Re: [FAQ] Proto-FAQ question 1

[Matt Sicker]

Confluence and Jira are slow regardless of the distance between you and the
data center. They’re bloated. 

On Tue, May 14, 2019 at 18:59, Justin Mclean 
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> What has seem to worked on some of the non-English background projects
> I’ve mentored:
> - Encourage to PPMC to ask people to communicate in English if they can
> - Encourage to PPMC to ask people to provide a translation along with
> their original email either by someone else or a machine translation (Note
> that google services like google translate are not generally available in
> China)
> - Encourage the PPMC to translate or ask others to translate any non
> English messages into English
>
> The turning point is generally when they realise that they can get a more
> diverse set of contributors by having enlist communication in English.
>
> From what I’ve seen this seems to mostly work, there does seem however to
> be a lot of traffic off list on instant messaging in these projects, but
> that’s not unique to podlings originating from China. It's where users
> general go to ask questions in slack or gitter or the like.
>
> The users situation is also usually resolved (in part) by having two web
> sites one in English and one in Chinese. This also brings up the issue of
> the great firewall and access speeds from within China. Infra are working
> with a couple of projects on this using CDNs so their site are fast and
> accessable.
>
> As an aside speed to other SF services (like Confluence and JIRA) can be
> slow when accessed outside the US or Europe, but that’s probably not our
> issue to fix.
>
> Thanks,
> Justin
>
>
>
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> To unsubscribe, e-mail: diversity-unsubscr...@apache.org
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>
> --
Matt Sicker 

Re: [FAQ] Proto-FAQ question 1

[Justin Mclean]

Hi,

What has seem to worked on some of the non-English background projects I’ve 
mentored:
- Encourage to PPMC to ask people to communicate in English if they can
- Encourage to PPMC to ask people to provide a translation along with their 
original email either by someone else or a machine translation (Note that 
google services like google translate are not generally available in China)
- Encourage the PPMC to translate or ask others to translate any non English 
messages into English

The turning point is generally when they realise that they can get a more 
diverse set of contributors by having enlist communication in English.

From what I’ve seen this seems to mostly work, there does seem however to be a 
lot of traffic off list on instant messaging in these projects, but that’s not 
unique to podlings originating from China. It's where users general go to ask 
questions in slack or gitter or the like.

The users situation is also usually resolved (in part) by having two web sites 
one in English and one in Chinese. This also brings up the issue of the great 
firewall and access speeds from within China. Infra are working with a couple 
of projects on this using CDNs so their site are fast and accessable.

As an aside speed to other SF services (like Confluence and JIRA) can be slow 
when accessed outside the US or Europe, but that’s probably not our issue to 
fix.

Thanks,
Justin



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Re: [FAQ] Proto-FAQ question 1

[Mark Thomas]

On 14/05/2019 17:46, Alex Harui wrote:
> When I see a post in non-English on the lists of the projects I participate 
> in, I shove it into Google Translate.  It works well enough to give me an 
> idea of what the post is about.  If I thought it was important, I would copy 
> the English translation as a reply to the post saying "Google Translate said 
> you are saying:  ".  Sometimes, another person on the lists who is fluent in 
> the original poster's language will offer a translation as well as discuss 
> with the OP in that OP's language.  And that's all good to me.  

+1.

This is essentially what I recommend when I see projects asking about
communication in languages other than English.

Mark

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Re: [FAQ] Proto-FAQ question 1

[Jose Miguel Parrella Romero]

In Debian, there are non-English mailing lists for user support, developer 
discussions, i18n/l10n and news (think press)

The volume is rather small and threads that can potentially change the 
direction of the project are invariably in English (whether in the bug tracking 
system, mailing lists, IRC, etc.), but the infrastructure exists and at least 
for i18n/l10n and news I can say there's an operational dependency on it. Of 
course outside of Debian-hosted infrastructure, there are local Debian user 
groups, meetups, conferences, etc.

I recently heard an anecdote from Chris Lamb (former Debian Project Leader) 
where he mentioned that after a non-English speaker was repeatedly using the 
word "abysmal" to describe the performance of a service (creating friction with 
the developers and operators) they chose what I would describe as a 
probing/educational communication style, where regardless of whether the 
performance of the service was underwhelming or not, the nuances of the concept 
were written back to the original poster to the point where either it was a 
personal attack (rare) or a different word emanated as alternative.

PS: also sharing some resources from Debian's Anti-Harrassment team Wiki page 
[1]

[1] https://wiki.debian.org/AntiHarassment


From: Alex Harui 
Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2019 9:46 AM
To: diversity@apache.org
Subject: Re: [FAQ] Proto-FAQ question 1

IMO, we can come up with a way to support non-English official communication 
channels.  We have to try to make it clear to as many people as possible that 
it is ok to write an email in your native language on dev@ and users@.  We 
could decide that private@ is the air-traffic-controller channel and must be 
English.  Hopefully the kinds of discussions on private@ are limited enough 
that people on that list can learn enough functional English to participate.  
Most are coders using English keywords in programming languages.

When I see a post in non-English on the lists of the projects I participate in, 
I shove it into Google Translate.  It works well enough to give me an idea of 
what the post is about.  If I thought it was important, I would copy the 
English translation as a reply to the post saying "Google Translate said you 
are saying:  ".  Sometimes, another person on the lists who is fluent in the 
original poster's language will offer a translation as well as discuss with the 
OP in that OP's language.  And that's all good to me.

I do not think we want to have language-specific channels any more than we 
would tell some group they must use English when having a conversation in a 
public space.That's one analogy I use for the ASF:  that we are basically 
working from a bench in the town square where everyone can listen in on our 
conversations and I can listen in on others.  We should not start from the fear 
that some conversation that we cannot understand is going to have negative 
consequences.  Some will, for sure, but it should be ok to ask for a short 
summary in English.  We can make it a recommended or required practice for the 
PMC members to try to provide those short summaries, even if it is via Google 
Translate.

Again, a restaurant analogy.  If some tourists come into your restaurant, use 
their limited English to order food, then have a conversation in their native 
language while eating, that should be allowed, and the astute restaurant worker 
will still try to pick up on whether they are enjoying the food and the 
restaurant in general.  IMO, Google Translate has worked well enough for me to 
pick up on non-English conversations on the lists and participate.  I would not 
want to have to monitor other language specific lists.  I would encourage 
everyone on our lists to use Google Translate to get a sense of the 
conversations in other languages.  I will be super happy if my project's users@ 
lists are a mix of languages.

My 2 cents,
-Alex

On 5/14/19, 9:19 AM, "Joan Touzet"  wrote:

This is something that's been on my mind a lot recently.

We can't come up with a way to support non-English official
communication channels for the Foundation as Bertrand mentions, but if
we don't allow non-official channels in other languages, as the saying
goes, "the Internet will route around us" and just create them outside
of the ASF.

I, for one, would rather see those discussions happening on ASF lists if
at all possible. Maybe we can't have a dev-chinese@project.a.o, but
couldn't we at least support a users-chinese@project.a.o?

I think it's equally important to consider the i18n and l10n of the
software projects that we shepherd. This is something I want to ask the
assembled minds in the board/officers at the face-to-face meeting this week.

I know there are some woefully under-recognized solutions within the ASF
(such as our Pootle instance, 
https://nam04.safelinks

Re: [FAQ] Proto-FAQ question 1

[Alex Harui]

IMO, we can come up with a way to support non-English official communication 
channels.  We have to try to make it clear to as many people as possible that 
it is ok to write an email in your native language on dev@ and users@.  We 
could decide that private@ is the air-traffic-controller channel and must be 
English.  Hopefully the kinds of discussions on private@ are limited enough 
that people on that list can learn enough functional English to participate.  
Most are coders using English keywords in programming languages.

When I see a post in non-English on the lists of the projects I participate in, 
I shove it into Google Translate.  It works well enough to give me an idea of 
what the post is about.  If I thought it was important, I would copy the 
English translation as a reply to the post saying "Google Translate said you 
are saying:  ".  Sometimes, another person on the lists who is fluent in the 
original poster's language will offer a translation as well as discuss with the 
OP in that OP's language.  And that's all good to me.  

I do not think we want to have language-specific channels any more than we 
would tell some group they must use English when having a conversation in a 
public space.That's one analogy I use for the ASF:  that we are basically 
working from a bench in the town square where everyone can listen in on our 
conversations and I can listen in on others.  We should not start from the fear 
that some conversation that we cannot understand is going to have negative 
consequences.  Some will, for sure, but it should be ok to ask for a short 
summary in English.  We can make it a recommended or required practice for the 
PMC members to try to provide those short summaries, even if it is via Google 
Translate.

Again, a restaurant analogy.  If some tourists come into your restaurant, use 
their limited English to order food, then have a conversation in their native 
language while eating, that should be allowed, and the astute restaurant worker 
will still try to pick up on whether they are enjoying the food and the 
restaurant in general.  IMO, Google Translate has worked well enough for me to 
pick up on non-English conversations on the lists and participate.  I would not 
want to have to monitor other language specific lists.  I would encourage 
everyone on our lists to use Google Translate to get a sense of the 
conversations in other languages.  I will be super happy if my project's users@ 
lists are a mix of languages.

My 2 cents,
-Alex

On 5/14/19, 9:19 AM, "Joan Touzet"  wrote:

This is something that's been on my mind a lot recently.

We can't come up with a way to support non-English official 
communication channels for the Foundation as Bertrand mentions, but if 
we don't allow non-official channels in other languages, as the saying 
goes, "the Internet will route around us" and just create them outside 
of the ASF.

I, for one, would rather see those discussions happening on ASF lists if 
at all possible. Maybe we can't have a dev-chinese@project.a.o, but 
couldn't we at least support a users-chinese@project.a.o?

I think it's equally important to consider the i18n and l10n of the 
software projects that we shepherd. This is something I want to ask the 
assembled minds in the board/officers at the face-to-face meeting this week.

I know there are some woefully under-recognized solutions within the ASF 
(such as our Pootle instance, 
https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftranslate.apache.org%2Fdata=02%7C01%7Caharui%40adobe.com%7C4848722d05434837676f08d6d887ff3f%7Cfa7b1b5a7b34438794aed2c178decee1%7C0%7C0%7C636934475947707323sdata=Oz05t0OaJez5iqUwjHo3tP%2BmB7K%2FSFgC81BbLHeKOYE%3Dreserved=0).
 Look how 
few projects even try to use it. This is tragic. And doing what we can 
to improve things here I feel does fall under D It even meshes with 
the US non-profit mission of software for/in the public good, since the 
US does not have an official national language, and has a large 
percentage of citizens and residents who speak other languages.

On the intake side, we should consider translation of the FAQ and other 
documents into a few languages, with reverse translations back to 
English to ensure nuance is not lost (especially for critical documents 
like the CoC, general project bylaws, and maybe some of "The Apache Way" 
stuff.) These documents can clearly be marked as "not official" so as to 
not overburden our thin legal resources to date.

-Joan

On 2019-05-14 12:03 p.m., Alex Harui wrote:
> It has been interesting to me how important words are in these 
discussions.  In this case, the word "fix".  We may not be able to "fix" as in 
"eliminate" the requirement to communicate in English, but I believe we can and 
should encourage communities to choose their words more carefully so that 

Re: [FAQ] Proto-FAQ question 1

[Joan Touzet]

This is something that's been on my mind a lot recently.

We can't come up with a way to support non-English official 
communication channels for the Foundation as Bertrand mentions, but if 
we don't allow non-official channels in other languages, as the saying 
goes, "the Internet will route around us" and just create them outside 
of the ASF.


I, for one, would rather see those discussions happening on ASF lists if 
at all possible. Maybe we can't have a dev-chinese@project.a.o, but 
couldn't we at least support a users-chinese@project.a.o?


I think it's equally important to consider the i18n and l10n of the 
software projects that we shepherd. This is something I want to ask the 
assembled minds in the board/officers at the face-to-face meeting this week.


I know there are some woefully under-recognized solutions within the ASF 
(such as our Pootle instance, https://translate.apache.org/). Look how 
few projects even try to use it. This is tragic. And doing what we can 
to improve things here I feel does fall under D It even meshes with 
the US non-profit mission of software for/in the public good, since the 
US does not have an official national language, and has a large 
percentage of citizens and residents who speak other languages.


On the intake side, we should consider translation of the FAQ and other 
documents into a few languages, with reverse translations back to 
English to ensure nuance is not lost (especially for critical documents 
like the CoC, general project bylaws, and maybe some of "The Apache Way" 
stuff.) These documents can clearly be marked as "not official" so as to 
not overburden our thin legal resources to date.


-Joan

On 2019-05-14 12:03 p.m., Alex Harui wrote:

It has been interesting to me how important words are in these discussions.  In this case, the word "fix".  
We may not be able to "fix" as in "eliminate" the requirement to communicate in English, but I 
believe we can and should encourage communities to choose their words more carefully so that "fluency" is not 
perceived as a requirement.  I already do filter my choice of words to try to avoid word patterns that non-US citizens 
may not understand since all but one of the most active committers on my project live outside the US.

We might come up with other social suggestions like allowing posts in other 
languages on users@ lists, allowing posts in other languages on dev@ but 
recommending translation of the original post to English and requiring posts in 
English on private@.  That's sort of how Flex and Royale operate today without 
any official documentation of this approach.

My observation is that restaurant workers in the US in popular tourist areas 
are generally trained to be patient with non-English-speaking customers and 
also choose their words carefully.  Why shouldn't we all take that approach at 
Apache?   Another observation is that airline pilots fly to the US from all 
over the world and communicate in English to flight controllers in the US (and 
other countries too, iIRC).   I'm fairly certain the US-based flight 
controllers choose their words carefully.  I do not think all of those pilots 
from other countries are fluent in English.  They have learned enough 
functional English to communicate on how to navigate and land an airplane.  
Does/should software development at the ASF require an even larger English 
vocabulary than navigating air-space?

My 2 cents,
-Alex

On 5/14/19, 6:27 AM, "Bertrand Delacretaz"  wrote:

 On Tue, May 14, 2019 at 3:09 PM Daniel Gruno  wrote:
 > ...It's like democracy - while not perfect, it is (I would say) the least
 > sucky way of ensuring fairness, openness and proper governance, as it is
 > the most universal (and de facto standard) language we have..
 
 +1
 
 > I do not see the need for or lack of English skills as a thing *we* can fix...
 
 Same here, I was mentioning as one invariant that does affect who

 joins our communities - or more precisely the way people contribute.
 
 -Bertrand
 
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Re: [FAQ] Proto-FAQ question 1

[Alex Harui]

It has been interesting to me how important words are in these discussions.  In 
this case, the word "fix".  We may not be able to "fix" as in "eliminate" the 
requirement to communicate in English, but I believe we can and should 
encourage communities to choose their words more carefully so that "fluency" is 
not perceived as a requirement.  I already do filter my choice of words to try 
to avoid word patterns that non-US citizens may not understand since all but 
one of the most active committers on my project live outside the US.

We might come up with other social suggestions like allowing posts in other 
languages on users@ lists, allowing posts in other languages on dev@ but 
recommending translation of the original post to English and requiring posts in 
English on private@.  That's sort of how Flex and Royale operate today without 
any official documentation of this approach.

My observation is that restaurant workers in the US in popular tourist areas 
are generally trained to be patient with non-English-speaking customers and 
also choose their words carefully.  Why shouldn't we all take that approach at 
Apache?   Another observation is that airline pilots fly to the US from all 
over the world and communicate in English to flight controllers in the US (and 
other countries too, iIRC).   I'm fairly certain the US-based flight 
controllers choose their words carefully.  I do not think all of those pilots 
from other countries are fluent in English.  They have learned enough 
functional English to communicate on how to navigate and land an airplane.  
Does/should software development at the ASF require an even larger English 
vocabulary than navigating air-space?

My 2 cents,
-Alex

On 5/14/19, 6:27 AM, "Bertrand Delacretaz"  wrote:

On Tue, May 14, 2019 at 3:09 PM Daniel Gruno  wrote:
> ...It's like democracy - while not perfect, it is (I would say) the least
> sucky way of ensuring fairness, openness and proper governance, as it is
> the most universal (and de facto standard) language we have..

+1

> I do not see the need for or lack of English skills as a thing *we* can 
fix...

Same here, I was mentioning as one invariant that does affect who
joins our communities - or more precisely the way people contribute.

-Bertrand

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Re: [FAQ] Proto-FAQ question 1

[Shane Curcuru]

Patricia Shanahan wrote on 5/13/19 4:13 PM:
> The first and most important question is something along the lines of:
> 
> --
> 
> Q: Apache does everything by e-mail. I do not know or care about the
> race, ethnicity, gender, age, weight, or any other personal
> characteristics of other contributors. Why are diversity and inclusion
> relevant issues for Apache?

There are a lot of great additions on this thread, but we're still
missing a fundamental point about "The Apache Way" - I just don't know
how to best express it to help *answer* the question.

Community over code.

A long-held maxim at the ASF, we recently wrote it down and put it
prominently on the website (Well, somewhat prominently in this essay):

  https://www.apache.org/theapacheway/index.html

So the literal reply to "I only care about the code" is "That's great
for you, but Apache values the communities - made up of people - more
than the code."  If we look at the Incubator, the primary criteria for
being ready to graduate is if the *community* is self governing.  Sure,
they have to have released some code [1], but the real Incubator
questions are about the people working on a podling, not the code.

I feel like this is intuitively obvious to many long-time Apache
community members, but is still difficult to explain in terms of how
that value structure of people first applies in the distributed and
online world of all the code we produce.

Thanks in advance to Patricia and others who will be editing all these
great answers into a FAQ!  8-)

-- 

- Shane
  Director & Member
  The Apache Software Foundation

[1] The Incubator also does a bunch of legal bits, which are equally
important... mostly because having cleanly licensed code means that more
people can use - and might contribute to - our community.

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Re: [FAQ] Proto-FAQ question 1

[Bertrand Delacretaz]

On Tue, May 14, 2019 at 3:09 PM Daniel Gruno  wrote:
> ...It's like democracy - while not perfect, it is (I would say) the least
> sucky way of ensuring fairness, openness and proper governance, as it is
> the most universal (and de facto standard) language we have..

+1

> I do not see the need for or lack of English skills as a thing *we* can fix...

Same here, I was mentioning as one invariant that does affect who
joins our communities - or more precisely the way people contribute.

-Bertrand

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Re: [FAQ] Proto-FAQ question 1

[Daniel Gruno]

On 14/05/2019 08.59, Bertrand Delacretaz wrote:

On Tue, May 14, 2019 at 2:49 PM Justin Mclean  wrote:

...we’ve asked them to speak English on the mailing lists, so we could ask them 
what that experience
was like and if anyone felt excluded...


I'm sure the requirement to use English does turn some people away.

If that's not your native language it's easy to be ashamed of your
writing and avoid communicating on our channels.

Until now we've always (or mostly) said that we can't have non-english
channels as it is hard or impossible for the ASF to have oversight on
those - I think that's still valid today.


It's like democracy - while not perfect, it is (I would say) the least 
sucky way of ensuring fairness, openness and proper governance, as it is 
the most universal (and de facto standard) language we have. I do not 
see the need for or lack of English skills as a thing *we* can fix.




-Bertrand

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Re: [FAQ] Proto-FAQ question 1

[Bertrand Delacretaz]

On Tue, May 14, 2019 at 2:49 PM Justin Mclean  wrote:
> ...we’ve asked them to speak English on the mailing lists, so we could ask 
> them what that experience
> was like and if anyone felt excluded...

I'm sure the requirement to use English does turn some people away.

If that's not your native language it's easy to be ashamed of your
writing and avoid communicating on our channels.

Until now we've always (or mostly) said that we can't have non-english
channels as it is hard or impossible for the ASF to have oversight on
those - I think that's still valid today.

-Bertrand

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Re: [FAQ] Proto-FAQ question 1

[Justin Mclean]

Hi,

> Active contributors to Apache software have to be fluent, reading and 
> writing, in written English.

Over the last couple of years we had a number of projects (about a dozen) 
donated from China and we’ve asked them to speak English on the mailing lists, 
so we could ask them what that experience was like and if anyone felt excluded, 
I assume that some people felt that they had been. While each project varies, 
it seems that a lot more of the conversation in these project happen in GitHub 
or instant messaging rather than on the mailing lists, which has caused some 
issues.

Thanks,
Justin
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Re: [FAQ] Proto-FAQ question 1

[Patricia Shanahan]

From this point of view, we have a really strong exclusion that is more 
likely to be relevant to software use than e.g. gender.


Active contributors to Apache software have to be fluent, reading and 
writing, in written English.


On 5/13/2019 9:41 PM, Kenneth Knowles wrote:

I alluded to this elsewhere, but I would welcome feedback on whether this
perspective is relevant. It hinges on whether the ASF's mission is to
provide software *that is a public good* in the technical economics sense
(non-excludable non-rivalrous) or software *for the public good* (aka the
benefit of the public). The ASL seems oriented towards the former, while
the foundation has a lot more of the latter than I realized 5 years ago. If
the latter carries weight, there's this...

A: The mission of the ASF is to provide software for the public good. The
best way to ensure something is for the public good is to include a diverse
sample of the public in its development and direction. Those who are not
represented in development of Apache projects are probably less well-served
by those projects. At best, we just don't know. To assume otherwise is
paternalistic [1]. So increased diversity and inclusion automatically
advances the foundation's mission, whether or not you know or care about
the race, ethnicity, gender, age, weight, or any other personal
characteristics of other contributors.

Kenn

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternalism


*From: *Patricia Shanahan 
*Date: *Mon, May 13, 2019 at 1:14 PM
*To: * 

The first and most important question is something along the lines of:


--

Q: Apache does everything by e-mail. I do not know or care about the
race, ethnicity, gender, age, weight, or any other personal
characteristics of other contributors. Why are diversity and inclusion
relevant issues for Apache?

--

Here are some elements that I think should be covered in the answer. At
this point, I am going for the big picture. Please suggest improvements
and fix errors.

--

1. Subconscious bias: You know the name the contributor uses. In
addition, you may know their time zone and, from how quotes are
introduced, the language in which they do most of their e-mail interaction.

Research indicates that merely changing the name on a resume can affect
the probability of a call back. Although the results could in theory be
explained by deliberate racism and sexism, they seem more likely to be
due to subconscious bias.

2. It is not all e-mail: Apache contributors meet at open source
conferences, specialty technical conferences, and local gatherings. Not
being able to participate without fearing discrimination would itself be
discouraging.

3. Unintentional insult through stereotypes: This is a bigger risk in
e-mail than in face-to-face interactions.

I had someone on a mailing list use "try to explain X to someone's
aunt", where X was a difficult technical point, as an example of
futility. It invoked a stereotype of older women as lacking computer
science comprehension. As it happens, I already had two adult nephews
when I got my PhD in computer science. The writer would probably not
have said what they did in a live conversation including a grey-haired
woman.

4. Misuse of pronouns: If you know someone's preferred pronouns you know
something about their gender, and subconscious gender discrimination
becomes possible. If you don't, you may be making them cringe every time
you refer to them in an e-mail.

--

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Re: [FAQ] Proto-FAQ question 1

[Rich Bowen]

Answer N: the numbers show that our community is overwhelmingly male. This
implies that we are somehow, perhaps unintentionally, excluding half of the
planet. We would like to find out why and fix it. This doesn't mean that we
can fix the whole industry but we can make our corner of it a little more
welcoming.

On Mon, May 13, 2019, 16:14 Patricia Shanahan  wrote:

> The first and most important question is something along the lines of:
>
> --
>
> Q: Apache does everything by e-mail. I do not know or care about the
> race, ethnicity, gender, age, weight, or any other personal
> characteristics of other contributors. Why are diversity and inclusion
> relevant issues for Apache?
>
> --
>
> Here are some elements that I think should be covered in the answer. At
> this point, I am going for the big picture. Please suggest improvements
> and fix errors.
>
> --
>
> 1. Subconscious bias: You know the name the contributor uses. In
> addition, you may know their time zone and, from how quotes are
> introduced, the language in which they do most of their e-mail interaction.
>
> Research indicates that merely changing the name on a resume can affect
> the probability of a call back. Although the results could in theory be
> explained by deliberate racism and sexism, they seem more likely to be
> due to subconscious bias.
>
> 2. It is not all e-mail: Apache contributors meet at open source
> conferences, specialty technical conferences, and local gatherings. Not
> being able to participate without fearing discrimination would itself be
> discouraging.
>
> 3. Unintentional insult through stereotypes: This is a bigger risk in
> e-mail than in face-to-face interactions.
>
> I had someone on a mailing list use "try to explain X to someone's
> aunt", where X was a difficult technical point, as an example of
> futility. It invoked a stereotype of older women as lacking computer
> science comprehension. As it happens, I already had two adult nephews
> when I got my PhD in computer science. The writer would probably not
> have said what they did in a live conversation including a grey-haired
> woman.
>
> 4. Misuse of pronouns: If you know someone's preferred pronouns you know
> something about their gender, and subconscious gender discrimination
> becomes possible. If you don't, you may be making them cringe every time
> you refer to them in an e-mail.
>
> --
>
> -
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: diversity-unsubscr...@apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: diversity-h...@apache.org
>
>

Re: [FAQ] Proto-FAQ question 1

[Patricia Shanahan]

Most of the points in my draft were about inclusion, making sure 
everyone feels welcome. This is directly about diversity as a benefit in 
its own right.



On 5/13/2019 9:41 PM, Kenneth Knowles wrote:

I alluded to this elsewhere, but I would welcome feedback on whether this
perspective is relevant. It hinges on whether the ASF's mission is to
provide software *that is a public good* in the technical economics sense
(non-excludable non-rivalrous) or software *for the public good* (aka the
benefit of the public). The ASL seems oriented towards the former, while
the foundation has a lot more of the latter than I realized 5 years ago. If
the latter carries weight, there's this...

A: The mission of the ASF is to provide software for the public good. The
best way to ensure something is for the public good is to include a diverse
sample of the public in its development and direction. Those who are not
represented in development of Apache projects are probably less well-served
by those projects. At best, we just don't know. To assume otherwise is
paternalistic [1]. So increased diversity and inclusion automatically
advances the foundation's mission, whether or not you know or care about
the race, ethnicity, gender, age, weight, or any other personal
characteristics of other contributors.

Kenn

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternalism


*From: *Patricia Shanahan 
*Date: *Mon, May 13, 2019 at 1:14 PM
*To: * 

The first and most important question is something along the lines of:


--

Q: Apache does everything by e-mail. I do not know or care about the
race, ethnicity, gender, age, weight, or any other personal
characteristics of other contributors. Why are diversity and inclusion
relevant issues for Apache?

--

Here are some elements that I think should be covered in the answer. At
this point, I am going for the big picture. Please suggest improvements
and fix errors.

--

1. Subconscious bias: You know the name the contributor uses. In
addition, you may know their time zone and, from how quotes are
introduced, the language in which they do most of their e-mail interaction.

Research indicates that merely changing the name on a resume can affect
the probability of a call back. Although the results could in theory be
explained by deliberate racism and sexism, they seem more likely to be
due to subconscious bias.

2. It is not all e-mail: Apache contributors meet at open source
conferences, specialty technical conferences, and local gatherings. Not
being able to participate without fearing discrimination would itself be
discouraging.

3. Unintentional insult through stereotypes: This is a bigger risk in
e-mail than in face-to-face interactions.

I had someone on a mailing list use "try to explain X to someone's
aunt", where X was a difficult technical point, as an example of
futility. It invoked a stereotype of older women as lacking computer
science comprehension. As it happens, I already had two adult nephews
when I got my PhD in computer science. The writer would probably not
have said what they did in a live conversation including a grey-haired
woman.

4. Misuse of pronouns: If you know someone's preferred pronouns you know
something about their gender, and subconscious gender discrimination
becomes possible. If you don't, you may be making them cringe every time
you refer to them in an e-mail.

--

-
To unsubscribe, e-mail: diversity-unsubscr...@apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: diversity-h...@apache.org






---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
https://www.avg.com


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To unsubscribe, e-mail: diversity-unsubscr...@apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: diversity-h...@apache.org

Re: [FAQ] Proto-FAQ question 1

[Kenneth Knowles]

I alluded to this elsewhere, but I would welcome feedback on whether this
perspective is relevant. It hinges on whether the ASF's mission is to
provide software *that is a public good* in the technical economics sense
(non-excludable non-rivalrous) or software *for the public good* (aka the
benefit of the public). The ASL seems oriented towards the former, while
the foundation has a lot more of the latter than I realized 5 years ago. If
the latter carries weight, there's this...

A: The mission of the ASF is to provide software for the public good. The
best way to ensure something is for the public good is to include a diverse
sample of the public in its development and direction. Those who are not
represented in development of Apache projects are probably less well-served
by those projects. At best, we just don't know. To assume otherwise is
paternalistic [1]. So increased diversity and inclusion automatically
advances the foundation's mission, whether or not you know or care about
the race, ethnicity, gender, age, weight, or any other personal
characteristics of other contributors.

Kenn

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternalism


*From: *Patricia Shanahan 
*Date: *Mon, May 13, 2019 at 1:14 PM
*To: * 

The first and most important question is something along the lines of:
>
> --
>
> Q: Apache does everything by e-mail. I do not know or care about the
> race, ethnicity, gender, age, weight, or any other personal
> characteristics of other contributors. Why are diversity and inclusion
> relevant issues for Apache?
>
> --
>
> Here are some elements that I think should be covered in the answer. At
> this point, I am going for the big picture. Please suggest improvements
> and fix errors.
>
> --
>
> 1. Subconscious bias: You know the name the contributor uses. In
> addition, you may know their time zone and, from how quotes are
> introduced, the language in which they do most of their e-mail interaction.
>
> Research indicates that merely changing the name on a resume can affect
> the probability of a call back. Although the results could in theory be
> explained by deliberate racism and sexism, they seem more likely to be
> due to subconscious bias.
>
> 2. It is not all e-mail: Apache contributors meet at open source
> conferences, specialty technical conferences, and local gatherings. Not
> being able to participate without fearing discrimination would itself be
> discouraging.
>
> 3. Unintentional insult through stereotypes: This is a bigger risk in
> e-mail than in face-to-face interactions.
>
> I had someone on a mailing list use "try to explain X to someone's
> aunt", where X was a difficult technical point, as an example of
> futility. It invoked a stereotype of older women as lacking computer
> science comprehension. As it happens, I already had two adult nephews
> when I got my PhD in computer science. The writer would probably not
> have said what they did in a live conversation including a grey-haired
> woman.
>
> 4. Misuse of pronouns: If you know someone's preferred pronouns you know
> something about their gender, and subconscious gender discrimination
> becomes possible. If you don't, you may be making them cringe every time
> you refer to them in an e-mail.
>
> --
>
> -
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: diversity-unsubscr...@apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: diversity-h...@apache.org
>
>

Re: [FAQ] Proto-FAQ question 1

[Joan Touzet]

I think the point was not that the FAQ needed those things, but the ASF 
at large :D and that the different way of phrasing it was intended to 
draw attention to all of those things.


-Joan

On 2019-05-13 6:45 p.m., Patricia Shanahan wrote:
I would love truly elegant documentation. However, I am neither a 
Confluence expert nor a graphic designer. As you say, it needs a community.


Perhaps people who are good at graphic design could create frameworks 
for the FAQ and Resources? Should each of them, long term, be Wiki pages 
or pages in a D web site? However it is done, it cannot depend on 
graphics. There are some readers who will only have access to whatever 
text their browser can extract.


Curating the initial content is something that seems to me to need doing 
and that I think I know how to do, so I started doing it.


On 5/13/2019 3:03 PM, Matt Sicker wrote:

This might be slightly inflammatory, but how about this: do you want
non-shitty documentation? How about graphics and logos? Maybe a nice
website? Or some helpful users for support? Hard to do without community!

On Mon, May 13, 2019 at 15:14, Patricia Shanahan  wrote:


The first and most important question is something along the lines of:

--

Q: Apache does everything by e-mail. I do not know or care about the
race, ethnicity, gender, age, weight, or any other personal
characteristics of other contributors. Why are diversity and inclusion
relevant issues for Apache?

--

Here are some elements that I think should be covered in the answer. At
this point, I am going for the big picture. Please suggest improvements
and fix errors.

--

1. Subconscious bias: You know the name the contributor uses. In
addition, you may know their time zone and, from how quotes are
introduced, the language in which they do most of their e-mail 
interaction.


Research indicates that merely changing the name on a resume can affect
the probability of a call back. Although the results could in theory be
explained by deliberate racism and sexism, they seem more likely to be
due to subconscious bias.

2. It is not all e-mail: Apache contributors meet at open source
conferences, specialty technical conferences, and local gatherings. Not
being able to participate without fearing discrimination would itself be
discouraging.

3. Unintentional insult through stereotypes: This is a bigger risk in
e-mail than in face-to-face interactions.

I had someone on a mailing list use "try to explain X to someone's
aunt", where X was a difficult technical point, as an example of
futility. It invoked a stereotype of older women as lacking computer
science comprehension. As it happens, I already had two adult nephews
when I got my PhD in computer science. The writer would probably not
have said what they did in a live conversation including a grey-haired
woman.

4. Misuse of pronouns: If you know someone's preferred pronouns you know
something about their gender, and subconscious gender discrimination
becomes possible. If you don't, you may be making them cringe every time
you refer to them in an e-mail.

--

-
To unsubscribe, e-mail: diversity-unsubscr...@apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: diversity-h...@apache.org

--

Matt Sicker 



-
To unsubscribe, e-mail: diversity-unsubscr...@apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: diversity-h...@apache.org



-
To unsubscribe, e-mail: diversity-unsubscr...@apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: diversity-h...@apache.org

Re: [FAQ] Proto-FAQ question 1

[Niall Pemberton]

The "Open Source Diversity" site[1] that Shane mentioned elsethread led me
to the "Contributor Covenant" site[2] which also has a FAQ[3] which, in my
limited experience, seems pretty good and is "CC BY 4.0 License" [4]

Niall

[1] https://opensourcediversity.org/
[2] https://www.contributor-covenant.org/

[3] https://www.contributor-covenant.org/faq
[4] https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

On Mon, May 13, 2019 at 9:14 PM Patricia Shanahan  wrote:

> The first and most important question is something along the lines of:
>
> --
>
> Q: Apache does everything by e-mail. I do not know or care about the
> race, ethnicity, gender, age, weight, or any other personal
> characteristics of other contributors. Why are diversity and inclusion
> relevant issues for Apache?
>
> --
>
> Here are some elements that I think should be covered in the answer. At
> this point, I am going for the big picture. Please suggest improvements
> and fix errors.
>
> --
>
> 1. Subconscious bias: You know the name the contributor uses. In
> addition, you may know their time zone and, from how quotes are
> introduced, the language in which they do most of their e-mail interaction.
>
> Research indicates that merely changing the name on a resume can affect
> the probability of a call back. Although the results could in theory be
> explained by deliberate racism and sexism, they seem more likely to be
> due to subconscious bias.
>
> 2. It is not all e-mail: Apache contributors meet at open source
> conferences, specialty technical conferences, and local gatherings. Not
> being able to participate without fearing discrimination would itself be
> discouraging.
>
> 3. Unintentional insult through stereotypes: This is a bigger risk in
> e-mail than in face-to-face interactions.
>
> I had someone on a mailing list use "try to explain X to someone's
> aunt", where X was a difficult technical point, as an example of
> futility. It invoked a stereotype of older women as lacking computer
> science comprehension. As it happens, I already had two adult nephews
> when I got my PhD in computer science. The writer would probably not
> have said what they did in a live conversation including a grey-haired
> woman.
>
> 4. Misuse of pronouns: If you know someone's preferred pronouns you know
> something about their gender, and subconscious gender discrimination
> becomes possible. If you don't, you may be making them cringe every time
> you refer to them in an e-mail.
>
> --
>
> -
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: diversity-unsubscr...@apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: diversity-h...@apache.org
>
>

Re: [FAQ] Proto-FAQ question 1

[Patricia Shanahan]

I would love truly elegant documentation. However, I am neither a 
Confluence expert nor a graphic designer. As you say, it needs a community.


Perhaps people who are good at graphic design could create frameworks 
for the FAQ and Resources? Should each of them, long term, be Wiki pages 
or pages in a D web site? However it is done, it cannot depend on 
graphics. There are some readers who will only have access to whatever 
text their browser can extract.


Curating the initial content is something that seems to me to need doing 
and that I think I know how to do, so I started doing it.


On 5/13/2019 3:03 PM, Matt Sicker wrote:

This might be slightly inflammatory, but how about this: do you want
non-shitty documentation? How about graphics and logos? Maybe a nice
website? Or some helpful users for support? Hard to do without community!

On Mon, May 13, 2019 at 15:14, Patricia Shanahan  wrote:


The first and most important question is something along the lines of:

--

Q: Apache does everything by e-mail. I do not know or care about the
race, ethnicity, gender, age, weight, or any other personal
characteristics of other contributors. Why are diversity and inclusion
relevant issues for Apache?

--

Here are some elements that I think should be covered in the answer. At
this point, I am going for the big picture. Please suggest improvements
and fix errors.

--

1. Subconscious bias: You know the name the contributor uses. In
addition, you may know their time zone and, from how quotes are
introduced, the language in which they do most of their e-mail interaction.

Research indicates that merely changing the name on a resume can affect
the probability of a call back. Although the results could in theory be
explained by deliberate racism and sexism, they seem more likely to be
due to subconscious bias.

2. It is not all e-mail: Apache contributors meet at open source
conferences, specialty technical conferences, and local gatherings. Not
being able to participate without fearing discrimination would itself be
discouraging.

3. Unintentional insult through stereotypes: This is a bigger risk in
e-mail than in face-to-face interactions.

I had someone on a mailing list use "try to explain X to someone's
aunt", where X was a difficult technical point, as an example of
futility. It invoked a stereotype of older women as lacking computer
science comprehension. As it happens, I already had two adult nephews
when I got my PhD in computer science. The writer would probably not
have said what they did in a live conversation including a grey-haired
woman.

4. Misuse of pronouns: If you know someone's preferred pronouns you know
something about their gender, and subconscious gender discrimination
becomes possible. If you don't, you may be making them cringe every time
you refer to them in an e-mail.

--

-
To unsubscribe, e-mail: diversity-unsubscr...@apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: diversity-h...@apache.org

--

Matt Sicker 



-
To unsubscribe, e-mail: diversity-unsubscr...@apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: diversity-h...@apache.org

Re: [FAQ] Proto-FAQ question 1

[Daniel Gruno]

On 13/05/2019 18.03, Matt Sicker wrote:

This might be slightly inflammatory, but how about this: do you want
non-shitty documentation? How about graphics and logos? Maybe a nice
website? Or some helpful users for support? Hard to do without community!


I'd add non-shitty code to that as well ;-). Your comment touches on one 
aspect: that there is more to a project than code, and a diverse set of 
skilled people is needed.


I'd go further and say there's more to a project than *your* code, and 
you might find yourself and your code improving by allowing a larger, 
more diverse set of users and developers in...even if you end up still 
writing the bulk of the code yourself.


There are numerous examples of how people think their program works as 
intended, only to find out that *what they intended isn't what they 
truly intended*. I have seen mindbogglingly stupid realizations from 
people making blow-dryers that wouldn't work when operated by people of 
color, I've seen many color-blind people struggle with user interfaces, 
as well as a ton of unintended racism, sexism, terms of phrase that just 
do not mean that you think they mean, I've seen WAY too many examples of 
myself thinking "this is so simple, even a pigeon could operate it! I am 
so clever!", only to find that it really wasn't, and my myopic vision 
was clouding my judgment and it was horrible and I was a horrible 
developer (well, a silly one at least). If you want your project to do 
well and work beyond your own personal needs, you need to embrace 
diversity and see it for the strength it is.


I am unsure of how specific we want to be in our reasoning, but thought 
I'd share some insights into my own mistakes (and those of other people) 
anyway :)


With regards,
Daniel.



On Mon, May 13, 2019 at 15:14, Patricia Shanahan  wrote:


The first and most important question is something along the lines of:

--

Q: Apache does everything by e-mail. I do not know or care about the
race, ethnicity, gender, age, weight, or any other personal
characteristics of other contributors. Why are diversity and inclusion
relevant issues for Apache?

--

Here are some elements that I think should be covered in the answer. At
this point, I am going for the big picture. Please suggest improvements
and fix errors.

--

1. Subconscious bias: You know the name the contributor uses. In
addition, you may know their time zone and, from how quotes are
introduced, the language in which they do most of their e-mail interaction.

Research indicates that merely changing the name on a resume can affect
the probability of a call back. Although the results could in theory be
explained by deliberate racism and sexism, they seem more likely to be
due to subconscious bias.

2. It is not all e-mail: Apache contributors meet at open source
conferences, specialty technical conferences, and local gatherings. Not
being able to participate without fearing discrimination would itself be
discouraging.

3. Unintentional insult through stereotypes: This is a bigger risk in
e-mail than in face-to-face interactions.

I had someone on a mailing list use "try to explain X to someone's
aunt", where X was a difficult technical point, as an example of
futility. It invoked a stereotype of older women as lacking computer
science comprehension. As it happens, I already had two adult nephews
when I got my PhD in computer science. The writer would probably not
have said what they did in a live conversation including a grey-haired
woman.

4. Misuse of pronouns: If you know someone's preferred pronouns you know
something about their gender, and subconscious gender discrimination
becomes possible. If you don't, you may be making them cringe every time
you refer to them in an e-mail.

--

-
To unsubscribe, e-mail: diversity-unsubscr...@apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: diversity-h...@apache.org

--

Matt Sicker 




-
To unsubscribe, e-mail: diversity-unsubscr...@apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: diversity-h...@apache.org

Re: [FAQ] Proto-FAQ question 1

[Matt Sicker]

This might be slightly inflammatory, but how about this: do you want
non-shitty documentation? How about graphics and logos? Maybe a nice
website? Or some helpful users for support? Hard to do without community!

On Mon, May 13, 2019 at 15:14, Patricia Shanahan  wrote:

> The first and most important question is something along the lines of:
>
> --
>
> Q: Apache does everything by e-mail. I do not know or care about the
> race, ethnicity, gender, age, weight, or any other personal
> characteristics of other contributors. Why are diversity and inclusion
> relevant issues for Apache?
>
> --
>
> Here are some elements that I think should be covered in the answer. At
> this point, I am going for the big picture. Please suggest improvements
> and fix errors.
>
> --
>
> 1. Subconscious bias: You know the name the contributor uses. In
> addition, you may know their time zone and, from how quotes are
> introduced, the language in which they do most of their e-mail interaction.
>
> Research indicates that merely changing the name on a resume can affect
> the probability of a call back. Although the results could in theory be
> explained by deliberate racism and sexism, they seem more likely to be
> due to subconscious bias.
>
> 2. It is not all e-mail: Apache contributors meet at open source
> conferences, specialty technical conferences, and local gatherings. Not
> being able to participate without fearing discrimination would itself be
> discouraging.
>
> 3. Unintentional insult through stereotypes: This is a bigger risk in
> e-mail than in face-to-face interactions.
>
> I had someone on a mailing list use "try to explain X to someone's
> aunt", where X was a difficult technical point, as an example of
> futility. It invoked a stereotype of older women as lacking computer
> science comprehension. As it happens, I already had two adult nephews
> when I got my PhD in computer science. The writer would probably not
> have said what they did in a live conversation including a grey-haired
> woman.
>
> 4. Misuse of pronouns: If you know someone's preferred pronouns you know
> something about their gender, and subconscious gender discrimination
> becomes possible. If you don't, you may be making them cringe every time
> you refer to them in an e-mail.
>
> --
>
> -
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: diversity-unsubscr...@apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: diversity-h...@apache.org
>
> --
Matt Sicker