Yes, the FLOSSPOLS focus on binary genders is very disappointing. Hopefully they received enough feedback about that to do better if they do another follow-up.
In general, the state of analysis into OSS communities is very poor. I actually have a post maybe planned to cover this. And yep, sure, I can share my research with you, sure. Nudge me about it in a week or so when things aren't so hectic. :) On 8 July 2014 20:04, Lena Reinhard <[email protected]> wrote: > I entirely agree with you. In my experience, people definitely acknowledge > when projects are communicating openly that they care for diversity *and* > feel like the community could be a safe space for them (not necessarily a > correlation, though). > I also think that a main part of the diversity problem in OS is that many > marginalised people do not have the opportunities to contribute due to lack > of spare time, care work, too little income to compensate for volunteer work > etc., thus I'd also appreciate thoughts on grants in the longterm. > > By the way: I'm very interested in your sources for the 11% number > (especially as the 1.5% from FLOSS survey was only the number of women, > afaik, and I still haven't found any numbers for LGBTTIQ* people). > > > On 08.07.2014, at 18:39, Noah Slater <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I've been looking at diversity figures as part of my research for an >> article I'm writing. >> >> One of the things that really stood out to me is that if you look at >> the diversity figure in OSS projects, they've increased from around >> 1.5% to around 11% over the space of 7 years. In that same time, the >> increase in speaker diversity is almost double that. >> >> There could be lost of reasons for this. (Unfortunately, the state of >> survey data is very poor.) But one of my theories is that conferences >> are actually doing active outreach. >> >> So my idea is this: OSS projects should be doing active outreach. >> Communicating to people that this is a project with a diversity >> statement, a CoC, etc, and that we're looking for diverse >> contributions! >> >> Lena is right about conditions not being good for some people. And for >> that, we might actually want to start thinking about offering grants >> for some people to contribute. But that's a separate idea that we can >> talk about later. >> >> Anyway, this referrals thing might be good for this. A way for people >> to recommend diverse contributors to us, and we can do active >> outreach. What do you think? >> >> On 10 June 2014 14:42, Andy Wenk <[email protected]> wrote: >>> Marketing hat: Noah, I like the additional idea you have. If a an advocate >>> refers to a person who would be a good contributor and the person is >>> finally contributing to CouchDB, the advocate will earn points. This >>> would force the advocate to sieve persons willing to really contribute and >>> not just refer to random persons. >>> >>> I think the tool is usable very nicely if used in a good way. >>> >>> Cheers >>> >>> Andy >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> On 9 June 2014 20:19, Lena Reinhard <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> Marketing hat: keeping barriers for rewards low (e.g. already rewarding >>>> contributions of non-elected ppl) sounds good, also adding more points if >>>> the person is elected. From this point of view, I can also agree to seeing >>>> time and attention as a sort of currency. >>>> >>>> Community Management hat: although I agree that inviting people personally >>>> to speak at confs helps, I think that the analogy of speaker invitations >>>> for increasing diversity is only applicable in parts here. >>>> In this case, marginalized people may still be only able to be advocates >>>> (as it's less effort than the actual "contribution"). So even if this >>>> referral option may lead to a more diverse group being able to make >>>> referrals, the people referred still have to be people with enough time and >>>> attention span etc. to contribute freely, especially for then being elected >>>> (-> and bringing the referring person more points). Thus, from this >>>> perspective, it's a good idea for increasing the number of referrals. But >>>> it may be hard or not that effective in terms of increasing diversity. >>>> Still, I think that it would be worth a trial to see how this goes - and >>>> perhaps also to think about how this can be an opportunity to build a >>>> reward system for less privileged people (as there are few to none in OSS >>>> structures at the moment). I know that this is a hard one, but when we're >>>> talking about openness and aiming for diversity, I see this as one of the >>>> core problems (to which I don't know a solution yet myself, but which >>>> doesn't mean that there is none). >>>> >>>> On 09.06.2014, at 15:58, Noah Slater <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>>> I have another idea to float: >>>>> >>>>> Advocates have the opportunity to refer a designer, author, marketing >>>>> person, dev, etc. We personally reach out to them with a tailored >>>>> email invitation. (We'd pre-write a few of these, one for each area of >>>>> the project.) The email would outline what we do, and then go into a >>>>> few details about the a certain area of contribution, with pointers to >>>>> resources for getting started, etc. >>>>> >>>>> If the person starts contributing, the person who referred them is >>>>> awarded with points. If we eventually elect that person, the person >>>>> who referred them gets more points. (I believe this is directly >>>>> analogous to how client referrals typically work on the platform.) >>>>> >>>>> Contributions are the capital of OSS. People's time and attention is >>>>> our most important resource. >>>>> >>>>> So here's the analogy: >>>>> >>>>> Traditional referrals program: >>>>> >>>>> - Advocates refer individuals who "convert" by paying (contributing) >>>> money. >>>>> >>>>> OSS referrals program: >>>>> >>>>> - Advocates refer individuals who "convert" by paying (contributing) >>>> time. >>>>> >>>>> I don't think many people explicitly think about OSS in these terms. >>>>> But when you do, a lot of things become clear. For example: >>>>> recruitment should be your number one priority! Recruitment is your >>>>> sales channel, effectively. >>>>> >>>>> "Sales channel" makes sense if you see time and attention as a sort of >>>> currency. >>>>> >>>>> Most people think that the measure of health for an OSS project is how >>>>> many downloads you have, or how many users you have. That's because in >>>>> a business, these things translate to revenue. And revenue is your >>>>> lifeblood >>>>> >>>>> But if time and attention are the capital of OSS, then contributions >>>>> are your lifeblood. And it seems likely that traditional business >>>>> practices used to maximise revenue might be applicable to maximising >>>>> contribution. >>>>> >>>>> If we did something like this, would we be the first OSS project to >>>>> actively reach out to people to invite them to contribute? >>>>> >>>>> Inviting speakers (usually from pools) is a very effective way of >>>>> increasing speaker diversity at a conference. (Citations available >>>>> upon request.) Perhaps invitation is one of the ways we can increase >>>>> our project diversity? >>>>> >>>>> On 6 June 2014 18:47, Jan Lehnardt <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>>> just to note that I’d be equally happy with disabling it. >>>>>> >>>>>> On 06 Jun 2014, at 17:49 , Joan Touzet <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> Sounds like an impedance mismatch. Disable the functionality. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> It'd be nice to know how people get to our community, and it's good >>>>>>> to have a consultancy network, but this really sounds more like a >>>>>>> support function for channel partnerships and revenue recognition -- >>>>>>> "virtual finders fees" as it were. Not sure if we need that. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> -Joan >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ----- Original Message ----- >>>>>>> From: "Noah Slater" <[email protected]> >>>>>>> To: "Noah Slater" <[email protected]> >>>>>>> Cc: [email protected], "Benoit Chesneau" < >>>> [email protected]>, "Dave Cottlehuber" <[email protected]>, "Jan L" < >>>> [email protected]> >>>>>>> Sent: Friday, June 6, 2014 8:11:00 AM >>>>>>> Subject: Re: CouchDB referrals? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I am particularly interested in the opinions of: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> - PMC members (from a governance perspective) >>>>>>> - Marketing people (from a recruitment/community perspective) >>>>>>> - People who offer CouchDB consulting (Jan, Dave, Benoit, etc.) >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On 4 June 2014 15:57, Noah Slater <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>>>>> Hello folks, >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> The Influitive AdvocateHub has a primary concept of a referral. In the >>>>>>>> context of a business, a referral is when an advocate refers a contact >>>>>>>> to the business. Obviously, this is very valuable for B2B business >>>>>>>> that are looking for clients. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> CouchDB is not a B2B business, and so I'm not sure this particular >>>>>>>> part of the AdvocateHub fits our use case. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> We can turn it off. But before we do, I wanted to explore some other >>>>>>>> options. What could referrals mean for us, as a community? >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Some ideas: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> - A referral is just an advocate recommending CouchDB to a friend or >>>>>>>> colleague. In this scenario, who does the referral contact? Do we put >>>>>>>> them in touch with a mailing list (seems a little odd), a particular >>>>>>>> person, or particular persons? >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> - A referral is more about contributors than it is about users. So the >>>>>>>> advocate would be referring a contributor to the CouchDB project. >>>>>>>> Perhaps a designer, a marketing person, a video blogger, a technical >>>>>>>> author, or whatever. People we find hard to recruit normally. >>>>>>>> (Remember that recruitment is our #1 biggest challenge.) >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> - A referral is a business referral. We set up a list for people who >>>>>>>> offer CouchDB services. A referral puts the a person in contact with >>>>>>>> this list of people. So tenders can be made individually by whomever >>>>>>>> is interested in the business. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Thoughts? >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Thanks, >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> -- >>>>>>>> Noah Slater >>>>>>>> https://twitter.com/nslater >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> -- >>>>>>> Noah Slater >>>>>>> https://twitter.com/nslater >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> Noah Slater >>>>> https://twitter.com/nslater >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Andy Wenk >>> Hamburg - Germany >>> RockIt! >>> >>> http://www.couchdb-buch.de >>> http://www.pg-praxisbuch.de >>> >>> GPG fingerprint: C044 8322 9E12 1483 4FEC 9452 B65D 6BE3 9ED3 9588 >>> >>> https://people.apache.org/keys/committer/andywenk.asc >> >> >> >> -- >> Noah Slater >> https://twitter.com/nslater > -- Noah Slater https://twitter.com/nslater
