[jiggy2011]

How about the service asking for a real identity but allowing validated users to post personal questions under psuedonames?

In terms of niches, the 2X chromosomes niche is much bigger than the programmer niche, but stack overflow is still successful.

[vonklaus]

I don't think that can really scale. How could you verify whether I am male or female without a reasonable amount of scrutiny, and then you are trusting them to keep your ID safe. In terms of the niche, that is my exact point. Maybe you are right, however I think the point of the niche is a small interconnected network of people who share one or a few traits deeply. SO is a bunch of people who are excited by one discipline and share knowledge surrounding it. Basically, being a woman probably has some idealogical overlap broadly, but it is a huge population to lump together. There will be conservatives, liberals, muslims, jews, christians, atheists, lawyers, people who have children, people who hate children, feminists, equalizes, stay-at-home moms, etc. The point is, people can connect on a lot of these levels but the narrower the focus the more tight the bond, IMO.

[jiggy2011]

At the moment it seems to be invite only and asks for a twitter account, so that probably puts up enough of a barrier to casual trolls, others can be weeded out. Also I believe sites like facebook will sometimes ask for ID validation so that might not be a total showstopper.

In reality most sites that are ostensibly for "everyone" like reddit or tumblr end up being dominated by certain demographics and thus start to repel others. If they are smart they will make sure the demographic of women that they most appeal to are those with high disposable incomes or influence who are of the most value to advertisers.