Get it out there for people to try and give feedback on.
I appreciate the effort and thinking that has gone into a product like this.
Sure there are a whole bunch of features that I would love to see added but I'm sure that will come with time.
The fact that it targets PoC, LGBTQ+ and Women is a fantastic start. I remember an article that went around on HN a while back that analyzed the gender balance of twitter follows, and the results were not good.
Working on diversity in tech and on twitter and highlighting women over men is not sexist, it's pushing the needle back in a direction that it needs to go in.
Men are not default.
I understand it might feel biased with the current filters, but I could not have endless filters in the platform right on launch, considering the lack of users, so I thought of a few, implemented them, and reached out to as many people I knew with that criteria to try to have a userbase for each.
In terms of your concern in regards to men, truth is I made the category for women after receiving a suggestion from a partner of mine who wanted to have a page displaying women to feature in her newsletter, and I decided to implement it as a bit of an extra. See that I did not add any other category like that around, it was a lot of extra work and it did not feel worth it. Other than that, keep in mind you may search for any of the categories for only men by selecting said filter, so I don't think you are so right to call me out on the supposed wrongdoing.
Religion & political ideology were 2 filters I wanted to implement prior to launch but I did not fearing controversy, specially as a small & young maker trying to get a (good) reputation. Then again, I might implement those in the future, as the website grows. Thanks for the reminder.
Overall, I would say that your comment has a good basis, but you seem to have omitted the fact that the website's core concept is to find diverse users, as in minorities & underprivileged group, and men don't happen to be one of those groups. Nonetheless, if the random women section bothers too many people (I've received a few complaints sadly, in spite of the plenty of positive comments that many people have sent me in regards to it), I might get rid of it and replace it for something a little bit more customizable. I will see. Thank you for the insight.
You might have a point. But trying framing it as useful and constructive instead of bitter and confused.
Correct me if I am wrong, but the only sanctioned different background seems to be "POC" (what does that even mean), "LGBTQ+" and "with disability".
The home page sports a "check 1.000 inspiring women" but not a "1.000 inspiring men". I guess only inspiring women are worth following.
But actually they don't even need to be inspiring, since they also have a "random women" section. I thought propping up some people based solely on their gender was sexist. I guess it's not when we do it for women.
Also, a fairly glaring omission in the topics seems to be religion. And I say it as a non believer. It looks like non-religious people won't be allowed to look for someone with a different background.
In the end, the site is yours, and you can of course list, or not list, whomever you please. But the claim of discovering people from "different backgrounds" seems to me disingenuous at best.
More accurate, given the current content, would be "a few, politically-sanctioned backgrounds".