Re: [kde-community] FOSDEM Organisation
The last decades Computer Sciences have lost women across the board, from being a steadily rising curve it is now lower than it was in the 80's (1) Women in STEM sciences are low but in many other areas this is slowly getting better because the age old excuse of "well women don't really want to" doesn't hold muster when the natural question "why?" is asked. Earlier you asked about female dominated areas like child care for example - the same are true for them, the attempt is to find more men to enroll in educations for example (a drive that has worked rather well here for example). The reasoning isn't so the girls taking those classes could socialize or find dates (I am actually pretty certain not a one argued for that eventual benefit) - its because it enriches the area when there is 1) more people (adding women does not mean kicking out an equal amount of men of course. 2) people from different backgrounds behave differently in situations. More minds thinking about a problem from different angles = new ideas and solutions. For example there are female showers at hostels not because the owners think that women are better hostel guests than men or that they want to implement a "genderocracy" (a term I think is a rather apt description of what we're living under now) but because they want more guests and not having seperate showers tend to drive people away. Finally the Code of Conduct is not just about women, its about LGBT people, people of color etc. AND white straight men too of course. (1) From Wp http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-computer-programming-was-womens-work/2011/08/24/gIQAdixGgJ_story.html?hpid=z3 On Monday 08 December 2014 22.33.50 Laszlo Papp wrote: > On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 10:02 PM, Alex Merry wrote: > > As Valorie said, if you want more female talk submissions, > > I am afraid that I am personally not yet sure whether I wish that. I > am not going to those places and events to see beautiful ladies, get > dates later and the like. What I personally would like is the most > qualified submissions. Whether that happens to be from a male, female, > etc, that does not matter so much to me. When I visit these > conferences I would like to have the best technical experience and > then the socialization as the secondary trait. Even then, I do not > mind what gender I am socializing with. > > I hope that this effort for fixing the "gender ratio" will not > compromise the quality of the conferences. I personally believe more > in meritocracy than "genderocracy". Therefore, I would rather put the > effort into attracting world-wide and recognized industry and > community experts than ladies just for the sake of being females. > > I agree about the CoC, however, gender independently. This is not such > a big concern for me, but I appreciate that if it is for some other > people. I have personally never seen the QtCS, Qt dev days, etc, code > of conducts either and they were amazing events. Qt dev days in Munich > (2011?) had many ladies around, too. Either way, If the organizers can > do something to make the attendants feel comfortable without too much > extra work, I think they ought to try. > ___ > kde-community mailing list > kde-community@kde.org > https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community ___ kde-community mailing list kde-community@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community
Re: [kde-community] FOSDEM Organisation
On 12/08/2014 12:27 PM, Rick Timmis wrote: Bless you Sebastian You expanded my think with clarity and intelligence, thank you. Same here. Thank you, Sebas I am sorry i SHOUTED, that was not necessary Thank you Rick. And I apologize for the harsh tone of my message. I agree re personal / organisational, I had not considered it from this point of view. Best wishes Rick Chastened and edified by sebas's message, it's clear that various parts of my message were ill-informed and wrong. When KDE participates in a conference as an organization, it's important to make sure that there's a good fit. This is not a slippery slope...we participate as an organization in only a few conferences. And our presence can be seen as approval of an event. We can evaluate our participation in those conferences. They are: FOSDEM KDE India Mobile World Congress Qt Contributors Summit Qt Developer Days (Europe, US) LinuxTag LAkademy Akademy-fr Akademy-es US grassroots events such as LinuxFest NW, SCaLE, Texas LF, etc. Others? It would be a simple matter to see whether or not any particular conference has a Code of Conduct. More problematical...John Layt mentions "a proper Code of Conduct". It's not clear what that means. It's difficult to assess Codes of Conduct without agreed upon, objective criteria. If we're going to assess conferences in order to participate as an organization, someone needs to define "proper code of conduct". Much more problematical...does the conference do enough to encourage diverse participation? Over my head. Carl On 8 Dec 2014, at 1:44pm, "Sebastian Kügler" mailto:se...@kde.org>> wrote: Hi Rick, all, On Sunday, December 07, 2014 00:26:08 Rick Timmis wrote: STOP, That is Enough !! This conversation does not belong here, it is devisive, confrontational and can not be resolved here.. That may be true for some replies, but it's not true for the discussion itself. KDE considers taking part in FOSDEM as an organization. FOSDEM as a conference has different standards that what KDE considers, collectively, as good practice, the specific item we're talking about here is a Code of Conduct. I agree that the discussion should be held level-headed instead of in headless-chicken-mode. I also think KDE has a better chance of actually achieving something than individuals. In other words, it's well worth to think of this as an organization. And that's exactly what this thread should be about. WE - The KDE Community have a responsibility, and duty first and for most to protect the unity of our community our community, in the wider sense, yes. PLEASE Cease with this thread of conversation. IF YOU Feel strongly on either side of this argument then please make you feelings known directly to the organisers of FOSDEM It's an issue at organizational level, it should be handled at organizational level, not at individual level. KDE is organizing its participation, not just individuals who want to attend. PLEASE STOP.. Please keep the discussion level-headed and productive. While the topic might not be pleasant to discuss (or read its discussions), it's an important discussion to have, and this is the right place for it. Cheers, ___ kde-community mailing list kde-community@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community ___ kde-community mailing list kde-community@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community
Re: [kde-community] FOSDEM Organisation
On 12/08/2014 11:33 PM, Laszlo Papp wrote: On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 10:02 PM, Alex Merry wrote: As Valorie said, if you want more female talk submissions, I am afraid that I am personally not yet sure whether I wish that. I am not going to those places and events to see beautiful ladies, get dates later and the like. What I personally would like is the most qualified submissions. Whether that happens to be from a male, female, etc, that does not matter so much to me. When I visit these conferences I would like to have the best technical experience and then the socialization as the secondary trait. Even then, I do not mind what gender I am socializing with. I hope that this effort for fixing the "gender ratio" will not compromise the quality of the conferences. I personally believe more in meritocracy than "genderocracy". Therefore, I would rather put the effort into attracting world-wide and recognized industry and community experts than ladies just for the sake of being females. I agree about the CoC, however, gender independently. This is not such a big concern for me, but I appreciate that if it is for some other people. I have personally never seen the QtCS, Qt dev days, etc, code of conducts either and they were amazing events. Qt dev days in Munich (2011?) had many ladies around, too. Either way, If the organizers can do something to make the attendants feel comfortable without too much extra work, I think they ought to try. A few thoughts on that: * The above diatribe is largely an example of yesterday's conflict. If you look at the gender ratio in CS courses at universities today, or the gender ratio in demographically younger work forces in companies, the gender ratio has already shifted. Ours hasn't by as much, though, which means we're starting to miss out on tapping into available talent, which we should definitely care about for open source to remain competitive. These kinds of efforts don't exist as let's-pat-ourselves-on-our-backs feel-good initiatives anymore. I recommend treating it as a PR and recruitment problem: We want to be more attractive to female contributors simply for the health of our contributor base. And I think we should be in- tentionally aggressive about pursuing that talent. * And that PR problem is real. I've been interacting with young, bright, female recent CS graduates a bunch of times this year, and especially the older FOSS communities tend have a rap of being stuffy, kind of off-putting boys' clubs. I recommend stepping outside the bubble now and then -- you might be surprised how others perceive you. It's not a nice experience. * In a broader industry context, one of the main things KDE cares about is making socially responsible software. Using open source licenses, or caring about lowering power usage - many things we do are about technology palatable for society, instead of being a burden on it. Technology is also a main driver of change in the job market right now, causing numerous professions to grow obsolete. Tech-related careers remain - for now - as one in a dwindling field of options that promise self-supporting employ- ment. I think there's an argument for caring about the industry- wide gender ratio in that context, because as we head into these future problems, a world in which unemployment is heavily corre- lated with gender would be Pretty Damn Bad. As I'd like open source to scale to industry-size, I think it'd be nice to work on these things on our turf. Cheers, Eike ___ kde-community mailing list kde-community@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community
Re: [kde-community] FOSDEM Organisation
On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 10:02 PM, Alex Merry wrote: > As Valorie said, if you want more female talk submissions, I am afraid that I am personally not yet sure whether I wish that. I am not going to those places and events to see beautiful ladies, get dates later and the like. What I personally would like is the most qualified submissions. Whether that happens to be from a male, female, etc, that does not matter so much to me. When I visit these conferences I would like to have the best technical experience and then the socialization as the secondary trait. Even then, I do not mind what gender I am socializing with. I hope that this effort for fixing the "gender ratio" will not compromise the quality of the conferences. I personally believe more in meritocracy than "genderocracy". Therefore, I would rather put the effort into attracting world-wide and recognized industry and community experts than ladies just for the sake of being females. I agree about the CoC, however, gender independently. This is not such a big concern for me, but I appreciate that if it is for some other people. I have personally never seen the QtCS, Qt dev days, etc, code of conducts either and they were amazing events. Qt dev days in Munich (2011?) had many ladies around, too. Either way, If the organizers can do something to make the attendants feel comfortable without too much extra work, I think they ought to try. ___ kde-community mailing list kde-community@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community
Re: [kde-community] FOSDEM Organisation
On Saturday 06 December 2014 18:22:45 Pau Garcia i Quiles wrote:
> People are overreacting with these CoC's (or lack of). For some reason, and
> it's not discrimination of any kind, women are by far not interested in
> technology and engineering. In the same way they are by far more interested
> in Nursery, Medicine, Psychology, Marketing & Advertising, etc than men. Is
> there a CoC about men for Nursery or Midwife conventions? I don't think so.
OK, to start with, potential attendees saying they are unwilling to attend
unless there's a CoC should be reason enough to make one and enforce it. I
mean, it's a (relatively) easy win, right?
Unless you actually *want* the sort of people who would violate a typical CoC
at your conference, the only argument I have heard against them is that they
suggest a history of problems that the CoC is needed to correct. But you can't
deny that such a history exists - maybe not at FOSDEM (I couldn't say one way
or the other), but at tech conferences in general. A CoC may acknowledge such
a history (and I think that's a good thing, not a bad thing), but it also says
that it will not be tolerated *here*.
The advantage a clear and explicit CoC (such as [0]) has over a vague
"harassment will not be tolerated" statement, is that it allows you to be
absolutely clear that "this incident *was* harassment" and that it is worth
dealing with. The tendency for all parties to downplay incidents of harassment
is well documented (eg: [1]), but even if the victim feels an incident is "not
worth reporting", that doesn't mean it won't put them off returning the
following year.
> For some reason, and it's not discrimination of any kind, women are by far
> not interested in technology and engineering.
So, this sort of things crops up with worrying regularity in tech circles, and
I think is worth addressing directly.
Oddly enough, 50 years ago the situation was reversed, in the sense that
computer programming was dominated by women, and largely considered "women's
work" ("Programming requires a lot of patience, persistence and a capacity for
detail and those are traits that many girls have", wrote I. J. Seligsohn in
1967[2]). But then us men decided that this programming lark was rather fun,
and muscled in on the territory. Suddenly, it's a man's job, dominated by men,
and - by bizarre coincidence - women are suddenly "not interested" in it.
Of course, the gender ratio in applications to degree-level courses and to
jobs alike are massively skewed in favour of men. And if you want to get some
idea of why (although the factors are undoubtably complex, because it's
incredibly rare for anything to have a single, clear cause), one can look at a
Stanford University study done on advanced maths, science and engineering
(MSE) students[3]: they were each shown one of two videos for an "MSE summer
leadership conference". One depicted a fairly accurate gender ratio in MSE
degrees of 3 men for every women. The other depicted a 50-50 split. Women who
saw the 3-1 ratio video expressed considerably less interest in attending than
those who saw the 50-50 video.
The take-away from this and other similar studies is that when you make women
feel like they don't belong, such as with male-dominated or all-male speaker
lists, they will (as a group) take that on board and be less likely to want to
attend or submit talk proposals. And this doesn't apply only to women, of
course: race and sexuality are among the ways lines can be drawn between who
"belongs" and who doesn't (and don't forget, of course, that "If a maintenance
programmer can't quote entire Monty Python movies from memory, he or she has
no business being a programmer."[4]).
As Valorie said, if you want more female talk submissions, you have to make
the first move - invite experienced female speakers, find out why they won't
attend if they aren't willing to come, implement any changes arising from that
and create a roster that says to women "you belong here: you can be part of
this". Let's be clear: you're not going to suddenly bring about gender
equality in computing by doing this, but it's a step in the right direction.
Alex
[0]: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment/Policy
[1]: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15018720
[2]: I. J. Seligsohn, Your Career in Computer Programming, Simon & Schuster,
1967
[3]: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17894605
[4]: https://www.thc.org/root/phun/unmaintain.html
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Re: [kde-community] FOSDEM Organisation
Bless you Sebastian You expanded my think with clarity and intelligence, thank you. I am sorry i SHOUTED, that was not necessary I agree re personal / organisational, I had not considered it from this point of view. Best wishes Rick Sent from Blue Mail On 1:44pm, 8 Dec 2014, at 1:44pm, "Sebastian Kügler" wrote: >Hi Rick, all, > >On Sunday, December 07, 2014 00:26:08 Rick Timmis wrote: >> STOP, That is Enough !! >> >> This conversation does not belong here, it is devisive, >confrontational and >> can not be resolved here.. > >That may be true for some replies, but it's not true for the discussion > >itself. KDE considers taking part in FOSDEM as an organization. FOSDEM >as a >conference has different standards that what KDE considers, >collectively, as >good practice, the specific item we're talking about here is a Code of >Conduct. > >I agree that the discussion should be held level-headed instead of in >headless-chicken-mode. I also think KDE has a better chance of actually > >achieving something than individuals. > >In other words, it's well worth to think of this as an organization. >And >that's exactly what this thread should be about. > >> WE - The KDE Community have a responsibility, and duty first and for >most to >> protect the unity of our community > >our community, in the wider sense, yes. > >> PLEASE Cease with this thread of conversation. >> >> IF YOU Feel strongly on either side of this argument then please make >you >> feelings known directly to the organisers of FOSDEM > >It's an issue at organizational level, it should be handled at >organizational >level, not at individual level. KDE is organizing its participation, >not just >individuals who want to attend. > >> PLEASE STOP.. > >Please keep the discussion level-headed and productive. While the topic >might >not be pleasant to discuss (or read its discussions), it's an important > >discussion to have, and this is the right place for it. > >Cheers, >-- >sebas > >http://www.kde.org | http://vizZzion.org | GPG Key ID: 9119 0EF9 >___ >kde-community mailing list >kde-community@kde.org >https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community ___ kde-community mailing list kde-community@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community
Re: [kde-community] FOSDEM Organisation
On Saturday 06 December 2014 08:36:35 Carl Symons wrote: > At least some of the FOSDEM organizers believe that it's important. They > have a social conduct policy. It's published in the front of the program > brochure. Apparently John doesn't think that it is proper (whatever that > means): > > "Social conduct policy > >The FOSDEM organisers were surprised to hear that >harassment is a common problem at open source conferences >around the world. While we have no evidence of antisocial >behaviour ever having been a problem at FOSDEM, we would >like to remind everyone that harassment of any kind will >not be tolerated. Please report any concerns to a FOSDEM >staff member (yellow shirts), or contact our coordinator >Wynke on (telephone number)" > from the 2014 conference in plain view > (https://archive.fosdem.org/2014/assets/booklet-a1fec82960ed17ed7974bc2e9951 > dfc898c83318f8634f7ee046d952ada8ecb7.pdf) That sounds pretty much exactly what at least I would be looking for in a code of conduct, I think it is quite well written and balanced. However, the important disadvantage of making your CoC available only to people who are already _at_ the conference is that people for whom the presence of a CoC is a criterion for joining the conference will never know there is one. So if they just put their social conduct policy on their website in addition to the brochure, I think it would be fine. Could you maybe ask your FOSDEM contact if they could do that, Carl? Thanks, Thomas ___ kde-community mailing list kde-community@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community
Re: [kde-community] FOSDEM Organisation
Hi Rick, all, On Sunday, December 07, 2014 00:26:08 Rick Timmis wrote: > STOP, That is Enough !! > > This conversation does not belong here, it is devisive, confrontational and > can not be resolved here.. That may be true for some replies, but it's not true for the discussion itself. KDE considers taking part in FOSDEM as an organization. FOSDEM as a conference has different standards that what KDE considers, collectively, as good practice, the specific item we're talking about here is a Code of Conduct. I agree that the discussion should be held level-headed instead of in headless-chicken-mode. I also think KDE has a better chance of actually achieving something than individuals. In other words, it's well worth to think of this as an organization. And that's exactly what this thread should be about. > WE - The KDE Community have a responsibility, and duty first and for most to > protect the unity of our community our community, in the wider sense, yes. > PLEASE Cease with this thread of conversation. > > IF YOU Feel strongly on either side of this argument then please make you > feelings known directly to the organisers of FOSDEM It's an issue at organizational level, it should be handled at organizational level, not at individual level. KDE is organizing its participation, not just individuals who want to attend. > PLEASE STOP.. Please keep the discussion level-headed and productive. While the topic might not be pleasant to discuss (or read its discussions), it's an important discussion to have, and this is the right place for it. Cheers, -- sebas http://www.kde.org | http://vizZzion.org | GPG Key ID: 9119 0EF9 ___ kde-community mailing list kde-community@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community
Re: [kde-community] FOSDEM Organisation
On 7 December 2014 at 18:15, Carl Symons wrote: > * Get on with it. John's not attending and not bringing equipment that has > been used in the expo space in past years. Who can pick up the slack? What would be needed? A WikiFM contributor is currently studying and living in Bruxelles (ERASMUS), maybe I can ask her for help if we have problems with logistics... I am also likely attending FOSDEM. -Riccardo -- Pace Peace Paix Paz Frieden Pax Pokój Friður Fred Béke 和平 Hasiti Lapé Hetep Malu Mир Wolakota Santiphap Irini Peoch שלום Shanti Vrede Baris Rój Mír Taika Rongo Sulh Mir Py'guapy 평화 ___ kde-community mailing list kde-community@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community
