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Hi MJ & All, On 12/18/2012 4:42 AM, MJ Ray wrote: > I sort of both do and don't. I do appreciate that people are making > the effort, but I do worry that other minorities are collatoral damage > of some vociferous support for this larger-minority single-issue > group, that few seem to be supporting a strong anti-discrimination > line and that it's not really clear what libtechwomen is yet. Everyone is definitely welcome to his/her own opinion. None of us are taking any offense to anyone expressing an opinion. By all means, it should be encouraged! However, I think some/many are taking offense to the implication that 'libtechwomen' is discriminatory or prejudice against men or minority groups just because its name includes "women". That sort of implication would be the same as stating that "code4lib" is discriminatory or prejudice against non-coders or folks who don't work in libraries. Neither of these is true. Neither group is actively discriminating against anyone else, and I believe that both code4lib & libtechwomen are attempting to be as inclusive as possible. MJ, I definitely agree with you that other minorities (AVI folks or whomever) should be allowed/encouraged to have similar support groups (and perhaps a more general "code4libsupport" group could be of use). The existence of a "libtechwomen" group doesn't disenfranchise others from creating similar support groups, or even just joining libtechwomen and talking with them about other minority issues (which I'm sure they'd welcome). In fact, the existence of one such support group should encourage others to create additional support groups. Each minority faces issues that are unique to their group. Women face their own unique issues in the technology landscape. AVI people also face their own unique issues in the technology landscape. It is true that there are surely common issues faced by multiple minority groups. But that doesn't mean that all minority issues for all minority groups must be discussed in a single support group. To call a group discriminatory just because they initially planned to concentrate on specific gender issues is just wrong (in my opinion). #libtechwomen is a support group, who's primary focus just happens to be gender issues in the library technology field. libtechwomen is actually not even entirely a sub-group of code4lib, but seems to be fashioning itself as a general support group across other library technology groups as well. It's not trying to block other minority issues from being discussed, or turn away other minority groups or even majority groups (men). If you want to discover for yourself, go take a look around at what has already begun with #libtechwomen. They are easy to find out there on the web: Twitter: https://twitter.com/libtechwomen IRC: #libtechwomen on irc.freenode.net Website: http://libtechwomen.tumblr.com/ Honestly, if others out there in the code4lib world see the need for other support groups, I'd encourage you to speak out & help make it happen! Reach out on this list and see if others want to join you in a new support group. It can be as simple as creating a new IRC channel or similar. I think you'll find the code4lib community to be supportive in such ventures. I've always found this community to be surprisingly supportive as a whole. I think that's all I have to say on this matter. :) - Tim -- Tim Donohue Technical Lead for DSpace Project DuraSpace.org