it is (on the HN front page) and the umbrage is where it is (shoved out of the way in comment jail).
The thing is, I don't think it's click bait in this case. One person running a large service is notable, appropriate content for HN. And she's a woman, so one woman is per reasonable, factual, non editorializing headline given that "one woman" is a descriptor that's been in widespread use for some time.
People seem to be reacting to it like it's poison.
One, sure. If there had been about 15 per episode, as there are on any threads which so much as imply the existence of FEEEEEMALES here, it would've gotten old.
(There were other Ferengi sometimes, but they were far less strident on this particular matter, in general.)
Btw, glad I am not the only one making a mental note of someone being a "ferengi". It is such a perfect description somehow. And our industry is full of them.
Well, the Ferengi were intended to be a parody of American capitalism. And the tech industry in many ways has turned itself into a parody of American capitalism. And the worst of Hacker News might as well be a parody of the tech industry.
I still follow Elon for his rocket stuff but his fanboys are relentless if you criticize him or his universe even slightly.
Or criticize aspects of capitalism even, like the one guy who said the purpose of a company is to make an impact, not primarily to make money. I think he was toast after they were done with him.
And Quark tried to learn, or adapt. He wasn't always successful, and he was cut out of a lot of situations where his behavior was considered unacceptable, but he did at least make some efforts.
I think user "tomp" means that "a one man team" basically means "one person team" in English (and many other languages).
Saying "one woman" is shifting the attention to the fact that the one person dev team consists exclusively of women. Which, I think, is pretty cool and note worthy because it is uncommon. Say a startup is run from an tiny island in the pacific, that would also be noteworthy.
To me the thing becomes "woke" when we are told not to use "one man dev team" to mean "one person dev team". Basically when it becomes political correct speech policing. But then the word "woke" is rarely defined, so it mean whatever to whomever at this point.
> To me the thing becomes "woke" when we are told not to use "one man dev team" to mean "one person dev team"
Is it not a simply a more accurate term? Especially when it's literally a single person. A "one man dev team" that consists of a woman strikes me as unnecessarily confusing.
We're constantly told about these woke scolds that police language but in this instance I'm just seeing conservative scolds trying to police language for no actual logical reason beyond "I don't like it".
[good grief]