Re: Age Ranges for contributors was: Salsa vs Github
On 16/05/2019 19:22, Cindy Sue Causey wrote:
> On 5/16/19, Paul Sutton <zleap@disroot.org> wrote:
>> Just a specific question from the thread
>>
>> Further to the comments by nik on the Salsa vs Github thread.
>>
>> Am I right in thinking that you can be _any_ age to contribute to
>> projects hosted on Salsa and contribute to the Debian project in general?
>>
>> Granted there is probably a minimal age for practicality reasons.
>
> I don't have a direct answer to your direct question but decided to
> respond here instead of the other thread... that was already sitting
> in *compose mode*..
>
> I'd say *maturity level* is a better gauge rather than physical age.
> If kids can communicate without trolling, who knows where they may go
> one day with the right mentorships.
>
> So I tried Debian's Code of Conduct:
>
> https://www.debian.org/code_of_conduct
>
> Didn't see a specific mention of age there but DID see a pointer
> toward Diversity. Sounded even better than Code of Conduct so:
>
> https://www.debian.org/intro/diversity
>
> And they said:
>
> +++++ BEGIN DEBIAN'S DIVERSITY STATEMENT BLURB +++++
>
> The Debian Project welcomes and encourages participation by everyone.
>
> No matter how you identify yourself or how others perceive you: we
> welcome you. We welcome contributions from everyone as long as they
> interact constructively with our community.
>
> While much of the work for our project is technical in nature, we
> value and encourage contributions from those with expertise in other
> areas, and welcome them into our community.
>
> +++++ END DEBIAN'S DIVERSITY STATEMENT BLURB +++++
>
> One MAJOR problem is... children are preyed upon horrifically across
> the Net. That's an important secondary reason why a website might make
> the CHOICE to skip that age demographic in their project. If mentors
> detect a young protégé, it wouldn't hurt to further mentorship with a
> sidestep into childhood self-protection online as part of the
> interaction.
>
> ** Afterthought while proofreading before sending: @MissingKids and
> @DHSBlueCampaign on Twitter regularly present information about
> preventing related travesty, really for all ages. Maybe they're each a
> potential resource for tip ideas if someone was to put together a
> template for others to use with respect to children participating in
> primarily adult tech communities.
>
> This is the first time I'd heard something about age over at Github.
> It explains a WEIRD, quick interaction I saw couple weeks ago. A new
> issue was opened then the Github "owner" responded with a rational
> answer. WEIRD was when that answer concluded by saying EVERYONE EXCEPT
> the issue poster was welcome to yada-yada.
>
> Issue poster closed the issue without saying one more word. Issue
> poster's profile.. said they were 13-years-old. This Debian thread
> finally takes the question mark off of what the flock happened during
> that Github exchange.
>
> Poor kid.. Judging by their communication alone, I didn't know they
> WERE a kid until I visited their profile page out of curiosity after
> that WEIRD exchange. :)
>
> Me.. I first touched my own "computer" when I was about 15-years-old.
> Something super small with the name "Sears Roebuck" on it. You hooked
> little TVs as your monitor. My memory of it is that it basically
> worked with about two lines of code at a time.
>
> Never got it to do much. I take a memory trip back to that thing every
> so often. I actively wonder how differently my #Life would have
> evolved if I'd found the right mentoring community back then...
> mid-1970's... when so many of today's high tier tech folks first
> touched their own first computers.... *hm* :)
>
> Cindy :)
I agree, people should be judged on maturity not age.
I am trying to work on something, partly as I have e-safety training in
a few weeks and while usual safety advice applies to IRC, mailing lists
in the same way, professionals who have not heard of Debian IRC, or
salsa may be unsure, so hopefully raising awareness will empower them to
support young people in their efforts to contribute, by enforcing the
usual safety rules, and being there if they need to talk.
I can make people aware of the code of conduct and get some help in
coming up with a short training seminar (to be presented by someone who
works in workforce development) to come up with something.
Maturity level also helps you make choices, why has someone sent me a
private e-mail off list (easily done by accident) on IRC. With e-mail
myself and Francisco communicated off list to discuss some finer points
to do with the presentation, which is fine. Or is there malicious
intent somewhere.
--
Good idea to side step in to ensuring young people are safe and mentors
to enforce that, but empowering people out side of the community who
work with young people would be a good thing to.
When working with children we have to avoid 1-2-1 situations this
protects us as well as the child. So the same could apply to e-mail or
irc communications in some way. So keep to the mentoring mailing list
or the to the main irc channels where others are around. those places
are logged, archived etc, again something we should also be open about.
--
I am not very good with wording things here, but hopefully people get
the idea.
Paul
--
Paul Sutton
http://www.zleap.net
https://www.linkedin.com/in/zleap/
gnupg : 7D6D B682 F351 8D08 1893 1E16 F086 5537 D066 302D
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