Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4G North America Announcements
It's been a topic for controversy at some other open source software events. I've not seen it as an issue at any of the FOSS4G events that I have attended, but I think it's a good idea to have such a policy in place. Doug On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 11:56 PM, Dave Patton da...@confluence.org wrote: On 2013/01/15 11:32 AM, David William Bitner wrote: *Greetings! The planning committee of the 2013 Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial North America (FOSS4G-NA) conference to be held May 22-24 in Minneapolis, MN is pleased to make the following announcements which were recently posted to our website at http://foss4g-na.org. DIVERSITY In an effort to foster a diversity of voices the community voting will be done in a presenter anonymous fashion. In other words, you will be voting for the topic and abstract content, not the potential presenter. FOSS4G-NA is dedicated to a harassment-free conference experiencehttp://foss4g-na.**org/harrassment-policy/http://foss4g-na.org/harrassment-policy/ David et al: I have no issue with the Harassment Policy, but I am curious as to it's origin. Is it a result of specific problems at other FOSS4G-related events? -- Dave Patton Victoria, B.C. Degree Confluence Project: Canadian Coordinator Technical Coordinator http://www.confluence.org/ Personal website: http://members.shaw.ca/**davepatton/ http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/ __**_ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/**mailman/listinfo/discusshttp://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Doug Newcomb USFWS Raleigh, NC 919-856-4520 ext. 14 doug_newc...@fws.gov - The opinions I express are my own and are not representative of the official policy of the U.S.Fish and Wildlife Service or Dept. of the Interior. Life is too short for undocumented, proprietary data formats. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4G North America Announcements
DaveP, There have been no specific problems at FOSS4G events but I support the FOSS4G-NA's initiative for diversity and harassment-free policies. -jeff On 13-01-16 12:56 AM, Dave Patton wrote: David et al: I have no issue with the Harassment Policy, but I am curious as to it's origin. Is it a result of specific problems at other FOSS4G-related events? ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4G North America Announcements
Dave, As indicated by Jeff and Doug, this has not been an issue at any previous FOSS4G event. What has been an issue has been the diversity that we have been able to bring into both our community and our events. We are still a predominantly White European/US/Canadian male community. There has been a lot of work done by many tech conferences to try to make sure that conferences are more welcoming to a more broad array of folks (the rotation of NA/Europe/Elsewhere is one thing FOSS4G has done). The anti-harassment policy follows the lead of others and pulls from the template provided by Geek Feminism http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/index.php?title=Conference_anti-harassment_policy. Additionally following advice from other events as well as many members of our community, we are making the community review process for presentation submission author anonymous as a concern with how we have done this in the past has been the fear that many folks have of feeling publicly shamed with critique and voting of their proposals. These are only two small steps that we are taking to addressing an environment in the overall open source world that by the numbers is very unwelcome to women and other groups (while there have not been any overt issues that I know of as part of any FOSS4G, if you look at the percentage of female conference goers or developers in our community, we do have a long ways to go). Hope this helps understand the rationale, David On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 7:51 AM, Jeff McKenna jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com wrote: DaveP, There have been no specific problems at FOSS4G events but I support the FOSS4G-NA's initiative for diversity and harassment-free policies. -jeff On 13-01-16 12:56 AM, Dave Patton wrote: David et al: I have no issue with the Harassment Policy, but I am curious as to it's origin. Is it a result of specific problems at other FOSS4G-related events? ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- David William Bitner dbSpatial LLC 612-424-9932 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4G North America Announcements
Hi, On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 5:58 PM, David William Bitner bit...@dbspatial.comwrote: Dave, As indicated by Jeff and Doug, this has not been an issue at any previous FOSS4G event. What has been an issue has been the diversity that we have been able to bring into both our community and our events. We are still a predominantly White European/US/Canadian male community. There has been a lot of work done by many tech conferences to try to make sure that conferences are more welcoming to a more broad array of folks (the rotation of NA/Europe/Elsewhere is one thing FOSS4G has done). The anti-harassment policy follows the lead of others and pulls from the template provided by Geek Feminism http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/index.php?title=Conference_anti-harassment_policy. Additionally following advice from other events as well as many members of our community, we are making the community review process for presentation submission author anonymous as a concern with how we have done this in the past has been the fear that many folks have of feeling publicly shamed with critique and voting of their proposals. These are only two small steps that we are taking to addressing an environment in the overall open source world that by the numbers is very unwelcome to women and other groups (while there have not been any overt issues that I know of as part of any FOSS4G, if you look at the percentage of female conference goers or developers in our community, we do have a long ways to go). Thank you for rising this interesting topic. I don't exactly know why women (according to the numbers) prefer other fields instead of open source software (as I am a woman and I feel comfortable in this community maybe I'm not the right person to ask why other people don't). But I can certainly say why many people don't (can't) join the events.. as I wasn't able to do so as well.. Please don't take it bad, but the FOSS4G event is bloody *expensive* to afford! I am not surprised not to see at such events many people from developing countries, while in Europe and especially in US, research institutions allocate more funds for missions etc. my 2 cents madi Hope this helps understand the rationale, David On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 7:51 AM, Jeff McKenna jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com wrote: DaveP, There have been no specific problems at FOSS4G events but I support the FOSS4G-NA's initiative for diversity and harassment-free policies. -jeff On 13-01-16 12:56 AM, Dave Patton wrote: David et al: I have no issue with the Harassment Policy, but I am curious as to it's origin. Is it a result of specific problems at other FOSS4G-related events? ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- David William Bitner dbSpatial LLC 612-424-9932 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Margherita DI LEO Postdoctoral Researcher European Commission - DG JRC Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES). Unit H03 – FRC Via Fermi, 2749 I-21027 Ispra (VA) - Italy - TP 261 Tel. +39 0332 78 3600 margherita.di-...@jrc.ec.europa.eu Disclaimer: The views expressed are purely those of the writer and may not in any circumstance be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commission. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
