On 2019/06/21 13:37:01, Naomi S <[email protected]> wrote:
> agreed. my proposal (currently being drafted) goes into detail on this>
> matter. but we don’t want to use Outreachy to inflate our demographics one>
> internship at a time>
>
> we want to gather and synthesize the knowledge we gain through running an>
> internship program w ppl from under represented groups so that we can>
> publish recommendations that projects across the foundation can use (with>
> support from us on duscuss@diversity) to make their projects more welcoming>
> and safe and inclusive, and ultimately, more attractive to contribute to>
>
Agreed that that is a great desire and that should that happen,
the information would be incredibly useful. One issue I have,
which I have mentioned before, is the only way to get valuable data
is to have these interns interact with "typical" ASF projects by
producing code. The more offset-from-typical their engagement and interactions
are, the less applicable they are to those projects that we hope to
provide insight and guidance towards. In other words, for this engagement
to have truly valuable insight, enough to warrant the expense (IMO),
interns 'must' be creating code for a representative Apache project.
Otherwise, that data set is tainted with unknown applicability to
the problem set we are trying to correct.
Of course, there are 2 big issues with that:
1. We are paying for code development.
2. The proposals I saw were using ASF projects such as Whimsy
as the project these interns would be working with/for.
Now we are trying to justify #1 by using #2... that is, there is
a train of thought that because what we are 'really' doing is
paying for operations code, and we do that 'all the time', that
the "not paying for code development" tenet doesn't apply.
The issue is that this significantly alters the experience and
engagement enough, IMO, that any data and findings from it, will
be so different from a more typical, representative ASF project that
it will be useless or, just as likely, be ignored by ASF projects because
of its difference.
Yes, it will allow D&I to watch and learn, but what they are
watching and learning is so fundamentally different from the kinds
of typical ASF projects that it's like watching curling to learn
how to bowl.
This effort should have real, tangible benefits, for the sponsor, for
the ASF and for the intern. From what I can see, intern would get some
"exposure" about open source and Apache, but very, very, very little that
would be directly 'admissible' to typical ASF projects, and open source.
The ASF would get data that could be easily and readily dismissed, and
thus do very little to provide guidance and insights on how to correct
D&I. And the sponsor would be paying for something that, at the end of
the day, does not accomplish the real end goal.
And finally:
How does this, fundamentally, differ from the ASF simply hiring
interns from under-represented populations and having them work
on Whimsy (or whatever)? This is basically what we are doing,
just using Outreachy as a sort of main contractor to do so.
