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>It's rather clear through their actions and words that the organizers didn't have the goal of diversity when choosing the speakers. That was their mistake. Wh

by Permit 14y ago

>It's rather clear through their actions and words that the organizers didn't have the goal of diversity when choosing the speakers. That was their mistake. Why is diversity a noble goal in choosing speakers? Like he said, would it have been better to choose 90% of their desired lineup and then seek to fill the remaining 10% with minority speakers just for the sake of diversity?

kmfrk 14y ago
luigi is not talking about filling some gender/race quota, but infers from the tone of the OP that representation of race and gender wasn't something remotely important to the organizers. It makes them indifferent to the question, not hostile. I think languages like Ruby and Python have reached a point where they are so popular and accessible that it's time to get as many people engaged in using them as possible.
- e12e 14y ago
  > It makes them indifferent to the question, not hostile. Or ignorant of the issue. Which isn't necessarily the same as indifferent.
nollidge 14y ago
You may want to consider how your second sentence reads. It seems to imply that minority speakers would not be part of the desired lineup to begin with, and that they could only possibly be included "just for the sake of diversity". Anyway, it's not about saying "gee, we better pick an Indian or two to meet our quota." It's about including minorities in the pool to be considered in the first place. That few or none were chosen indicates that that probably wasn't the case. And this isn't about calling people out as big fat racists. Hardly anyone believes, in their heart of hearts, that people unlike them are inferior. But we all have unconscious biases like that[0], and many folks are starting to demand that people account for that in their decisions. [0] Plenty of people are great at lying to themselves about it, too. Search for the phrase "I'm not racist, but" on Twitter sometime.
- redthrowaway 14y ago
  That still doesn't answer the question. Your response seems to suggest, as did Luigi's, that the organizers should have made a conscious effort to include women and minorities on the panel. The question is, why?
  - e12e 14y ago
    Because they evidently were unable to make an unconscious effort? This is why I (sadly) consider myself a feminist -- we're still far away from equal opportunity -- where making an effort to overcome cultural bias in the form of sexism isn't needed. The number of commenters here and on the linked article that assume that a selection that includes only white males, clearly must be the correct one filled with all the most qualified speakers from England illustrates this point. I'm not really supporting the idea of shutting down the conference over this -- I do see why someone might have raised the issue on Twitter. I don't quite see how it could (reasonably) go from there to cancellation of the event. This sounds a lot like a tempest in a teapot to me -- the real issue seems to be that their sponsors were spineless twats. But then again, that seems to be what you get for trusting the invisible hand to help you get things done.
    - bromang 14y ago
      You didn't answer the question.
    - joesb 14y ago
      > Because they evidently were unable to make an unconscious effort? What evidence? If they choose speaker based on purely technical factor and ended up with all white-male, why must they change the result?
      - ciniglio 14y ago
        I think the assumption is that given that other successful conferences have had speakers that were good (technically), that were non white/male, that if such speakers had been considered for this conference, the organisers wouldn't have ended up with a lineup of 100% white & male speakers. You're right though that we have no real evidence for this, this is just a natural assumption to make given the evidence we do have (the lineup). As a poster said above me, this could have possibly been mitigated by publishing who they considered and possibly even selected that were non-white/male and couldn't make it. (this would give us some of the evidence you mention).

by Permit 14y ago

kmfrk 14y ago

luigi is not talking about filling some gender/race quota, but infers from the tone of the OP that representation of race and gender wasn't something remotely important to the organizers. It makes them indifferent to the question, not hostile. I think languages like Ruby and Python have reached a point where they are so popular and accessible that it's time to get as many people engaged in using them as possible.

e12e 14y ago
> It makes them indifferent to the question, not hostile. Or ignorant of the issue. Which isn't necessarily the same as indifferent.

nollidge 14y ago

You may want to consider how your second sentence reads. It seems to imply that minority speakers would not be part of the desired lineup to begin with, and that they could only possibly be included "just for the sake of diversity". Anyway, it's not about saying "gee, we better pick an Indian or two to meet our quota." It's about including minorities in the pool to be considered in the first place. That few or none were chosen indicates that that probably wasn't the case. And this isn't about calling people out as big fat racists. Hardly anyone believes, in their heart of hearts, that people unlike them are inferior. But we all have unconscious biases like that[0], and many folks are starting to demand that people account for that in their decisions. [0] Plenty of people are great at lying to themselves about it, too. Search for the phrase "I'm not racist, but" on Twitter sometime.

redthrowaway 14y ago
That still doesn't answer the question. Your response seems to suggest, as did Luigi's, that the organizers should have made a conscious effort to include women and minorities on the panel. The question is, why?
- e12e 14y ago
  Because they evidently were unable to make an unconscious effort? This is why I (sadly) consider myself a feminist -- we're still far away from equal opportunity -- where making an effort to overcome cultural bias in the form of sexism isn't needed. The number of commenters here and on the linked article that assume that a selection that includes only white males, clearly must be the correct one filled with all the most qualified speakers from England illustrates this point. I'm not really supporting the idea of shutting down the conference over this -- I do see why someone might have raised the issue on Twitter. I don't quite see how it could (reasonably) go from there to cancellation of the event. This sounds a lot like a tempest in a teapot to me -- the real issue seems to be that their sponsors were spineless twats. But then again, that seems to be what you get for trusting the invisible hand to help you get things done.
  - bromang 14y ago
    You didn't answer the question.
  - joesb 14y ago
    > Because they evidently were unable to make an unconscious effort? What evidence? If they choose speaker based on purely technical factor and ended up with all white-male, why must they change the result?
    - ciniglio 14y ago
      I think the assumption is that given that other successful conferences have had speakers that were good (technically), that were non white/male, that if such speakers had been considered for this conference, the organisers wouldn't have ended up with a lineup of 100% white & male speakers. You're right though that we have no real evidence for this, this is just a natural assumption to make given the evidence we do have (the lineup). As a poster said above me, this could have possibly been mitigated by publishing who they considered and possibly even selected that were non-white/male and couldn't make it. (this would give us some of the evidence you mention).