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Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

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Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#61

Post by jason_dstillery »

ajhurliman wrote: post #49
jason_dstillery wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your organization's demographics don't match the demographics of the broader population of qualified candidates, there's a good chance it's because you're biased (intentionally or not) in your recruiting or evaluation. In that sense, "focusing on the pool of applicants and making sure everyone gets a fair shake" are pretty much exactly what diversity efforts are about.

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 what prevented them from doing so. Maybe there's a perception that your organization is hostile to that group, and you can do something to address that perception. Maybe your job postings are only going up in places that target a specific type. Maybe your 3rd-party recruiters are biased. Whatever the reason is, if the broader population of qualified candidates includes groups that aren't applying to your organization, that's pointing to a process problem you can try to fix (which I very much think of as accepting responsibility for my own actions).

Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#62

Post by prodigal_erik »

cjbprime wrote: post #3
twunacceptable wrote: post #2

"There are no Black/African-American GitHubbers in management positions, which is unacceptable." Why is it unacceptable? Just by virtue of the number of different kinds of people -- race, gender, etc there's no way to have 'one of each' for every position for maximum diversity. This sort of thing is so creepy because it treats people like collectible figures ("Oh yeah? Well I added a black transgendered person to our…

Because the percentage of black GitHubbers in management positions is far below e.g. the percentage of e.g. black people with CS degrees in the US, indicating a probable bias in their hiring, retention or promotion pipelines that they're announcing they find concerning. You're making it about individuals, not GitHub. They're comparing statistics.

Was that percentage equally high in 1990? Fresh grads are not qualified for management.

Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#63

Post by advantark »

guessmyname wrote: post #12

This blog post reads to me like the Pokemon motto "Gotta Catch 'Em All". Being non-american (I'm from a South American country) it is hard for me to understand the importance giving to these things associated to racism and sexism. The United States is the only place I have seen where people invest a considerable amount of time and resources just to put people from minor groups or specific genders in pedestals just to…

I have never heard a good argument explaining how affirmative action is good for a company or society outside of college.

Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#64

Post by whatever_dude »

guessmyname wrote: post #12

This blog post reads to me like the Pokemon motto "Gotta Catch 'Em All". Being non-american (I'm from a South American country) it is hard for me to understand the importance giving to these things associated to racism and sexism. The United States is the only place I have seen where people invest a considerable amount of time and resources just to put people from minor groups or specific genders in pedestals just to…

> You will (probably) never see such thing in Latin American because no one cares why color your skin is or what gender you identify with in order to get a specific job.

That is not true.

Racism (and other forms of discrimination) exist in South/Latin America. It's just very well hidden. It does not exist in discourse, but profiling is blatant and in many ways even accepted. I'd argue that it's so culturally entrenched that even discussing it is crazy talk. People just like to assume it's not there, and even minorities seem to assume it's a given that they're mistreated. But it exists in very acute ways.

Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#65

Post by calibraxis »

guessmyname wrote: post #12

This blog post reads to me like the Pokemon motto "Gotta Catch 'Em All". Being non-american (I'm from a South American country) it is hard for me to understand the importance giving to these things associated to racism and sexism. The United States is the only place I have seen where people invest a considerable amount of time and resources just to put people from minor groups or specific genders in pedestals just to…

> even my European co-workers make fun of Americans for these things

Are they not ashamed to ridicule those with some cultural advances? (Laugh about our backwardnesses, not innovations.) Do they also chuckle at those more advanced scientifically, economically and technologically?

Rojava in many ways seems more advanced than cultures I've lived in. Not only do they do they mandate co-leaders at every level of their bottom-up democracy (1 woman & 1 man), but they do this while beating ISIS. If I laughed, the joke would be on me. And these "Europeans" you mention seem doubly backwards as even I am, so they must work twice as hard to catch up to civilization.

> Why do they care if there are no "Black/African-American" in their company?

Maybe it's hard to make social media innovations while socially backwards?

Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#66

Post by ascendingPig »

Pyxl101 wrote: post #58
cjbprime wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the percentage of black GitHubbers in management positions is far below e.g. the percentage of e.g. black people with CS degrees in the US, indicating a probable bias in their hiring, retention or promotion pipelines that they're announcing they find concerning. You're making it about individuals, not GitHub. They're comparing statistics.

> Because the percentage of black GitHubbers in management positions is far below e.g. the percentage of e.g. black people with CS degrees in the US Where's the data for this? Often people talk about these things as assumptions, but I've never seen credible data. Can you share a source? Furthermore, even the comparison that you mentioned is not accurate. It should start from a funnel like: "the number of qualified bl…

Starting from only the people who apply gives a free pass to biased recruitment.

Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#67

Post by dijit »

every time I hear about "inclusive" practices at github it makes me grimace, not because it's not a good idea. Diversity is good. But because it's rather racist, partially sexist and it's increasingly the norm to be this way.

Equal opportunity, not outcome, if 4% of your applicants are British, but do not pass because of technical reasons. (I'm using British because I am one, replace with $minority), then why should I hire them? Ideally we'd interview blind and whoever is the best tech, is the best. I'm not sure why this isn't possible in our technology culture, do you really need to be face to face with a person to assess their technical merits and ensure they are the right fit for a company.

But, anyway, to me this stuff is exclusionary, I am apparently cursed to be a white male in tech, and as a majority I now have to work much harder for SV to acknowledge me for my merits, I am of the firm belief that if I were a black lady I would have enough support to prop me up above my current experienced position in no time. I'd love to test this theory honestly.

And anyway, who cares who delivers github/facebook/$website at the end of the day, hire who you think will do the job, nobody is going to feel excluded from the services you provide because you didn't meet your quota of transgender people.. and if they were, you could very easily mislead them.

edit: I know it's against etiquette to mention downvotes, but if you must downvote me please reply stating why. That is also against etiquette.

Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#68

Post by drhayes9 »

johnnyg wrote: post #56

"There are no Black/African-American GitHubbers in management positions, which is unacceptable." It is only unacceptable if people with the skills to be in management positions didn't get a promotion because of a non-relevant personal attribute. Otherwise, it is acceptable and in the best long term interests of the company. I acknowledge that America has equality of opportunity problems. There are strong and just his…

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" names don't get hired at the same rate as those with "white sounding" names when they have the same skillset. http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html

I think these biases operate at a low level, below most of our understanding. I like that GH is having this conversation in the open and working to rid themselves of these biases as much as possible.

To me, this is all relevant socioeconomic data. Why not look at the distribution of gender, race, sexuality, religion, etc, in your workplace? If there's a discrepancy, why not figure out what the root cause is? Given the starting point of "all these groups of people have the same capacity for talent and skill", why is the distribution skewed? What does it hurt to ask?

Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#69

Post by throwaway934825 »

The last time this topic came up was around the same time that that open letter of from maintainers of GitHub repositories was making its rounds.

If I recall correctly, GitHub responded to that open letter by implementing the lowest hanging fruit - bug templates and +1s - and then went radio silent. Have there been meaningful product updates since?

Now we know what happened: they minimally addressed the PR needs of their business, and then went back to doing nothing interesting to advance their products.

I was on the fence before, but now I'm certain: GitLab is the superior experience.

Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#70

Post by tacone »

guessmyname wrote: post #12

This blog post reads to me like the Pokemon motto "Gotta Catch 'Em All". Being non-american (I'm from a South American country) it is hard for me to understand the importance giving to these things associated to racism and sexism. The United States is the only place I have seen where people invest a considerable amount of time and resources just to put people from minor groups or specific genders in pedestals just to…

> This blog post reads to me like the Pokemon motto "Gotta Catch 'Em All".

This. It's just ridiculous. Just as racist as negative discrimination.

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