5 ms·

In case anyone was wondering as to the point of the parody: > If you are looking for speakers for your conference, why not ask one of the wonderful people feat

by untog 10y ago

In case anyone was wondering as to the point of the parody: > If you are looking for speakers for your conference, why not ask one of the wonderful people featured here? They are all listed with their Twitter accounts, and a link to some of their prior talks. > Do you really need another conference lineup of all men? Or as many female speakers as speakers called Steve? I suspect it is a direct rebuttal to the argument that it's difficult to find female speakers for conferences, which is one I've heard a few times before.

kozhevnikov 10y ago
http://lanyrd.com/2012/benconf/ http://lanyrd.com/2012/benconf/
- iamben 10y ago
  Having attended Benconf (which was really, really great), and only having skim read this page (I'm not called Katie, it's not in the UK), I didn't realise this was a parody...
  - spacecop 10y ago
    How absolutely British of you to do that for the sheer eccentricity of it.
- mikeash 10y ago
  Wow, that really says it all, doesn't it? Set up "BenConf" with an all-male lineup clearly not chosen purely based on their qualifications, and dozens of people will pay money to attend. Set up "KatieConf" and you get people coming out of the woodwork complaining about faux diversity, saying that gender doesn't matter and you should only choose speakers based on qualifications, saying that conferences shouldn't have to care about combating sexism, complaining that it's patronizing, etc.
rwmj 10y ago
It's incredibly patronising. Edit: Controversial comment, so let's say something positive here. I found this site to be unfunny and unclear about its message. However it's easy to improve it. The first thing I would add to the site at the bottom would be a list of recommendations for avoiding bias in selection of candidates. These would include things like always doing blind evaluation of speaker candidates. Secondly it would be good to talk about how to get more people involved in projects, so that in future you have a more diverse range of speakers. How to broaden access, easier onboarding, removing toxic people. Thirdly, talk about why it's good to have more diverse opinions. Give some motivation for doing this apart from some hazy feelgood factor. (See references here: http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2014/10/diversity-trumps-ability.html http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbli...) Number four, the site could link to projects like Outreachy which are already doing the above.
- untog 10y ago
  Not for nothing, but "being patronised" is usually right up there on the list of common female developer complaints.
- lsiebert 10y ago
  I'd just note that blind evaluation could be hard because of systematic discrimination biasing how you evaluate a candidate. For example, if you look at who has spoken at conferences before in your blind evaluation, it's blind, but biased by previous discrimination. it's the same sort of issue that crops up regularly in machine learning, where people assume that the data isn't the result of bias. I'd say the correct way to avoid bias is to set a blind baseline of expectations (Like 3+ years in industry working with the topic) and then reach out to minorities. That said, even someone who doesn't have experience can be a good presenter if given the right support, I've seen great conference talk made by total newbies to a technology who were encouraged to write code making use of a new feature. They presented what they learned, problem spots that they found that might trip up someone new to the technology, and open sourced their app as a learning tool.
- floodyberry- 10y ago
  5th, the slaves could've tried maybe, freeing themselves? Weird that it took a white man to come along and do it for them..
strictnein 10y ago
> "Do you really need another conference lineup of all men?" If they are the subject matter experts, then yes, I would prefer they are all present, and none of them be excluded because we are searching for faux diversity. When the subject is one's technical knowledge, the actual genetic makeup of the person making the presentation doesn't matter. It's strange that, to some, this is somehow a controversial statement.
- untog 10y ago
  > It's strange that, to some, this is somehow a controversial statement. What you are saying is not controversial, but nor does it reflect reality. Conference speakers are not solely selected on the basis of being the best at what they talk on. This is not a call to add people who are inexpert, it is a call to find experts where you don't usually look.
- zck 10y ago
  > If they are the subject matter experts, then yes, I would prefer they are all present, and none of them be excluded because we are searching for faux diversity. My understanding is that the complaint is not "these men are not qualified", but "there are women who are qualified who are systematically being ignored". There isn't an objective ranking of subject matter experts, from which conferences simply invite the top N people. Nor, as far as I know, is anyone in favor of inviting non-qualified minorities to speak. The question is "why are qualified [women, people of color, trans people, etc.] not being invited?".
- mikeash 10y ago
  Implying there are no female subject matter experts. The problem isn't that people choose expertise and skill over gender. The problem is that men greatly outnumber women for no discernible good reason, despite the availability of qualified women speakers. It's not faux diversity. The fact that you just assume any change from the all-male status quo must be a step down is amazingly sexist and insulting.
  - strictnein 10y ago
    > "The fact that you just assume any change from the all-male status quo must be a step down is amazingly sexist and insulting." I never said anything of the sort and it's quite interesting that you read that into what I wrote. It's very clear what I meant: I don't consider the gender makeup of the people presenting to have any value, as long as the people presenting are the best people available. > "The problem is that men greatly outnumber women for no discernible good reason" The reason is simple: there's a lot more men in tech. For instance, StackOverflow found that 92% of devs are male. So one would expect that ~90% of presenters on software dev topics would be male. http://fusion.net/story/115998/survey-says-92-percent-of-software-developers-are-men/ http://fusion.net/story/115998/survey-says-92-percent-of-sof... Even today, women only receive ~20% of engineering and CompSci degrees. So, unless things change dramatically, you're still going to be looking at a pool of candidates that's significantly more male than female.

by untog 10y ago

kozhevnikov 10y ago

http://lanyrd.com/2012/benconf/ http://lanyrd.com/2012/benconf/

iamben 10y ago
Having attended Benconf (which was really, really great), and only having skim read this page (I'm not called Katie, it's not in the UK), I didn't realise this was a parody...
- spacecop 10y ago
  How absolutely British of you to do that for the sheer eccentricity of it.
mikeash 10y ago
Wow, that really says it all, doesn't it? Set up "BenConf" with an all-male lineup clearly not chosen purely based on their qualifications, and dozens of people will pay money to attend. Set up "KatieConf" and you get people coming out of the woodwork complaining about faux diversity, saying that gender doesn't matter and you should only choose speakers based on qualifications, saying that conferences shouldn't have to care about combating sexism, complaining that it's patronizing, etc.

rwmj 10y ago

It's incredibly patronising. Edit: Controversial comment, so let's say something positive here. I found this site to be unfunny and unclear about its message. However it's easy to improve it. The first thing I would add to the site at the bottom would be a list of recommendations for avoiding bias in selection of candidates. These would include things like always doing blind evaluation of speaker candidates. Secondly it would be good to talk about how to get more people involved in projects, so that in future you have a more diverse range of speakers. How to broaden access, easier onboarding, removing toxic people. Thirdly, talk about why it's good to have more diverse opinions. Give some motivation for doing this apart from some hazy feelgood factor. (See references here: http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2014/10/diversity-trumps-ability.html http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbli...) Number four, the site could link to projects like Outreachy which are already doing the above.

untog 10y ago
Not for nothing, but "being patronised" is usually right up there on the list of common female developer complaints.
lsiebert 10y ago
I'd just note that blind evaluation could be hard because of systematic discrimination biasing how you evaluate a candidate. For example, if you look at who has spoken at conferences before in your blind evaluation, it's blind, but biased by previous discrimination. it's the same sort of issue that crops up regularly in machine learning, where people assume that the data isn't the result of bias. I'd say the correct way to avoid bias is to set a blind baseline of expectations (Like 3+ years in industry working with the topic) and then reach out to minorities. That said, even someone who doesn't have experience can be a good presenter if given the right support, I've seen great conference talk made by total newbies to a technology who were encouraged to write code making use of a new feature. They presented what they learned, problem spots that they found that might trip up someone new to the technology, and open sourced their app as a learning tool.
floodyberry- 10y ago
5th, the slaves could've tried maybe, freeing themselves? Weird that it took a white man to come along and do it for them..

strictnein 10y ago

> "Do you really need another conference lineup of all men?" If they are the subject matter experts, then yes, I would prefer they are all present, and none of them be excluded because we are searching for faux diversity. When the subject is one's technical knowledge, the actual genetic makeup of the person making the presentation doesn't matter. It's strange that, to some, this is somehow a controversial statement.

untog 10y ago
> It's strange that, to some, this is somehow a controversial statement. What you are saying is not controversial, but nor does it reflect reality. Conference speakers are not solely selected on the basis of being the best at what they talk on. This is not a call to add people who are inexpert, it is a call to find experts where you don't usually look.
zck 10y ago
> If they are the subject matter experts, then yes, I would prefer they are all present, and none of them be excluded because we are searching for faux diversity. My understanding is that the complaint is not "these men are not qualified", but "there are women who are qualified who are systematically being ignored". There isn't an objective ranking of subject matter experts, from which conferences simply invite the top N people. Nor, as far as I know, is anyone in favor of inviting non-qualified minorities to speak. The question is "why are qualified [women, people of color, trans people, etc.] not being invited?".
mikeash 10y ago
Implying there are no female subject matter experts. The problem isn't that people choose expertise and skill over gender. The problem is that men greatly outnumber women for no discernible good reason, despite the availability of qualified women speakers. It's not faux diversity. The fact that you just assume any change from the all-male status quo must be a step down is amazingly sexist and insulting.
- strictnein 10y ago
  > "The fact that you just assume any change from the all-male status quo must be a step down is amazingly sexist and insulting." I never said anything of the sort and it's quite interesting that you read that into what I wrote. It's very clear what I meant: I don't consider the gender makeup of the people presenting to have any value, as long as the people presenting are the best people available. > "The problem is that men greatly outnumber women for no discernible good reason" The reason is simple: there's a lot more men in tech. For instance, StackOverflow found that 92% of devs are male. So one would expect that ~90% of presenters on software dev topics would be male. http://fusion.net/story/115998/survey-says-92-percent-of-software-developers-are-men/ http://fusion.net/story/115998/survey-says-92-percent-of-sof... Even today, women only receive ~20% of engineering and CompSci degrees. So, unless things change dramatically, you're still going to be looking at a pool of candidates that's significantly more male than female.