Re: Some thoughts regarding DW
While obviously not directly related to the Debian Women's project, but
more directly to Jutta's comments, one of my friends has recently gone
blind and prior to that was an avid Linux user. While obviously he has
found some solace in using things like SpeakUp and all, I know he has
huge problems with improperly formatted web pages or pages that make no
effort to accessible by the blind. I don't know if it is relevant to
the specific incident that Jutta is bringing up, but obviously I am
certain that the web site administrators aspire to make the site
available to as many people as possible. I am certain the admins are
probably overwhelmed with internationalization issues, so I am certain
they can only do so much to assist in accessibility for the handicapped.
I think also Jutta is referring more to whether or not there is any
sort of formal process through which claims of sexual harrassment and
the like can be followed up, especially when the accused is a Debian
developer or some other representative of the Debian community. I agree
with Erinn on this though that the community's ability to handle such
situations is probably limited considering the hearsay nature of the
alligations and considering the volunteer nature of the organization. I
think it would probably need to be handled on a case by case basis.
Undoubtably behavior issues with DDs have been raised before and have
been handled appropriately. I doubt the organization would have existed
as long as it has without some sort of review process.
I agree with Erinn's rebuttal though towards Jutta. What can Debian do
to increase women's involvement in the community? Feedback is a very
important part of this process and from newer people the better. What
drew you in to looking at the site in the first place? What could have
been done to make it more appealing to you? While obviously there is
still debate about whether or not Debian should be tailored for
"everyone" to use, I think it really needs to be our ultimate goal.
There was a presentation at this year's Debconf that (forget her name)
chaired that covered whether or not we were doing a good job in
focusing on our users. To get feedback, especially from women who are
even the least bit interested in the project is a precious thing. Jutta
if you have any suggestions about what can be done to make it better,
we are more than interested in hearing about it. While obviously no
guarantees can be made about implementing those suggestions, we are
more than willing to listen and consider your input. Please share your
input with us.
Jim
On 8/15/05, Erinn Clark <erinn@double-helix.org> wrote:
* Jutta Wrage <jw@witch.westfalen.de> [2005:08:15 20:48 +0200]:
> The last one was one thing, that hurt me extremly, even if I for
> myself can use graphical browsers. But there are people that have to
> rely on lynx.
FYI, we fixed this the same day you brought it up.
> - - - How will d-w handle women, who are just users and search for
> support do learn more about their Debian-System?
The same way we've always handled them: by helping them.
> - - - Will the activities of the d-w members stick to forcing d-w in
> the future as main goal? [2]
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Could you clarify?
> - - - How will d-w handle problems, when women feel they are threatened
> by sexists inside debian-project? Will there be a place they can go
> to without meetings men mostly?
Hum, OK, so this is a sort of scary question, though perhaps not a bad
one. If I said they could come to me and/or (list of people), how would
this information be shared? It makes me uncomfortable to assume it may
happen, especially given Debian's current environment -- that is, in
general, I think it's unlikely for anyone to be sexually harassed
publicly and I'm not entirely sure of what can be done if there's a
private transgression.
> - - - In all the users groups, channels you see about much less then 5%
> real women (not only having female nick). So, assuming d-w will not
> work on getting more female users, how does the project want to
> increase the number of female developers?
Do you have any ideas of how we can get more users? Right now we're
drawing from existing pools of female users, but it's not clear to me
how we're supposed to create more users.
> - - - Who is Debian-Women? Who makes the decisions? Women only? Project
> Leader (which is not a DD, but the project is a Debian project)? Core
> members (who are those)? Random people in #debian-women? Everyone at
> his/her own, but some are not allowed?
The decisions appear to be made in groups and generally anyone can put
forth an idea and if enough people agree on it, it will be put into
action. I'm not sure what kind of decisions you refer to, though. Using
the website as an example, as long as someone has access to make
changes, they're basically given free reign. Whether people take
advantage of this or not is usually a personal thing.
> - - - How will d-w (like other parts of Debian do) respect that not all
> people can express their thoughts as good in english as native
> speakers can do?
What have we been doing wrong in this regard?
--
off the chain like a rebellious guanine nucleotide
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