At 15:48 on Jul 9, Nori Heikkinen shook the earth with: > okay, this is great. but, what kind of stuff? debian-specific stuff? > linux stuff? one of the issues i always have with groups like this > (as MUCH as i love them, as MUCH as they're desperately needed!) is > that they can easily turn into little girls-only LUGs with lots of > emoticons and equivocating -- and i don't feel, from reading the > archives of this list, that that was the purpose of founding > debian-women. (please correct me if i'm wrong.)
I think you are exactly correct. My understanding is that we want to get women involved in every aspect of what debian is and does, not reinvent them in a women-only space. Erinn, in her infinite spare time, is working up a d-w mission statement that should help us in defining to people who we really are and what our intent really is. At this point we're really just barely at the beginning of a good thing :o) > maybe i'm missing your objective here, carla -- did you mean stuff > that we've written, or that is somehow woman-specific? As I understand it, the website is supposed to be a one stop shopping launch point for women who want to get involved. Not only will it serve the purpose of saying "you're not the only one!", but also the purpose of "now what?". Some of the things we talked about on IRC include how hard it is to even know how to get involved without being intimidated in the process, which is something I'd like to see addressed. One of the concerns in shaping the website is that we aren't quite exactly sure of our audience or our membership yet -- are most of the people here developers, aspiring developers but not yet "official", highly involved users, users who would like to get involved in the debian lifecycle, or just users who want to do all they can to make the debian community great. > i hope this message conveys the tone i want it to -- not antagonistic, > just trying to keep us on-message. i'm not criticizing, just pointing > out directions that i've seen women's users' groups go in that i > personally feel are unproductive. i'd love for someone who's been > around the women's lug community for longer than i have to correct me, > or provide a more nuanced point of view ... Well, one example that has seemed to work out quite well is Linuxchix. There are women-only places on linuxchix, places on linuxchix that are more free-form and non-technical, and there are places that are targeted at different parts of the community. LC, like d-w, is welcoming of men (except in one case, a women-only mailing list/IRC channel), and has ended up to be an all-around positive community. There have been people turned off of Linuxchix for one reason or another, however, and I have not attempted to address their concerns. Usually when people leave they don't really tell you why until you ask them, and I can't say I've asked ;o) My two cents, -nicole
