Why You (Maybe) Haven’t Seen Your Profile…
Hi Loves,
We’ve gotten some messages lately from readers expressing disappointment that their profiles haven’t been posted yet. It’s true. And I know it sucks. I’m sorry. But it has absolutely nothing to do with us not liking you.
It has to do with the fact that there are TONS of you. Seriously. We’re getting 50+ profile submissions a week right now, and our site is welcoming over 12,000 different visitors a month. We weren’t planning for this. But we’re really really glad you’re here.
For the last 8 or so months, we’ve been running three posts a day. Here’s why:
1) It’s a reasonable workload for our volunteers.
2) It’s active enough that you get to see a lot of variety.
3) It’s slow enough that it still feels like a spotlight — like what we’re showing you right now is special.
I’m not saying that this is the perfect pacing — there’s definitely room for us to grow — but I do want you to know that there’s a bottleneck here. We only have space to run about 10% of our submissions at the moment. And the posts we do run have often been in our queue for several weeks. So if you’re checking back a few days after you submit your profile, you’re getting a jolt of disappointment. And I hear you. That’s feeling crappy right now.
For the time being, I ask you to view this project as a publication rather than a social networking site. We’re not expressing your thoughts in real-time — we’re accepting submissions, sorting through them, and presenting a beautiful, curated, artistic collage of our identities in an endless stream over time. That’s all this project is.
And you’re right. We do need more.
At the moment, the best resource I know of for “more” is Queeries, a social networking site for a very broad mix of identities, and I encourage you to check them out (just sign up and you’ll see what I mean inside). You can also dive into our Facebook group, which lets you comment in a way that’s attached to your profile. And there are a few other good sites listed on our site’s sidebar.
If anyone else knows of good places for Genderforkers to connect and express yourself, please post them below.
And again: We’re really really glad you’re here.
Thanks and love,
Sarah Dopp
Founder of Genderfork
Category: general info 12 comments »
January 12th, 2010 at 5:46 am |
Cheers m’dear.
Thanks for keeping us all in the loop. Your frequent, 2-sided communication is a rarity when it comes to internet communities.
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January 12th, 2010 at 5:51 am |
What a wonderful problem to have!
When I ran across this site for the first time, what struck me, and what really stuck to me, was just that there are others like myself, that I was not alone, and not necessarily that my own profile info might be run.
Have you considered a sort of a click through “wall of fame” where you might have just a page of folks’ icons linked to profile info – then moderators could dip from that pool to publish full-on profiles on this front page? Maybe sort of like the matrices of tiny “following”s icons on somebody’s blog page. Or maybe the presentation might be more along the lines of a tag cloud, where maybe the older profiles are smaller or something? Then as people change they could resubmit their profiles… I know that for me, the profile I would write today isn’t the same profile I wrote even a month ago…..
I’m guessing that the moderating of this might not be all that onerous and you could post many per day…
And I think it would be cool to be able to page through just to get a sense of how many there are of us….
~ Renae :)
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January 12th, 2010 at 8:45 am |
Thanks for posting this. As Cat said, this is a rare occurrence on the web, and all the more pleasant. It shows that you guys really do care about us. Kudos.
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January 12th, 2010 at 9:29 pm |
I like Renae’s idea.
I see it like the little photos that are next to this comment box.
Each little photo would connect to a profile.
So everyone can have a chance, and once in a while you can spotlight a profile.
Not everyone would get spotlighted of course, but, since there is a link to their profile, they would have more of a chance of being seen at least.
thank you for the work you do, Sarah :] i submitted my profile a long time ago, but honestly it doesn’t matter to me if it doesn’t get published. I’m here to connect to the queer world, most of all, and you and the volunteers make that possible for me :]
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January 13th, 2010 at 11:07 am |
This site do a great job. Thanks for your hard work. I don’t mind waiting a bit.
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January 20th, 2010 at 7:27 pm |
oohh..that’s why.i got. :)
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January 21st, 2010 at 6:47 am |
hmmm i send my profile many times and now i see why it is not working…ok thanx…i will wait…kisses
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May 27th, 2011 at 11:19 am |
Aw just when I find you guys. Oh well, I can be patient. Took me 24 years to understand that I was actually really feminine by nature, im sure i can wait a few weeks for the profile system to be back up :)
Thanks for this wonderful site!
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April 12th, 2012 at 9:42 pm |
That explains it,i feel strange in normal life,maybe i am not right for here either!but that gets rid of that thought,love your site,keep up the good work.
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June 17th, 2012 at 8:07 am |
Thank you for writing this. I submitted months ago and was just starting to feel hurt, like maybe I wasn’t pretty enough. This makes me feel better. <3
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August 22nd, 2012 at 6:33 am |
also, feeling like “not being pretty enough” should definitely not be a reason for not posting a profile or photo :)
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April 4th, 2018 at 8:17 am |
Aww… Guys!! I am so glad that I found a website where I can truly be who I am. I can definitely wait. Ari, never feel like you are not good enough. I am only 13 but have already gone down that road- it basically it a highway to depression. Hugs EVERYONE!! thx for this amazing site.
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