Open Stack

Excerpts from Colleen Murphy's message of 2017-10-15 11:38:47 +0200:
> On Fri, Oct 13, 2017 at 2:45 PM, Flavio Percoco <flavio at redhat.com> wrote:
> 
> > Greetings,
> >
> > Some of you, TC candidates, expressed concerns about diversity and
> > inclusiveness
> > (or inclusivity, depending on your taste) in your candidacy. I believe
> > this is a
> > broad, and some times ill-used, topic so, I'd like to know, from y'all,
> > how you
> > think we could make our community more inclusive. What areas would you
> > improve
> > first?
> >
> > Thank you,
> > Flavio
> >
> > --
> > @flaper87
> > Flavio Percoco
> >
> > First, we need more data. We need a better gender study that doesn't rely
> on first-name analysis and takes into account non-binary contributors. We
> need data on who is participating from which country (I'm reasonably sure
> this exists but I haven't found it published), what language they speak,
> whether they are participating in IRC meetings and why or why not (time
> zone problems? language barriers?). We need data on contribution by
> ethnicity.
> 
> A major problem in the tech world is not just attracting underrepresented
> contributors, but retaining them. They leave their communities or careers
> because of bias problems. To my knowledge, that doesn't happen in
> OpenStack, but just because I can't see it doesn't mean it's not there. A
> long-term study of participation by underrepresented demographics will help
> us answer this and fix it if necessary.
> 
> We do already know that we need to attract a more diverse contributor base.
> To do that, we need to expand and support outreach programs, especially
> things like Outreachy. It might not be a bad idea to start an
> OpenStack-specific Outreachy-type thing. We need to offer more mentors to
> the program so that we can support more interns.
> 
> We need to be friendlier to new people. You might have no idea how much a
> negative interaction on your first patch or your first question in IRC can
> frame your opinion of a community. A new person can't help but wonder if
> they are being treated that way because they have a feminine IRC nick or
> because their English wasn't good. I certainly think no one here tries to
> be unfriendly but I'm sure we could all do better to keep it in mind. I
> think Feilong's point about being publicly shamed for making a language and
> culture mistake is especially unfriendly and an example of something we can
> do better at.
> 
> Thanks for the great question.
> 
> Colleen

All good points, and well said.

Doug