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Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

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Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#221

Post by SolaceQuantum »

reader5000 wrote: post #101
drhayes9 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think GH is starting from the point of "the distribution of our employees doesn't line up with the larger population of the country we operate in". If you think each of those groups of people has the potential to be as talented as any other, then why is there a discrepancy? I think they're saying, "We don't think the market is working." There are hidden biases at work. For example, people with "non-white sounding"…

"all these groups of people have the same capacity for talent and skill" What evidence is there to believe this?

This rhetoric in this context is implying that you may be skeptical that black people are as valuable and capable at computer science/information technology as the majority white population. Please reconsider.

Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#222

Post by MustardTiger »

sotojuan wrote: post #174
MustardTiger wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But I put out job ads and get like 2 qualified responses. And 200 completely unqualified ones. It is crazy how many people apply for jobs they have absolutely no qualifications for.

Anyone can apply to a programming job—it's not like you need formal education like lawyers or doctors.

Yes, but I would have hoped people would have the common sense to only apply if they know how to program. I don't even mean this in the sense of "you aren't good enough", I mean people who literally have no idea what programming is. People who rate their winzip using skills on their resume as part of their "computer experience".

Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#223

Post by MustardTiger »

Aaron1011 wrote: post #169
MustardTiger wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you think each of those groups of people has the potential to be as talented as any other, then why is there a discrepancy? Because you think wrong. >Given the starting point of "all these groups of people have the same capacity for talent and skill" Why take something we know to be false as your starting point though?

What evidence do you have that "we know this to be false"?

The overwhelming scientific evidence that we are not all the same. Racial differences have been measured over and over again, and are quite significant. And what I find striking is how often the people living in their "everyone is equal" fantasy bubble will admit this, depending on the context.

For example, 117 people have run the 100m in less than 10 seconds. Do you know how many of them are women? Of course you do. Almost everyone is willing to admit this is a genetic difference. Do you know how many of those men are black? 113. Most people are also willing to admit this is genetic, especially when you point out that we've identified specific genes giving west Africans an advantage in sprinting. But suddenly when the same observations are made about IQ, then it becomes "racist pseudo-science", despite a complete inability to offer any valid criticism of the science involved.

Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#224

Post by george_soros »

jason_dstillery wrote: post #61
ajhurliman wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By their wording, it seems like they're more focused on the outcome of the hiring process. No black managers is the outcome, and they said that's unacceptable. If you look at the process instead of the outcome, it might not be the same. If the scenario was that no qualified black people applied for management positions which resulted in not having any black managers they could still come back to the public and say "W…

How do you evaluate whether your process is good or bad without looking at the outcome it produces? While I grant that even the best/fairest processes can fail on individual cases, if your aggregate result is poor, what other conclusion can you draw except that your process is broken? To take your example, if the scenario was that no qualified person from a given group applied, you can look at your process and ask wh…

Your reasoning makes me sick.

Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#225

Post by lr4444lr »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #208
lr4444lr wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's to attempt to counteract the institutionalized discrimination against minorities that exists throughout the country. No. The reason companies hire in this way is to defend against discrimination lawsuits. The Supreme Court already decided against the principle you're describing in the ruling of the Bakke case.

> The reason companies hire in this way is to defend against discrimination lawsuits. That sounds like maybe a broader statement that you intended... Certainly not every company has that plan. Are you talking about a specific kind of company?

Perhaps "protect against potential lawsuits" is a better phrasing. Fear of accusations of disparate impact hiring is very real for HR, not to mention the negative press even if you beat the charges. In the specific case of Github, fallout from the Horvath fiasco. Better to spend some resources preventatively to make sure your employee composition can reasonably help fend off attacks.

Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#226

Post by jason_dstillery »

GunboatDiplomat wrote: post #220
jason_dstillery wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to be careful in my phrasing, which is why I said "broader population of qualified candidates" and not "population at large" or "general population", and "good chance" instead of "certainty", because as you point out there are unfortunately systemic factors outside of your immediate short-term control that will affect the numbers. But I think a lot of people/companies use this as an excuse to just not even tr…

>But I think a lot of people/companies use this as an excuse to just not even try, and that doesn't make sense. Doesn't it? I doubt that hiring people of different ethnic backgrounds from the same country makes any difference in the performance of a team, so exerting extra effort to do so is likely a net loss for the company.

Let's say I see 2 qualified candidates a week and they accept our offer at a rate of 20%. To ramp up to a team of 12, I'll had to have seen 60 candidates, which will take 30 weeks.

But then I take a look at my process and realize I've got a problem that's keeping 1/3rd of my qualified candidates from even applying. Fix that, and I jump up to seeing 3 qualified candidates per week, which drops my ramp time to just 20 weeks.

The effort I put into fixing my hiring process just gave me 10 bonus weeks of a fully-ramped team. If your company actually knows how to use developers to make money, that could be literally millions of dollars.

Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#227

Post by atom-morgan »

cjbprime wrote: post #45
atom-morgan wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can determine bias simply by comparing one company's numbers to national trends?

I said probable bias, and yes.

As you reduce geographical scope, national trends aren't as relevant or realistic.

Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#228

Post by arprocter »

brandoncordell wrote: post #6

Weird, it seems like some of their team has been decidedly anti-white. http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/26/githubs-diversity-is-just-a... Edit: Removed Breitbart link

Kind of disappointing how those who attacked the original source have now fallen silent

Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#229

Post by ManlyBread »

pessimizer wrote: post #175
yarper wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Likewise, women tend to make significantly less money for doing the same work, in the same positions, at the same company, because of (largely) subconscious biases. I see this everywhere, and yet no citations (and when asked, I usually get referred to someones blog - not from a respected scientist completely unaffiliated with the feminist movement). Either that or I get linked to 4 or 5 default papers which have li…

I'm going to tell you to check your privilege, which is a codified way of telling you that if you were really concerned about whether there was a gender pay gap, you'd look for the research yourself instead of waiting for somebody to hand it to you. If you were either familiar with the existing research and saw flaws in it, or were familiar with better evidence that contradicted the accepted wisdom, your statements a…

>if you were really concerned about whether there was a gender pay gap, you'd look for the research yourself instead of waiting for somebody to hand it to you.

Are you seriously expecting people to fact-check every single broad statement they come across and then come to the exact same conclusions you did?

>It's not the world's duty to convince you of anything.

It's not my duty to find arguments supporting your cause. The gender pay gap is a myth anyway. I'm not going to tell you why - go to scholar.google.com and search for "gender pay gap myth debunked." Follow the citations. You should also do that if you're not sure if racism exists, or if other planets exist. Then instead of trying to one-up people on message boards when they won't do your research for you, you can lead in whatever direction your research takes you.

Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#230

Post by ManlyBread »

brandoncordell wrote: post #11
_toastie wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

really? breitbart.com?

Sorry, I grabbed the first link. Are they a poor source (honestly don't know)? I also found http://www.techinsider.io/github-the-full-inside-story-2016-... and http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/26/githubs-diversity-is-just-a... The tweets and images came from Githubbers themselves.

People don't like them because one of their editors is a vocal supporter of Gamergate.
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