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Roy, It wasn't for safety -- it was for training. Some of us haven't spent much time on IRC -- I never know what to do when I get there -- can't remember commands, even with a decent GUI. So I was trying to think of places (e.g. Github, IRC) where we'd like to have more women participating and how we could give them a chance to learn.* Lots of people are afraid of making mistakes in front of others, and we know that women/girls take fewer chances in mixed classrooms. Once they get adept at the environment they can participate in the group list with more confidence. Training, mentoring -- it all blends together. In fact, I'm thinking that at c4l we could put up some big pieces of paper (I love the giant post-it paper) and have people make lists of their favorite tools, hangouts, etc. Then we could use those lists as ways to figure out what people need to learn to feel more like "part of the community" and to feel more confident about participating. kc * Look at the list of edits on the anti-harassment policy -- not many women there. I suspect it's unfamiliarity with Git. If we're going to use a tool as a community, then I want more women to be familiar with it. If someone else wants to train men or a coed group, that's fine. On 12/5/12 1:35 PM, Roy Tennant wrote: > On Wed, Dec 5, 2012 at 12:57 PM, Rosalyn Metz <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >> Karen had the idea of creating a women Code4Lib IRC channel, maybe that can >> be a place to start. > I understand the motivation to create a "safe space" for women, but > please let's not do this. "Separate but equal" has never been shown to > make progress toward equality, and I doubt this situation would be any > different. I believe it would instead make things worse, by > balkanizing the community rather than encouraging good behavior within > a unified group. In other words, the solution will never be reached > without active participation by men. > Roy -- Karen Coyle [log in to unmask] http://kcoyle.net ph: 1-510-540-7596 m: 1-510-435-8234 skype: kcoylenet