[gentoo-dev] Re: Re: Seeking questions for a user survey
Joe Peterson wrote: On Thu, Jan 17, 2008 at 10:56:36AM +, Steve Long wrote: Ryan Hill wrote: I agree, though year of birth might be interesting. Income and children are a bit too private. ++ in general although I do think parenthood (if responsible) is as relevant as age. A 28 year old with a 5 year old kid has a lot to show a 35 year old doctoral student with no kids, even if it's not all technical. # of kids isn't relevant. Judging the maturity of users (or devs) by how many children they have (or indeed *if* they have children) is pretty questionable. I know people who have kids and are pretty irresponsible (that's not to say most are, but one does not guarantee the other). And I'd argue that someone with children does not necessarily have a lot to show someone without kids, unless it is the specific experience of childrearing. There are many people (myself and my wife included) who choose consciously not to have children. It is becoming more and more a *choice* people can legitimately make rather than just an assumed part of life. It is not selfish or immature, as some people think, so I'd be careful about implying that such a question gauges maturity. My apologies if I caused you any offense, Joe. I fully agree that choosing not to have children is just as mature as deciding to procreate, and more mature than simply drifting into parenthood. I suppose what I am getting at is the idea that there are others in Gentoo besides young single males. A responsible parent or a committed spouse has a very different perspective to a teenager. Certainly my perspective now at 37 is vastly different to when I was 18. Parenthood changed a great deal, as did the earlier process of committing to marriage. Which is not to denigrate people who chose not to marry; my godchildren's parents were dead-set about their commitment to each other without a piece of paper. I guess it's the change between being an individual and feeling a commitment to someone else. And yeah maybe it's not something we need to ask anyone, but it is good to consider that there are diverse perspectives within the group. In the same vein I asked on project wrt to number of female devs and was told there are perhaps 3 or 4 iirc. -- gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
[gentoo-dev] Re: Re: Seeking questions for a user survey
Robin H. Johnson wrote: On Thu, Jan 17, 2008 at 10:56:36AM +, Steve Long wrote: Ryan Hill wrote: I agree, though year of birth might be interesting. Income and children are a bit too private. ++ in general although I do think parenthood (if responsible) is as relevant as age. A 28 year old with a 5 year old kid has a lot to show a 35 year old doctoral student with no kids, even if it's not all technical. # of kids isn't relevant. I put # of kids in there as a lark, perhaps it might be better as 'do you have children', with an eye to seeing how it affects their package choices - see games and education packages for kids, plus the previous USE=offensive debate on the desktop backgrounds with scantily-clad woman. Heh yeah, we often get people using inappropriate language in #gentoo-chat and have to explain that, well some of us have children who can see the screen. I highly recommend gcompris for anyone with younger kids btw. Maybe it's not something you want to ask the users, but it would be more interesting wrt devs, as would statistics on standard Equal Ops monitoring (a legal requirement on employers in the UK, even if the person declines to answer, which is ofc their right.) Go some good links on that? They might have good question wording we can borrow? Can I firstly apologise as I appear to have misunderstood (I am not a lawyer, I'm a coder.) The requirement is on public authorities and, I think, publically funded organisations. I worked at a Students' Union (as full-time staff) in the early 90s, and it was impressed upon me (when I sat on an interview panel) that we had a legal obligation to actively *promote* Equal Opportunities. The main organisation in the UK for this now is the new Equality and Human Rights Commission at http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/ Bradford University's Equality Unit have an excellent site at http://www.brad.ac.uk/equality/ with policies and summary of relevant legislation at http://www.brad.ac.uk/admin/equalopp/policies/ The Higher Education Funding Council for England's Equality and diversity unit has a good site at: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/lgm/divers/ Employers have a duty under the legislation discussed above not to discriminate. All of this comes under the umbrella term Equal Opportunities, best-practise for which comes from the public-sector. It is harder for larger organisations to defend a discrimination case if they do not monitor aiui: The purpose of monitoring is to enable you to examine how your policy and action plan are working. If your policy is fully effective and has been in operation for some time your workforce should be broadly representative of the population of the geographical area from which it is drawn or demonstrably moving in that direction. Monitoring enables you to assess this. http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=828 which is a good link to see what employers are advised to do. Certainly the term An Equal Opportunities Employer has been in use for years, and implies that there are policies and monitoring in place, as well as a commitment to the promotion of EOPS. HTH. -- gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: Seeking questions for a user survey
I totally agree with not asking such personal questions which really are not going to help the foundation, what we need to ask are questions that relate to the distribution, it's developers user community as a whole. one question regarding children that I see as being appropriate is: Do children in your household use Gentoo? Yes No It's to complicated for them Prefer not to answer Which games-* category need more additions? games-puzzles games-kids games-board games-fps games-strategy Other questions regarding personal things, like age,spouses income are really for another type of survey, maybe a separate survey that only developers will fill out, users will feel like you're asking to much if asked those questions. We need to get questions that can help identify what will improve Gentoo and it's inner structure. Thanks, Fernando a.k.a likewhoa On Jan 18, 2008 7:41 AM, George Prowse [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Steve Long wrote: Joe Peterson wrote: On Thu, Jan 17, 2008 at 10:56:36AM +, Steve Long wrote: Ryan Hill wrote: I agree, though year of birth might be interesting. Income and children are a bit too private. ++ in general although I do think parenthood (if responsible) is as relevant as age. A 28 year old with a 5 year old kid has a lot to show a 35 year old doctoral student with no kids, even if it's not all technical. # of kids isn't relevant. Judging the maturity of users (or devs) by how many children they have (or indeed *if* they have children) is pretty questionable. I know people who have kids and are pretty irresponsible (that's not to say most are, but one does not guarantee the other). And I'd argue that someone with children does not necessarily have a lot to show someone without kids, unless it is the specific experience of childrearing. There are many people (myself and my wife included) who choose consciously not to have children. It is becoming more and more a *choice* people can legitimately make rather than just an assumed part of life. It is not selfish or immature, as some people think, so I'd be careful about implying that such a question gauges maturity. My apologies if I caused you any offense, Joe. I fully agree that choosing not to have children is just as mature as deciding to procreate, and more mature than simply drifting into parenthood. I suppose what I am getting at is the idea that there are others in Gentoo besides young single males. A responsible parent or a committed spouse has a very different perspective to a teenager. Certainly my perspective now at 37 is vastly different to when I was 18. Parenthood changed a great deal, as did the earlier process of committing to marriage. Which is not to denigrate people who chose not to marry; my godchildren's parents were dead-set about their commitment to each other without a piece of paper. I guess it's the change between being an individual and feeling a commitment to someone else. And yeah maybe it's not something we need to ask anyone, but it is good to consider that there are diverse perspectives within the group. In the same vein I asked on project wrt to number of female devs and was told there are perhaps 3 or 4 iirc. For a survey of this kind I think questions about children etc are as inappropriate as ones about sexual orientation. Personally i'd stick to the fundamentals. George -- gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org mailing list -- gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: Seeking questions for a user survey
Steve Long wrote: Joe Peterson wrote: On Thu, Jan 17, 2008 at 10:56:36AM +, Steve Long wrote: Ryan Hill wrote: I agree, though year of birth might be interesting. Income and children are a bit too private. ++ in general although I do think parenthood (if responsible) is as relevant as age. A 28 year old with a 5 year old kid has a lot to show a 35 year old doctoral student with no kids, even if it's not all technical. # of kids isn't relevant. Judging the maturity of users (or devs) by how many children they have (or indeed *if* they have children) is pretty questionable. I know people who have kids and are pretty irresponsible (that's not to say most are, but one does not guarantee the other). And I'd argue that someone with children does not necessarily have a lot to show someone without kids, unless it is the specific experience of childrearing. There are many people (myself and my wife included) who choose consciously not to have children. It is becoming more and more a *choice* people can legitimately make rather than just an assumed part of life. It is not selfish or immature, as some people think, so I'd be careful about implying that such a question gauges maturity. My apologies if I caused you any offense, Joe. I fully agree that choosing not to have children is just as mature as deciding to procreate, and more mature than simply drifting into parenthood. I suppose what I am getting at is the idea that there are others in Gentoo besides young single males. A responsible parent or a committed spouse has a very different perspective to a teenager. Certainly my perspective now at 37 is vastly different to when I was 18. Parenthood changed a great deal, as did the earlier process of committing to marriage. Which is not to denigrate people who chose not to marry; my godchildren's parents were dead-set about their commitment to each other without a piece of paper. I guess it's the change between being an individual and feeling a commitment to someone else. And yeah maybe it's not something we need to ask anyone, but it is good to consider that there are diverse perspectives within the group. In the same vein I asked on project wrt to number of female devs and was told there are perhaps 3 or 4 iirc. For a survey of this kind I think questions about children etc are as inappropriate as ones about sexual orientation. Personally i'd stick to the fundamentals. George -- gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: Seeking questions for a user survey
Steve Long wrote: My apologies if I caused you any offense, Joe. I fully agree that choosing not to have children is just as mature as deciding to procreate, and more mature than simply drifting into parenthood. No offense taken, and I agree about the drifting into thing. My wife's brother asked why we are not having kids, and she asked him, in turn, why he had kids. His answer was simply, Because it's what you do. I would have rather he said, Because I want to be a parent. I suppose what I am getting at is the idea that there are others in Gentoo besides young single males. A responsible parent or a committed spouse has a very different perspective to a teenager. Certainly my perspective now at 37 is vastly different to when I was 18. Parenthood changed a great deal, as did the earlier process of committing to marriage. Yep, and I'm one of the older devs here too (in fact, I've got you beat at 43!). Good to have a mix of ages, interests, and types of people, I think. And ashame we don't have more women. -Joe -- gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
