tcodina

I built this in a few hours to play around with Figma's API, and it blew up on Twitter. Decided to open source the script + make a small guide. Hope you find it useful!

Decided to make a short guide in Medium explaining how to set up Google Sheets using the Google API to be the database or content management system of your website, with PHP. Hope you find it useful!

Feeling extremely kind this holiday season, I decided to make the different iterations, assets, illustrations and designs from the different products I released on 2018 open source, so you can use them for any purpose you want - either for your own projects, to learn or get inspired, I don't care!

Hope you find it useful! <3

Put together this small gimmick in ~5 hours and launched on the 24th, to celebrate the holidays.

The idea behind the platform is simple - Put a special message, offer, discount or freebie inside a custom wrapping (choose the shape and color of your gift), and send the link to whoever you like. They'll have to unwrap it to reveal its contents!

I personally have made a gift to it that I am happy to share with all of you. Enjoy! https://wonderurl.com/gift/tcodina

That's what I plan on using it for!

Built this in a couple of weeks, using the Product Hunt API & a simple script. Random Hunt has >13K products in its database that you can shuffle from, through an interface I made in ReactJs (hope you like the design!)

I decided to make it open source so people can contribute to it or make their own version.

You can put "Other" if you don't want to disclose it, but I understand the sentiment. It could be understood as NB / Trans for example, and it could be misleading. I'll keep that in mind for a future revision.

Thanks! It's something I have planned for when the platform is bigger in terms of users. Currently it has 900 (close to 1K, insane for just 2 days!), so if I split the categories more, many would be empty, making it difficult to find users in general. On top of that, more categories means more work for the users to select their desired categories. Overall it doesn't seem worth it for me currently.

What are my future plans in this regard though? When the site gets past 1K users, I will start brainstorming and developing a new way for users to select their categories. Likely through a textbox vs multiple checkboxes, where people could type the areas they are into and they would autocomplete. I'd like to also let users suggest categories, eventually maybe even let them create their own interests. Could be exciting!

Okay, that last paragraph really got me, is that really what you think diversity-concerned people think about diversity? Filling a quota, being politically correct... I beg to differ. While it's true there's always the kind of people who are part of a "hivemind" (there's those everywhere, blame the media, trends and multiple other sources), most people are aware of the true issue behind the topic - it's a matter of putting yourself in the shoes of the minorities. The problem is simple, say you are a trans woman of colour, from a low-income background & a migrant. Do you think their opinions are taken seriously, they are socially accepted in general, people don't hold any prejudices against them, and most importantly, they have a voice? Don't you think that oftentimes, people who are not the "norm", come from backgrounds different to yours or are simply of the other sex don't get as much value or visibility as say, a white american man? Sure enough recent diversity efforts have turned that around a bit, but I still think that for several groups, almost nothing has changed. I strive to make lives better for everyone, and I think that this issue in particular, were it solved, would help a lot the underprivileged. What about their ideologies, their thoughts, what if they are terrible people? This happens, but I still support allowing them to have a "basic dignity" to work upon. Overall, I just seek equality, that is all.

Thanks! Truth is I am not really a developer myself, I am actually a designer, so my knowledge might be a bit limited in this aspect. I did want to develop the website in ReactJs, but I ended up not doing it because initially it was a 1-week project I made to get accepted at a university (& it worked out), so I went for the "easiest" way possible for me, which is also the quickest.

Happy you see it being useful.

That's a valid suggestion. I pulled the images from Unsplash (free to use), and needless to say, there's not really an endless assortment of pictures there, so I did with what I found, sadly. It is definitely something to improve upon, maybe I will get someone to do the photography for some of the topics, or alternatively go for a design. In reality I am not exactly fond of the execution of the categories - in the end they're sort of a filter, so I could have simply created a "super-page" where you could have those interests listed as filters, and could have found users sharing more than 1 category. On top of that, currently the platform has a fixed amount of categories, and it does not allow users to add themselves to any other interest, which is a bit limiting and unfortunate. Because of that, in the future I might redo this section entirely, which could help fix the issue you raised at the same time.

Thanks for the feedback!

Thank you, I shall try to think more like this. Indeed I am focusing on a minority here - I had great success either way with >700 users, >4K views and $420 from supporters in just 1 day. I should be more grateful of that, instead of focusing my energy on closed-minded people.

Fair. I think I might've mentioned this in another comment, but although I've put emphasis on identities, I also take into account background through filters such as language (different cultures), low-income (so not upper class), migrants... I will expand upon these now that I've got a decent userbase.

Appreciate your comment, I think it sums up well what I intended to go for with the platform. Taking aside what people might think about diversity, we've seen that ideologies radicalize when we are only surrounded by like-minded people, usually from similar backgrounds. Having the chance to find people based on a variety of filters allows you to discover pretty much any kind of person, and it can contribute to avoiding this issue in particular. Do I think that everyone must equally follow the same people from those different groups? No, not at all. But even having someone outside your bubble can help you broaden your view in a multitude of topics, for sure. Thanks!

Sounds fair. I don't like judging people by their physique and identity indeed, and I think most people would agree with me on this. Taking this into account, your point makes sense - why focus on showing different people based on their identities entirely?

There's a couple reasons as to why I believe that it makes sense in the platform. To begin with, the concept that started off this project 6 months ago was simply to make women more present in people's following lists. This was an entirely identity based project from that point, attempting to increase & amplify the voices of a particular group. Needless to say, with a concept set up & validated, I kept going in the same direction.

Secondly, while some of the filters of the platform are identity-based (ethnicity, gender, LGBTQ...) I also implemented multiple based on their background (low-income, migrants, language...) as well as based on their interests. I plan on expanding this group further, as I find it extremely valuable to better diversify our feeds. There is much more other than whether someone is a man or a woman, a person of colour, or a person with disabilities.

There is a third reason, one which I might not be too fond of, but thing is, in order to achieve diversity, people tend to prefer going about it through people, faces, and real identities. As a rather "private" and ambiguous person online, I've noticed how hard it has been for me to have recognition or validity, since all in all people can just judge me by my work and ideas. Had I gone this path with the platform, it would have likely failed, and I could have not contributed to solving this issue.

All in all, your idea is good in an ethical perspective, but when it comes to its implementation, it's absolutely useless, unless you change people's mindsets (very hard, specially because you also have to change some people's mindsets in terms of diversity already...). Then again I will see if I can implement something like this in the future, I think I might be able to figure something out. Thanks for your insight!

Thank you. I have to admit though this is my 5th product this year, I'm on a roll, so I do accept criticism - indeed though I felt that the parent comment was just plain wrong in this case.

I just think you misunderstood the purpose of the platform entirely, and tried to connect it to some completely different issues. I do know that men go through issues, I believe in equality, and I am aware of the areas where they have it worse. That said, it is factual that most Twitter user's following lists are made up by a majority of white men, and I believe that if they had more variety, we could see and understand the world from multiple perspectives. That is the only issue I tackled in the platform.

This is interesting. I'll have a look. It reminds me of my platform to find underrated content, also based on a point system (check out 5 links to submit yours. After 50 clicks, your content is archived). It's https://exposure.cards, if you're curious. Not sure if Twitter is against these kinds of platforms though?

Thank you! I try, but it upsets me people feel this way. I made the platform to help users open their minds more, and it seems the people who should be using it are just hating on it.

I'm sorry, I find your comment pretty ridiculous in multiple aspects, and I'm honestly surprised you truly feel this way about the platform.

What I understand from it, and the parent comment, is that you're simply stuck in the beliefs of "diversity has ruined men", men have it worse, etc. Unfortunately I might not be able to change your mind, but I hope you understand that the idea of the website was to make groups that were less easy to be found on Twitter (I'll ask, how many women, people of colour, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities and many other groups do you follow? Going to take the risk and say that not as many as men, by a big margin...).

If that upsets you that's unfortunate, I am grateful for the people who were happy with the platform and sent me awesome positive comments. If you want to have a men-centric platform, you may make it yourself, go ahead. It's ironic how you seem to be the kind of person who would have benefited from such a website, getting you out of an echo chamber and seeing multiple perspectives.

True, the bio being collapsed was critiqued by several people prior to the launch, and I simply kept it this way to be able to show more users at once, and for aesthetic reasons. You may still search by certain users based on the keywords, which you can insert in the search box. Keep in mind once you check out one of the users listed in Twiverse, you can always read their tweets, bio & other to decide for yourself if they are worth following. Appreciate your feedback though!

Thank you! When you become a patron, your profile is displayed in a category on the right sidebar and sticked on the top of every category. A patron user reported an increase of twice her usual daily followers just today, if that gives some reference of its performance. Unless you mean something else by the rankings?

Good idea, I wanted to implement dynamic categories in the beginning, but somehow the idea got lost in the way. I simply feared that without enough users, most dynamically created categories would be broken and this would be a major put off for the initial users. As the platform has been growing quite rapidly, it is certainly a feature planned in my roadmap.

That is a fair perspective on the platform. I initially created the website because of a lack of women in my following list - I had ~80% men and only 20% women, many of which were friends of mine (as a woman myself). I struggled to find women in my field (technology), and this was the origin of Twiverse - allowing you to use filters and categories to find different people.

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.

I used PHP/HTML, CSS, Js (with jQuery) and MySQL for the database. The entire platform is hosted in a DigitalOcean droplet and managed using ServerPilot's free plan.

Glad you find it useful, then again in this aspect the platform would likely be lacking as it does not allow users to analyse the "diversity rate" of the users they followed. It's certainly a future planned feature, when the platform grows past its 600 users.

As to be as compliant as possible, Twitter users have to connect their accounts manually and select multiple data in regards to their interests, gender identity, and much more, which is complemented by the data gathered from the Twitter API (language, verification status, followers, following, tweets, likes...).