[CODE4LIB] Code, Inclusiveness, and Fear
On Tuesday Night I went the the NYTech Meetup. They get 800+ people to come once a month to watch demos of the latest thing. One of the presentations was from Hackers Union. I was cringing because it was like a caricature of how to present an uninviting impression to anyone who wasn't white, male and 20-something. Complete with jokes about how to pick up girls in bars. In front of an audience about 30% non-male, 40% non-white, and 50% non-20-something. I thought to myself, if they did that at Code4Lib, it would NOT be received well, to say the least. And this morning I happened to scan through many of the recent threads on the listserv. And the thread on what is coding, including the existential digressions. What makes Code4Lib different from any other group I know of in the library world is that it rejects fear of code. Much of the library world fears code, and most of that fear is unfounded. And the code we need to fear is not so scary once we know how to fear it. The threads about having anti-harassment policies is a good thing because we want to remove fear that surrounds code. Talking about it is a big step towards addressing fear. Let's try to make sure that having a policy doesn't stop us from talking about the need to eliminate the fear. As to who is a part of the Code4Lib community, I think you don't have to be a coder, you just have to reject fear of code. A big part of the conferences is creating space to help people make the transition from being oppressed by fear of code to being liberated by the possibilities of code. OK, back to work for me- unfortunately not the code part. Eric Eric Hellman President, Gluejar.Inc. Founder, Unglue.it https://unglue.it/ http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/ twitter: @gluejar
Re: [CODE4LIB] Code, Inclusiveness, and Fear
Thanks, Eric. I saw the post about the Hackers Union and wondered who the real audience is. Too bad it's the same old nonsense. The motivation you eloquently defined, to reject the fear of code, is also one that rings true with me. I hope we can continue to live up to it. I want to make sure we're on the same page, though. To be clear, which code should we fear? On Thu, Dec 6, 2012 at 12:27 PM, Eric Hellman e...@hellman.net wrote: On Tuesday Night I went the the NYTech Meetup. They get 800+ people to come once a month to watch demos of the latest thing. One of the presentations was from Hackers Union. I was cringing because it was like a caricature of how to present an uninviting impression to anyone who wasn't white, male and 20-something. Complete with jokes about how to pick up girls in bars. In front of an audience about 30% non-male, 40% non-white, and 50% non-20-something. I thought to myself, if they did that at Code4Lib, it would NOT be received well, to say the least. And this morning I happened to scan through many of the recent threads on the listserv. And the thread on what is coding, including the existential digressions. What makes Code4Lib different from any other group I know of in the library world is that it rejects fear of code. Much of the library world fears code, and most of that fear is unfounded. And the code we need to fear is not so scary once we know how to fear it. The threads about having anti-harassment policies is a good thing because we want to remove fear that surrounds code. Talking about it is a big step towards addressing fear. Let's try to make sure that having a policy doesn't stop us from talking about the need to eliminate the fear. As to who is a part of the Code4Lib community, I think you don't have to be a coder, you just have to reject fear of code. A big part of the conferences is creating space to help people make the transition from being oppressed by fear of code to being liberated by the possibilities of code. OK, back to work for me- unfortunately not the code part. Eric Eric Hellman President, Gluejar.Inc. Founder, Unglue.it https://unglue.it/ http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/ twitter: @gluejar
Re: [CODE4LIB] Code, Inclusiveness, and Fear
On Dec 7, 2012 7:19 AM, Gabriel Farrell gsf...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks, Eric. I saw the post about the Hackers Union and wondered who the real audience is. Too bad it's the same old nonsense. The motivation you eloquently defined, to reject the fear of code, is also one that rings true with me. I hope we can continue to live up to it. I want to make sure we're on the same page, though. To be clear, which code should we fear? I'd answer, if you are legally unable to change or view it, fear it. Everything else there's no need to fear. Chris
Re: [CODE4LIB] Code, Inclusiveness, and Fear
We need to fear malicious code. To do that, we need to think about all the ways people can misuse, abuse and attack our systems. We need to cross our t's, dot our i's, and shine lots of light. Eric On Dec 6, 2012, at 1:17 PM, Gabriel Farrell gsf...@gmail.com wrote: one that rings true with me. I hope we can continue to live up to it. I want to make sure we're on the same page, though. To be clear, which code should we fear?
Re: [CODE4LIB] Code, Inclusiveness, and Fear
Beautiful, Eric. What a great message: rejecting fear of code. At a very (very, like 1995 or earlier) early women in tech group meeting that I attended, one woman talked about fear of code. She described code as being inherently a simple, logical set of rules to follow, and illustrated it with: ... first pants, then socks, then shoes. But never shoes, then socks; or shoes, then pants. Everyone in the audience breathed a sigh of relief. kc On 12/6/12 9:27 AM, Eric Hellman wrote: On Tuesday Night I went the the NYTech Meetup. They get 800+ people to come once a month to watch demos of the latest thing. One of the presentations was from Hackers Union. I was cringing because it was like a caricature of how to present an uninviting impression to anyone who wasn't white, male and 20-something. Complete with jokes about how to pick up girls in bars. In front of an audience about 30% non-male, 40% non-white, and 50% non-20-something. I thought to myself, if they did that at Code4Lib, it would NOT be received well, to say the least. And this morning I happened to scan through many of the recent threads on the listserv. And the thread on what is coding, including the existential digressions. What makes Code4Lib different from any other group I know of in the library world is that it rejects fear of code. Much of the library world fears code, and most of that fear is unfounded. And the code we need to fear is not so scary once we know how to fear it. The threads about having anti-harassment policies is a good thing because we want to remove fear that surrounds code. Talking about it is a big step towards addressing fear. Let's try to make sure that having a policy doesn't stop us from talking about the need to eliminate the fear. As to who is a part of the Code4Lib community, I think you don't have to be a coder, you just have to reject fear of code. A big part of the conferences is creating space to help people make the transition from being oppressed by fear of code to being liberated by the possibilities of code. OK, back to work for me- unfortunately not the code part. Eric Eric Hellman President, Gluejar.Inc. Founder, Unglue.it https://unglue.it/ http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/ twitter: @gluejar -- Karen Coyle kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net ph: 1-510-540-7596 m: 1-510-435-8234 skype: kcoylenet
Re: [CODE4LIB] Code, Inclusiveness, and Fear
Thanks Eric and Karen for your postings. This what makes code4lib a great community. Paraphrasing Thomas Jefferson: When the people fear the code, there is tyranny. When the code fears the people, there is liberty. I replaced government by code. Karim Boughida On Thu, Dec 6, 2012 at 1:54 PM, Karen Coyle li...@kcoyle.net wrote: Beautiful, Eric. What a great message: rejecting fear of code. At a very (very, like 1995 or earlier) early women in tech group meeting that I attended, one woman talked about fear of code. She described code as being inherently a simple, logical set of rules to follow, and illustrated it with: ... first pants, then socks, then shoes. But never shoes, then socks; or shoes, then pants. Everyone in the audience breathed a sigh of relief. kc On 12/6/12 9:27 AM, Eric Hellman wrote: On Tuesday Night I went the the NYTech Meetup. They get 800+ people to come once a month to watch demos of the latest thing. One of the presentations was from Hackers Union. I was cringing because it was like a caricature of how to present an uninviting impression to anyone who wasn't white, male and 20-something. Complete with jokes about how to pick up girls in bars. In front of an audience about 30% non-male, 40% non-white, and 50% non-20-something. I thought to myself, if they did that at Code4Lib, it would NOT be received well, to say the least. And this morning I happened to scan through many of the recent threads on the listserv. And the thread on what is coding, including the existential digressions. What makes Code4Lib different from any other group I know of in the library world is that it rejects fear of code. Much of the library world fears code, and most of that fear is unfounded. And the code we need to fear is not so scary once we know how to fear it. The threads about having anti-harassment policies is a good thing because we want to remove fear that surrounds code. Talking about it is a big step towards addressing fear. Let's try to make sure that having a policy doesn't stop us from talking about the need to eliminate the fear. As to who is a part of the Code4Lib community, I think you don't have to be a coder, you just have to reject fear of code. A big part of the conferences is creating space to help people make the transition from being oppressed by fear of code to being liberated by the possibilities of code. OK, back to work for me- unfortunately not the code part. Eric Eric Hellman President, Gluejar.Inc. Founder, Unglue.it https://unglue.it/ http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/ twitter: @gluejar -- Karen Coyle kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net ph: 1-510-540-7596 m: 1-510-435-8234 skype: kcoylenet -- Karim B Boughida kbough...@gmail.com kbough...@library.gwu.edu
