Re: list statistics
* Andrea Schweer <andrea@andaka.org> [2006:01:20 19:05 +0100]:
> On Fri, 2006-01-20 at 11:17 +1100, Helen Faulkner wrote:
> > Do you think it is still needed to encourage the involvement of women?
>
> Probably. Hell, if I were exposed to a bit more enthusiasm along the
> lines of "I'm looking for people to do X (some smallish task) at time Y
> (a few hours on a given day)" a bit more regularly, that might make the
> difference for me to change my priorities and decide that something else
> I'm currently spending my time on is less important than contributing to
> Debian. And Debian Women would be a good place for something like this
> to come from (for me).
Hm, I think that's a good idea; we've got a TODO list on the wiki, but I
think it might be more useful to also announce things on the list when
we need help with them.
> So, to summarise: the way the Debian Women mailing list is right now (is
> the IRC channel any different, by the way?), it does what I personally
> want from it, which is that it's there in case I need it in the future.
The IRC channel is actually very different, in terms of how active it
is. However, we don't generally discuss DW itself, but rather Debian
most of the time (as well as occasional off-topic banter which you'll
find in nearly all IRC channels :)). I'm afraid the IRC channel is so
active that many of us use it in place of the mailing list for nearly
everything and, in that way, it bolsters one aspect of the community
while letting another atrophy. Another thing about the mailing list is
that things I'd like to talk about are generally applicable to all of
Debian so I'm afraid bringing it up here will both be off-topic and also
exclude people who aren't subscribed. OTOH, a lot of people whose input
I think would be lacking are also subscribed to this list, so it may be
an unfounded fear. Should Debian "current events" be discussed here?
I think it's interesting that it's enough for DW/the mailing list to
just exist for you (ie, it meets its functions just by being here). I
think half of what made DW work at all was the fact that it merely
existed; a lot of women tend to gravitate towards other women in free
software (at least, in my experience) so I always thought the greatest
thing we ever did was just create the project. I do wonder how many
women see it as a similar resource and I wonder what it is that will
finally push some of them to the point where Debian is the kind of thing
they will make time for. I'm sure there's no magic bullet, but it would
be interesting to find out what appeals to different people.
> But I'd also like a much more active Debian Women mailing list/project
> in general, and at least I personally would very probably be more likely
> to decide to contribute to Debian with more going on on this list. On
> the other hand, if people have to choose between making Debian Women
> more active (again) or doing something that will benefit Debian users a
> bit more directly, I'd say do the latter.
So just out of curiosity, which things do you think would help you:
technical discussions, community discussions, political discussions? I
don't think anyone can fully experience Debian without all of these
things, but it's hard for me to gauge which things our subscribers
consider the most interesting.
--
off the chain like a rebellious guanine nucleotide
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