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That makes sense, but I predict that if you create such a channel, even if the intention is for training (in recognition that many women are more comfortable training in a single gender environment, as kcoyle says) -- people (mainly women people) will end up 'hanging out' in there instead of in #code4lib, resulting in fewer women hanging out in #code4lib. Which I guess you could think is a fine thing, or could think is an unfortunate thing. I agree with royt that it would be an unfortunate thing, for a bunch of different reasons. Of course, like most any other project or venue of code4lib, we don't all need to agree on this, and no approval needs to be had -- if someone wants to create an IRC channel for 'code4lib women' or something, they can do so on freenode. But I agree with royt it'd be unfortunate. If the intent really is just for 'training', then maybe call it #code4lib_learning_irc or something, to try and reduce the chances of it vacuuming women's participation out of main #code4lib, even if that wasn't the original intent. On 12/5/2012 4:45 PM, Karen Coyle wrote: > 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 >