Add Diversity and Inclusion working group#48
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sabderemane
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sabderemane
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🚗 passing-by but look nice! I have some suggestions.
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Is it a mistake? It would preferable to keep the template for others :)
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Yes pls it was a mistake
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No worries, if you re-add the template it will be no longer in the changes.
Co-authored-by: Sarah Abderemane <sarahabderemane@gmail.com>
Change .org to .com in the the WG email address
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Looking promising! Some changes to make for clarity. Something that isn’t clear to me generally is how much the group would work on implementation of the policies / initiatives it decides on.
@Arya-AD @AfiMaameDufie when you have the chance, could you add a description or comment to the PR that explains the status of this proposal? It’s not clear how much reviews you’re expecting at this stage from interested contributors or board members / how much you want new members?
| - Discussing policy, initiatives, grant proposals and membership to recommend to the DSF Board of Directors in line with the group’s purpose. | ||
| - Communicating and collecting feedback from the Django community to understand how the DSF can better serve and grow a diverse membership. | ||
| - Measuring, evaluating, and sharing the DSF’s progress towards its diversity initiatives on a regular basis. | ||
| - The Working Group reserves the right to consult with outside experts. |
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This feels evident so I don’t think this needs to be in the group’s responsibilities?
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Yeah you're right. Nevertheless, I think it's always better to clearly mention certain things. It could be of help to others and future members who might not see it as evident like you and me. Don't you think?
| - Communicating and collecting feedback from the Django community to understand how the DSF can better serve and grow a diverse membership. | ||
| - Measuring, evaluating, and sharing the DSF’s progress towards its diversity initiatives on a regular basis. | ||
| - The Working Group reserves the right to consult with outside experts. | ||
| - Serving as the Djangonaut Space other mentorship programs D&I liaison. |
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I don’t understand what a D&I liaison is, I think this needs either more specific "liaison" tasks, or on the opposite replace with a more generic "Supporting mentorship programs like Djangonaut Space to achieve diversity and inclusion goals"?
When I see "liaison" I generally think of a single person, not a group.
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Ohh I didn't see it that way. But I prefer your reformulation, it's more clear and concise. Thanks
| - Measuring, evaluating, and sharing the DSF’s progress towards its diversity initiatives on a regular basis. | ||
| - The Working Group reserves the right to consult with outside experts. | ||
| - Serving as the Djangonaut Space other mentorship programs D&I liaison. | ||
| - Performing Audit or report on D&I of Django events and contributors. |
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I don’t understand the difference between audits and reports in this context? And how this point is different to:
- Measuring, evaluating, and sharing the DSF’s progress towards its diversity initiatives on a regular basis.
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I'm not even sure how the group would audit D&I. If we are going to measure the "inclusion" of "underrepresented" groups, that metric is almost guaranteed to be performative (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law). The best I think we can do is not fall into the trap of convenience and playing into the majority, and trying to accommodate a wide range of needs, but that means a significant increase in operational costs. Still not sure how that could be audited.
| - Folks that would like to join the Diversity and Inclusion Work Group should send an email to the WG `diversity-inclusion@djangoproject.com` introducing themselves. The WG will vote on new member requests verbally at meetings, and the board can take part to the vote. | ||
| - The working group adopts the DSF [Code of Conduct](https://www.djangoproject.com/conduct/) . | ||
| - Any actions made against the principles in the Code of Conduct (found by a simple majority of 51%+) will result in the acting person being removed from the working group. | ||
| - Diversity and Inclusion working group voting members are required to confirm their intent to continue participating in the Working Group within one month of a new DSF Board election. This will be led by chair/vice-chair. If there is no response within two weeks, then the individual is automatically removed. |
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This feels pretty harsh (depending on how literally you interpret this I suppose?). Not sure if that’s your intention. Also note yearly elections of the DSF Board are held close to the christmas period where lots of people are away, and there can be other elections in theory if Board members left during the year.
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| ## Budget | ||
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| - TBA |
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I’m not sure if the plan is to complete this before or after the group’s initial formation?
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| ## Reporting | ||
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| - The Diversity and Inclusion Working Group will submit by email a monthly report to the DSF board of Directors. |
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None of our other WGs do monthly reports, this feels very ambitious. Why do you suggest this frequency?
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+1 on @thibaudcolas 's comment.
My additional comments;
- I couldn't catch what will be reported here. What type of output will be generated monthly?
- Also, why just share it only with the board? It would be a report that interests everyone in and outside of the community, why don't we share it publicly and allow all related parties to see it?
| - The working group will consider outside input, edit the document, then vote for final approval. | ||
| - The working group will vote on new standards and will require a quorum of two-thirds of the voting members for approval of motions / content. |
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I don’t understand the difference between "final proposal" and "new standards" when it comes to "new policy recommendations"?
| ## Appendix | ||
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| ### Decision Making Procedures | ||
| - Discussions will happen via online communication platforms, video chat, or mailing list. |
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This just repeats "comms" above?
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| ## Reporting | ||
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| - The Diversity and Inclusion Working Group will submit by email a monthly report to the DSF board of Directors. |
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+1 on @thibaudcolas 's comment.
My additional comments;
- I couldn't catch what will be reported here. What type of output will be generated monthly?
- Also, why just share it only with the board? It would be a report that interests everyone in and outside of the community, why don't we share it publicly and allow all related parties to see it?
| ## Scope of responsibilities | ||
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| The working group's purpose is to support the DSF in supporting and facilitating the growth of a diverse and international community of Django programmers, and especially to make sure that the voices of Underrepresented groups are heard in order to foster a more inclusive and diverse Django community. | ||
| Our primary goal is to increase participation from underrepresented groups, create an inclusive community environment, and promote diverse leadership within the Django project. We also aim to provide guidance to the DSF Board of Directors in line with this mandate. |
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Isn't this pretty vague? What does it mean to increase participation, and what is our understanding of an underrepresented group? I have several related concerns here:
- We focus on gender and nationality-based "inclusion" a lot, but we neglect the inclusion of neurodivergent individuals. Our current processes (speaking from experience) and approach to communication can easily burn out a neurodivergent individual. I'd expect those issues to be addressed in this group.
- What action would the group take the increase inclusion?
| - Measuring, evaluating, and sharing the DSF’s progress towards its diversity initiatives on a regular basis. | ||
| - The Working Group reserves the right to consult with outside experts. | ||
| - Serving as the Djangonaut Space other mentorship programs D&I liaison. | ||
| - Performing Audit or report on D&I of Django events and contributors. |
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I'm not even sure how the group would audit D&I. If we are going to measure the "inclusion" of "underrepresented" groups, that metric is almost guaranteed to be performative (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law). The best I think we can do is not fall into the trap of convenience and playing into the majority, and trying to accommodate a wide range of needs, but that means a significant increase in operational costs. Still not sure how that could be audited.
| - The Working Group reserves the right to consult with outside experts. | ||
| - Serving as the Djangonaut Space other mentorship programs D&I liaison. | ||
| - Performing Audit or report on D&I of Django events and contributors. | ||
| - Supporting the organisation of regional Django related events around the world in line with the group's purpose. |
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+1. Also, what does that mean for the event? Would the group provide assistance with D&I-related workload (I'm not sure which tasks that would include)
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| - Folks that would like to join the Diversity and Inclusion Work Group should send an email to the WG `diversity-inclusion@djangoproject.com` introducing themselves. The WG will vote on new member requests verbally at meetings, and the board can take part to the vote. | ||
| - The working group adopts the DSF [Code of Conduct](https://www.djangoproject.com/conduct/) . | ||
| - Any actions made against the principles in the Code of Conduct (found by a simple majority of 51%+) will result in the acting person being removed from the working group. |
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+1 on simplifying language, but I don't support the majority being able to remove a person just with their votes. I believe there should be a really good reason to remove someone from a group, such as failing to fulfill their responsibilities defined by the charter or violating the CoC.
Co-authored-by: Thibaud Colas <thibaudcolas@gmail.com>
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Pull request overview
This PR adds a new Diversity & Inclusion Working Group charter to support and facilitate the growth of a diverse and international Django community. The working group will focus on increasing participation from underrepresented groups, creating an inclusive community environment, and promoting diverse leadership within the Django project.
Changes:
- Adds a new working group charter for the Diversity & Inclusion Working Group defining scope, membership, budget, communications, and reporting requirements
- Accidentally deletes the template.md file which should be retained as it's referenced in the README
Reviewed changes
Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 12 comments.
| File | Description |
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| active/diversity-inclusion.md | New working group charter defining the Diversity & Inclusion Working Group's responsibilities, membership structure, communication channels, and reporting requirements |
| template.md | Should not be deleted - This template file is referenced in the README and needed for future working group proposals |
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| - Communicating and collecting feedback from the Django community to understand how the DSF can better serve and grow a diverse membership. | ||
| - Measuring, evaluating, and sharing the DSF’s progress towards its diversity initiatives on a regular basis. | ||
| - The Working Group reserves the right to consult with outside experts. | ||
| - Serving as the Djangonaut Space other mentorship programs D&I liaison. |
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Missing word in the sentence. Should read "Serving as the Djangonaut Space and other mentorship programs D&I liaison" or similar phrasing to clarify the relationship between "Djangonaut Space" and "other mentorship programs".
| - Serving as the Djangonaut Space other mentorship programs D&I liaison. | |
| - Serving as the Djangonaut Space and other mentorship programs D&I liaison. |
| - Diversity and Inclusion working group voting members are required to confirm their intent to continue participating in the Working Group within one month of a new DSF Board election. This will be led by chair/vice-chair. If there is no response within two weeks, then the individual is automatically removed. | ||
| - A member of the Diversity and Inclusion Working Group, can step down at any time, and the working group will work to replace that voting member. | ||
| - The Chair / Co-Chair will be responsible for coordinating the group, scheduling meetings, renewing the group’s membership, and ensuring that the group’s activities align with its scope and responsibilities. | ||
| - |
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Empty bullet point at the end of the Future membership section. This should either be removed or filled with content.
| - Measuring, evaluating, and sharing the DSF’s progress towards its diversity initiatives on a regular basis. | ||
| - The Working Group reserves the right to consult with outside experts. | ||
| - Serving as the Djangonaut Space other mentorship programs D&I liaison. | ||
| - Performing Audit or report on D&I of Django events and contributors. |
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Inconsistent capitalization. "Audit" should be lowercase to match the sentence structure "Performing audit or report on D&I of Django events and contributors."
| - Performing Audit or report on D&I of Django events and contributors. | |
| - Performing audit or report on D&I of Django events and contributors. |
| - The Working Group reserves the right to consult with outside experts. | ||
| - Serving as the Djangonaut Space other mentorship programs D&I liaison. | ||
| - Performing Audit or report on D&I of Django events and contributors. | ||
| - Supporting the organisation of regional Django related events around the world in line with the group's purpose. |
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British spelling "organisation" should be changed to American spelling "organization" for consistency with the rest of the document and codebase, which uses American English.
| - Supporting the organisation of regional Django related events around the world in line with the group's purpose. | |
| - Supporting the organization of regional Django related events around the world in line with the group's purpose. |
| - Folks that would like to join the Diversity and Inclusion Work Group should send an email to the WG `diversity-inclusion@djangoproject.com` introducing themselves. The WG will vote on new member requests verbally at meetings, and the board can take part to the vote. | ||
| - The working group adopts the DSF [Code of Conduct](https://www.djangoproject.com/conduct/) . | ||
| - Any actions made against the principles in the Code of Conduct (found by a simple majority of 51%+) will result in the acting person being removed from the working group. | ||
| - Diversity and Inclusion working group voting members are required to confirm their intent to continue participating in the Working Group within one month of a new DSF Board election. This will be led by chair/vice-chair. If there is no response within two weeks, then the individual is automatically removed. | ||
| - A member of the Diversity and Inclusion Working Group, can step down at any time, and the working group will work to replace that voting member. | ||
| - The Chair / Co-Chair will be responsible for coordinating the group, scheduling meetings, renewing the group’s membership, and ensuring that the group’s activities align with its scope and responsibilities. | ||
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| ## Budget | ||
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| - TBA | ||
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| ## Comms | ||
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| - The team will communicate via the `diversity-inclusion-wg@djangoproject.com` mailing list, through Discord and Slack. |
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Inconsistent email address. Line 32 references "diversity-inclusion@djangoproject.com" but line 46 uses "diversity-inclusion-wg@djangoproject.com". These should be the same address for consistency.
Updated the diversity and inclusion document to clarify mentorship program support and added a new member.
Co-authored-by: Copilot <175728472+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Thibaud Colas <thibaudcolas@gmail.com>
priyapahwa
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priyapahwa
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Thank you so much for putting this charter together. I’ve shared a few suggestions that may help further clarify scope, roles, and expectations.
| ## Scope of responsibilities | ||
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| The working group's purpose is to support and facilitate the growth of a diverse and international community of Django programmers, and especially to make sure that the voices of underrepresented groups are heard in order to foster a more inclusive and diverse Django community. | ||
| Our primary goal is to increase participation from underrepresented groups, create an inclusive community environment, and promote diverse leadership within the Django project. We also aim to provide guidance to the DSF Board of Directors in line with this mandate. |
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“Provide guidance to the DSF Board” could benefit from additional clarity and specificity on governance. Based on how DSF working groups generally operate, it may be useful to outline what form that typically takes (offering recommendations, programs, sharing insights, reviewing initiatives, or any other specific actionables when relevant)
Additionally, the term “guidance” can be quite broad; maybe consider whether a more specific phrasing (e.g., “recommendations” / “advisory input”) would better reflect the working group’s intended role and avoid any ambiguity around decision-making authority.
| Our primary goal is to increase participation from underrepresented groups, create an inclusive community environment, and promote diverse leadership within the Django project. We also aim to provide guidance to the DSF Board of Directors in line with this mandate. | ||
| The Working Group will pursue this goal in several ways including: | ||
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| - Recruiting globally representative Working Group members that will advocate for and provide insights on behalf of their local communities. Our members will, where possible, include representatives from each continent/ region. |
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Is there an intended benchmark or expectation for representation (even if not strict)? If yes, it might help to signal how this will be approached.
| The Working Group will pursue this goal in several ways including: | ||
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| - Recruiting globally representative Working Group members that will advocate for and provide insights on behalf of their local communities. Our members will, where possible, include representatives from each continent/ region. | ||
| - Recommending policy, initiatives, grant proposals and membership to the DSF Board of Directors in line with the group’s purpose. |
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Needs clarification on the term "membership". Does this refer to DSF individual membership, WG membership, corporate membership, or something else?
| - Recruiting globally representative Working Group members that will advocate for and provide insights on behalf of their local communities. Our members will, where possible, include representatives from each continent/ region. | ||
| - Recommending policy, initiatives, grant proposals and membership to the DSF Board of Directors in line with the group’s purpose. | ||
| - Communicating and collecting feedback from the Django community to understand how the DSF can better serve and grow a diverse membership. | ||
| - Measuring, evaluating, and sharing the DSF’s progress towards its diversity initiatives on a regular basis. |
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It may help to indicate how this will be done at a high level (e.g., reports, surveys, defined metrics, etc.). Please ignore my comment if this is not in the scope of this document.
| - Communicating and collecting feedback from the Django community to understand how the DSF can better serve and grow a diverse membership. | ||
| - Measuring, evaluating, and sharing the DSF’s progress towards its diversity initiatives on a regular basis. | ||
| - The Working Group reserves the right to consult with outside experts. | ||
| - Supporting mentorship programs like Djangonaut Space to achieve diversity and inclusion goals. |
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It may be worth clarifying that such support would be provided in collaboration with, and with the consent of, the respective program teams. And how would this be achieved (as an advisory input or any other form of involvement)?
| - The Working Group reserves the right to consult with outside experts. | ||
| - Serving as the Djangonaut Space other mentorship programs D&I liaison. | ||
| - Performing Audit or report on D&I of Django events and contributors. | ||
| - Supporting the organisation of regional Django related events around the world in line with the group's purpose. |
| - Serving as the Djangonaut Space other mentorship programs D&I liaison. | ||
| - Performing Audit or report on D&I of Django events and contributors. | ||
| - Supporting the organisation of regional Django related events around the world in line with the group's purpose. | ||
| - Providing support to the DSF board of directors in managing the DSF Membership and the DSF members. |
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I still have the same open as Thibaud, too. This may need clearer boundaries:
- What kind of support (review, recommendations, new programs, operational help)?
- How does this interact with existing DSF membership processes or roles? Also, the same question what is implied by DSF Membership and DSF Members?
| ## Comms | ||
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| - The team will communicate via the `diversity-inclusion-wg@djangoproject.com` mailing list, through Discord and Slack. | ||
| - If needed, conference calls may be set up via Google Meet, Microsoft Teams or Zoom. |
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If synchronous meetings are to be held, then we can remove the "if needed" clause and add the frequency of the meetings so that the folks who want to join the WG have an idea of the commitments prior.
See #45