Notes from "women at apache dot org" BOF

[Danese Cooper <da...@gmail.com>]

Here are my notes from the 12/12 BOF at ApacheCon -Danese

Attendees: Danese Cooper, Jean T. Anderson, Ken Coar, Noel Bergman,  
Justyna Horwat, Amy Roh, Lisa Dussot, Colm McCorrick, Clinton Begin,  
Jim Driscoll, Ted Leung, Paula Childers, Julie Schmidt, Lynn  
Schaeffer, Kim Haddon (15 people)

History of List: Started in summer at ApacheCon Europe 2005 (in  
Stuttgart) after lightning talk on the subject seemed to touch a  
nerve.  Jean T. Anderson and Danese Cooper proposed the list directly  
to the BOD, which caused a lot of discussion and some concern that  
such a list would be more divisive than community-building.  Jean and  
Danese explained that all genders would be welcome on the list, and  
that we chose to focus on women as a population because we are women  
and have a passion to see more female participation, but that most of  
the work we do will serve newbies and other diversity groups.  List  
membership is moderated but open to the public.  List member posting  
is unmoderated.  All postings are archived.

List Charter: Intention was to create a friendly, non-abrasive place  
for women (and other diversity groups) to ask questions and connect  
with others who are interested in Apache.

Future Direction for List: Discuss, select and work as a community on  
specific practices, tasks and strategies to support increasing  
participation at Apache by women and members of other diversity groups.

Possible Task Areas (for W@A.O to consider setting goals around):
1. Identity Obfuscation
2. Ettiquette / Social Contract
3. Mentorship Activities
4. Website (starting with Wiki)
5. Focus on Participation other than Code, To Do Lists, How-Tos, etc.
6. Localization Issues

Detailed Notes:
-List Health: Still too much back-channel email from [female] lurkers  
who won't post due to mail list archive.  They don't feel they want  
mistakes archived for all time.  Lengthy discussion of wish to  
obfuscate identity, including suggestion that it be moved to Yahoo!  
Groups, that we simply document how to obfuscate for newbies (i.e. go  
get a generic email account).  Positive feedback offlist about the  
existence of the list, and several testimonials from BOF attendees  
who came because they were happy to see a focus on women.

-Attempt to revisit decision creating the list in the first place,  
citing concerns of "divisiveness".  Decision to try to focus the BOF  
on brainstorming tasks the list community could focus on, given that  
the list exists already.

-Discussion about tendency of women to shy away from hostility (even  
if only observed), tendency also to act anonymously.  Perception by  
female newbies that bar is too high to start participating.   
Meritocracy *does* work, however, for those who can get over the bar  
and make contributions.  One analogy used to explain how intimidating  
it is to contemplate public participation was the similarity to  
joining a weight-lifting gym and not finding male members willing to  
help.

-Existing "male" ettiquette quidelines are somewhat self-defining and  
we should think about creating models (messages) for "alternative"  
participation.  For example, David Crossley's notes advise lurking  
for 2 months, which assumes the natural next step of de-lurking is  
obvious.  Women might need to be advised explicitly about when to de- 
lurk and how.  Jean would like to work on a new set of guidelines for  
W@A.O list.

-Mentorship has been helpful for some of the women who have  
integrated into Apache, especially mentorship of men who have already  
succeeded in the meritocracy.  Cliqueishness can be overcome through  
mentoring as well.

-Discussion of hostility on the mail lists and Apache's general value  
of discouraging and even policing such behavior.

-Discussion of the Debian "Social Contract" and its role in giving  
Debian governance a backstop against which to judge behavior norms.

-Discussion of Apache bias in recognizing code contributions over all  
others.  Linguistic tendency to only use coding examples in  
conversation for instance.  Sys admins expressed concern that they  
wouldn't ever be able to contribute code and would therefore always  
be second-class citizens.  Lengthy discussion of need for  
documentation committers, which may not be well-enough advertised  
(could W@A.O fill this gap with a website?)

-Discussion of novel uses for the W@A.O list, including:
a) a man seeking advice about hostile behavior on another Apache list.
b) a woman seeking a concise single technical answer rather than an  
onslaught of advice from experts.

Re: Notes from "women at apache dot org" BOF

[Katie Capps Parlante <ca...@osafoundation.org>]

Danese Cooper wrote:
> -List Health: Still too much back-channel email from [female] lurkers  
> who won't post due to mail list archive.  They don't feel they want  
> mistakes archived for all time.  Lengthy discussion of wish to  
> obfuscate identity, including suggestion that it be moved to Yahoo!  
> Groups, that we simply document how to obfuscate for newbies (i.e. go  
> get a generic email account).  Positive feedback offlist about the  
> existence of the list, and several testimonials from BOF attendees  who 
> came because they were happy to see a focus on women.

Perhaps the strategy should be to create an environment that gets people 
over the hurdle of posting to an archived list. Possible suggestions:

+ More posts from women (yes, its a circular problem). I read the 
archive before posting, and it stood out that there were more posts from 
men than women. Ok, I didn't actually count the number -- lets just say 
that I expected more women.

+ Compelling threads that will draw people in. Perhaps ask a question on 
some topic, so people have a clear reason to respond.

The archives turn out to be pretty handy to be able to gauge the tone of 
the list before posting, especially on a list without much traffic. 
Speaking as one who was once reluctant to post to lists, I think there 
is a huge benefit in getting people to try it and see that actually it 
all works out just fine, mistakes and all. :)

Cheers,
Katie

Re: Notes from "women at apache dot org" BOF

[Shane Curcuru <as...@shanecurcuru.org>]

Danese Cooper wrote:
> -List Health: Still too much back-channel email from [female] lurkers 
> who won't post due to mail list archive.  They don't feel they want 
> mistakes archived for all time.  Lengthy discussion of wish to obfuscate 
> identity, including suggestion that it be moved to Yahoo! Groups, that 
> we simply document how to obfuscate for newbies (i.e. go get a generic 
> email account).  Positive feedback offlist about the existence of the 
> list, and several testimonials from BOF attendees who came because they 
> were happy to see a focus on women.

Silly suggestion: remind people of the FUD movie quote (was it Ken or 
Roy? I forget) about one of the hurdles to releasing your work publicly 
(i.e. participating on an open & archived list).  You get over being 
embarassed quickly once you see how bad some other people's code is and 
realize you do a much better job than that.

Personally, I do value non-code contributions, especially since my last 
significant code contribution to apache was... er... a long time ago.

Also: I volunteer to be a mentor, especially to someone interested in 
the java or xml space.  Anyone here I can list as a 'reference' in my 
application to be a mentor?  8-)

- Shane

Re: Notes from "women at apache dot org" BOF

["Jean T. Anderson" <jt...@apache.org>]

Danese Cooper wrote:
> 
> -Existing "male" ettiquette quidelines are somewhat self-defining and  
> we should think about creating models (messages) for "alternative"  
> participation.  For example, David Crossley's notes advise lurking  for 
> 2 months, which assumes the natural next step of de-lurking is  
> obvious.  Women might need to be advised explicitly about when to de- 
> lurk and how.  Jean would like to work on a new set of guidelines for  
> W@A.O list.

Actually, it isn't David's guidelines at 
http://www.apache.org/dev/contrib-email-tips.html that advise lurking 
for 2 months. The bottom of that page links to "RFC 1855: Netiquette 
Guidelines" at http://www.dtcc.edu/cs/rfc1855.html#3, and that's the 
guideline that recommends a lurking period of 1-2 months.

My observation is that women don't need to be told to lurk -- the 
natural tendency is to lurk and they need to be told it's ok to de-lurk.

Fernanda Weiden's "Women in Free Software" article from September 
touches on the tendency to observe and not participate:

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050911153013536

This comment especially struck me as a good description of many who are 
subscribed to women@:

> To make sharing knowledge more natural for women, some groups have been formed in the community with the target goal of creating a more friendly community for women. The problem is that most women bring to these group the same behaviors they learned to have in the traditional groups: being merely an observer.

Danese, I thought I heard you say at the BoF that the women's Wiki was 
created. Did I hear right? And, if so, what's the url for it? As a 
starter, I'd like to post the charter from 
http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/www-women/200508.mbox/%3c4303F949.9060503@bristowhill.com%3e 
there.

cheers,

  -jean