openthreads: the community of mailing lists presented at foss4g-na
Post on 11-May-2015
441 Views
Preview:
DESCRIPTION
TRANSCRIPT
OpenThreadsthe community of open source mailing lists
@alyssapwright@georgiamoon
mapmeter.commapmeter.com
Hello.From awright at opengeo.org From georgia at opentechinstitute.org Thu May 23 1:00:18 2013Subject: [openthreads] hello?
Hello Community.Together we create software of value.
Hello World.Together we bring that value to a global
community.
We Get That.
“Increase involvement of the community”“Increase the number of code contributors”
deegree: 2010 report
OSGeo Annual Report
“Need more community feedback”More volunteers for documentation, manuals and tutorials
OSGeo Annual Report
mapbender: 2010 report
“Need more people to advocate for OSGeo”and help translate documentation!
OSGeo Annual Report
francophone chapter: 2010 report
Where is our “Community”?
mailing lists!
Who is our community?The specifics of the gender gap
-----interactive session!-----
% of women in technology?
27%% of women in technology?
% of women in wikipedia?
% of women in wikipedia?
9%
% of women speakers at this conference?
% of women speakers at this conference?
7%
% of women in VGI?
% of women in VGI?
3%
% of women in FOSS?
1%% of women in FOSS?
Is this a problem?(We have been asked this question.)
“Maybe girls don’t like math,
or maps,
or open stuff.”(paraphrased)
“Sure. Maybe FOSS4G
is a man’s field,
like construction work- @alyssapwright
or firefighting.”- @alyssapwright
(was that uncomfortable?)
(is this better?)
Maybe we all accept(deep breath)
This is a problem.
We want our tools to continue to grow and add value.
We want our software to reach new populations.
We want our solutions to be even better.
We need more men and more women.
The collective intelligence of
diversity
not only expands the reach of our community
The collective intelligence of
diversity
but the sustainability of our tools.
Because
technology
is created in a certain context, in certain conversations.
Lam et al 2011 | Callahan & Herring 2011
The future of our work depends on attracting more
white males
and more other under-represented groups.
OK. No big deal.We fix problems all day.
So let’s look at why.Why the FOSS discrepancy?
There are many possible reasons...
Maybe women have different communication styles than men.
Judd Atkin, 2012
Maybe the few restrictions on how people treat each other creates permission for discrimination.
Reagle, 2013
Maybe there is inertia. I mean, this was a community started by a lot of men, with a particular ideology...why fight old men?
Judd Atkin, 2012
Maybe there’s a incentive and motivation gap. (e.g., Women and men relate to competition differently.)
Judd Atkin, 2012
Maybe there’s active hostility towards difference.
Wikipedia, 2012
-----side bar-----
% of women who reported being assaulted, attacked, or treated poorly
by colleagues on projects?
30%% of women who reported being
assaulted, attacked, or treated poorly by colleagues on projects?
-----that’s a lot of hounds-----
and we are all responsible.
Too many of us have witnessed:
The mailing list temper tantrum.
The joust for technical supremacy.
The snub of a newbie.
And many more have simply hesitated...
to ask for help, to participate, to engage, to question.
We all know that are online communications are complicated spaces, full of complicated relationships,
and cats.
OpenThreadslooks at those relationships
OpenThreadslooks to structure that context
and leaves the cats alone.
Methodology
00
Assemble the TeamSeamus Tuohy
Tech Lead | Rhetorical Analysis (Open Technology Institute)
Georgia Bullen Creative Lead | Data Visualization (Open Technology Institute)
Alyssa Wright Product Manager | Professional Nagging (OpenGeo)
01
Frame the ProblemOpen Government
Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies
02
Ask the Questions
03
Structure the DataParticipant
author of an email
Message body of an email
Thread series of messages posted as replies to each other
03
participantparticipantIDtotalPostsaverageRepliesstarter : threads started / total #engagement : Average number of replies a user has per threadresponse : replies/ totalcontrol : # of replies / # threads started by participanttimeSpent : total time spentnamelistgenderentryTimelastPostmessagesthreadstype: participant
03
messagemsgIDlistminutes : time spent metric - words per email (given a words per minute count)msgType : message type, categorical (forward, question, reply, ...)date : sent timedategender : gender of the senderthreadIDparticipantIDtype: message
03
threadthreadIDwritingTime : minutes spentliststart timedateend timedatecalendarTime: total calendar time of the threadgenderBalance : count of genderparticipantsmessagestype: thread
04
Parse the Mailing Lists Types
discussion | user | developer
Format pipermail | mailman
TechnologycouchDB | python | d3
04
https://github.com/elationfoundation/openThreads
github
04
discussion: libtechuser: talk-us
developer: postgis-dev
Initial Mailing Lists
05
Visualize to Analyze
Technical ChallengesPeople use multiple e-mails/names
identifying the identity behind a voice can be difficult
Gender is difficult to parse requires community review
Headers: Standardized Bodies: Not Standardized
Email datesvaries in format
05
06
What’s Next?Scores
activity | influence | relation
Lists your lists | google groups
Communityunderstand behavior patterns across communities
06
Activity ScoreQuantity of initiated messagesQuantity of responsesTime taken to respond
06
Influence ScoreInitiated conversationsRatio of initial poster vs others in the threadDialogue with new people
06
Relation ScoreMale > Male | Female > FemaleMale > Female | Female > Male
06
Google Groupscan’t export data from google groups.can only retrieve messages one-by-one.
06
Join us!more lists + more questions + more visualizations + more analysis + more awareness + more self-reflection + more focused initiatives =
more diversity + better software
Tactics of InclusionThe party bag
GNOME
Internship for GNOME project 10 OSS project involved
Success
Address women directly.Accept non-students and non-coders. Connect women with mentors. Require a contributionNo pressure for really ambitious projects.
Approach
Etsy
GNOMEattracted 500% more female engineers
Success
GNOME
Invest trained junior women for hiring
Partneralliances with other organizations
Make a Public Standsuccess breeds success
Approach
Recommendation
Address GenderMake gender an explicit part of any intervention. Increasing gender increases representation of other groups as well.
Personal RecommendationConsciously come from a place of trust. Do not attack. Make a public commitment.Talk openly about what’s not working.Use research to focus on action.
Appendix
random imagesmaybe for later
technical challengesPeople use multiple e-mails/names
identifying the identity behind a voice can be difficult
Gender is difficult to parse requires community review
Headers: Standardized Bodies: Not Standardized
Email datesvaries in format
our methodology
our methodology
our
breaking. mailing lists can be
top related