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Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website
241–250 of 666 posts
Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok, but do you think those 12 year olds are going to all grow up to be well behaving adults? Or maybe the problems with this kind of sexism are starting very young. If you are right then the solutions still need to be addressed, but we need to start earlier.
I was thinking just that. Target audience of 12yo boys, who are "parked" by their parents with a tablet, with no control, no supervision, that are left to 'self-educate' in the wild-wild-west of the interwebs, and their responses are quotes and memes, will definitely do that. On the other hand, a 35yo educated person, that just wants to make something silly for ther corporate 'yammer', will definitely NOT insult or w…
>will definitely NOT insult or waste time in any other manner
I wouldn't take those odds, if I were you. Being 35 is no guarantee of not-being-an-asshole.
Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website
#243I can't relate to her post. We use on purpose attractive female profiles for our support chat avatars (our product is a SaaS) and the cases where a user behaves like this are 0.5% and for us not a problem at all, we just ignore them. FYI, we tested a while different pics, female, male, average looking, good looking and we just got the best conversion rates with the above mentioned.
Just wondering, how do the support people feel about being represented by better looking avatars? "Your real face is too ugly, sorry."
Same way I felt when I was younger and would serve drinks at events, but then was moved to just pouring the drinks because "we now hire actual models for serving".
I'm a guy, by the way.
Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Sexism is actually everywhere" is an extremely strong statement. Such a strong statement requires an extraordinary amount of work (going far beyond mere observations) to be proven. I personally would be very interested to know why "Julia" is being insulted much more than "Eric", but saying "this is because of sexism" is no better than saying that "the sun is bright because it shines".
Most things in life cannot be terated like a scientific experiment. It would be interesting to conduct high quality research to find out if my company is sexist, but there is no time, money or desire to do that. So we have to rely on less formal information. Also the whole "strong statement requires an extraordinary amount of work" thing is entirely dependant on your outlook. I could just as easily say the opposite s…
Both statements - "sexism does not exist" and "sexism is everywhere" are equally extreme.
By saying the former you deny the obvious.
By saying the latter you effectively claim that every single person is sexist, which is a bit unfair.
Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website
#245Amazing. The author spends a lot of time to tell us a very convincing story how sexism affects people in our industry, and the Hacker News thread is full of people rationalizing it. - it's only because people think you're a bot - it's because of your target audience - it's because chat widgets are annoying - you don't really have enough data to make any conclusions How much will it take to convince the average HN rea…
"Rude people are sexist" or "Sexist people are rude" is about the only conclusion you can draw here (maybe not even that, correlation != causation etc etc) It doesn't even come close to showing how "sexism is everywhere". For all we know the sample could be entirely edgy 12 year olds. Tell me again how this self-admittedly "non-rigorous scientific study" proves "sexism is everywhere"? It could easily be that more att…
The conclusion we can draw is pretty much what the author says: it's better to present yourself as an anonymous avatar than a real person.
Despite what marketing people tell you about "creating a connection" or "showing that your company is made of real people", often a bit of distance and professionalism is best for your relationship with customers.
Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website
#246I always assumed these messages were automated helper bots, I didn't realize they are people on the other end. Now I feel a little bad about being so curt when I use them like I'm searching an FAQ.
Yes, I noticed that people hated when they thought they were talking to a bot. [This is Julia, the OC.] Sometimes I would respond to a sequence of four or five messages from a user, and they would immediately stop messaging, as if they didn’t realize a human was there. I tried that tactic for a while - a user would message me or Rachel some inappropriate demand and I would respond with “Absolutley not.” Many users wo…
I'm male and I suppose this kind of problems happen much less often than to you, but I also came to the conclusion that not answering to meanness, nonsense, rudeness etc is the best tactic.
Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website
#247I also use a different phone for business.
" https://www.yourtripdubai.com/dubai-city-bus "
Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website
#248Amazing. The author spends a lot of time to tell us a very convincing story how sexism affects people in our industry, and the Hacker News thread is full of people rationalizing it. - it's only because people think you're a bot - it's because of your target audience - it's because chat widgets are annoying - you don't really have enough data to make any conclusions How much will it take to convince the average HN rea…
"Rude people are sexist" or "Sexist people are rude" is about the only conclusion you can draw here (maybe not even that, correlation != causation etc etc) It doesn't even come close to showing how "sexism is everywhere". For all we know the sample could be entirely edgy 12 year olds. Tell me again how this self-admittedly "non-rigorous scientific study" proves "sexism is everywhere"? It could easily be that more att…
I am so glad someone on HN is here to enforce rigorous standards when it comes to this topic, in particular.
Because there have been multiple accounts of bad behavior, both subtle and not-subtle, at tech conferences (https://shift.newco.co/what-its-like-to-be-a-woman-at-a-tech..., https://blog.juliaferraioli.com/2014/08/do-you-even.html), but those aren't studies, they're just isolated experiences, so we can ignore those.
And there have been multiple accounts from women who won't use a feminine identity online due to harassment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3411627), and really talented women who have to endure sexist work environments (http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/12/04/meeting/), and, occasionally, even much more lively discussions from women on what it's like to work in tech (https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/4ioxw9/as_i_sit_i...). But, again, these aren't studies, so we can ignore them.
Of course, there have been studies, including one that found feminine names in chats got 25 times more malicious messages (http://www.ece.umd.edu/News/news_story.php?id=1788), which would seem to support this woman's experience too ... but, surely, we can find some way to dismiss that, too, right?
The important part is that, every time a submission like this comes along, we rush to the comments section to try to shout it down.
There are surely some medium.com posts about experiences that other developers have had that we could upvote instead. Preferably, ones from developers who don't happen to be too feminine.
Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Sexism is actually everywhere" is an extremely strong statement. Such a strong statement requires an extraordinary amount of work (going far beyond mere observations) to be proven. I personally would be very interested to know why "Julia" is being insulted much more than "Eric", but saying "this is because of sexism" is no better than saying that "the sun is bright because it shines".
Most things in life cannot be terated like a scientific experiment. It would be interesting to conduct high quality research to find out if my company is sexist, but there is no time, money or desire to do that. So we have to rely on less formal information. Also the whole "strong statement requires an extraordinary amount of work" thing is entirely dependant on your outlook. I could just as easily say the opposite s…
> I could just as easily say the opposite statement (that sexisim is minimal) and suggest that it requires extraordinary evidence to prove that
You could, and it does. But it's it matter of opinion/semantics that this is "the opposite statement".
In context, a specific claim is a specific claim, whichever way it goes. The "opposite" in another sense, is to make no claim, and therefor stick to the default position of allowing for either possibility without knowing which (agnostic position?). There is absolutely nothing wrong with that position, and it requires no additional information, as opposed to "less formal information".
Now, if you claim we need to adopt a specific position, and do so with little information, i.e. without the time/money to do so then you'd have to justify that - i.e why isn't it strongly desired, yet still apparently important, to hold a position on the topic?
Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website
#250Unpopular opinion ahead:
For all we know, the majority of the rude comments are coming from women.
And if you are assuming, without evidence, that these comments all come from males, then you are either sexist or there really are differences between men and women that ought to inform things like what jobs we put people in as a society, for the sake of everybody involved.