Re: Question to candidates: what are your quantitative diversity goals and metrics?
Roberto C. Sánchez <roberto@debian.org> writes:
> Without a clear statement of the goal, desired, or preferred diversity
> mix it is not possible to have a discussion about whether any particular
> proposed policy or program is likely to be beneficial or detrimental.
This statement is obviously false. One can have directional goals without
having any strong opinions about what would be a good end state. Debian
is currently overwhelmingly male, and we reasons to believe the membership
is aging due to failing to attract younger contributors. One can believe
this poses a sustainability risk by discouraging half the population (from
one direction) and those with fresh conceptions of what a distribution can
be and the longest potential future as contributors (from the other
direction) from joining the project, without having any particular target
percentages in mind and without supporting any interventions for which
target percentages would be relevant.
One can of course also *not* believe this poses a risk (by, for example,
believing those demographics don't discourage anyone), and thus disagree
with a candidate that makes that part of their platform. But that
disagreement is not about specific target numbers.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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