OpenThreadsthe community of open source mailing lists

@alyssapwright@georgiamoon

mapmeter.commapmeter.com

Hello.From awright at opengeo.org From georgia at opentechinstitute.org Thu May 23 1:00:18 2013Subject: [openthreads] hello?

Hello Community.Together we create software of value.

Hello World.Together we bring that value to a global

community.

We Get That.

“Increase involvement of the community”“Increase the number of code contributors”

deegree: 2010 report

OSGeo Annual Report

“Need more community feedback”More volunteers for documentation, manuals and tutorials

OSGeo Annual Report

mapbender: 2010 report

“Need more people to advocate for OSGeo”and help translate documentation!

OSGeo Annual Report

francophone chapter: 2010 report

Where is our “Community”?

mailing lists!

Who is our community?The specifics of the gender gap

-----interactive session!-----

% of women in technology?

27%% of women in technology?

% of women in wikipedia?

% of women in wikipedia?

9%

% of women speakers at this conference?

% of women speakers at this conference?

7%

% of women in VGI?

% of women in VGI?

3%

% of women in FOSS?

1%% of women in FOSS?

Is this a problem?(We have been asked this question.)

“Maybe girls don’t like math,

or maps,

or open stuff.”(paraphrased)

“Sure. Maybe FOSS4G

is a man’s field,

like construction work- @alyssapwright

or firefighting.”- @alyssapwright

(was that uncomfortable?)

(is this better?)

Maybe we all accept(deep breath)

This is a problem.

We want our tools to continue to grow and add value.

We want our software to reach new populations.

We want our solutions to be even better.

We need more men and more women.

The collective intelligence of

diversity

not only expands the reach of our community

The collective intelligence of

diversity

but the sustainability of our tools.

Because

technology

is created in a certain context, in certain conversations.

Lam et al 2011 | Callahan & Herring 2011

The future of our work depends on attracting more

white males

and more other under-represented groups.

OK. No big deal.We fix problems all day.

So let’s look at why.Why the FOSS discrepancy?

There are many possible reasons...

Maybe women have different communication styles than men.

Judd Atkin, 2012

Maybe the few restrictions on how people treat each other creates permission for discrimination.

Reagle, 2013

Maybe there is inertia. I mean, this was a community started by a lot of men, with a particular ideology...why fight old men?

Judd Atkin, 2012

Maybe there’s a incentive and motivation gap. (e.g., Women and men relate to competition differently.)

Judd Atkin, 2012

Maybe there’s active hostility towards difference.

Wikipedia, 2012

-----side bar-----

% of women who reported being assaulted, attacked, or treated poorly

by colleagues on projects?

30%% of women who reported being

assaulted, attacked, or treated poorly by colleagues on projects?

-----that’s a lot of hounds-----

and we are all responsible.

Too many of us have witnessed:

The mailing list temper tantrum.

The joust for technical supremacy.

The snub of a newbie.

And many more have simply hesitated...

to ask for help, to participate, to engage, to question.

We all know that are online communications are complicated spaces, full of complicated relationships,

and cats.

OpenThreadslooks at those relationships

OpenThreadslooks to structure that context

and leaves the cats alone.

Methodology

00

Assemble the TeamSeamus Tuohy

Tech Lead | Rhetorical Analysis (Open Technology Institute)

Georgia Bullen Creative Lead | Data Visualization (Open Technology Institute)

Alyssa Wright Product Manager | Professional Nagging (OpenGeo)

01

Frame the ProblemOpen Government

Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies

02

Ask the Questions

03

Structure the DataParticipant

author of an email

Message body of an email

Thread series of messages posted as replies to each other

03

participantparticipantIDtotalPostsaverageRepliesstarter : threads started / total #engagement : Average number of replies a user has per threadresponse : replies/ totalcontrol : # of replies / # threads started by participanttimeSpent : total time spentnamelistgenderentryTimelastPostmessagesthreadstype: participant

03

messagemsgIDlistminutes : time spent metric - words per email (given a words per minute count)msgType : message type, categorical (forward, question, reply, ...)date : sent timedategender : gender of the senderthreadIDparticipantIDtype: message

03

threadthreadIDwritingTime : minutes spentliststart timedateend timedatecalendarTime: total calendar time of the threadgenderBalance : count of genderparticipantsmessagestype: thread

04

Parse the Mailing Lists Types

discussion | user | developer

Format pipermail | mailman

TechnologycouchDB | python | d3

04

https://github.com/elationfoundation/openThreads

github

04

discussion: libtechuser: talk-us

developer: postgis-dev

Initial Mailing Lists

05

Visualize to Analyze

Technical ChallengesPeople use multiple e-mails/names

identifying the identity behind a voice can be difficult

Gender is difficult to parse requires community review

Headers: Standardized Bodies: Not Standardized

Email datesvaries in format

05

06

What’s Next?Scores

activity | influence | relation

Lists your lists | google groups

Communityunderstand behavior patterns across communities

06

Activity ScoreQuantity of initiated messagesQuantity of responsesTime taken to respond

06

Influence ScoreInitiated conversationsRatio of initial poster vs others in the threadDialogue with new people

06

Relation ScoreMale > Male | Female > FemaleMale > Female | Female > Male

06

Google Groupscan’t export data from google groups.can only retrieve messages one-by-one.

06

Join us!more lists + more questions + more visualizations + more analysis + more awareness + more self-reflection + more focused initiatives =

more diversity + better software

Tactics of InclusionThe party bag

GNOME

Internship for GNOME project 10 OSS project involved

Success

Address women directly.Accept non-students and non-coders. Connect women with mentors. Require a contributionNo pressure for really ambitious projects.

Approach

Etsy

GNOMEattracted 500% more female engineers

Success

GNOME

Invest trained junior women for hiring

Partneralliances with other organizations

Make a Public Standsuccess breeds success

Approach

Recommendation

Address GenderMake gender an explicit part of any intervention. Increasing gender increases representation of other groups as well.

Personal RecommendationConsciously come from a place of trust. Do not attack. Make a public commitment.Talk openly about what’s not working.Use research to focus on action.

Appendix

random imagesmaybe for later

technical challengesPeople use multiple e-mails/names

identifying the identity behind a voice can be difficult

Gender is difficult to parse requires community review

Headers: Standardized Bodies: Not Standardized

Email datesvaries in format

our methodology

our methodology

our

breaking. mailing lists can be