17:49:11 <qubodup> #startmeeting
17:49:11 <zodbot> Meeting started Sun Aug 11 17:49:11 2013 UTC.  The chair is qubodup. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot.
17:49:11 <zodbot> Useful Commands: #action #agreed #halp #info #idea #link #topic.
17:49:16 <qubodup> Women in Fedora
17:49:27 <qubodup> "Why are there not more women?"
17:49:37 <qubodup> Because trouble is expensive and people are scared
17:49:48 <qubodup> "There's a problem in the education system"
17:50:11 <qubodup> "educators have best of intensions focusing on what the learning person is best at"
17:50:24 <qubodup> "but when there's a sexist ingredient, it can spread the genders"
17:51:05 <qubodup> "I was at a haskell event and I was told by somebody that he was surprised to see me and I explained my background after which he shut up and later apologized"
17:51:21 <qubodup> "I don't htink he had mallicious intend and that he was just an idiot :) "
17:51:57 <qubodup> "... tinkering with computers was considered boy's club thing"
17:52:08 <qubodup> ...
17:54:29 <qubodup> ... mostly girls that go to conferences are shy
17:54:33 <qubodup> and set a barrier from the beginning
17:54:37 <qubodup> it's more of an educational thing
17:54:43 <qubodup> we need to show that there's nothing wrong
17:54:53 <qubodup> we have many women hacking and doing documentation and contributing
17:55:09 <qubodup> but it's like they are pre..[?] to what guys are gonna say
17:55:17 <qubodup> as females I would like to know what your experiences are
17:55:28 <qubodup> the only way we can find an acceptable solution is gathering all the women's experience
17:55:39 <qubodup> so the rest of the girls here can bring something in
17:55:54 <qubodup> and we can get a lot of guidance what the situation is
17:56:14 <qubodup> so how did you get started? (addressing one of the women in the group)
17:56:37 <qubodup> "I went to school, I ended up doing a major in computer science, exepecting it to be profitable maybe"
17:57:11 <qubodup> "my first job out of college was not so exciting. my first opportunity was to jump ship and go to creative commons which was exciting"
17:57:35 <qubodup> "... getting to lulzbot was a consequence of contributing to mediagoblin, which I worked on at creative commons"
17:58:05 <qubodup> "... I wanted to claim a printer that was offered for implementing a feature so I did it"
17:58:16 <qubodup> "its a lot of luck and a lot of hard work"
17:58:41 <tatica> hello all :)
17:58:50 <qubodup> other "if you read something like leanin you will see that many women attribute their success to luck..."
17:59:12 <qubodup> back "... I don't know where it comes from. to me it felt like a strange and unexpected transformation."
17:59:28 <qubodup> "I've definitely gone a strange, unpredictable path"
18:00:03 <qubodup> "the luck was seeing the offer to creative commons"
18:00:13 <qubodup> "I saw it before it was posted"
18:00:21 <qubodup> other: "it was networking..."
18:00:48 <qubodup> "it was an opportunity that others might not have gotten"
18:01:10 <qubodup> "points that I moved ahead wasn't because I was competing against others..."
18:01:30 <qubodup> Emily, how did you get into fedora?
18:01:38 <qubodup> "Because I wanted to *laughs*"
18:01:42 <qubodup> "I had trouble finding a job"
18:01:49 <qubodup> "I was in this area (charleston)"
18:02:01 <qubodup> "there was only one company hiring people. bad reputation, burning people out..."
18:02:08 <qubodup> ".. I started working freelance"
18:02:12 <qubodup> "building a client base"
18:02:22 <qubodup> "doing work where it was needed, programming, consulting"
18:02:37 <qubodup> "so I was building all the stuff, so I decided I need a new computer... but what I'm gonna put on it"
18:03:05 <qubodup> "even though I started making some money, I didn't have a bunch of 1000 dollars for buying photoshop... and I didn't want to pirate software"
18:03:15 <qubodup> "So I started using Ubuntu"
18:03:22 <qubodup> "That was probably 2004/5"
18:03:31 <qubodup> "linux sites were all about ubuntu
18:03:43 <qubodup> "I started using it, I started learning about it, I started learning more about other distros"
18:03:53 <qubodup> "eventually I learned about fedora and became aware of the community"
18:04:18 <qubodup> "I had all those design skills and did more dev than I wanted to. I decided to join the design team to stay in practivce"
18:04:32 <qubodup> "and then somebody came up to me and offered a red hat job"
18:04:56 <qubodup> "there were not many companmy that I would like to work for beacuse I was going on all right by myself"
18:05:06 <qubodup> "but ... eventually I was hired by them"
18:05:16 <qubodup> so how does it feel in red hat?
18:05:24 <qubodup> other "I dont' see discrimination
18:05:37 <qubodup> "... I don't feel like I'm being looked down upon because I'm a woman"
18:05:45 <qubodup> Emily "I agree with that"
18:06:10 <qubodup> "from a designer perspective it's nice to be able to use the tools that I want to use. I would probably have to use photoshop and a mac at any other design shop"
18:06:21 <qubodup> "and there's no pressure to move to the """industry""" standard"
18:06:36 <qubodup> Do you have requests or contact from other girls to join and have you hearde how this was handled?
18:06:46 <qubodup> ... Did they have any issue to get in here?
18:07:06 <qubodup> Are there a lot of girls finding you?
18:07:14 <qubodup> I have many girls in latin america finding me directly
18:07:42 <qubodup> other "you mean that women get discouraged and leave easily?"
18:08:05 <qubodup> emily "or you think they come to you expectin you will just let them in for their gender?"
18:08:27 <qubodup> we have problems, women getting kicked out of mailing lists for being women
18:08:45 <qubodup> There are bigger problems in india, where women get fired for getting pregnant or married
18:08:55 <qubodup> There is no Fedora Women group yet
18:08:59 <qubodup> but maybe a support group
18:09:30 <qubodup> Emily " do you think they seek you out because it will be easier or more comfortable?"
18:09:44 <qubodup> I think that if you go to a conference, at least some years ago, it would be 60/40 male/female
18:10:06 <qubodup> and I think more[?] than half of the women would be seeking a husband.
18:10:14 <qubodup> that brings issues into 2009
18:10:48 <qubodup> other "my daugher thought math was cool and recently she decided it's not cool, so she will be not cool"
18:10:57 <qubodup> "what can a father do to encourage her?"
18:11:05 <qubodup> "I want her to have all opportunities"
18:11:31 <qubodup> other "in high school or teens you already have decided what you want to be "
18:11:51 <qubodup> " when I went to high school I already knew that I wanted to take hard sciences"
18:12:08 <qubodup> "we were 11 girls, we went into hard sciences, so I had a lot of support"
18:12:22 <qubodup> "but usually it is you shouldnt have to deal with physics, you should go into design"
18:12:28 <qubodup> other "female ghettos"
18:12:32 <qubodup> *group laughs*
18:12:58 <qubodup> It's really bad in latin america and indie and if you are female and you do[?] code, you're just a secretary.
18:13:15 <qubodup> they don't have that idea of team work
18:13:27 <qubodup> people get assaulted for doing 'just stupid graphics'
18:13:58 <qubodup> other "...I ended up working in the kernel, just because that where the serious coders went..."
18:14:32 <qubodup> other "one thing we have to be careful about , you have different levels in the technical area. kernel devs, sys admins and designers."
18:14:40 <qubodup> "and we flock to the least popular ones"
18:14:44 <qubodup> "why do we do that?"
18:15:03 <qubodup> "I dislike linus because he swears all the time, I don't want to work in such an area.
18:15:29 <qubodup> "I want to hear if my work is bad but I don't want to hear that I will never succeed because my code sucks"
18:16:10 <qubodup> "... I think we are afraid of these egos, we are afraid to be found out
18:16:13 <qubodup> "
18:16:31 <qubodup> other "you just have to go try it, you can't let them say no"
18:16:49 <qubodup> emily "it happens to minorities, if you hear you're bad, it's all women"
18:17:03 <qubodup> "you feel that uncontious preassure - if I'm gonna code, I have to be really good"
18:17:25 <qubodup> other "I'm not bereting that men are pushing us down. but we need to be empowered to say '"" my code is good enough"" and tell me how to impreove"
18:17:45 <qubodup> other "I think we have to help girls learn to take little risks where they can succed beacuse then..."
18:17:54 <qubodup> "..maybe then I can take a bigger risk"
18:18:11 <qubodup> "you don't automatically close off all options. You say I want my world to be wider"
18:18:25 <qubodup> "but what happens is you see somebody before me did it, omebody to encourage you..."
18:18:45 <qubodup> tatica - ...something like the ambassador group...
18:18:58 <qubodup> other "if we want an env where people can take risks
18:19:13 <qubodup> "how make such an env that is safe where you can fail and its ok"
18:19:57 <qubodup> latin america was. if somebody told to my girls "this sucks" so I would say, "you suck too"...
18:20:08 <qubodup> If sombody says omething to the new contribs "that sucks"
18:20:18 <qubodup> then we all go "it's not that bad but you can do this and this and this"
18:20:21 <qubodup> and that helps
18:20:42 <qubodup> so let's not set up rules like "you need to repect the women..."
18:20:52 <qubodup> this will create...[?] more hate
18:20:57 <qubodup> other "actually humor helps"
18:21:22 <qubodup> aeva "in these sorts of dialogs it helps, we try to be less aggressive, less than linus and be more constructive
18:21:36 <qubodup> "and have a hard subjective oppinion why it's not suitable as is"
18:21:45 <qubodup> "and that's what you can do, the other one makes you feel like shit"
18:22:08 <qubodup> religion and homosexuals have also that problem
18:22:38 <qubodup> other "at my fist fudcon I heared something that made me want to never come back but I'm glad I didn't"
18:22:53 <qubodup> " and I look back and think how many times have I offended somebody and made not come back?"
18:23:43 <qubodup> other "other cultures are more strickt, give feedback not to be aggressive, but to get things done..."
18:23:53 <qubodup> other "i'm always harsh to say this sucks"
18:24:32 <qubodup> "I'm totally confused here everybody says to me hey how are you and I answer and they think I'm weird"
18:25:33 <qubodup> other "in my school, which is technical and mostly male, people are condescending"
18:25:51 <qubodup> "answering 'oh you dont know THAT' to questions"
18:26:05 <qubodup> tatika - to anybody that's not a coder
18:26:24 <qubodup> other "face to face seems to make it better"
18:26:40 <qubodup> "people go along bettter when it's a person with a face and not a person without a name or face"
18:26:56 <qubodup> "you hear people are horrible via email but when you meet them at an event they are nice people"
18:27:09 <qubodup> other "70% is nonverbally communicated"
18:27:16 <qubodup> "tone, gestures..."
18:27:55 <qubodup> tatika - potentially we have a solution let's just say that we are starting to go off topic[?]
18:28:10 <qubodup> emily "it's not just women, its' all the contributors"
18:28:22 <qubodup> "i was anxious asking questions, thinking everybody knows that but me"
18:28:39 <qubodup> "I almost feel like what we're talking about might be an internship program"
18:28:53 <qubodup> We have a wiki with about 3 paragraphs talking about this
18:28:57 <qubodup> and an empty irc channel
18:29:07 <qubodup> and a mailing list that had really awful and controvential...
18:29:19 <qubodup> other "fedora has an outreach program"
18:29:31 <qubodup> we have a lot of resources that are abandoned
18:29:49 <qubodup> emily "where do people go first? website. ist there anything about mentorship on the website?"
18:30:15 <qubodup> "you have to instantly decide on the website what part you want to become part of when clicking on the contribution link"
18:30:23 <qubodup> "but maybe you don't know what you want to do"
18:30:54 <qubodup> other "to me this is local, not global"
18:31:14 <qubodup> "what I see is this we're not going to change this by attacking the status quo. we need to start new places and grow it"
18:31:27 <qubodup> "we have people who want to supply needs but are frustrated..."
18:31:41 <qubodup> "I know from teaching that the person asking the question is not the only one that learns"
18:31:58 <qubodup> "first thing I do in red hat ... is asking a lot of questions"
18:32:06 <qubodup> "It's up to me to do my part on a local basiss"
18:32:13 <qubodup> other "I think we need to redefine what a mentor is
18:32:21 <qubodup> "a teacher rather a mentor maybe"
18:32:45 <qubodup> "in some societies at least teachers are more approachable than mentors. in my culture, norwegian[?] we don't have mentors"
18:33:00 <qubodup> other "we need the native guide badge!"
18:33:04 <qubodup> *group laughter*
18:33:24 <qubodup> other "...we have speakers on the stage.. and then we have people next to you teaching.."
18:33:47 <qubodup> tatika - the personal part is unrealistic
18:33:52 <qubodup> ... in the region
18:33:59 <qubodup> I usually help people all around the world
18:34:11 <qubodup> " but it doesn't have to be a women and in your region"
18:34:35 <qubodup> "it needs to be somebody who is willing to not be mean and helpful that person can be anywhere"
18:34:45 <qubodup> "that person needs to be more than available - proactive"
18:34:54 <qubodup> other "there was a red hat marketing campagin"
18:35:09 <qubodup> "it didn't go far but you were able to say 'I'm willing to coach people in my are'"
18:35:17 <qubodup> "that either speak my language or live in my area"
18:35:53 <qubodup> "I signed up and one guy in my neighbourhood asked me for a cd and he was able to install red hat and now he's a full time linux sys admin"
18:36:04 <qubodup> other "a lot of good is coming from outreach workshops"
18:36:18 <qubodup> "boston python community targeted women participation in python"
18:36:32 <qubodup> "... my company has been trying to duplicate the same in our own locale:
18:37:01 <qubodup> "the thing where I went from being curious about 3d printing to actually doing was where my hackerspace did a ...[?] workshop"
18:37:05 <qubodup> "it wasn't a lot of people ..."
18:37:19 <qubodup> "that was a prerequisite for me to get more invoved - to be part of a workshop"
18:37:46 <qubodup> other "one thing I see that works is gnome women out reach, I think one reason is marina[?] but they are also well organized"
18:38:58 <qubodup> other "pyladies/rubygirls have hosted twice... it was a  workshop, it was full of girls and they were taught python or ruby and it was amazing"
18:39:25 <qubodup> other "... an environment where 11-12 girls do ... tech week robots, programming, drones"
18:39:34 <qubodup> "they have lots fun doing cool tech stuff"
18:39:55 <qubodup> "the open west conference has ... activities for kids"
18:40:13 <qubodup> "get younger kids involved as well with a safe environment ... 'this tech stuff is not so bad, maybe i'm interested'"
18:40:31 <qubodup> other "it makes things acchievable ... and i hear  we need to incubate communityes[?]"
18:40:59 <qubodup> "communities, when they have trust, their cheering has more meaning"
18:41:25 <qubodup> tatika - I think we have a good set of ideas for the in-person part
18:41:29 <qubodup> I'm still worried about the online part
18:41:44 <qubodup> other "hopefully hyperkitty helps"
18:42:04 <qubodup> other "it's a mailing list ui which allows hiding troll posts
18:43:30 <qubodup> "two other suggestions:
18:43:54 <qubodup> "1. there's an irc support sig that people review every week. why did that person get banned? I think irc would have more people be ap art of that"
18:43:57 <qubodup> 2
18:44:13 <qubodup> "2. mailing list moderation is alonely job but we need likeminded people who say that post is not going through"
18:44:28 <qubodup> "I know that's hard but that's something you can sign up with"
18:45:05 <qubodup> other "in india we have a lot of problems. there's no doubt we could have big workshops. but along with workshops, event we could arrange a wiki page in such a manner, if a person or woman finds that, they/she could learn with that"
18:45:48 <qubodup> group mass suggestions: "flags, locations, maps, pictures"
18:45:59 <qubodup> other "go on a website where you see all local fedora events"
18:46:11 <qubodup> "you ccould at least see community in your country"
18:46:17 <qubodup> other "photos make it personal"
18:46:24 <qubodup> other "who is new in fedora this week"
18:46:50 <qubodup> other "some special interest groups make a better job than others.
18:47:21 <qubodup> "I think if every group in fedora said 'how can we help get you started' it would help"
18:47:54 <qubodup> other "people in general means it would make it easier for women"
18:49:20 <qubodup> other "we could ask people on the website to join into our safe environment"
18:49:30 <qubodup> "... having the ability to say there are no men here..."
18:49:41 <qubodup> tatika there can be men..
18:49:55 <qubodup> "I mean every month meeting just for women"
18:50:07 <qubodup> why not a girls' night
18:50:26 <qubodup> aeva "women only events have proved to be very effective'
18:50:44 <qubodup> ".. social events, not necessarily tech events[?]"
18:50:57 <qubodup> "... was enough to equalize the gender share"
18:51:08 <qubodup> so far
18:51:10 <qubodup> we hav
18:51:12 <qubodup> e
18:51:14 <qubodup> mailing list moderation
18:51:21 <qubodup> 2. meeting only for girls (monthly?)
18:51:37 <qubodup> 3. infrastructure to let people introduce themselves and let us know how we can help them
18:51:53 <qubodup> 4. ...[?]
18:52:20 <qubodup> 5. ...[?]
18:52:28 <qubodup> other "at summit we have a women's lunch"
18:52:54 <qubodup> "we have a women speaker who talks about problems with work and home"
18:53:01 <qubodup> " last time caren (gnome) started this
18:53:12 <qubodup> *[lunch might have been incorrect]*
18:53:21 <qubodup> talk with talking about open source heart beat monitor hardware
18:53:22 <qubodup> "
18:53:32 <qubodup> other "red hat we could try to make it happen - a women's dinner"
18:54:44 <qubodup> ...
18:55:11 <qubodup> other "about lowering barrier"
18:55:18 <qubodup> "sometimes newer people are more approchable"
18:55:27 <qubodup> "oh no I cant talk to that person he used to be the mpl"
18:56:34 <qubodup> *fpl rather than mpl possibly
18:56:35 <qubodup> ...
18:56:45 <qubodup> stepping up when somebody was a jerk...
18:56:57 <qubodup> other "some people think fedora is just the cd/product"
18:57:21 <qubodup> "the whole reason I'm involved is I saw this is a cool group of people having fun doing cool things except that one guy but we became friends later"
18:57:26 <qubodup> "it was the social aspect"
18:57:30 <qubodup> "lower the barriers...
18:57:34 <qubodup> "that helps everybody"
18:57:49 <qubodup> other "one thing we need to think about is how to reach the kids"
18:57:56 <qubodup> "they won't come on irc"
18:58:20 <qubodup> tatika - I like the idea of bring your kids
18:58:35 <qubodup> other " doesn't work global"
18:58:40 <qubodup> other "doesn't work on day to day basis"
18:58:53 <qubodup> "one time a year, what happens in the remainder"
18:59:12 <qubodup> other "kids who have parents involved are more knowledgeable, I don't think that's the end solution"
18:59:33 <qubodup> "the way I got involved - at my colledge is a group where I eneded up having a job and where I heared about all this."
18:59:46 <qubodup> we have that in latin america and it's working excessively good
19:00:06 <qubodup> in panama we started something like that, once a month somebody goes to school and plays with robots...
19:00:17 <qubodup> ...
19:00:24 <qubodup> it's something we need to take seriously
19:00:36 <qubodup> it's not just teaching them how to code, it's teahing them how to use the internet safely
19:00:52 <qubodup> other "it's about teaching them there's a commmunity having the same problems"
19:01:08 <qubodup> other " I think pointing people to specific tools can help, it's hard to help on their own"
19:01:20 <qubodup> other "get them into our community, if nothing else, then as users"
19:02:16 <qubodup> other "at the open west conference ther was an 11 years kid teaching"
19:02:29 <qubodup> "the kids really liked that the teacher was one of them"
19:02:48 <qubodup> "one of the kids in argentina has been into building low cost robots"...
19:02:53 <qubodup> "they learn how to solder..."
19:03:02 <qubodup> "... it's a national[?] project"
19:03:07 <qubodup> "the gov is sponsoring it"
19:04:52 <qubodup> aeva "red hat sponsored one in our area"
19:05:52 <qubodup> "the purpose for the exclusion is to set the tone correctly, that it's a women outreach and not a ladie's night"
19:06:34 <qubodup> I wanted to learn from what people had to say
19:06:52 <qubodup> If only I spoke, it would be mostly applicable to latin america and maybe[?] india
19:07:00 <qubodup> but I'd like to see these small steps to see results
19:07:16 <qubodup> other "i think a feedback loop is imporant. what was tried, what didn't"
19:07:40 <qubodup> other "can we have an appoint to have this meeting next year"
19:07:51 <qubodup> maybe set up the wiki, the list
19:08:07 <qubodup> there is already a list
19:08:12 <qubodup> we have irc, ml, wiki
19:08:15 <qubodup> "fedora-women"
19:08:52 <qubodup> the registration requirement needs to be removed on irc
19:09:09 <qubodup> we should keep the name "women"
19:09:40 <qubodup> SSSSH
19:09:42 <tatica> qubodup, shhhh
19:09:58 <qubodup> maybe we can do for the newcomers irc meetings
19:10:18 <qubodup> We can do an announcement.
19:10:24 <qubodup> Newcomers don't read a lot of stuff
19:11:08 <qubodup> people willing to have a banner on their site...
19:11:32 <qubodup> other "we had a deisgn contest for anaconda banners"
19:12:04 <qubodup> maybe we need to discuss this on the marketing list
19:12:28 <qubodup> other "use the markting list to posh this"
19:12:37 <qubodup> there is no need for a new list, ok?
19:13:07 <qubodup> aeva "it would be worthwile to collaborate[?] with other outreach programs
19:13:18 <qubodup> "openhatch" would be another to ask
19:14:14 <qubodup> are there people here?
19:14:19 <tatica> lol
19:14:23 <qubodup> NOTE THAT WAS NOT PART OF WHAT TATICA SAID
19:17:36 <grift> yes
19:17:41 <grift> i am reading this
19:24:49 <qubodup> ...
19:25:20 <qubodup> In several communities ... it's exactly the problem, you have a 30 40 group and 2 say hurtful comments and nobody says anything
19:25:23 <qubodup> it sets the tone
19:25:25 <qubodup> ...
19:33:16 <samkottler> should we transcribe this?
19:33:59 <puiterwijk> samkottler: I'd say: have fun :P
19:34:06 <puiterwijk> anyone reading?
19:34:34 <samkottler> puiterwijk: NVM then :)
19:35:17 <puiterwijk> samkottler: I meant: if you want to transcribe, go ahead :)
19:35:39 <suehle> #start meeting
19:35:43 <zodbot> suehle: Error: Can't start another meeting, one is in progress.
19:35:49 <suehle> well then :)
19:37:56 <puiterwijk> I could try to summarize some things, but I'm bad with transcribing?
19:37:59 <puiterwijk> anyone interested?
19:39:39 <puiterwijk> I guess that's a no then :)
19:40:14 <grift> you dont have to transcribe just for me
19:53:35 <qubodup> #endmeeting