How do you... Diem?

🔮 PSA! We are still very early on in our journey to build a social search engine. Please continue at your own risk, especially if you want to help shape the way information is shared on the internet. 😉

I’m new here. What is Diem?

Over generations, social, political, intellectual, cultural, and economic information resources have defaulted to serve the “default male” population. As a result, women talk, having learned that the fastest way to obtain reliable, valuable information is through each other instead.

Diem is building a social search engine to scale those candid conversations by embracing them instead. Our aim is to turn these conversations that happen “behind closed doors”—whether they’re about friendships, birth control, toxic masculinity, harassment, chronic pain, big career moves, enthralling books, easy recipes, and everything in between— into public and credible resources.

We believe these secret conversations—whether in group chats, on Reddit, in a doctor’s office, or over drinks—are where the secrets to the universe lie. It’s where power comes from. We built Diem to scale those conversations.

💡 Think of us like a reimagined Reddit or Quora, inspired by the way women already communicate.

I’m listening. Can I learn more?

🚀 Read about our mission

The Problem

It’s 2022, and we need to talk about the gender information gap. Over generations, social, political, intellectual, cultural, and economic information resources have defaulted to serve the “default male” population. As a result, women talk, having learned that the fastest way to reliable, valuable information is through each other instead.

But how does this play out when all of the world’s information lives online, organized across search engines and social media? Not well. When we have a personal question, our first instinct is still to turn to the internet for answers. But the information we find is often SEO optimized, generic, or misinformed. And discovering relevant resources—meaning information that feels specific to our individual needs—often feels impossible.

The Solution

Diem is building a social search engine. It’s a dedicated place for people to search, collect, discover and share information, inspired by the way women have been passing knowledge to each other for centuries. Think of it like the best and biggest group chat you’ve ever been a part of, where all the important, silly, quick, private, and frenetic knowledge you share is organized and stored for everyone to benefit from.

✨ Read about our ideals

SEARCHING WITH THE DOOR OPEN

Searching for answers to your questions online can often feel lonely and frustrating. Diem is a place where we embrace candid conversations—about friendships, birth control, toxic masculinity, harassment, chronic pain, big career moves, enthralling books, easy recipes, and everything in between—in order to turn those conversations into public resources. The plan is to close the gender information gap together, primarily by collating a credible, people-powered database of knowledge. Diem’s community is what makes Diem’s technology work.

💭 Understand what inspires us

Group chats with close girlfriends (Diem = biiiig group chat energy)
The energy in a woman’s bathroom at a bar at 1am. We’re strangers that can band together over shared experiences.
Fighting against data bias in a world designed for men

💌 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter

The Things We (Don’t) Talk About is Diem’s weekly newsletter that’s more like an open-ended, never-ending conversation about technology, gender, and power. It’s written by Diem’s co-founder, Emma Bates.

Sold. How do I join?

🤳 Try out our app

📱 Click here if you have an iPhone
☎️ Click here if you have an Android

In the Diem app, you can publicly ask a question or start a conversation (we call these “Diems”) on any topic. Think of it as a Q&A sesh with a built-in network of trustworthy internet friends. Right now, our community has mostly been sharing stories about personal health, money, and relationships. They’re all pretty taboo topics, and that’s the point.

You can also “contribute” to a Diem by sharing your own stories and recommendations, either in voice note form (a new feature!) or by writing it out.

Put people first.

Diem Messaging Guidelines

Use people-first language that puts the person ahead of their characteristics. Instead of “a female athlete,” say “a woman on the Olympic swimming team.” People > descriptors. We should only be mentioning characteristics like gender, religion, race, sexual orientation, or abilities when they’re relevant to the discussion (which could be a lot in Diem, but we still need to be mindful of this).

Avoid calling groups of people “guys.”

The ”universal male” assumes that the default human being is male and “guys” isn’t gender neutral. Alternatives include saying “everyone,” “folks, “all” and “people.”

Avoid calling groups of women “girls.”

For people over 18 years old, woman or women is better phrasing.

Default to “they.”

Use “they” as the singular pronoun default if pronouns aren’t confirmed.

Avoid calling women “females” or “ladies/gals.”

“Females” can sound like a scientific term — it’s better to use women instead. Terms like “ladies” and “gals” can sound patronizing — it’s better to use women or “folks” instead.

Don’t underplay mental disabilities.

Descriptors like “ADD,” “bipolar,” and “OCD” are not metaphors for everyday behaviors — they describe real psychiatric disabilities that people have. We should also avoid derogatory terms that stem from the context of mental health, like “crazy,” “mad,“ or “psycho.”

Avoid gendered terms.

Common terms we use while building products that are gendered: grandfathered in, mom test, manpower, chairman, hacker. We should opt not to use these.

We don’t call women an underserved community.

The end.

When we write about a culture or ethnicity, we capitalize the name.

For example, we capitalize Black, Asian-American or Latino. We keep white lowercase because white refers to the color of a person’s skin and not a group of people.

Resources

Associated Press Stylebook
American Philsophical Association
Resources on Personal Pronouns
National Council of Teachers of English
The Radical Copyeditor’s Style Guide for Writing About Transgender People
Conscious Style Guide
GLAAD Media Reference Guide
The Association of LGBTQ Journalists Terminology
Trans Journalists Association Style Guide

Note: We originally made this guide for Diem employees to sync up on naming conventions, UX design, and our product voice, but we hope it’s helpful for other platforms who strive to build equitable online and offline spaces.