[OSCTC-planning] Getting the diversity language right, on the new campus.openhatch.org

[preeya]

Hi! I'm the one who originally suggested adding more diversity language to 
campus.openhatch.org, and Asheesh asked me to chime in with my thoughts on 
the language currently in the etherpad.

I particularly like the penultimate paragraph (labeled "More asheesh 
thinking out loud"). I think it hits the right mix of earnestness, 
sincerity and showing that there is experience with trying to achieve 
diversity goals. It could perhaps be just one sentence longer, because it 
feels like it ends somewhat abruptly, but I think it's really good. I also 
really like the turns of phrase it includes, such as summing up diversity 
as trying to "match the world's demographics".

I also like the last paragraph, labeled "Mike retake", but it feels 
to me like the phrasing lacks some of the earnestness of Asheesh's take, 
and it doesn't include some of the nice turns of phrase. So overall I 
prefer Asheesh's.

But perhaps I am wrong or have missed something! Asheesh tells me there is 
a lot of IRC stuff I have missed, so I will try to join the conversation 
there and not be a stranger. :)

-Preeya

On Tue, 31 Dec 2013, Asheesh Laroia wrote:

> There's a new campus.openhatch.org, and I wanted to make sure that when we 
> talk about diversity in it, we explain why we care about diversity, so 
> readers know where we're coming from and feel comfortable.
>
> To that end, here are the kind of things I want people to know:
>
> * We have some success running gender-divers events. The first time we did an 
> event, it had >30% women. This trend has continued generally, that our events 
> have somewhat reasonably healthy gender diversity.
>
> * Crucially, that 30% at Penn was more diversity than the CS program.
>
> * We think lots of people are excited about open source, and want to find 
> their way in, and that the true demographics of that are close to the 
> demographics of the planet.
>
> * We think that a key aspect of the reason open source is not as even, 
> demographically, as the planet right now is that knowledge and interest in it 
> typically spreads along friend network lines, and the starting-point is very 
> white and male and rich.
>
> * We think women-in-CS organizations are neat. We like working with them as a 
> way to actively move toward the more-even demographics that we believe match 
> the underlying interest on the planet in open source.
>
> * A lot of the reason we get reasonable gender diversity is the 
> newcomer-welcoming nature of our publicity for the events.
>
> * Another thing is that it's not just the publicity, but the event itself, 
> that (intends to be|is) newcomer-friendly. Certainly parts of it are, and 
> we're committed to improving that iteratively over time. Like the 
> Practicing_Git section.
>
> * We've been caring about newcomers in general since 2009, and we still do, 
> so if you don't particularly care about diversity, but you do care about 
> people being nice, we're still your pal.
>
> I wrote some sample text for this here:
>
> https://etherpad.mozilla.org/diverse-osctc
>
> The idea is that my text would live above "Sponsors" but below "Friendly and 
> knowledgeable volunteers", in the same style as "Friendly and knowledgeable 
> volunteers".
>
> I'm only sending this because I wanted to make sure that, as Shauna and I 
> both run out of steam and go to sleep, I serialized enough if the 
> conversation to disk so we can try to pick it up tomorrow. Happy to have more 
> voices here.
>
> I realize that whatever we say here runs the risk of sounding like tokenism 
> <http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Tokenism> and doubly so for 
> carelessly-phrased things like the above. I'm hoping the conversation here 
> can occur in good faith. I'm happy to have people raise issue with word 
> choice or actions of ours and express how they feel; that's all part of a 
> good-faith conversation.
>
> -- Asheesh.
>