{"action":"created","issue":{"url":"https://api.github.com/repos/ropensci/unconf/issues/13","labels_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/ropensci/unconf/issues/13/labels{/name}","comments_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/ropensci/unconf/issues/13/comments","events_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/ropensci/unconf/issues/13/events","html_url":"https://github.com/ropensci/unconf/issues/13","id":58180374,"number":13,"title":"Gender proportions in the R community","user":{"login":"benmarwick","id":1262179,"avatar_url":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/1262179?v=3","gravatar_id":"","url":"https://api.github.com/users/benmarwick","html_url":"https://github.com/benmarwick","followers_url":"https://api.github.com/users/benmarwick/followers","following_url":"https://api.github.com/users/benmarwick/following{/other_user}","gists_url":"https://api.github.com/users/benmarwick/gists{/gist_id}","starred_url":"https://api.github.com/users/benmarwick/starred{/owner}{/repo}","subscriptions_url":"https://api.github.com/users/benmarwick/subscriptions","organizations_url":"https://api.github.com/users/benmarwick/orgs","repos_url":"https://api.github.com/users/benmarwick/repos","events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/benmarwick/events{/privacy}","received_events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/benmarwick/received_events","type":"User","site_admin":false},"labels":[],"state":"open","locked":false,"assignee":null,"milestone":null,"comments":2,"created_at":"2015-02-19T08:37:00Z","updated_at":"2015-02-28T16:27:27Z","closed_at":null,"body":"This is more of a data science project than a software development issue, but rOpenSci is notable for promoting gender equity, so it seems relevant. The goal would be to identify specific areas in the R user and developer communities to promote gender diversity and counter bias. The general approach would be to use the [gender package](http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/gender/index.html) to analyse various data sources on contributions to the R community to investigate patterns in proportions of female to male contributors.  This is currently a topical issue, as we can see from a summary of recent conversations:\r\n\r\n* there was a lively [r-help thread](https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2014-November/thread.html#423632) on this last year, \r\n* a related bit of [activity of twitter](https://twitter.com/scottkosty/status/449933971644633088) about gender ratios on r-help\r\n* there was a \"Conversation about R’s Gender Gap: The useR! her Panel\" at the [2014 UseR meeting](http://user2014.stat.ucla.edu/)\r\n* @jennybc, in conversation with @hadley, @earino and @ledell, [noted on twitter](https://twitter.com/JennyBryan/status/544970521348034561) that there is only one female name in the 90 contributors listed on the [R Project Contributors](http://www.r-project.org/contributors.html) page\r\n* more recently @dicook has done some work with her students on this, and I've made a [sketch](https://gist.github.com/benmarwick/6bc3c6d0f09e3699eed9) \r\n* probably others I don't know about, eg. [Hadley says](https://twitter.com/hadleywickham/status/544937382404177921) 'we're aware of the problem and there are plans to fix it' \r\n\r\nHere are a few specific questions that could be considered:\r\n\r\n* It's a safe bet that males are a higher proportion overall, but is this changing over time? For example, what are the proportions among package maintainers (9-15% female by some estimates, and a slight but non-significant decline in recent years)? Those data are nicely structured and easy to access, for example at http://www.rdocumentation.org/\r\n* Is the proportion of female R developers high enough to make a case that R core should include at least one female? Who do the data suggest this should be?\r\n* Are there some areas of R development where females have greater representation? For example are there more female package maintainers on github or bioconductor than CRAN?\r\n* Is there are difference in the way bug reports from male and female posted to the R-base bugtracker are handled? Do they equally lead to fixes?\r\n* Is there are difference in name order for males and females amongst packages with multiple maintainers? "},"comment":{"url":"https://api.github.com/repos/ropensci/unconf/issues/comments/76532961","html_url":"https://github.com/ropensci/unconf/issues/13#issuecomment-76532961","issue_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/ropensci/unconf/issues/13","id":76532961,"user":{"login":"benmarwick","id":1262179,"avatar_url":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/1262179?v=3","gravatar_id":"","url":"https://api.github.com/users/benmarwick","html_url":"https://github.com/benmarwick","followers_url":"https://api.github.com/users/benmarwick/followers","following_url":"https://api.github.com/users/benmarwick/following{/other_user}","gists_url":"https://api.github.com/users/benmarwick/gists{/gist_id}","starred_url":"https://api.github.com/users/benmarwick/starred{/owner}{/repo}","subscriptions_url":"https://api.github.com/users/benmarwick/subscriptions","organizations_url":"https://api.github.com/users/benmarwick/orgs","repos_url":"https://api.github.com/users/benmarwick/repos","events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/benmarwick/events{/privacy}","received_events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/benmarwick/received_events","type":"User","site_admin":false},"created_at":"2015-02-28T16:27:27Z","updated_at":"2015-02-28T16:27:27Z","body":"Yes, good idea, reminds me of @treycausey's interesting analysis of r-help:  \r\nhttp://badhessian.org/2013/04/has-r-help-gotten-meaner-over-time-and-what-does-mancur-olson-have-to-say-about-it/"}}