Thanks for sharing this, Risker. If I were a casual contributor, I'm not sure that I would attend either--not because I'd expect that Wikimedia conferences/hackathons would necessarily be worse than other tech conferences, but because I'd have no reason to expect them to be better.
Same with our online spaces: I was hesitant to apply to the internship that started me contributing technically because I'd observed profoundly unfriendly open source projects and had also been bitten on enwiki, and I expected the technical spaces to be similar. I'm glad I did apply. Since then, I've been able to work with some wonderful people here and I've made contributions I'm proud of for a cause I support. I would like to be able to point the next person with similar worries to a community-supported code of conduct as a reassurance that the community as a whole will have their back even if one or a few individuals treat them poorly.
-Frances
On Sat, Aug 22, 2015 at 6:04 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
David, thanks for this find.
THIS is why the Code of Conduct is needed. I recognized myself in this blog. I remembered avoiding any aspect of socialization at conferences I had to attend for work, and simply didn't even consider attending conferences for any other purpose. I remembered how readily "the guys" assumed that any woman there was there for more than just networking and learning. I remembered having my butt pinched, my breasts "accidentally touched", my questions ignored or laughed at. I remember how the buzz of background conversation is always much louder when the speaker is a woman than when the speaker is a man.
It's changed for me. Not because there's any less of all of this going on. No, it's because my hair is grey and I'm now old enough to be the mom of half the people in the room at any male-dominated conferences I attend; and outside of Wikimedia events, the conferences I go to are usually full of conservative businesswomen, and alcohol is rarely involved.
So yeah...you need a code of conduct. Because if I was even 15 years younger, I'd never go to a Wikimedia conference.
Risker/Anne
On 22 August 2015 at 20:03, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I saw this today, I wonder if it's relevant to the thread:
http://www.perpendicularangel.com/2015/08/no-i-dont-trust-your-conference-wi...
Of course we're talking about stuff beyond conferences, but it still applies I'd think.
- d.
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