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Re: Code of Conduct

Steve Quezadas
> But the low rate at which marginalized people are recruited, and
> cultural and systemic problem.

Your interpreting this information with a SJW lens. Otherwise known as "confirmation bias".  Look at the low proportion of blacks and women who apply for CS majors in college. Are you going to say that colleges are using discriminatory practices to keep blacks and women from taking CS classes? Maybe the bulk of the low recruitment statistics is simply due to non-interest within that sub-culture.

I believe this CoC is a way to wedge left-wing politics in a non-political maillist. I want it out.

On Sun, Sep 22, 2019 at 7:37 PM Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas <[hidden email]> wrote:
I agreed that the last decision should be on the ones who made the bulk
of the work. But I don't see relationship between a code of conduct and
not being able to talk about code or contributions quality. Just looking
at the FAQ of the original CoC that originated the whole think, I see a
lot of answers about the stuff being said on this thread (minorities,
left wing progressive agenda, diminish of code quality because of it,
mixing tech with non-tech stuff), so I will refer to it, because as I
said, I think that the PR should be the place for the bulk of the
discussion:

https://www.contributor-covenant.org/faq

The FAQ name goes pretty well, considering the amount of repeated
arguments they deal with. I think that many of the FAQ apply for other
CoCs, despite of the possible different nature of CoC for the online
community and the CoC for other face to face events. BTW, Thanks for the
links, both provide a better context for the emergence of the CoC in the
Erlang community.

As said, I will try to see for specific contributions in the
correspondent PR in the repo, and made some if I have a one. For the
moment I'm trying to make my contributions on this thread, but is taking
a lot.

Cheers,

Offray

On 22/09/19 7:40 p. m., Richard O'Keefe wrote:
> This is not a question of left vs right.  It's a question of
> authoritarian vs libertarian.
> And this is very relevant to the community.
> It's also not a question of democracy vs central authority.
> It's a question of vs παρρησία vs goodspeak.
> And this is very relevant to the community also.
>
> Pharo is "owned" by the people who do the bulk of the work on it,
> and they are kind enough to share it with us.  That there is such a
> thing as a *Pharo* community is the result of their work.
>
> That there is such a thing as a Pharo *community* depends on the ability of
> that community to communicate freely.  This cuts BOTH ways.  If people are
> scared off by incivility, that's bad.  If people are driven away by incivility,
> that's bad.  But when you stop seeing rudeness as rudeness, which may be
> amended, and start seeing it as crimethink, you drive people away, and that
> is bad too.
>
> Let's consider a recent thread.  I took the position that << and putOn: were
> confusing, unreliable, and unnecessary.  The unreliability issue has been
> addressed in Pharo 8; had I not been able to speak I would never have learned
> that.  Some people apparently think that it improves readability, where I find
> that << impairs my ability to understand.  The fact that BOTH sides were able
> to speak freely means that we now know (a) that there is no consensus for
> removing them from the system and (b) if you want other people to read your
> code you might want to think twice before using them, and we are all better off.
> But if criticising someone's opinion were construed as harassment, the thread
> would have been shut down before I displayed my code with a generalisation
> that is worth having if << is worth having at all.
>
> I probably should have mentioned the Erlang code of conduct
> http://erlang.org/download/erlang_org_code_of_conduct.txt
> It is pretty a-political, has graduated response, and potential for forgiveness.
>
> A code of conduct for *events* is another matter, which is why I bring
> Erlang up.
> http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang-questions/2015-March/083849.html
> is eye-opening.  (It's mainly about Ruby community issues.)
>
> On Mon, 23 Sep 2019 at 11:51, Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas
> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> My point was that this community, as a the big majority of FLOSS ones, is not a democracy and *not* having a democracy has shown its benefits in human endeavors like science, technology, hackerspaces and so on.
>>
>> I'll keep the rest of the conversation with you on the source code repository and the PR. See you there.
>>
>>
>> On 22/09/19 6:40 p. m., Steve Quezadas wrote:
>>
>> This isn't science, this is a community. We don't need a CoC, there haven't been any problems on this list regarding nazis or whatever. This is just a group of people trying to enforce their political ideologies on everyone else. Let's just remove the CoC altogether and just replace it with one line: "this maillist is about Pharo, anything else is offtopic".
>>
>> If you want to debate on the merits of Islam vs Christianity/ right vs left / thugs vs racists , you are free to hold your opinion on some other sub, but it's offtopic here.
>>
>> On Sun, Sep 22, 2019 at 4:23 PM Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>> There is no data to support such supposed majority. But even so, free, libre, open source communities are not democracies. Imagine the quality of code or argumentation based on perceived majorities? If science would be a democracy, the earth would be "still" flat.
>>>
>>> On 22/09/19 6:04 p. m., Steve Quezadas wrote:
>>>
>>> I would say that the majority don't seem to be in favor of it. This should be a democracy.
>>>
>>> On Sun, Sep 22, 2019 at 1:53 PM Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 22/09/19 3:38 p. m., Steve Quezadas wrote:
>>>>>> The discussion so far shows that CoC is not a distraction to many
>>>>> Actually, the discussion shows that the CoC is "a distraction to many".
>>>> Actually it shows that some people consider it a distraction, others
>>>> don't. I think that every body here is able to form its own opinion on
>>>> that and invest time and effort accordingly.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>>
>>>> Offray
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>


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Re: Code of Conduct

Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas-2
I'm not interpreting anything, particularly I'm not interpreting that part, as I just point to the whole FAQ without making a particular interpretation of snippets of it.

Do your PR in the repo. I'm pretty sure that the bulk of your contributions to Pharo and the force of your arguments and specific suggestions will be considered by those who lead the project, as they have been in the case of others.

El 22 de septiembre de 2019 10:14:26 PM GMT-05:00, Steve Quezadas <[hidden email]> escribió:
> But the low rate at which marginalized people are recruited, and
> cultural and systemic problem.

Your interpreting this information with a SJW lens. Otherwise known as "confirmation bias".  Look at the low proportion of blacks and women who apply for CS majors in college. Are you going to say that colleges are using discriminatory practices to keep blacks and women from taking CS classes? Maybe the bulk of the low recruitment statistics is simply due to non-interest within that sub-culture.

I believe this CoC is a way to wedge left-wing politics in a non-political maillist. I want it out.

On Sun, Sep 22, 2019 at 7:37 PM Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas <[hidden email]> wrote:
I agreed that the last decision should be on the ones who made the bulk
of the work. But I don't see relationship between a code of conduct and
not being able to talk about code or contributions quality. Just looking
at the FAQ of the original CoC that originated the whole think, I see a
lot of answers about the stuff being said on this thread (minorities,
left wing progressive agenda, diminish of code quality because of it,
mixing tech with non-tech stuff), so I will refer to it, because as I
said, I think that the PR should be the place for the bulk of the
discussion:

https://www.contributor-covenant.org/faq

The FAQ name goes pretty well, considering the amount of repeated
arguments they deal with. I think that many of the FAQ apply for other
CoCs, despite of the possible different nature of CoC for the online
community and the CoC for other face to face events. BTW, Thanks for the
links, both provide a better context for the emergence of the CoC in the
Erlang community.

As said, I will try to see for specific contributions in the
correspondent PR in the repo, and made some if I have a one. For the
moment I'm trying to make my contributions on this thread, but is taking
a lot.

Cheers,

Offray

On 22/09/19 7:40 p. m., Richard O'Keefe wrote:
> This is not a question of left vs right.  It's a question of
> authoritarian vs libertarian.
> And this is very relevant to the community.
> It's also not a question of democracy vs central authority.
> It's a question of vs παρρησία vs goodspeak.
> And this is very relevant to the community also.
>
> Pharo is "owned" by the people who do the bulk of the work on it,
> and they are kind enough to share it with us.  That there is such a
> thing as a *Pharo* community is the result of their work.
>
> That there is such a thing as a Pharo *community* depends on the ability of
> that community to communicate freely.  This cuts BOTH ways.  If people are
> scared off by incivility, that's bad.  If people are driven away by incivility,
> that's bad.  But when you stop seeing rudeness as rudeness, which may be
> amended, and start seeing it as crimethink, you drive people away, and that
> is bad too.
>
> Let's consider a recent thread.  I took the position that << and putOn: were
> confusing, unreliable, and unnecessary.  The unreliability issue has been
> addressed in Pharo 8; had I not been able to speak I would never have learned
> that.  Some people apparently think that it improves readability, where I find
> that << impairs my ability to understand.  The fact that BOTH sides were able
> to speak freely means that we now know (a) that there is no consensus for
> removing them from the system and (b) if you want other people to read your
> code you might want to think twice before using them, and we are all better off.
> But if criticising someone's opinion were construed as harassment, the thread
> would have been shut down before I displayed my code with a generalisation
> that is worth having if << is worth having at all.
>
> I probably should have mentioned the Erlang code of conduct
> http://erlang.org/download/erlang_org_code_of_conduct.txt
> It is pretty a-political, has graduated response, and potential for forgiveness.
>
> A code of conduct for *events* is another matter, which is why I bring
> Erlang up.
> http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang-questions/2015-March/083849.html
> is eye-opening.  (It's mainly about Ruby community issues.)
>
> On Mon, 23 Sep 2019 at 11:51, Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas
> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> My point was that this community, as a the big majority of FLOSS ones, is not a democracy and *not* having a democracy has shown its benefits in human endeavors like science, technology, hackerspaces and so on.
>>
>> I'll keep the rest of the conversation with you on the source code repository and the PR. See you there.
>>
>>
>> On 22/09/19 6:40 p. m., Steve Quezadas wrote:
>>
>> This isn't science, this is a community. We don't need a CoC, there haven't been any problems on this list regarding nazis or whatever. This is just a group of people trying to enforce their political ideologies on everyone else. Let's just remove the CoC altogether and just replace it with one line: "this maillist is about Pharo, anything else is offtopic".
>>
>> If you want to debate on the merits of Islam vs Christianity/ right vs left / thugs vs racists , you are free to hold your opinion on some other sub, but it's offtopic here.
>>
>> On Sun, Sep 22, 2019 at 4:23 PM Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>> There is no data to support such supposed majority. But even so, free, libre, open source communities are not democracies. Imagine the quality of code or argumentation based on perceived majorities? If science would be a democracy, the earth would be "still" flat.
>>>
>>> On 22/09/19 6:04 p. m., Steve Quezadas wrote:
>>>
>>> I would say that the majority don't seem to be in favor of it. This should be a democracy.
>>>
>>> On Sun, Sep 22, 2019 at 1:53 PM Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 22/09/19 3:38 p. m., Steve Quezadas wrote:
>>>>>> The discussion so far shows that CoC is not a distraction to many
>>>>> Actually, the discussion shows that the CoC is "a distraction to many".
>>>> Actually it shows that some people consider it a distraction, others
>>>> don't. I think that every body here is able to form its own opinion on
>>>> that and invest time and effort accordingly.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>>
>>>> Offray
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>



--
Enviado desde mi dispositivo Android con K-9 Mail. Por favor, disculpa mi brevedad.
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Re: Code of Conduct

Stephan Eggermont-3
In reply to this post by Steve Quezadas
Steve Quezadas <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Your interpreting this information with a SJW lens.

SJW is a political construct from the extreme right. As a straight white
male from Western Europe I have seen enough discriminatory practices
applied to less privileged friends to know there is a problem. And as I can
afford to speak up, I do.

> Look at the low proportion of blacks and women who
> apply for CS majors in college. Are you going to say that colleges are
> using discriminatory practices to keep blacks and women from taking CS
> classes?

Yes, the colleges are set up to make it easier for white males to succeed.
There are enough models explaining why that happens

> Maybe the bulk of the low recruitment statistics is simply due to
> non-interest within that sub-culture.

Back to identity politics?

Stephan









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Re: Code of Conduct

Steve Quezadas
I am a dark-skinned hispanic male from the United States and have not experienced any discriminatary practices whatsoever. Nor have I witnessed anything that I find that "is a problem" in the tech world. As far as "colleges are set up to make it easier for white males to succeed" is patently false. Most colleges, at least in the united states, are very biased to left-wing political views.

So no.

On Mon, Sep 23, 2019 at 7:39 AM Stephan Eggermont <[hidden email]> wrote:
Steve Quezadas <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Your interpreting this information with a SJW lens.

SJW is a political construct from the extreme right. As a straight white
male from Western Europe I have seen enough discriminatory practices
applied to less privileged friends to know there is a problem. And as I can
afford to speak up, I do.

> Look at the low proportion of blacks and women who
> apply for CS majors in college. Are you going to say that colleges are
> using discriminatory practices to keep blacks and women from taking CS
> classes?

Yes, the colleges are set up to make it easier for white males to succeed.
There are enough models explaining why that happens

> Maybe the bulk of the low recruitment statistics is simply due to
> non-interest within that sub-culture.

Back to identity politics?

Stephan









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Re: Code of Conduct

Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas-2

But your reading of non-interest in CS within the sub-culture of blacks and women is a confirmation bias, reading from numbers in a circular fashion: low inscription numbers in sub-cultures show a non-interest, which is confirmed by those low numbers.

I can tell you first hand that my impossibility to assist yearly to ESUG is not because the non-interest in the "Colombian subculture", which I belong to, about live coding or Smalltalk. In fact I learned Pharo by making Grafoscopio[1], despite of poor OOP undergrad classes and thanks to a self/family funded PhD studies that were *not* on computer science. But I know people here that is willing to learn and they don't have proper time/resources to do it. Despite the Colombia visa issues (and stupid jokes about Escobar at immigration and else where, because a Hispanic with a different visa has different issues, or not) and despite of the funding issues or my self learn English, that make my participation difficult in international events, I have privileges that many around have not. Instead of making them invisible, thinking in technology/code as being build "ex nihilo", disregarding context and people involve in such endeavors, I try to deconstruct them and be inclusive. That's why I care about diversity and respect being explicit in the community (for example in the CoC)

[1] http://mutabit.com/grafoscopio/en.html

But as said, your contributions to the project and the soundness of your arguments on the source code repository via PR, will be the more heavy that the longest mail thread we can have here.

Cheers,

Offray

On 23/09/19 10:07 a. m., Steve Quezadas wrote:
I am a dark-skinned hispanic male from the United States and have not experienced any discriminatary practices whatsoever. Nor have I witnessed anything that I find that "is a problem" in the tech world. As far as "colleges are set up to make it easier for white males to succeed" is patently false. Most colleges, at least in the united states, are very biased to left-wing political views.

So no.

On Mon, Sep 23, 2019 at 7:39 AM Stephan Eggermont <[hidden email]> wrote:
Steve Quezadas <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Your interpreting this information with a SJW lens.

SJW is a political construct from the extreme right. As a straight white
male from Western Europe I have seen enough discriminatory practices
applied to less privileged friends to know there is a problem. And as I can
afford to speak up, I do.

> Look at the low proportion of blacks and women who
> apply for CS majors in college. Are you going to say that colleges are
> using discriminatory practices to keep blacks and women from taking CS
> classes?

Yes, the colleges are set up to make it easier for white males to succeed.
There are enough models explaining why that happens

> Maybe the bulk of the low recruitment statistics is simply due to
> non-interest within that sub-culture.

Back to identity politics?

Stephan









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Re: Code of Conduct

Richard O'Keefe
In reply to this post by Stephan Eggermont-3
Let's look at some official numbers.

Looking at https://www.hesa.ac.uk/news/11-01-2018/sfr247-higher-education-student-statistics/qualifications
we see that overall, female graduates outnumbered male graduates about
4 to 3 in each of the three years
recorded.  The imbalance in science graduates was less, but it was
still consistently women significantly
outnumbering men.  Computer science stood out as consistently about 4
men to 1 woman, and Computer
Science departments are tying themselves into knots trying to figure
out what to do about it.  Meanwhile,
nobody worries that "subjects allied to medicine" was about 4 women to 1 man.

If there are models explaining that "colleges" are set up to favour
white males, why are women succeeding
so much more than men?

In my own country, ten years ago the main newspaper ran an article
pointing out that "Two-thirds of bachelor
degrees last year went to women, the highest figure on record" and
that "Women have outnumbered men
in the tertiary sector for more than a decade", blaming "a secondary
school system which may discourage
or poorly prepare boys for further learning".

Look now at Canada.
https://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/Details/education/gender-gap-tertiary.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
tells us that "Canadian women aged 25 to 64 are 17 per cent more
likely than Canadian men to have a tertiary education.
The imbalance in educational attainment between Canadian men and women
has increased over the past decade,
raising questions about whether higher education in Canada is becoming
less hospitable to male learners."  This is not new.
"the overall gender imbalance tipped in women’s favour in Canada in
the early 1990s.  ...
Many are asking whether there is a 'boy crisis' in education and
wondering what can be done to address it. In fact, a
growing 'boy gap' in education can be seen across OECD countries, with
the problem beginning long before students
 reach post-secondary age. According to a recent report, 'boys, as a
group, rank behind girls by nearly every measure
of scholastic achievement'—including reading and writing scores—and
they are 'also more likely to be picked out for
behavioural problems, more likely to repeat a grade and to drop out of
school altogether.”  "when we examine th
more recent cohort of graduates—those aged 25 to 34—nearly every
country has a gender imbalance that favours
women. In most cases, moreover, women’s advantage has become much more
pronounced."

So models that explain why colleges favour white males are rather like
models that explain why the sun is dark.
If "colleges" are set up to favour white males, they are doing a
catastrophically bad job of it.  So much so that I
have been glad I have daughters, not sons.

If you want to say that Computer Science numbers are due to some sort
of discriminatory environment rather than
preference, then you have to explain the equally large imbalance the
other way in "medicine-related subjects" as
discrimination rather than preference.


On Tue, 24 Sep 2019 at 02:39, Stephan Eggermont <[hidden email]> wrote:

>
> Steve Quezadas <[hidden email]> wrote:
> > Your interpreting this information with a SJW lens.
>
> SJW is a political construct from the extreme right. As a straight white
> male from Western Europe I have seen enough discriminatory practices
> applied to less privileged friends to know there is a problem. And as I can
> afford to speak up, I do.
>
> > Look at the low proportion of blacks and women who
> > apply for CS majors in college. Are you going to say that colleges are
> > using discriminatory practices to keep blacks and women from taking CS
> > classes?
>
> Yes, the colleges are set up to make it easier for white males to succeed.
> There are enough models explaining why that happens
>
> > Maybe the bulk of the low recruitment statistics is simply due to
> > non-interest within that sub-culture.
>
> Back to identity politics?
>
> Stephan
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

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Re: Code of Conduct

Steve Quezadas
Thank you for that well-stated argument. I agree, offray's argument is silly. It's like saying that there aren't many male kindergarten teachers and that this is evidence that the school system is "sexist".

- Steve

PS Can we please just kill the CoC  it's making this maillist political.

On Mon, Sep 23, 2019 at 8:25 PM Richard O'Keefe <[hidden email]> wrote:
Let's look at some official numbers.

Looking at https://www.hesa.ac.uk/news/11-01-2018/sfr247-higher-education-student-statistics/qualifications
we see that overall, female graduates outnumbered male graduates about
4 to 3 in each of the three years
recorded.  The imbalance in science graduates was less, but it was
still consistently women significantly
outnumbering men.  Computer science stood out as consistently about 4
men to 1 woman, and Computer
Science departments are tying themselves into knots trying to figure
out what to do about it.  Meanwhile,
nobody worries that "subjects allied to medicine" was about 4 women to 1 man.

If there are models explaining that "colleges" are set up to favour
white males, why are women succeeding
so much more than men?

In my own country, ten years ago the main newspaper ran an article
pointing out that "Two-thirds of bachelor
degrees last year went to women, the highest figure on record" and
that "Women have outnumbered men
in the tertiary sector for more than a decade", blaming "a secondary
school system which may discourage
or poorly prepare boys for further learning".

Look now at Canada.
https://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/Details/education/gender-gap-tertiary.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
tells us that "Canadian women aged 25 to 64 are 17 per cent more
likely than Canadian men to have a tertiary education.
The imbalance in educational attainment between Canadian men and women
has increased over the past decade,
raising questions about whether higher education in Canada is becoming
less hospitable to male learners."  This is not new.
"the overall gender imbalance tipped in women’s favour in Canada in
the early 1990s.  ...
Many are asking whether there is a 'boy crisis' in education and
wondering what can be done to address it. In fact, a
growing 'boy gap' in education can be seen across OECD countries, with
the problem beginning long before students
 reach post-secondary age. According to a recent report, 'boys, as a
group, rank behind girls by nearly every measure
of scholastic achievement'—including reading and writing scores—and
they are 'also more likely to be picked out for
behavioural problems, more likely to repeat a grade and to drop out of
school altogether.”  "when we examine th
more recent cohort of graduates—those aged 25 to 34—nearly every
country has a gender imbalance that favours
women. In most cases, moreover, women’s advantage has become much more
pronounced."

So models that explain why colleges favour white males are rather like
models that explain why the sun is dark.
If "colleges" are set up to favour white males, they are doing a
catastrophically bad job of it.  So much so that I
have been glad I have daughters, not sons.

If you want to say that Computer Science numbers are due to some sort
of discriminatory environment rather than
preference, then you have to explain the equally large imbalance the
other way in "medicine-related subjects" as
discrimination rather than preference.


On Tue, 24 Sep 2019 at 02:39, Stephan Eggermont <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Steve Quezadas <[hidden email]> wrote:
> > Your interpreting this information with a SJW lens.
>
> SJW is a political construct from the extreme right. As a straight white
> male from Western Europe I have seen enough discriminatory practices
> applied to less privileged friends to know there is a problem. And as I can
> afford to speak up, I do.
>
> > Look at the low proportion of blacks and women who
> > apply for CS majors in college. Are you going to say that colleges are
> > using discriminatory practices to keep blacks and women from taking CS
> > classes?
>
> Yes, the colleges are set up to make it easier for white males to succeed.
> There are enough models explaining why that happens
>
> > Maybe the bulk of the low recruitment statistics is simply due to
> > non-interest within that sub-culture.
>
> Back to identity politics?
>
> Stephan
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

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Re: Code of Conduct

Peter Kenny

These discussions are interesting, but they have nothing to do with Pharo – I’m surprised we have not had a moderator intervening to say they are off-topic and political. The subject line says ‘Code of Conduct’, meaning the proposed Pharo Code of Conduct, so please can we keep the discussion about conduct in the Pharo community.

 

Offray complains that he has encountered discriminatory behaviour on account of his identity, specifically in immigration contexts. I can assure him he is not the only one. I have gone through US immigration with a British passport; I have met long waiting times and obvious suspicion from the officers – and US and UK are supposed to be close allies. But I accept that there is discrimination in the world; my question to Offray is: have you encountered discrimination, harassment or any other unpleasant behaviour on account of your identity in the Pharo community? My impression is that you had helpful answers to all your questions as you learned Pharo and developed Grafoscopio; the only way your identity came into the matter was when people thought: ‘Oh, so Pharo is being used in Colombia – that’s interesting.’

 

My observation suggests that is typical of the community. We are all human, so we are all sinners (that’s what a Catholic education does for you), but I think the community is as inclusive, diverse and respectful as you can expect any human organisation to be. This is one of my objections to having a code at all – the implication that we need an explicit code to continue to behave decently.

 

In his post announcing the new code of conduct, Esteban Lorenzano said: “…we have decided to retract the code. But sadly, we cannot just remove it and let things continue as before…”. Well, I too think it’s sad, but I don’t see why we cannot continue as before. What specifically would go wrong if we just canned it? In the past we had what Sven called ‘implicit rules of engagement’, and if problems arose – about once every five years – the board worked it out ad hoc. This left the board as ‘benevolent dictators’, but we trusted them.

 

Please could someone explain why the board chose to do this. I simply do not understand Esteban’s ‘bigger can of worms’ metaphor. Is there some external pressure which is compelling the board to have a code?

 

Peter Kenny

 

From: Pharo-users <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Steve Quezadas
Sent: 24 September 2019 04:32
To: Any question about pharo is welcome <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [Pharo-users] Code of Conduct

 

Thank you for that well-stated argument. I agree, offray's argument is silly. It's like saying that there aren't many male kindergarten teachers and that this is evidence that the school system is "sexist".

 

- Steve

 

PS Can we please just kill the CoC  it's making this maillist political.

 

On Mon, Sep 23, 2019 at 8:25 PM Richard O'Keefe <[hidden email]> wrote:

Let's look at some official numbers.

Looking at https://www.hesa.ac.uk/news/11-01-2018/sfr247-higher-education-student-statistics/qualifications
we see that overall, female graduates outnumbered male graduates about
4 to 3 in each of the three years
recorded.  The imbalance in science graduates was less, but it was
still consistently women significantly
outnumbering men.  Computer science stood out as consistently about 4
men to 1 woman, and Computer
Science departments are tying themselves into knots trying to figure
out what to do about it.  Meanwhile,
nobody worries that "subjects allied to medicine" was about 4 women to 1 man.

If there are models explaining that "colleges" are set up to favour
white males, why are women succeeding
so much more than men?

In my own country, ten years ago the main newspaper ran an article
pointing out that "Two-thirds of bachelor
degrees last year went to women, the highest figure on record" and
that "Women have outnumbered men
in the tertiary sector for more than a decade", blaming "a secondary
school system which may discourage
or poorly prepare boys for further learning".

Look now at Canada.
https://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/Details/education/gender-gap-tertiary.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
tells us that "Canadian women aged 25 to 64 are 17 per cent more
likely than Canadian men to have a tertiary education.
The imbalance in educational attainment between Canadian men and women
has increased over the past decade,
raising questions about whether higher education in Canada is becoming
less hospitable to male learners."  This is not new.
"the overall gender imbalance tipped in women’s favour in Canada in
the early 1990s.  ...
Many are asking whether there is a 'boy crisis' in education and
wondering what can be done to address it. In fact, a
growing 'boy gap' in education can be seen across OECD countries, with
the problem beginning long before students
 reach post-secondary age. According to a recent report, 'boys, as a
group, rank behind girls by nearly every measure
of scholastic achievement'—including reading and writing scores—and
they are 'also more likely to be picked out for
behavioural problems, more likely to repeat a grade and to drop out of
school altogether.”  "when we examine th
more recent cohort of graduates—those aged 25 to 34—nearly every
country has a gender imbalance that favours
women. In most cases, moreover, women’s advantage has become much more
pronounced."

So models that explain why colleges favour white males are rather like
models that explain why the sun is dark.
If "colleges" are set up to favour white males, they are doing a
catastrophically bad job of it.  So much so that I
have been glad I have daughters, not sons.

If you want to say that Computer Science numbers are due to some sort
of discriminatory environment rather than
preference, then you have to explain the equally large imbalance the
other way in "medicine-related subjects" as
discrimination rather than preference.


On Tue, 24 Sep 2019 at 02:39, Stephan Eggermont <[hidden email]> wrote:


>
> Steve Quezadas <[hidden email]> wrote:
> > Your interpreting this information with a SJW lens.
>
> SJW is a political construct from the extreme right. As a straight white
> male from Western Europe I have seen enough discriminatory practices
> applied to less privileged friends to know there is a problem. And as I can
> afford to speak up, I do.
>
> > Look at the low proportion of blacks and women who
> > apply for CS majors in college. Are you going to say that colleges are
> > using discriminatory practices to keep blacks and women from taking CS
> > classes?
>
> Yes, the colleges are set up to make it easier for white males to succeed.
> There are enough models explaining why that happens
>
> > Maybe the bulk of the low recruitment statistics is simply due to
> > non-interest within that sub-culture.
>
> Back to identity politics?
>
> Stephan
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

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Re: Code of Conduct

Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas-2
In reply to this post by Richard O'Keefe
I'll leave some research links that show a critical approach on how technology can be used for discrimination and to create discriminatory environments, even in places where technology is created:

But of course a proper discussion goes beyond links, providing numbers or short answers. Showing discrimination at airports is not a casual link to show discrimination on this community, but the fact that code is not created "ex nihilo" as the previous links show and recognizing that is important. A CoC accounts for that.

But I think that the thread is becoming to long and noisy.

So Peter, Richard and Steve and anyone else intereste, let's discuss this elsewhere. I will not answer more on this list, except to provide a place where discussion can happen in a deeper context without polluting the main mailing list.

Cheers,

Offray

On 23/09/19 10:24 p. m., Richard O'Keefe wrote:
Let's look at some official numbers.

Looking at https://www.hesa.ac.uk/news/11-01-2018/sfr247-higher-education-student-statistics/qualifications
we see that overall, female graduates outnumbered male graduates about
4 to 3 in each of the three years
recorded.  The imbalance in science graduates was less, but it was
still consistently women significantly
outnumbering men.  Computer science stood out as consistently about 4
men to 1 woman, and Computer
Science departments are tying themselves into knots trying to figure
out what to do about it.  Meanwhile,
nobody worries that "subjects allied to medicine" was about 4 women to 1 man.

If there are models explaining that "colleges" are set up to favour
white males, why are women succeeding
so much more than men?

In my own country, ten years ago the main newspaper ran an article
pointing out that "Two-thirds of bachelor
degrees last year went to women, the highest figure on record" and
that "Women have outnumbered men
in the tertiary sector for more than a decade", blaming "a secondary
school system which may discourage
or poorly prepare boys for further learning".

Look now at Canada.
https://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/Details/education/gender-gap-tertiary.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
tells us that "Canadian women aged 25 to 64 are 17 per cent more
likely than Canadian men to have a tertiary education.
The imbalance in educational attainment between Canadian men and women
has increased over the past decade,
raising questions about whether higher education in Canada is becoming
less hospitable to male learners."  This is not new.
"the overall gender imbalance tipped in women’s favour in Canada in
the early 1990s.  ...
Many are asking whether there is a 'boy crisis' in education and
wondering what can be done to address it. In fact, a
growing 'boy gap' in education can be seen across OECD countries, with
the problem beginning long before students
 reach post-secondary age. According to a recent report, 'boys, as a
group, rank behind girls by nearly every measure
of scholastic achievement'—including reading and writing scores—and
they are 'also more likely to be picked out for
behavioural problems, more likely to repeat a grade and to drop out of
school altogether.”  "when we examine th
more recent cohort of graduates—those aged 25 to 34—nearly every
country has a gender imbalance that favours
women. In most cases, moreover, women’s advantage has become much more
pronounced."

So models that explain why colleges favour white males are rather like
models that explain why the sun is dark.
If "colleges" are set up to favour white males, they are doing a
catastrophically bad job of it.  So much so that I
have been glad I have daughters, not sons.

If you want to say that Computer Science numbers are due to some sort
of discriminatory environment rather than
preference, then you have to explain the equally large imbalance the
other way in "medicine-related subjects" as
discrimination rather than preference.


On Tue, 24 Sep 2019 at 02:39, Stephan Eggermont [hidden email] wrote:
Steve Quezadas [hidden email] wrote:
Your interpreting this information with a SJW lens.
SJW is a political construct from the extreme right. As a straight white
male from Western Europe I have seen enough discriminatory practices
applied to less privileged friends to know there is a problem. And as I can
afford to speak up, I do.

Look at the low proportion of blacks and women who
apply for CS majors in college. Are you going to say that colleges are
using discriminatory practices to keep blacks and women from taking CS
classes?
Yes, the colleges are set up to make it easier for white males to succeed.
There are enough models explaining why that happens

Maybe the bulk of the low recruitment statistics is simply due to
non-interest within that sub-culture.
Back to identity politics?

Stephan










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