Are you sick of being told your opinions don't matter because you're a girl?
Maybe you saw something at a local convention that you need to tell someone about?
Perhaps you want to share your experience to sympathetic ears?
Or perhaps you just need to talk to other nerds who don't care about your gender, sex, race, age, or anything in between?
Well, we can help. We are WeRNerdCulture.
WeRNerdCulture is a campaign that as started to eradicate the harassment, bigotry, and violence that has started to gain momentum in Nerd Culture. We promote equality and all around nerdy-ness through anonymous postings on our forums. We hold events at conventions and have spoken out at numerous panels about the rampant intolerance and harassment that has become a sad norm in this culture we love.
And, now, we are happy to announce that we are now launching our new application: WRNC2Go.
The application is set up similar to your normal social media application and has been designed with the user in mind. You can log in or register from the home page where you can check in on all of the campaign's recent news and updates. Through the user home page, you can check out all of your messages and thread updates. You can respond quickly and easily through the interface. Through the forum tab, you can browse through thread types and genres as well as boost, report, and respond to anything that catches your eye.
With WRNC2Go, we are offering two new options:
• Direct to forum photo posting: Now you can post photos directly to a new thread from your phone or mobile device. See someone harassing a cosplayer and need to document it? Want to warn someone about something you saw on the Internet? Now you can. You can even enable the thread to show where you took the picture, just in case you know other nerds are in the area and need to stay clear.
• Emergency Number Calling Feature: Do you know someone who's been pushed to a breaking point? Are you scared for them, but you aren't in the same state as them? Or perhaps you've been harassed or assaulted and need to make a call? The WeRNerdCulture app offers a special page with important emergency numbers such as the National Suicide Hotline and the local number for state troopers. You can even find the number of an out of state state trooper number if necessary. By tapping on the number, your phone application immediately opens up and dials the number.
Along with these new features, we are still offering the same judgement-free, tolerance filled, nerdy sphere of friends and fellow nerds who all agree that harassment and intolerance needs to stop. You can download the WRNC2Go app for free off the iTunes App Store, Android App Market, and the Google Play Store.
Hi Undercover -
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of an anonymous, harassment free forum app. You're still encouraging people to select their own avatars, but they can post without fear or bullying or objectification as a result of their race, gender, etc. It seems like a good community that people would want to join. Maybe there's a community agreement new users must sign to ensure they comply with you policies. Then the users would in effect self-police themselves to make sure everyone is playing by the rules.
I wish you would've explained a bit more about the emergency calling feature. I wasn't sure what you were talking about until you provided the examples. It's a great feature to have, especially since a lot of your users theoretically will want to join your community to avoid these types of behaviors.
Great job!
Twin B
Undercover,
ReplyDeleteI like how you begin your app as a sales pitch. Very clever. Just a quick question, though... will anonymous postings lead to more civil discourse? That's a subjective answer since everyone has their own opinions, but something to think about anyhow. I liked that your app has a reporting feature- that's always good and I like that it has resources to social services for those in crisis situations. Very thoughtful. Sorry, Twin, I had no trouble understanding what Undercover was getting at. :) I can see how this would be valuable to those in your community, and really, it's a good idea for anyone to have resource #s handy anyhow. Nicely done, Undercover.
Cheers!
MadMom
Hey Undercover,
ReplyDeleteI would have like if you had gone into a little more detail on the forum sites – as Madmom states, I'm unsure of how the anonymous postings will function in keeping civil discourse. In addition, I'm unsure what level of anonymity you're getting at – is it constant, where all entries are completely free from identifying marks? Or is it in the sense of, say, our class personas, where you have an avatar but don't reveal your true identity? If it's the former, the question arises how this will allow the site to develop a true sense of community. If the latter, I'm curious how long people will be able to resist "claiming" their avatars and linking them to their real life personas. Also, while I like the two app-specific features, I'm still unclear on how the rest of the app and site works, outside of being a general forum. It might help to give a fuller description of those features as well, perhaps drawing parallels to already existing sites.
Best,
VM