[ please Cc:-me if you reply only to -women, as I'm not subscribed ]
Hi everybody,
a couple of months ago I've mailed Marga on the topic of restarting /
giving more visibility to Debian women, as I consider it to be a very
important area of Debian. Then me and Marga were supposed to talk about
that at DebConf10, but one reason or another it didn't happen, then
.... well, to cut a long and uninteresting story short, I'm *very* happy
to see that in the last week Marga re-kick-ed-off activity here, finding
a lot of support. Well done everybody!
Now a disclaimer: I have never really participated into -women, so
please be kind with me, as an outsider I'm say dull things :-) In the
reminder of this mail I'll just drop down some not very structured
ideas, in case they might help the cause.
- My main reason for mailing Marga was the lack of visibility of Debian
Women, with no idea on whether that meant no activity or not. In any
case, I believe that being visible is an important part of d-w
activity. Furthermore, I've been observing ubuntu-women [1] activity
and I found them to be very much visible in their community and I
found a pity not to be able to say the same of your work, also
considering that you've been doing it for quite a while now being,
AFAIK, quite unique when the initiative started.
[1] http://ubuntu-women.org/
- As a first tiny teeny step, I suggest adding an entry about the Women
team under http://wiki.debian.org/Teams, which is becoming quite a
relevant portal to answer questions like "how can I help Debian?"
- I then wondered whether you've been looking around for what other
distros have been doing. I confess I haven't, besides having seen some
blog posts of u-w. For instance I've noticed that they do activities
such as contests [2] to gather "evidence" of successful participation
of women in FOSS. I've no idea whether something like that makes sense
for d-w or not (see disclaimer above), but I thought you might want to
have a look at what they do, possibly also looking for collaboration
possibilities.
[2] https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-women/2010-January/002406.html
This is of course not specific to Ubuntu, it just happens to be the
only other community I know which is doing something similar.
*If* you want to do something similar for Debian, I'm ready to use
Debian resources to that end, e.g. for prizes or any other nice/fun
motivational item you can think of.
- I had a look at the "mentoring program" as currently drafted on
women.d.o, and I found it great! Still, I've a couple of
suggestions. Can't we use a proper "@debian.org" e-mail address for
requesting mentoring? If yes, I'd say that it would also make sense to
advertise it a bit into NM documentation, of course as a fully
*optional* step, and just for those who request it explicitly. If you
like the idea, I'm all for requesting such an email address and, if
you think it's needed, even delegating who will be behind that role
address.
- "bits from d-w" I've the impression that several people in the project
think that "d-w is dead", I was mistaken myself in that direction. To
dispel that feeling, the "bits from debian women" that Marga sent via
news.d.n [3] are just great. Still, I believe we (i.e. you :)) should
also send a proper mail to d-d-a informing every DD that d-w is alive
and kicking. Probably, you can just take the blog post text and mail
it to d-d-a.
[3] http://news.debian.net/2010/08/24/bits-from-the-debian-women-project/
- d-w meeting? I think that there is nothing as an in person meeting to
restart activities and poor enthusiasm into past and future
participants. I'm about to announce a general "debian sprint program"
starting this fall, but I wanted you to know that I'll be very happy
to poor some money into a d-w meeting, no matter that program. If you
like the idea, just start drafting some organization and let me know
how much you think it will cost. I'll do my best to have the resources
to let you meet :)
More generally, please keep in mind that for me the kind of activities
pushed by d-w are activities it is worth give resources to, so just be
creative and let me know how I can help you with Debian resources!
That's all from me, I hope I haven't just repeated old/boring/recurring
topics, and I wish you good luck with your activities!
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -<>- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Quando anche i santi ti voltano le spalle, | . |. I've fans everywhere
ti resta John Fante -- V. Caposella .......| ..: |.......... -- C. Adams
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