Ross Gardler wrote: <snip/>
On Oct 28th 2009 I made the women@ list aware of the opportunity to revitalize the women@ objectives through comdev [1]. Specifically I said "The wo...@a.o list has not really gone anywhere, but maybe this is another chance to look at the lack of female representation here at the ASF." This resulted in a few of the original women@ participants joining the comdev list where rolling women@ into comdev has been discussed on a few occasions.
At the risk of being too terse, I'll briefly provide my view on what Ross said: "The wo...@a.o list has not really gone anywhere" and respond to his question "Why haven't these people been posting to wo...@?"
The very women for whom we created the women@ list turned out to be reluctant to post to a public, archived list. --Often out of sheer shyness, but sometimes with good reason. Projects at Apache have open (dev/user) lists that are publicly archived, and a private list for the PMC to discuss people matters in private. women@, like several other lists at apache, is an orphaned list, without any project home.
Helping women participate continues, but for the most part off-list. I'll bet Danese also has had her share of queries as well.
I'm always happy to help somebody, but I prefer that it be in a context that provides actual oversight so that if I am not available, somebody else likely is; or if a particularly puzzling issue comes up, more people can contribute to the resolution. And, occasionally, there is the issue that needs to be handled in private. comdev can provide that oversight and I think will be a more comfortable place for people in general to interact. As Ross said, if activity picks up, there could always be a wo...@community.apache.org.
regards, -jean
