On Mon, 22 Jul 2019 at 20:26, Awasum Yannick <[email protected]> wrote:

>
> Look at the thread which brought about the creation of this D&I committee
> for example. I mean the one on ComDev. It was chaotic and went on for weeks
> but the outcome was that the Apache Community learnt that we had a
> diversity problem and that action was needed and was taken.
>

we knew we had a diversity problem half a decade ago. it is precisely the
"chaos" and noise that is generated any time anyone wants to do something
about it that prevented anything happening for this long

we (somewhat miraculously) succeeded in forming a D&I committee despite the
chaos. not because of it


> I dont know about you all but the other chaotic discussion here surrounding
> Outreachy and "Pay for Development" or not was an educational experience
> for me. I learnt how to argue, learnt English, learnt about the Apache way.
>

I cannot overstate the existential risk that this "chaos" presents for any
sort of D&I initiative. contributor time and energy is already a scarce
resource at an all-volunteer organization

add to that: doing D&I work is extremely exhausting and in some causes
traumatic for the individuals involved. for many of us, this is a struggle
we have in our day-to-day lives. it is not confined to threads on a mailing
list. we get no break from it. and while I am glad you found some value in
the long arguments, I would suggest that there are better areas of the
foundation for that sort of learning

off the top of my head, the Incubator might be a better place to learn how
to argue, learn English, and learn the Apache Way. the problems being
solved there are a lot less emotionally challenging, and the participants a
lot less weary


> it was not pretty at times but I think humans are resilient enough to
> handle some of these issues.


the problem here is that the folks who are not affected by the issues at
the root of our D&I issues *are* resilient enough to handle this sort of
chaos. but the ones it does affect are not


> We came out of it and are now moving into the
> implementation phase of things.


barely

the "chaos" has effectively functioned like a DDoS attack, from my pov, and
prevented a lot of useful work from being done. almost all of my time and
energy has been spent trying to cope with that


> I will say
> freedom for people to express themselves is a good thing and we should
> maintain it.


I don't think anybody would disagree with that. people should be free to
express themselves. the goal of moderation is to make sure that people
behave themselves

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