Good morning Welcome back Nice to see you all again at this early hour Especially to see on your small tiny eyes that you are having a terrible hangover such as me That was the point where you should have lost Okay Don't worry. I haven't noticed it. I will continue anyway to introduce. I hope I spell it correctly Magni Magni Continue I'm sorry Thanks, and Erin Clark Who are here to tell you how they want to break the last domain of man the Debian project? Okay, hi everybody Just a brief note on the format of the talk. It's a workshop. So it's very long and We will probably she's going to present first about her thesis Work and then I'm going to present about the Debian women project and the idea is not just to give a talk but also to Discuss future goals and things that we need to do within the Debian women project to you know make it better next year So with that I'll let Magni do her thing Yeah Can you hear me? Yeah, okay Well, I'm a student of computer science and informatics at Norwegian University of Technology in science in Trondheim, which is in Norway I'm writing a mouth thesis about Female open source and free software developers And why there are a few of them I've been using Linux 10s 1995 ish Debian and and and then on again I Part time job as a settlement and that's giving me far too much knowledge about windows and it's an answers unfortunately And my fingers are shaking. This is seriously worse than standing on the edge of playing like 3000 feet about the ground with a parachute well In the professional world like in the industry There are about 20 to 35 percent women depending on how you count because there is not one way to count IT workers I guess the number of female programmers and system developers is closer to 20 than to 35 In computer science and the graduate studies there about 10 to 40 percent in my university it has been 40 percent women in the CS program It used to be like 4% that also depends a lot on where you are and Actually, also how you count In free and open source Software project. It's about 100% impressive, right? um That number comes from a number of service done among free and open softwares so open software developers, I suppose some of you have Participated in service They are called the floss studies done by the University of Maastricht and University United States and a research institute in Japan and they all come out with about one and a half percent women Well, how is the free and open source software? Development role actually compared to this In the end we have four female web-end developers. I did include the hull in that Currently there are about eight women in the new maintenance queue as far as I have been able to count and maybe wrong It might be nine ish, maybe So if all those get true, we might have about one percent female diddies in Hawaii Pretending that the Share women has increased which I'm not quite sure about people think so So that was a kind of formal statistics I've done some research in a number of mailing lists I've done this by counting what I regard as male and female names in the list because just the cultural reasons it's really hard to Easily see what's a male name and what's a female name my name, for instance, Magni is a male name in Iceland There are probably quite a few male Marias in the Latin world and I don't have that much clue about a lot of Asian names So it's next impossible to do that automatically So I've been counting with my little pencil and piece of paper almost What I found was that from November last year to January this year a treatment span Zero point 82 percent of the persons posting to the dependent list were females 844 Different people were sending mails to the list. I have almost Removed the spam and was quite sure if I remove all of it Unfortunately quite a few of the apparently female posters to list or spammers and I remove them The women tend to send a lot less mail than the men do to the lists So the data is actually even more skewed. That's the number of posts of persons sending email Not the amount of email Coming from women In deep and vote which I for the best reasons looked at from March to May 2.3 percent only persons posting to it were women That's a bit more but not that impressive Are in the deep and woman lists There were quite a few more that shouldn't come as a surprise really and six of the top ten posters were women the other sort of people like Christian and few others I Guess that could be improved, but it's nice to have them in there as well So how is they being compared to other projects? I feel like it's an acumen. Should I? Move that one, huh Okay Well, how is even compared to other projects? Is they been worse better, whatever? And can't it is about 1% female developers. That's also about four The young foundation has about 4% I Think it's about 16 persons individuals And I've also looked at different mailing lists from other projects and number of women is there varies from 0.1% in the Linux kernel main list To 1.6% in the a gnomed out list at that come 10% of the Registered participants are women. I don't think I got the numbers of people actually showing up So I'm not sure if it's if there is actually 10% of them here but I Think it's close enough New Zealand Norway have most depressive Perseveration About 30% He was asking about the sample size well Three people from New Zealand and well with from Norway, so but still I didn't list all the countries with only men Which is a quite long list Well Why why is it important to have female free and open source software developers? Well diversity is important It's important not only to have women in the project. It's important to have people from all parts of the world like Gunnar and Kristian were talking about the other day Free software in Latin America And the users are different so it's important to have a different developer space to account for all the different kinds of users and It's a Great the possibility that you will actually be able to make good software if you Can account for a bigger part of the user user mass This is an announcement for an ad To recruit people for an expedition to Antarctica in 1914 Man wanted for her sergeant's journey small wage bit of cold long months in complete darkness Constant hunger and whatever safe return doubtful and recognition in case of success this kind of fits for a lot of open source Software development also I think It's a longer escape Johnny and You might not get recognition And all that In Antarctica there was a extremely male environment until the 1970s when women were allowed in the research stations And of course the first women Faced a few challenges as you can imagine Like not having toilets or several facilities from from they had to share it with a man Not really having sleeping facilities for women only But that's more or less as expected since the facilities in Antarctica then were quite Well, not that luxury But I'm also facing challenges in the research organizations To do some kind of polar research you had to spend an amount of time in Antarctica for instance And when female when a few months were not allowed to go there They were kind of excluded from the field But what they experienced in the 70s when the women were allowed was that the environment Very fast became less hostile and more civilized The man actually start to behave And the violence went down He didn't have those Fights outside the barracks and all the drinking all that the men probably started to shower and all that Well, I'm not sure But in any way Antarctica research shows that women did matter there Well enough about Antarctica So why are there so few women in free-soft development development and that was Something I was going to find out in my master thesis work Which as so many other masters master Projects haven't really gotten as far as it should at this time So I haven't really seen the light yet, but a few ideas that I don't really any scientific basis for is that there might be cultural problems like that long and risky Johnny in Antarctica Free-soft development might feel a bit risky for women Women tend to be less risk-takers than men are attitudes Well, I must say that that comp has been definitely a positive experience in that regard I have not met any negative attitudes towards women And but it's certainly an element I guess Compatitiveness, I don't know female are probably less competitive than men maybe and The risk element. I don't know really. I hope that maybe the discussion afterwards could give me some new points to We should just tell it Yeah All right, can everybody hear me Yeah, okay So I'm gonna talk about Debbie and women. How many of you were here for my talk last year. Well in Brazil Okay, so we don't have a lot of Okay, maybe less than half All right, so So I'm gonna talk about Debbie and women Debbie and women Debbie and women began last year when Amaya put out not quite a request but but sort of a plea for More women developers she wanted more women and Debbie and and I happened to be following it So I emailed her and I said, oh, I want to be a Debbie developer And she you know sort of Rushedly told me to package something and she would sponsor it and that would be that but I didn't know anything about packaging So I didn't really take her up on her offer, but very soon after The she asked a question on the Debbie and vote mailing list about To the to the prospective DPL and how they would involve more women and Debbie and because this was a very important thing to her and it devolved into a huge discussion and Basically, there were there were a lot of strange attitudes about Whether it mattered and who cared and you know Maybe we'll get more women. Maybe we want maybe you're all just a bunch of idiots and it's just too bad You'll never be able to have civilized people around you but But a couple months after that was Deb conf and Michelle were baro sort of said hey submit an abstract Maybe you can give a talk about the situation about women and deviant so we did that in Pretty soon after we had What what did you you went back one slide and threw me off So pretty soon after we had a wallet created an IRC channel and that's how we met During the talk and I submitted a Bug report to list that Debbie and org and we got a mailing list Soon after that once we started discussing on the mailing list one of the first things we talked about was how to get a website Because one of the major things that we wanted was more visibility for the women who were involved and the women who would be involved and stuff like that just because It seems like having more women attracts more women And and then and then bubbles sold some t-shirts and made some money at Deb conf so so we're turning into entrepreneurs And and ever since then it's it's been relatively successful we have We have now as as Magni said we had actually nine women in the NMQ and I think last year during my talk There was one so it's not necessarily cause and effect, but there's a correlation between the existence of the project and how many women are actually Around And since then we've done things like mentoring which is potentially Something not necessarily to replace NM, but maybe just a test to see whether it's a better better model than the typical Question-and-answer format and it seems to be working out relatively. Well, though. It's we actually have more mentors than mentees I don't know if people are just shy or Or if everybody really knows that much we've had IRC meetings to Clarify, I don't know various different things. We've had IRC tutorials. We've had online tutorials Margot's made sort of these amazing Graphs of the d-package installation things and she's also written some some building tips and tutorials as has Miriam Ruiz Steve Langeshack gave a tutorial about Bug squashing our see bug squashing and so now there's a very helpful document out on the web about that And so one of the biggest things that we've had to deal with this community issues a lot of people seem to be under the impression That we were created to to have a more friendly environment for Debian and and that's not actually true my my reasoning for for creating This community or you know the idea behind it was sort of an experiment because you know a lot of people they sit around and They talk about oh well. We need more women. Well, why do we need more women? You know and then it doesn't really matter talking does not actually accomplish a whole lot except for maybe making people feel Self-important and that they have really great opinions So this was sort of an experiment, you know, we didn't want to be a support group for people.  We just need more of them We wanted to actually take an active approach and to educating people and and actually it's not just women now We've actually gotten quite a few shy guys who were quite intimidated by Debian and and to show them like you know Debian's not as scary as people think free software is not as scary as people think and if you get involved You can see how great the community is and so while it does provide a less scary sort of Approach to things. It's not actually about being friendly. So within the community there has been a bit of tension regarding that because believe it or not, I'm actually not super nice and But You guys are shocked right and But some people really are and they think that even mild hostility even to people who may deserve it is really off-putting to newbies and so forth But still our purpose is still sort of an experiment if we can be active and sort of Be geeky and stuff like that. Can we actually encourage women without you know having to coddle them like little children which they're not so So we've also we have a bit of camaraderie I've had I've heard at least one person say that Debian women is more Debian than Debian itself because I think due to the Relatively small size in comparison with the huge developer community We We all tend to know each other a lot better and I think we're less likely to Flame each other just like if you come here and you meet people you're a lot less likely to you know, call them names and and Treat them as in human things Trolls This has been actually I was I was pretty surprised by how Annoying the trolls were I Blame Amaya for at least two of them she she sent out a request to This is early on in our history when we were putting together the website and she wanted to have a supporters page so she sent out a request and it accidentally brought in Kruger and And it also it brought in some other people and we actually have had to ban at least two people from the mailing list Because they have been so consistently abusive Actually, one of them abated the ban and spanned us last night So our methods for dealing with trolls have actually Been one of the more interesting things One thing that's funny to watch is at first when it happened people were just so shocked that they couldn't stop replying and They were indignant and angry But now we've had people who you know they come and they try to bother us and try to Question whether we should exist and things like that and it's actually kind of funny to watch people just ignore them and Oh, oh, I thought they were talking to me Yeah, so we just tend to ignore them or we ban them and we tend to be actually a lot less lenient on Thank you on on how how much we'll let these actively poisonous people Interfer with our community and our purpose So I think to that extent we sort of differ from the rest of the Debbie and community and that we're just not we're not gonna take it, you know And so so that's sort of just an overview of what we done and we've done in a year We wanted the discussion to be about you know what what people thought What if anyone had any bright ideas about things we could do in the future? What we've done wrong so far whether we're you know complete morons, I have things to throw at you if you believe that and So I think I think I'd like to open it up for questions Or comments are there none oh Brandon and Scott hi Um Regarding the banning a couple of people have come to me recently in my official capacity Regarding disciplinary measures generally and it looks like you're I mean we've had bans on the mailing list before but before Debbie and women I think they're pretty uncommon. I mean like Bruce parents banned Lars were zinnias a long time ago I mean that was like it must have been seven or eight years ago Something like that and now Lars is back and Bruce is gone after telling us all well I can't quote Debbie in private. Can I so Anyway, go read the archives at any rate. I'm I'm wondering about You know kind of progressive disciplinary measures It's one of the things I'm concerned about with banning and I'm not saying it's the case for the One or two people you had to act on I'm wondering if in some cases it doesn't just kind of entrench the hostility because if you You know if you respond too harshly to someone basically it can be a case of turning them into a permanent enemy as opposed to someone Who can just kind of say thanks?     Why do you exist? You know because we have had that people have certainly I mean I mean Martin craft is one of them He's he's come and he's you know been confused about the existence and tried to figure out more and stuff like that and and while that can be sort of Distracting and at times may be annoying. It's not it's not like severe insane trolling Which is which is actually what we feed against not corrosive. It may be distracting, but it's not corrosive exactly I mean these people were very destructive to the project and When you're when you're when you begin to harass people off list, especially when people are under the impression that this is Maybe a safer place for them and they're actually being treated worse It's it's very very bad for for our project and you know, and they were just relentless They would just send over and over and over again just emails and they just wouldn't go away You know, it was they didn't have packages to maintain No, no, they didn't they didn't that's very true No, but but I agree with you that that there definitely needs to be You need to be careful that you're not just always on the defense and ready to get rid of anyone Who may disagree with you because then that you know, it's kind of fascist and and we don't want to do that You know, but but at the same time we're not gonna let people destroy what we have just because they can you know I mean cuz we're just not gonna allow that well I'd like for people in general and maybe the Debbie and women project because it's particularly been The social interaction issues that have been brought before me less than I mean not the technical Issue ones at all like you know what happens if someone hijacks packages over and over again Well, I seem to be the only one terribly worried about that. So It's it's it's been the social ones it's been the disruption to IRC and or mailing list issues that have been brought before me and You know, I personally feel a bit of caution because I fear setting a bad precedent about well, we don't like him So he's out. Yeah, no absolutely And so because you guys on the Debbie and women list have more Expertise with this I think your voices are gonna be pretty important in helping to forge what may be a broader Disciplinary policy for the Debbie and project because you know, eventually we're gonna need one if we don't already We're going to as we as we grow if we continue to succeed and become a larger more diverse society I think it's inevitable, but I'm Monopolizing the mics So thank you. I Just wanted to say quickly that Don't think I was actually confused in the very beginning, but I'm starting to understand Debbie and women much better now I just wanted to make it public that one of the things that I've told you in private What I really want to see is the Debbie and women come to the other Debbie and mailing lists. Yeah Collectively in masses just go there and I really think that By now you have established such a position in the project that if somebody Where to at least publicly in the mailing list say, you know, go away. You have no place here or something This is men's domain or something will flame them. Oh, yeah, we'll take care Yeah, no, I absolutely agree with you. Um, one of the things that I was I was kind of Not extremely worried about the partially worried about was that you know A lot of people within Debbie and we're going to think that the project was stupid And they were not going to want to have anything to do with it But it turns out that you know as we've gotten more women at least involved in an IRC and on our mailing list and they've seen them There and you know, there are there are a couple people here and there you see on develop that you wouldn't have seen normally People people tend, you know seeing women around is not so strange and also having more women makes it seems to make people think like No, they're one of us and you're not going to treat them like that And I've definitely seen a difference in behavior from at least a couple people Because of the presence but regarding mailing lists, I think for for me and for a lot of people The problem is sheer volume. It is it is hard to keep up with that many mailing lists I mean, I can barely read the bell. I can follow project. They of course develop an ounce, but It's it's really hard to keep up and you know, a lot of these people they didn't grow up Sort of entrenched in a computer computer society and they have not really, you know A lot of us didn't start using computers until we were older like, you know, 18, 19, 20 and so on So so it's not something they're accustomed to a lot of them are university students Or they have jobs that are unrelated and they they have hobbies and you know, Debbie and it's just sort of Special And Debbie and is sort of further back with regards to Importance, but you know also and I and maybe you notice this but a lot of the mailing lists are people sort of banging their heads against walls and I Don't really want to participate in that I don't I don't get the impression that a lot of people are always listening on mailing lists And if I'm going to say something and no one's going to listen Then you know, what's the point? I don't I don't need to speak my mind just so I can speak it And and I think that that's that's kind of the impression I get from the from the other women involved in the project that I know He wants to speak again I Just got it. Should I hand it back or so trust it? So at first I want to say thank you to the woman they beyond because I think if there wouldn't be a woman Namely Susan climate. I wouldn't be here at this place because eight years ago. I started to Work with Davion and there was no NFS Colonel inside the install of this can Susan compiled four or five kernels and send it them We are emailed to me to to get me into the project And so I thought this was right Projects where people care so much about others and so at first. Thank you and my second remark is In my opinion, I would wish that this Debian woman project could go away from Debian because well This is the only project which has kind of a final goal. It's a final goal would be that the women are Completely integrated into Debian and as long as there is a project who has to help women to come inside It is not it is not equal. It is something others and people tend to think well Well, we need some nice web pages get the woman involved in it. It's got ask the Debian woman people. So it is also Because some kind of well second class or whatever it is a good task to make good web pages or documentation, but I wouldn't like to see it Assigned to the woman because they are not able to do technical or task or so. We have seen they are able and say Should be able so I wish this Project could go away Over over the time and stop people feeling like that. Well, you know, you know, I agree with you I mean, I would I would definitely like for the project to become redundant but until that happens and as As far as the technical stuff goes you have to remember that a lot of you have been involved with Debian for several years and And before that you've been involved with computers for several years And I think it's going to take really a couple years before a lot of the women involved are up to speed so So thank you. So it's kind of you know, it might be just that Maybe that's all they know how to do right now, but a lot of people have really grown a lot I mean like when when Miriam joined she didn't know how to do anything Debian related and now she's written Tutorials about how to you know package without without helpers and she has several packages And you know, so it takes a while but but I think definitely I would like for it to go away too at some point That would be that would be great Let me just quickly pick up on the early discussion when you mentioned that there is high volume and that People have a job at university. I don't think that that's necessarily applicable to women only I faced exactly the same problem and Whether you want to go on a mailing list to bang your head against the wall as many seem to be doing which I agree I mean, you know some of the times The big mailing list tends to be rather unproductive It wasn't necessarily my suggestion to go to the big mailing list. You could also just go to the smaller ones Which I find really productive nevertheless one of the next steps, which I was getting at earlier is Is your visibility is how to make sure that when people external people look at Debian They don't need to look at Debian women to be like alright. There's there's females and we're involved here They're publicly visible on the mailing list even if they're you know like occasionally also banging their heads on the wall Or just keeping quiet and saying something here and there. It doesn't really matter I mean a lot of people don't speak all the time on the mailing lists and right Well, that's all Good to guys some girls I just wanted to say I'm speaking of this question of visibility and of people getting more involved Technically and and all of that stuff that I think it's important to remember that we've got New people new women getting involved with the Debian women all the time. It's an ongoing It's not really a flood. It's more like a trickle, but but it's ongoing and I know that there's a small number of women myself included who are relatively visible in the project and I got Desensitized to speaking up on mailing lists a while ago though a year ago I would be scared stiff to say anything on a Debian mailing list alone on an IRC channel, but I've gotten over that But there is still a whole bunch of people involved in the Debian women project who are very nervous about that sort of thing I was talking to someone I knew a few days ago who was telling me that she Wanted to be more involved, but she was really worried about What sort of reaction she might get from people if she sort of showed her her face in public by speaking up on a list and I think that we're still in a situation where we need to be supportive of people who are Coming in you and I know that this sort of thing certainly doesn't apply to women only But I think because of the the sheer The number of women involved compared to the number of men involved I think it it's often more difficult for women or for some women and I think I think we should stay sensitive to that and You know I give us five years before before we've got anything approaching a really visible before you can look at a mailing list Any mailing list in Debian and say hey there are some women and I think it won't be a large number of women Maybe it'll be 10% of post source. I don't know something like that, but it's going to be years It's not going to happen immediately and because we have a small number of Fantastic sort of success stories like like Miriam and like Aaron I think we need to bear in mind that the greater number of people are Coming along, but it's it's slower. Well another thing to take into account is that if you have over 900 Something male developers and you have maybe maybe what do you think probably 30 women? Something like that. Yeah, maybe 30 15 to 30 women getting involved in Debian There's roughly the same percentage posting to list I mean it's not you know and they may be on our list or they may be on others But it's it's not it's a huge huge gap in number So you can't expect for all the women involved with us to be posting to mailing list just for visibility's sake when they Don't they don't know enough about Debian to do so especially for you know when they're not entrenched in the culture And they don't know a lot about GRs and they don't know all the history which there is a lot of history that you need to know in order to be Properly involved in Debian and and it takes a long time. So, you know, it's kind of Well, of course, it's ideal to have more visibility, but it's also kind of unfair to expect it Have couple of points one is that well in this discussion looks like the involvement in Debian is like posting to Debian And well if that is the goal of like women in Debian It sounds to me like women that wants to get even by doing the military service Which is like following the stupid things that men do and like please don't add more top posters to Debian Devel It's like that's already stupid enough and many people who are doing a lot of work in Debian are actually not top posters in Debian Devel So well, I guess that's not probably one of the goals and But still presence is fine, but that was not the main point I Wanted to ask well one of the really good thing that's been happening in Debian women from my point of view Which may not be the main one is that there's been all the tutorial and Back squashing party assistance and like getting people in by doing something. I thought that was really amazing Really good documentation has been produced that's now being used by people in the nmq and by Debian developers as well and and that's more like helping women and other people that may have had Problems of some kind like time or whatever or English language or whatever getting involved in Debian Like we have many minorities like people with low bandwidth people with little time people with families that Do something in Debian and that Debian women is also supporting them Is this going to be a collateral effect or a main goal of the project? And that's question number one question number two is do you see big challenges coming or? Do you see it's fine as Debian women is doing now and that's the way to go Show show it's possible and keep going well as far as the collateral thing I mean, you know everything's everything's more difficult as things scale up We're able to do things like IRC tutorials and documentation and so forth because we're small I cannot imagine the nightmare of holding an IRC tutorial about bug squashing to a bunch of newbies and a channel of like 300 and something people And that would be really difficult, but you know when you only have 20 or 30 people that are present and paying attention It's a lot easier as far as the documentation I mean, I think you know we'll have great success stories And we'll have people who are doing good things for the project and that will continue and that's not going to change and you know Maybe eventually they'll leave us for to run for DPL or something. I don't know. What was what was your other question? big challenge no As far as the big challenges go I think a lot of those are actually over One of the most difficult things about starting up a new project is kind of bootstrapping the process and getting it to run Which is actually really difficult and really stressful at this point. It's not I mean it's it requires maintenance But it's it's also pretty easy to get burned out because with anything when you're dealing with volunteers You're trying to get them to do something and they won't do it. You're just like what you why am I doing this? so we sort of go through phases of inactivity because of that because we just don't have enough people who are kind of in Charge of different areas but the big challenge is I think I Think a lot of them are over. I think a lot of times we'll have to justify ourselves, but after a year. We're sort of known well enough and That that people have just sort of accepted that we're there Because you know, I mean trolls are gonna be a problem But you know, it's kind of like Linux chicks has been in existence for many years And I don't think it'll ever go away. Well, maybe maybe in a while once it's not needed But you know, I don't I don't think they face big challenges In the difficult sense, but they face, you know new and interesting challenges in the sense of Well, you know things have changed from a year ago. What can we do differently? That's that's more fun and and cool now and how you know, how do we attract more people to our project? But yeah, besides besides typical Project related standard problems. I don't I don't really foresee anything huge I think it should be said that you guys are All over the world of open source, there's only 2% women showing up so you guys are already sort of slightly You know under the curve, but but definitely gaining on it And I think it'd be very interesting to see what happens the way that you've chosen to organize there are a few other large communities that have women organizations, but They're they're hitting some interesting Internal barriers and how women choose to self-identify so for instance pearl women has never really gotten off the ground Even though there are a lot of women working in the pearl community. They're just not interested in in showing up that way and So I'm I'm really encouraged to see the work that you're doing and And I'm and I'm also noticing the trolls. You got to do some Yeah, but all the trolls are great They're very entertaining Yeah, I think with the thing about Debbie and and maybe maybe other Distribution communities to a certain extent is that they have a very cohesive community I Get the impression that the pearl community is a lot more distributed and not not nearly as tight because it's Programming language and you know, there are a couple people it seems clustered at the top of it who do things But but I you know, I don't really know it that much about other communities You can yeah, go ahead. Okay. I have about two questions or comments mostly about Amount of women in open source development or about trend how the number is changing and also about motivation to get involved in open source development because I have a long history Myself in open source development and in beginning. I think that most motivation was something about scientific technical Hacking only but I think that it has changed a lot at the moment. There is motivation about really changing the world Or the lot of professional career or getting professional and married because at the moment It looked like that if we hire someone we first look from the network Does they have open source project what they have done? And it's one of the most more important things to check that someone is visible or something in open source and so Now the question is I think that is that how much have you analyzed reasons? why more and more women get involved in open source and Also, is there any kind of following about trend how the number is changing and then a small comment about I Think that this kind of community is like Depend woman I am I'm not part of this list but I think that there will always be All kind of groups that have something to something common They may be language groups some Continents area somewhere that forms some groups that have something common So I think that all diverse is not important to disappear But I think that we need all kind of groups that forms with some common factor and they can always contribute Something then to create their part and so I think that this can be a diverse It's not intention even to be disappearing I'm really Yeah, I'm really unless why more and more women get involved, but Those service I was referring to Says that Your studies your time in university or college is the most important way of getting into the open source and free software development so As more and more women are entering the computer science studies that may be an important factor and In my university as I said there were four percent women about in the CS study That's about six or seven years ago, I think and That was exactly for women among hundreds of hundreds students Then they have had a project to recruit more women and the number number increased to about 40 percent Which meant that there was kind of a critical mass and a lot of these women now active not in Actually development, but in one of the more geeky student organizations in my university And I think the group factor has been very important Not only one of them one of them didn't have to go alone there have been like three or four ten of them Going there at the same time. So I think an increasing number of women in the CS studies or Interested in free software in general will kind of Make a swirl to And spiral to do and grow Yeah Did that make sense? Yeah, I mean and you know another thing to think about is that if they're getting involved in computer science and engineering and stuff like that a lot of times Free software is just better for many things. So I you know I don't I don't they're gonna be people who come come to it because of ideology and stuff like that But I think primarily there will be more people in general and therefore probably more women just as it gains market share So I think that's probably one of the most crucial aspects.  It's not as unusual Nowadays as it was, you know, when I was a child, I mean we didn't have computers around the house until I was like 17 or 18 So so now that they're they're pretty much in every house at least in the in the United States I don't know about other countries, but Yeah, I think I think it'll just grow naturally over time with or without us Hi For those that don't know me, I'm B Dale. I Feel very fortunate. Well, some folks have no idea.  Yeah, right We proved that last night took a couple hundred beer cups or something. I Feel incredibly fortunate in a number of ways one of them is that I have some very strong female influences in my life ranging from one of my Grandmothers who's still around at the ripe old age of 101 and and I Commented in Malaga a year and a half or so ago on her hundredth birthday How privileged I felt to have her still is a very strong influence in my life and she's still around and she's 101 now and It's still pretty cool All the way to a daughter who I gave her own computer at age two and now at age 13 really scares me when it comes to computers One of the other ways that I feel really fortunate is that I've had the chance to be involved in this Debian project for very long time and to have the Perspective to realize that in fact some of the things that a lot of people seem to take for granted about this project and the way we all Interact with each other and the way we do or don't behave are somehow Givens and my perspective is that that's not really true that things have changed quite a bit over time There's no reason that they can't change yet again and get to a state that is hopefully even more productive and more Energizing than where we are now another way that I feel really Sort of privileged is that I've had the opportunity to you know Go work almost in a larger context to sort of step very much beyond Debian itself and kind of look back and you know cogitate a little bit on the perceptions about our project in the larger technical and Corporate enterprise and so forth communities and one of the things that's caused me to realize is that we are susceptible to this interesting problem of perception where Vocal minorities can have the perception of being majority in the minds of a lot of people Now this can be a problem when we allow a vocal minority or you know vocal might be the wrong word when it's all about keyboard diarrhea but We have this problem that there are people who look Naively at some of our communications artifacts like the big threads on some of our development lists and They they see this and they sort of go you know This is clearly not the community. I want to be involved with and yet that perception is being formed by an active Often very small minority of our participants and the vast majority of us may in fact be you know Very nice very reasonable very social people that they would very much enjoy Working with and participating with but they're put off by it because of this perception That they build that you know So that one of the things I've been very encouraged about in watching the evolution over the last year of the Debian women Subcommunity is I think you have just the same degree of power to help build perceptions Even as a minority within the project because it doesn't take a whole lot of action To form very strong impressions one way or the other and I would like to encourage all of us to realize that This perception thing is very real and it's very significant and has a lot to do with how Attractive we are as a project to people that we would really like to be attractive to and it doesn't matter whether that's yet Another major corporate sponsor and contributor at one end of the spectrum or a really You know gung-ho super contributing Long-term technical geek who just doesn't happen to have grown up through the Debian process and therefore You know didn't come here naturally and these are all things that we ought to care about and Once again, I feel fortunate because you're helping us to have the opportunity to go think about some of these issues And to me it really isn't about the gender thing It isn't about you know a lot of the things that it's very easy for people to try and pigeonhole these sorts of discussions as It's really all about the larger issue of are we trying to build and are we successfully building the kind of community? That more people want to be involved with or are we really screwing up? Well, I you know, I agree with you and and one thing that that I know I've discussed with Helen to quite a large extent is that because of because of this Perception that people are creating. I think there's a tendency for us to attract people who want to act like that and it's and it's just a Cycle, you know, we just we keep attracting We'll not always the wrong people, but sometimes we do attract the wrong people who think that Being abusive on mailing lists and so forth is the Debian way and that it's accepted behavior And then it's cool and and you know and this is this is what they want to participate in and I think at the same time You know, we have a lot of quieter contributors who are not participating and they don't seem to be pushed away in droves But you know, still we have the vocal minority not even just confined into Debian But it's also you spread out onto other development like like Linux kernel mailing lists You know, we have like sometimes the totally wrong set of people representing us And you know, it's like a lot of us are so tired of dealing with them that I don't I don't think we're too Inspired to go deal with them elsewhere But it's you know and and then there's also the problem that a lot of people don't care if we get more contributors You know, I mean, you know, we have a problem with scale as it is So getting more contributors may contribute to that or at the same time if we get the right kind of people It could help it. It could help alleviate the problem. So, you know, it's but yeah, I definitely agree with you I actually have three questions, but I'm gonna back it down to two and maybe I can ask my third later because in talks I realize when you're having a Q&A session like this with a live speaker and Rico's seven plus or minus two items is more like one plus or minus one Sometimes you don't get an answer to your question at all. So My first question I think is probably something that Magny can speak more to I In in reading your paper for the that's in the proceedings and in your slides here You placed a lot of emphasis on the disc that the difficulty of gathering statistics that you were very happy with and I was wondering if you could Elaborate a little bit about that particularly In the direction of what types of statistics would you like to see gathered worldwide? Or you know, whether it in the professional community or in among colleges and universities that they're major programs Or even just among free software communities like the Genome Foundation and the Debian project What types of statistical data would be useful to you so that you could reach more confident conclusions? when studying this phenomenon and I'll just I'll just save my second question for after that Well, the biggest problem with the statistics about the industry is that there isn't really a statistical internationally known group for programmers You have those these international statistics aggregating statistics from different bureaus of statistics in different countries and then you have to like for for professionals you have to group them in into different groups and There is no programmer group At least not in the big bigger international Database thing things as far as I have found at least I Haven't really been Looking that much into it because it's not very important for me whether it's 20 or 35 percent women in in programming I just have this Got feeling that it's not 35% That any of you work in any software Shop or programming company that actually has 35% women Parts of China, perhaps Yeah, she said that in China probably or parts of China and also in India, I guess there might be some He said that and I didn't get all he said he said that in government organizations There might be 35% but the problem is that though 35% are probably not What we would count as programmers or software developers Depending on how you define it, of course Lots of them are probably like my boss who is who happens to be a male, but He hasn't touched a compiler for 20 years, I guess And I wouldn't really consider him neither technical nor a programmer Even though he might have that education Just a bit more yeah statistics no conserved project Yeah Well, I'm trying to draw you out and and get you to make recommendations to Debian and really to the free software community in general as to you know What what can what can it do to make people in the position of writing paper like papers like yours easier if there is anything? I'm not sure There was actually anything I Don't really understand your question. Sorry. Well, I mean it's it seems like you you you you found it difficult to get apples to apples comparisons Yeah, and so what what can people well? Let me give you a concrete example. It occurred to me like there's a certification program called LPI and it occurred to me that well because that's standardized in principle you could get a fairly nice measure of How many women are involved just by checking the Sex ratio of the people who actually get certified there, but then it occurred to me Well if women are facing a general perceptual burden there might be more pressure on them to get certified than there is upon men So I don't know. There's a possible source of statistical noise I'm not very trained in you know scientific sampling or statistics, and you're doing this for your master's work, so Well Are you trying to tell us that it's a it's a hard master's thesis to write Yeah, I'm kind of distracted by my part-time job. Yeah 90% job Well, yeah The main problem I've been facing is that no mailing lists or anything like that is has Regists any data about gender of the participants and that's kind of well if somebody could add that to mailman that would be nice Yeah, yeah, some people would want to be androgynous so yeah Okay, my next my next question was a bit more philosophical in nature I've heard a couple of Conflicting observations, and this is for both of you I've heard a couple of conflicting observations One is an emphasis on the unique nature of the contributions that women can make to the Debian project in particular, let's say Like you but to break out of that for sick Use the example of the the women in Antarctica having a civilizing influence upon the hard-drinking, you know fist-swinging men my readings in in Anthropology what limited as they are would have led me to suggest that there would be less fighting among men when there are no females to Compete over but you know so shows what I know right so The other factor is that well if you emphasize the unique contributions of women's work How do you mitigate that old saw about certain things being women's work? This occurred to me when we when you were talking about when Aaron was talking about documentation on the website and stuff and if that somehow becomes a female domain that it might Ironically end up somehow cheapening the work and then then some men wouldn't want to do it because oh well That's what we set aside for Debian women, and of course that's a pretty poisonous attitude Not just not just for documentation, but for the women in our group and the men How do we balance those things? Well, I mean I Guess I mean there's always a need for good documentation and the fact that we've gotten some really good stuff out of them just they you know I mean they People maintain packages just like everyone else, and I guess that's not really something that's lacking within Debian Too many packages probably My talk was on documentation, and I'll I'll stand up for it as being as masculine and act as you please so You know it's it's just what happened overfiend as a woman It's the hair it's the hair I tell you so Okay, yeah now that I've been emasculated. Maybe I qualify But anyway, no, I think documentation is a good thing and and it's Yeah, it's certainly something I've been emphasizing over the years because I'm so opposed to You know folklore as a means of transmitting knowledge in the project. Yeah You know there's there's not really the only way I can think of to really properly mitigate against Kind of silly ideas like that is just to not have women write documentation and Maybe do something else, but you know it's the things things are gonna evolve I mean a year ago. We didn't really have any women doing anything And and now a year later we have a lot of the maintaining packages Helen You know chair the DPL debate and I don't I don't really I'm not very interested in highlighting the special things They've done as just because like oh they're women, but more as I use them as examples of how we've grown and actually contributed to the project, but One of the things that we have sort of been slack about Is incorporating the things that they've written into proper Debbie and documentation and into the website Yeah, I mean Because a lot of that stuff really should be on the main website and not on our wiki, which is you know who goes there for documentation Because it's just a little It's a little too obscure so so that would be our main problem Because it might potentially look like we're trying to hoard it in an attempt to See and say like oh look what we did, but that's not really the case I think I think probably the main thing that we can do to mitigate against that kind of attitude is to keep Well to begin trying to integrate the things that we've done into Debbie and proper instead of Just you know keeping it off in our little universe or whatever Right exactly Okay, I think the Trolling and flaming is really something that's overemphasized I'm Subscribed to about 20 mailing lists. I think and there's only two where there is consisting flaming and trolling Most of them are actually quite productive and very target oriented So I Don't really see that as a major problem There's a lot of work being done on other lists and then the fell and the fell is very good for some topics But a lot of work in the project is actually being done on other lists and it would be good to To encourage the people from deputy and women to get involved there and not on the Main Devel list and and and work outwards from there, I guess So I hoped it will happen. Yeah, one of the one of the reasons that I Sort of brought up to trolling was not because it's so bad But just because we've been pretty effective in dealing with it Which I think is a lot more important because I mean, you know, we were basically setting ourselves up as targets for these things but you know if If you deal with it properly it can kind of set a good example like if you just stop talking to people Instead of flaming them a lot of times they go away And this is kind of a Life lesson that a lot of people have not seemed to learn But I agree with you there are a lot of play You know great places like like the WN installer team is apparently an excellent place for people to get involved And I think that that's something that needs to be highlighted more often I Think Marga wasn't you were involved with Debbie installer stuff, right? You were testing and translating and doing all that stuff Last year right, but yeah, but what I mean is that's how you kind of made your way into Debian and stuff like that and and all reports of Debian installer people and other various the small the small teams Tend to be better places and I yeah definitely Jumping into Develin and saying.  You're not even gonna know what's going on most of the time so it's it can be At best boring and at worst really scary Hi, I like to describe a bit the status of women in open source Regarding open source in Israel, it may be to conclude or give advice to you In Israel, we have something Probably the same 2% 3% of women But I think if I think about them, it's probably free women that really set the pace for the rest of the community they're very active and if We need to organize something regarding the open source community they're probably the ones that we take as a role model and They there's no such thing as An organization for women in open source community in Israel but everyone that's getting involved has a role model and There these women tend to Make people behave in a certain way in contributing more or being being nicer to other people or doing stuff their way on some of them womanly behavior in The example of Antarctica making things nicer and more welcoming and I think it can be a good example for Debbie and women for example if you were used if If you wrote a tutorial for in the mailing list or IRC guide and publish it do it something loud in Mass volume so every every person in the nmq will be able to use it. I know I use the Schematics of the installation process and it was very helpful, but I think you can think larger Yeah, yeah, yeah, we definitely need to be louder But we have you know, I mean also and there's there's little things a lot of people Learn about Debbie and from say like Planet Debian and we have I think We have about six women on there now if I remember correctly So, you know, it's it's it's happening. It's just it's gonna be slow I mean like like Helen was saying I think probably won't see anything really really major for about five years or so So many questions Just here it will be a very simple question actually Is there any reason why we don't have a gender field in the or LDAP database? I Don't know Yeah, I mean it really kind of doesn't matter. It's it's interesting in terms of How good the statistics are that you can get from it? But if there were if there were a gender field, I I don't even well, I'm not There were a gender field would People around here. I don't think a lot of people would feel it the gender field among the DD's around here We would feel the gender field with either male or female would you Yeah, definitely not It's the same the same problem with your The field for your country or for whatever whatever information you put on the LDAP database Okay, yeah, I think well, I barely agreed more or less But I think the point had to be raised a rose and because it may sound we say we don't have way to make Statistics actually we have a way to make statistics and we have to make the point why we can't Okay, so thank you for the answer. It was pretty clear for everyone Yeah Well, yeah, I don't really remember No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding No, so so BDL basically said it would be it would be not very different from having Like race and height and weight and it's it's not terribly important and and I and I agree with that I mean, I think it would be potentially Interesting in the sense that you know, you're curious about how many there are of this and that I think it would be potentially interesting, but I also don't think it's a great idea just because Well, first of all, a lot of people just want to answer it second of all it would cause huge Internal problems. I think with people just because it's you know, it's just not it shouldn't be important And you know and I agree with that Okay, I am I want to make a comment that I want to make a comment and then a question My comment would be how what the deviant women meant to me when I first I First make it my first contact with deviant. I Didn't even think about it was something for me I would fit in or something like that and the deviant women for me was the door to enter other deviant rates and lists I mean, I'm not I'm right now I'm not only in deviant women, but I wouldn't be in deviant at all if it wasn't for for that project So I think it at least at least for me it worked and then my question if we were saying that this about 25 about 20 25 30 percent of women in information technologies and in free software in general we only able to attract about 1% 2% What does the non-freeing Projects do to be able to attract more women They yeah, they pay them Yeah, I think they I mean they pay them. I I mean, you know a lot of people Because I don't I don't know how what do you know do you happen to know the percentage of Like men who happen to work in the IT field or whatever who are also involved in free software What No, no, I'm asking because if we have a certain percentage of like like 25 to 30 percent women working in the IT field is You know programmers this admins what have you and only we're only getting 2% of them how? How many men are working in the field and how many how much percentage of that are we getting? Do you know that or you don't know? No, okay Yeah, yeah, they I think money Video team, please bear a cup of coffee Coffee She wants coffee No, what percentage of men that work in IT are also contributing to free software, I don't know No, I've seen some Numbers, but I don't really remember them I Yeah, I'm not I'm not even sure the numbers correlate that much. I mean, you know, Helen's a physicist and and Hannah, but I think left a contributing factor could be that a lot of the women in the IT industry are working in large companies corporations and they usually have a Human resources department with like equality politics things like that like it or not Thank you That may get more women in I must and definitely not saying that the dean should have like quotas and things like that no but it certainly makes it easier to Get women more women in when you have like a clear policy is saying that women should be in interviews Things like that Maybe And there is also something about security not taking risks a lot of open source development the paid part of it Happens in small companies. I worked for a startup company for four years myself. We were four people and Then you really Don't think very much of a gender when you employ people you Well, my company was a pile of friends actually who we're just starting a company And I think a lot of you open source development. We just paid it goes on in the search companies That may be a factor Getting more men in the film. Maybe Yeah, this is not so much a question but just a Observation kind of for about the whole like hostility thing I Can understand why someone you know in a new situation would you know take a while to like actually want to you know Dive in I think for myself from the time I I got involved with Debian to the time I start regularly participating was about like three years or something But I I don't know. I have a hard time understanding Why people think of Debian as being like really hostile? I mean strident yes, and that like the passion like kind of Overheat sometimes, but it's never really struck me as being You know like a hostile kind of place Well, I'm not talking about IRC mainly about well, but that's how a lot of people get involved I mean, you know as a user the first thing I did when I needed help was was join the IRC channel and And you know luckily my personality is I can I can deal with that sort of climate But a lot of people can't and if you come in right from the beginning and people are rude and and they're mean You're not gonna stick around to see how the developers act I mean at that point you don't care and maybe maybe you will run into it later on in life But if your first contact with the community is just hate and anger then yeah, I mean Well, you would you might only come back if you if you're a masochist or something like that, you know Well, I mean I think IRC is mostly a lost cause, but I mean on the mailing list You know Debbie Debbie and user is okay, but but again the volume is simply too much for most people to deal with I mean, especially new users who don't quite have they haven't got the hang of dealing with with their their mailing client yet And they don't maybe know how to filter mail and their noodle Linux and all of a sudden they have over a hundred new messages And they're inbox in one day. I mean, you know stuff like that is It's a it's a it's kind of a barrier for people I think and I don't know if it's one that needs to be corrected, but it should at least be recognized Well, I think it's gonna be hard because I mean, you know, like That strikes me as being a very like distorted worldview, you know to look at it as hostile And I don't think really Debian is you know able to you know provide therapy really in that Oh, yeah needed, but But the a better tactic I think is to help people find areas that they're so Passionate about that they can't help but speak out, you know, and that's you know what Instead of saying that well, you know, you can do something to help Debian You know kind of get the kind of people who have some like insanely brilliant idea and say that Debian is the Vehicle you can use to make that happen, and I think you know women or men who think of it that way Are gonna have a much easier time getting into Debian and and liking the whole Debian environment Then people who you know are waiting it for it to become sensitive because oh, yeah gonna be waiting a long time for that Yeah, no, I agree. I mean I think in many ways the the hostile perception is Occasionally true because because as be Dale says we have sort of a vocal minority who are sort of misrepresenting everyone And that's and that's not even all the time, and I don't I don't think that that there is really any way to make Debian nicer. I don't necessarily think that that is a great end goal But I think I think that a lot of the discussions are non-productive and there is just they're just a waste of time and that's Not necessarily hostile, but you know people people they don't know they see a huge You know mailing list threads and they think well what the hell are these people talking about they just going back and forth and a lot of times It's not about anything But yeah, no, I don't think I don't think but you know like I said that isn't our goal Our goal is not to make things less hostile and while there may be members of the project who believe that that Debian is too hostile for them that is not The that is not the group Feeling I mean not not everybody feels that way and not everybody wants to change it though I do think that things could potentially change for the better just as a result or you know I mean, maybe we'll be out there flaming with you guys that could happen, too About the gender field that Christian Suggested before I shouted in because it doesn't matter but Sort of I would like to Quote as big Laker here morons. I'm surrounded by morons Because a gender field is most probably the worst idea ever I've heard my god It's it's about classifying people to something and Of course, it might be a good idea for Magnus These is and and she might need the data but Classifying people in that way, especially developers where it's no reason at all especially What do you see behind gender? Is it just the body? Is it how the people feel and like to I Identify themself. I Guess it would just shy many people away if you do it Yeah, I'm not I'm not Okay, well people want to talk about it. I'm not sure that that directly relates to Debbie and women I'd like to make my point clear I got a perfect Correct answer from you all for why there is no reason to get a gender field in LDAP Okay, I think the question had to be asked because we are always wondering why we are So unable to come so well, I I told you I'm very good at asking dumb questions I'm deep specialist for that and this is barely why I proposed this. Yeah, so Finally, and you made my mind. I agree with you Alfie if you were wondering and there's no reason for having a gender field in LDAP I'm sorry, but I totally disagree with what was said before We do have location information in LDAP where is a Developer located and we use that to see how Debbie and is spreading our around the world I think gender is exactly the same. It's a neutral information field that should be treated as such It is only loaded. It is only loaded because people regarded as that and if we would just Start treating information like that in a more neutral way. I think that would improve the world. I Would I would not mind seeing it in LDAP people can always choose to fill it in to not fill it in I wouldn't even mind to having religion or Race in there I think it would be good to see how the diversity in the project is and to use that in a neutral way And I think that is what open source is about it is not about confirming existing prejudice Yeah, no, I agree. It would be interesting, but you know, it's just it's one of those things that would upset So many people Yeah, it's you know, it's kind of like oh, well, let's celebrate our differences But you know, it's no one really celebrates them very often It's just it's just a way a lot of times to divide people and And you know and and that's not that's not a debbie and problem That's just a general cultural problem and Idealism is not going to mitigate against those kinds of attitudes unfortunately Actually, I agree with that and I keep reflecting on the fact that you only have to look at the faces in this room to see how Very undiverse a group we are. This is not all of Debian obviously, but I think that's a problem I think we're missing out and maybe we could do better but actually I was going to make a comment about the question of trolls because I Suspect that people don't quite realize that the the sorts of trolls we've been dealing with In recent months in Debian women. I don't think they're even People at all connected with the Debian project as far as I can tell So when we're not about booting out Debian people who have a you know an interesting comment to make that we happen to disagree with It's more like booting out some completely random outsider who comes in and say some says you should all die And you know, there should be no women in free software and death to you all and I mean literally that I'm not Paraphrasing much except I can't quite remember the precise offensive way in which One person was was talking so I don't think there's any question, but that we don't want those someone who's going to behave in that way Around and on any Debian context. Yeah, yeah and and the other thing is is that just from commenting to people Individually a few of you I think that quite a lot of people here won't realize that those of us who use Irc nicks, which are obviously female Or all those of us who are who are known as women and not everyone would necessarily know that a particular nick is It's all and we have the honor of getting private messages with them Usually not very intelligent or even very funny Pick up lines. Oh, no, did you hear did you hear mine? Go and tell us I have to some of you have already read this But for those of you who have not had the pleasure and the honor of reading this I got an IRC message one night and It was this guy and he told me he saw my website He he fell in love with me and all this stuff and he asked me to sign his GPG key And No, he gave me the fingerprint and everything and said would you please please sign my GPG key I would be so honored and I and I You know after calling him names and stuff I sort of asked why he thought I would do that and he told me it was because love was based on trust So so no a lot of them a lot of these types of things are very annoying But but occasionally they're funny like that one. I mean we yeah, I I just didn't sign his key I was just kind of like I was like you're you're crazy and you need to go away He actually continued to talk to me and I have I mean, you know, we've had I've had IRC stalkers and stuff like that And yeah, it's it's pretty common Do we have any more questions? We have 10 minutes left. There are no more questions. Oh, I Just wanted to make Alexander run. No in fact I think the question is whether we as a Debian project Can live with the fact that we have That we use not all the potential we have if you have 900 Developers which are 99.5 percent male. I Expect that we could have another 900 and maybe there are only 300 active But let's say we have 300 more female developers Then we have the double of potential so the question is Can we allow the state we have or is it in in factor a total waste of potential if we do not actively Actively Try to get women involved And that is not only women but also other groups that are not involved equally in in Debian, of course Well, I I mean, I don't know if it's wasted potential But it's kind of an itch people want to just scratch and and that's kind of how these things work. I mean we just said Instead of sitting around Wining about the lack of women could we get more and then maybe just we don't have to whine about it anymore And that's you know, it seems to be working So but I don't know about wasted potential or or anything like that I mean sure we could have thousands and thousands of developers and and I think Elmo would be really really pleased about that if we had just But If people if people want more contributors I mean there are some people who do actively seek out new contributors and try to encourage people and that's that's their itch That they want to scratch and we're not that different. It's just that Sometimes there are cultural differences that you know, the the typical way people might go about it. Don't work And it's that it no more question. Okay Brandon My third question, which I alluded to earlier Had to do with your mentoring process Someone shared with me the other day the observation that the new maintainer process has gotten so Preoccupied with trying to prevent Bad or clueless people from getting into the project that what we're actually selecting for via this process is an incredible Stamina and capacity for writing very long email messages Which which which is we don't want that. Yeah, really Which is I think what I'm hearing is what we don't need more of on on the high-traffic mailing lists So I'm curious to see to learn more about The Debbie and women mentoring process and see if maybe we can adapt some of the lessons From it to the NM process And it's really just a comment, but I did want to point out that that contrast right well I think I think one of the main differences is that Due to the nature of NM People I think I mean I can speak for myself and the people I know I think we're less likely to ask questions because we don't want to look stupid to our AM's You certainly don't want to look like your clueless or like you need help with something even though you might and I think that might be Why a lot of people get bogged down And the difference between that and our our mentoring process is that it's all about questions Like it's it's okay if you don't know something you can ask that's what we're here for And I think ideally the AM's could take that approach and I'm sure that some of them do but there's still always to fear that the Dam is going to read your Your final report and see that you asked all these questions and say well, you know come back later Well, I mean the other half of that which I forgot to mention was I think it's very interesting that In Debbie and women you have an excess of mentors. Yeah, and an NM. We have a deficit of AM's Yeah, yeah, so, you know, maybe you can help us out with this Some of the mentors that I've spoken to Helen knows more about this, but some of the mentors that I've spoken to or seen emails from They basically say that the reason they don't want to be AM's is because it's not really a mentoring kind of thing And and they also don't necessarily have time to read through tons of reports But they have time to maybe maybe tutor someone on IRC about Whatever random thing that takes in that's interesting to them And you know, I mean, I don't I don't want to say that NM is bogged down and bureaucratic crap But but it's heading in that direction I mean when you have 70 essay questions effectively that you have to answer It's and you know, I don't think that's terribly useful for a lot of people But I could I could just be speaking for myself here Yeah, yeah, we I think I think we definitely need More anal retentive people about email etiquette on Debbie unless so that's that's good I want to say that comparing mentors to AM's to me somewhat like comparing apples to oranges we have advocates in Debian and we have sponsors in Debian and to me those are more or should be more or less the same and if I look On the Debian mentor mailing list some of the folks there are doing what I've been doing for years now Which is actively working with the people that we're sponsoring right to make them understand And then also be their advocate because then I can actually say I know this guy I hope this guy knows something since I had taught him And then actually just pass him on to the application manager for the bureaucracy and then be done Yeah, but why should those steps be separate, you know, I mean why not because we don't have been to enough AM's probably Well, yeah, but we have a lot of mentors, so I think I think it may be the process is off-putting to both sides I want to say at this point in time. I've tried about four times. I've told Martin and Multivim and some other people about four times that I would like to be in AM and I just was never contacted like this was a conference as I was like, you know, like make me an AM and I Never heard back from them. I mean, this might be a personal thing But like that kind of suggested to you. No, no, no, not not a personal all right Not a personal thing between him and I but like maybe they just forgot Yeah, no, but that kind of made me think that maybe it's not that important guess Martin we need to make you a t-shirt that says make me an AM and you have to wear it every day at these conferences Of course, can it be pink, please? Not not a question just just more a comment Is it really the attitude that I can't ask any questions at all when I'm in an AM because my AM or my damn might read the Comment and think I'm dumb. Is that is that is that the attitude that I sort of heard a couple minutes ago? Well, that's that's kind of my attitude. I I wouldn't want to appear stupid and Unworthy of being a Debian developer But so I you know, I would prefer to ask someone else even though it might be better for my application If if my AM and the dam and so forth see Okay, well, she's not scared to ask questions But it's also probably better for them to think that no I know this stuff and it's and it's no problem But I get the impression that that's not an uncommon attitude and that's a lot of people get bogged down and stuff like that for some more reasons So it's just it was not asking questions in general. It's just asking questions for your AM asking questions here and And we have like less than we have like a minute. I think Well, we can I mean we can talk later afterwards we can talk afterwards as well, so Okay, so that's it. Thank you everybody


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