On 6/24/19 10:19 PM, Sage Sharp wrote:
I would suggest taking a look at the OpenStack diversity reports:
https://superuser.openstack.org/articles/2018-gender-diversity-report/
"Newcomers who enter the community through a mentorship program boast a
higher retention rate than other newcomers, at 13 percent versus less than
10 percent, respectively. In addition, these mentees contribute to the
community for an average of 15 months, far longer than their three-month
program duration. This report provides a springboard for additional
research into mentorship programs, with the aim to identify and share best
practices."
One of the concerns raised was whether the ASF is "too big" for diversity
efforts to have an impact. It was mentioned that there are 8,000 ASF
contributors. OpenStack has 89,000 contributors. If they can improve their
diversity numbers, I'm sure ASF member projects can as well. :)
How is a contributor defined in this argument?
We have around 7,500 *committers*, of which roughly 3,700 can be said to
be active (have committed code in the past year). We also have around
74,800 *contributors* (depending on how you define a contributor, it's a
grey area to say the least - my number is defined as "having interacted
with the development process in some way that leaves behind a trace"),
of which 11,500 are actively contributing code/docs material, expected
to increase to 15,000 active within two years time.
Needless to say, we need to also ask ourselves "what are we trying to
improve the diversity of?" within this discussion, re the very different
numbers above.
I haven't caught up on all the threads here, but I believe at least
Myrle's point was that items like Outreachy cannot stand alone if we are
to achieve even a slight dent in our demographics. I do however believe
that valuable insight could be learned, and then applied in a greater
scope afterwards.
With regards,
Daniel.
