Greetings candidates, QUESTION TO THE CANDIDATES: what are your quantitative diversity goals and metrics, and what are the rationales behind those goals and metrics?
Some context: Both platforms cite imbalances in the areas of gender and geography as concerns contributing to each candidate's desire to serve as DPL. Andreas: "Currently, there is a notable over representation of male contributors originating from countries typically considered industrialized." Sruthi: "... more gender diverse people will feel comfortable joining our community. Geographic/ethnic diversity are also important areas which need attention." (I should note that Sruthi's platform dedicated considerably more space to the issue of diversity, but the particular statement I chose to quote seemed representative.) Some examples of the sort of thing I have in mind: - Debian should represent the geographic diversity of the whole world. The populations of China and India each represent approximately 17.5% of the world population, while the population of the next most populous nation, the United States, represents 4.2% of the world population [0]. In the last GR there were 1004 voting DDs. Based on those figures, a geographically representative population of DDs would include 175 DDs from China, 175 DDs from India, and 42 DDs from the United States (and so on down the line). Based on this composition, it seems likely that the Debian project has adequate representation of United States DDs, so the project should hold more events in and around India and China and focus outreach efforts in those particular geographic areas with a goal of gaining 5 new Indian and 5 new Chinese DDs each year. - Debian should represent the gender diversity of the whole world. The world population is split approximately 50/50 male and female (with a very slight bias towards more males) [1], with "transgender people and other gender minorities, who comprise an estimated 0.3–0.5% (25 million) of the global population" [2]. Using the above figure of 1004 DDs, a balanced Debian population could be 500 male DDs, 499 female DDs, and 5 DDs who identify as transgender or another gender minority. Based on this composition, it seems likely that Debian has adequate representation of transgender and gender minority DDs, so focusing efforts specifically on outreach to women would provide the greatest benefit towards achieving a balanced representation. Again, these are merely examples. I am interested in how you define diversity and what metrics and goals you derive from that definition. Regards, -Roberto [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_(United_Nations) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sex_ratio [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20220131080803/https://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/health-determinants/gender/gender-definitions/whoeurope-brief-transgender-health-in-the-context-of-icd-11 -- Roberto C. Sánchez
