I think a coed group would be great. It might be nice to have a separate IRC channel for testing things out where people wouldn't have to worry about bothering people or looking foolish.
I think an intro to IRC and quick rundown of all the zoia commands would be a great thing to do in the Open space pre-conf. -Esme -- Esme Cowles <escow...@ucsd.edu> "Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement." -- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring On 12/5/2012, at 4:45 PM, Karen Coyle <li...@kcoyle.net> wrote: > Roy, > > It wasn't for safety -- it was for training. Some of us haven't spent much > time on IRC -- I never know what to do when I get there -- can't remember > commands, even with a decent GUI. So I was trying to think of places (e.g. > Github, IRC) where we'd like to have more women participating and how we > could give them a chance to learn.* Lots of people are afraid of making > mistakes in front of others, and we know that women/girls take fewer chances > in mixed classrooms. Once they get adept at the environment they can > participate in the group list with more confidence. Training, mentoring -- it > all blends together. > > In fact, I'm thinking that at c4l we could put up some big pieces of paper (I > love the giant post-it paper) and have people make lists of their favorite > tools, hangouts, etc. Then we could use those lists as ways to figure out > what people need to learn to feel more like "part of the community" and to > feel more confident about participating. > > kc > * Look at the list of edits on the anti-harassment policy -- not many women > there. I suspect it's unfamiliarity with Git. If we're going to use a tool as > a community, then I want more women to be familiar with it. If someone else > wants to train men or a coed group, that's fine. > > On 12/5/12 1:35 PM, Roy Tennant wrote: >> On Wed, Dec 5, 2012 at 12:57 PM, Rosalyn Metz <rosalynm...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> Karen had the idea of creating a women Code4Lib IRC channel, maybe that can >>> be a place to start. >> I understand the motivation to create a "safe space" for women, but >> please let's not do this. "Separate but equal" has never been shown to >> make progress toward equality, and I doubt this situation would be any >> different. I believe it would instead make things worse, by >> balkanizing the community rather than encouraging good behavior within >> a unified group. In other words, the solution will never be reached >> without active participation by men. >> Roy > > -- > Karen Coyle > kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net > ph: 1-510-540-7596 > m: 1-510-435-8234 > skype: kcoylenet
