On Sun, Dec 19, 1999 at 10:47:18PM +1100 or thereabouts, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> In netizen.lists.linuxchix.issues, you wrote:
> >
> >> Basically, the idea is to set up a web page which lists women who work
> >> in Open Source in various capacities, such as:
> >
> >I think it would be a mistake to simply try to publicize women,
> >because many of them would have personal or professional reasons
> >not to have their names and credentials listed publicly.
>
> My thoughts were either that women should list themselves voluntarily,
> or should be sufficiently well known that having their name one more
> place on the web would be no big deal. Not to take our glorious
> leader's name in vain, but I think Deb falls clearly into the latter
> category, for instance. Two other examples I can think of are Elizabeth
> wossname who is an editor of LWN, and Telsa Gwynne, whose diary is
> extremely popular reading.
My ears are burning :)
I didn't think that you had originally meant, "trawl newsgroups and
credits lists for female names and just stick them up regardless", no :)
I wasn't sure about the idea at first, but then I thought of the pages
like the one where I found a list of satisfied Lynx-users and their
comments, and how encouraging I'd found it to see that I might be in
a minority, but it was not that small a minority. (I have had some
very cheeky comments about my preference for Lynx: people seem to
assume that I must be a Luddite whereas it's not that: I prefer text,
but also I have a very slow link and thus need to lose most pictures.
After too many of those comments, you begin to think you're some kind of
weirdo. Seeing how many others had the same thoughts as me was just
wonderful.)
I am thinking that something along the same lines for women who
work with open source might be similarly encouraging, especially
if people who come across it can submit their names, too. In fact,
you might extend it (or add a different one) for women who don't
work with it, but who just use it. I am becoming more and more
convinced that there's a lot out there, but they don't advertise
their existence.
> Perhaps Telsa and Deb could give some thoughts on whether they'd mind
> being listed "Linuxchix and OSWG leader" and "famed diarist"
> respectively :)
Laugh. I was going to protest "I'm not that famous" but I re-ran
Analog the other day, and for the first time that I know about, I
had been getting over a thousand hits a day. I suspect that's
because most people find it through Alan's diary and Alan's diary
was mentioned on Slashdot at one stage that week.
Thoughts. Hmm.
I have no problems with the idea, although I think writing a diary
is a little frivolous compared with what other people do. I try to
contribute back in other ways: I attempt to provide answers on
mailing lists, I report dozens (literally :)) of bugs, I'm walking
a friend through his first Linux steps, and after several successful
additions or corrections to other people's documentation, my current
project is to document a Gnome program that lacks any documentation.
(The things you learn whilst trying to document something you -thought-
you knew how to use are incredible, btw.) But it's definitely the
diary that people notice. And it's a very silly diary :)
> [Note that I personally dislike the idea of mentioning Telsa as "Alan
> Cox's missus" or similar... her diary is a resource in its own right,
> especially for those who want to hear what it's like for a non-hacker to
> try to come to grips with Linux, and I personally loathe the practise of
Aww, thanks :)
> defining women by their relationships with men, *especially* when there
> are plenty of other worthwhile attributes to define them by. But that's
> just my not-very-humble opinion :)]
I agree about not liking this practice myself, particularly when it
extends to calling me by Alan's surname when mine is on my email and
my home page. Even worse, I have recently discovered, is being mistaken
for the other person :) I've recently been getting a lot of email that
was probably aimed at Alan. I have no clue what some of it is even
asking.
Have I posted my rambles about the diary to the list before? I
periodically think of doing so, but then hit 'postpone' or 'delete'.
So I can't remember whether any of them made it past my censorship
reaction.
If I have, sorry. If not, now is a good time to say this: when I
put the mailto link in, I expected (and got) a lot of feedback from
non-hackers with hacker partners along the lines of "You too, huh?"
There was also a bunch from the hackers saying "Eeek, just realised
how my partner feels". And a noticeable amount of people who said
that reading my diary and my attempts to get things to work had got
them interested. My favourite was the one who was using it as ammo:
"Look! _She_ has the root password on his machines! I want it too!" :)
I hope she got it :)
Telsa
************
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
