Add Diversity and Inclusion working group #48
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| # Diversity & Inclusion Working Group | ||||||
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| ## Scope of responsibilities | ||||||
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| The working group's purpose is to support and facilitate the growth of a diverse and international community of Django programmers, and especially to make sure that the voices of underrepresented groups are heard in order to foster a more inclusive and diverse Django community. | ||||||
| Our primary goal is to increase participation from underrepresented groups, create an inclusive community environment, and promote diverse leadership within the Django project. We also aim to provide guidance to the DSF Board of Directors in line with this mandate. | ||||||
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Member
There was a problem hiding this comment. “Provide guidance to the DSF Board” could benefit from additional clarity and specificity on governance. Based on how DSF working groups generally operate, it may be useful to outline what form that typically takes (offering recommendations, programs, sharing insights, reviewing initiatives, or any other specific actionables when relevant) Additionally, the term “guidance” can be quite broad; maybe consider whether a more specific phrasing (e.g., “recommendations” / “advisory input”) would better reflect the working group’s intended role and avoid any ambiguity around decision-making authority. |
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| The Working Group will pursue this goal in several ways including: | ||||||
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| - Recruiting globally representative Working Group members that will advocate for and provide insights on behalf of their local communities. Our members will, where possible, include representatives from each continent/ region. | ||||||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. Is there an intended benchmark or expectation for representation (even if not strict)? If yes, it might help to signal how this will be approached. |
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| - Recommending policy, initiatives, grant proposals and membership to the DSF Board of Directors in line with the group’s purpose. | ||||||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. Needs clarification on the term "membership". Does this refer to DSF individual membership, WG membership, corporate membership, or something else? |
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| - Communicating and collecting feedback from the Django community to understand how the DSF can better serve and grow a diverse membership. | ||||||
| - Measuring, evaluating, and sharing the DSF’s progress towards its diversity initiatives on a regular basis. | ||||||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. It may help to indicate how this will be done at a high level (e.g., reports, surveys, defined metrics, etc.). Please ignore my comment if this is not in the scope of this document. |
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| - The Working Group reserves the right to consult with outside experts. | ||||||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. This feels evident so I don’t think this needs to be in the group’s responsibilities?
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There was a problem hiding this comment. Yeah you're right. Nevertheless, I think it's always better to clearly mention certain things. It could be of help to others and future members who might not see it as evident like you and me. Don't you think? |
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| - Supporting mentorship programs like Djangonaut Space to achieve diversity and inclusion goals. | ||||||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. It may be worth clarifying that such support would be provided in collaboration with, and with the consent of, the respective program teams. And how would this be achieved (as an advisory input or any other form of involvement)? |
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| - Performing Audit or report on D&I of Django events and contributors. | ||||||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. I don’t understand the difference between audits and reports in this context? And how this point is different to:
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There was a problem hiding this comment. I'm not even sure how the group would audit D&I. If we are going to measure the "inclusion" of "underrepresented" groups, that metric is almost guaranteed to be performative (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law). The best I think we can do is not fall into the trap of convenience and playing into the majority, and trying to accommodate a wide range of needs, but that means a significant increase in operational costs. Still not sure how that could be audited. There was a problem hiding this comment. Inconsistent capitalization. "Audit" should be lowercase to match the sentence structure "Performing audit or report on D&I of Django events and contributors."
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| - Supporting the organisation of regional Django related events around the world in line with the group's purpose. | ||||||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. Supporting events feels like the job of #46. How will the two groups work together?
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There was a problem hiding this comment. +1. Also, what does that mean for the event? Would the group provide assistance with D&I-related workload (I'm not sure which tasks that would include) There was a problem hiding this comment. British spelling "organisation" should be changed to American spelling "organization" for consistency with the rest of the document and codebase, which uses American English.
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| - Providing support to the DSF board of directors in managing the DSF Membership and the DSF members. | ||||||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. This feels vague, what kind of support? I don’t understand the nuance between "Membership" and "members"?
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There was a problem hiding this comment. I still have the same open as Thibaud, too. This may need clearer boundaries:
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| ## Initial membership | ||||||
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| - Chair: Ariane Djeupang | ||||||
| - Co-Chair: Keanya Phelps | ||||||
| - Board Liaison: Afi Maame | ||||||
| - Other members: | ||||||
| - Eli Rosselli | ||||||
| - Priya Pahwa | ||||||
| - Brayan Mwanyumba | ||||||
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| ## Future membership | ||||||
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| - Folks that would like to join the Diversity and Inclusion Work Group should send an email to the WG `diversity-inclusion@djangoproject.com` introducing themselves. The WG will vote on new member requests verbally at meetings, and the board can take part to the vote. | ||||||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. I don’t understand why we would want the Board to be involved with those votes, particularly if the votes were held at WG meetings? We can’t have all board members join those meetings, and there is a point further down about "Asynchronous communication will be preferred as membership will be in many different time zones.", so this feels tricky even just for group members. There was a problem hiding this comment. The voting procedure described seems unusual. The statement "the board can take part to the vote" is unclear - typically working groups either have self-managed membership (WG members vote) or board-managed membership (board votes). The phrase "take part to" is also grammatically incorrect and should be "take part in". Consider clarifying whether this is direct membership (WG votes) or board-managed membership, consistent with other working groups.
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| - The working group adopts the DSF [Code of Conduct](https://www.djangoproject.com/conduct/) . | ||||||
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| - Any actions made against the principles in the Code of Conduct (found by a simple majority of 51%+) will result in the acting person being removed from the working group. | ||||||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. I’m not sure I understand this one? Generally making decisions based on the Code of Conduct is the remit of the CoC WG. The equivalent language in the accessibility team charter reflects that:
Unless you want to get to something else by taking about the "principles" of the CoC? But it feels like you could use simpler language then? For example from the Online Community WG:
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There was a problem hiding this comment. +1 on simplifying language, but I don't support the majority being able to remove a person just with their votes. I believe there should be a really good reason to remove someone from a group, such as failing to fulfill their responsibilities defined by the charter or violating the CoC. |
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| - Diversity and Inclusion working group voting members are required to confirm their intent to continue participating in the Working Group within one month of a new DSF Board election. This will be led by chair/vice-chair. If there is no response within two weeks, then the individual is automatically removed. | ||||||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. This feels pretty harsh (depending on how literally you interpret this I suppose?). Not sure if that’s your intention. Also note yearly elections of the DSF Board are held close to the christmas period where lots of people are away, and there can be other elections in theory if Board members left during the year. |
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| - A member of the Diversity and Inclusion Working Group, can step down at any time, and the working group will work to replace that voting member. | ||||||
| - The Chair / Co-Chair will be responsible for coordinating the group, scheduling meetings, renewing the group’s membership, and ensuring that the group’s activities align with its scope and responsibilities. | ||||||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. Empty bullet point at the end of the Future membership section. This should either be removed or filled with content. |
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| ## Budget | ||||||
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| - TBA | ||||||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. I’m not sure if the plan is to complete this before or after the group’s initial formation? |
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| ## Comms | ||||||
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| - The team will communicate via the `diversity-inclusion-wg@djangoproject.com` mailing list, through Discord and Slack. | ||||||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. Inconsistent email address. Line 32 references "diversity-inclusion@djangoproject.com" but line 46 uses "diversity-inclusion-wg@djangoproject.com". These should be the same address for consistency. |
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| - If needed, conference calls may be set up via Google Meet, Microsoft Teams or Zoom. | ||||||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. If synchronous meetings are to be held, then we can remove the "if needed" clause and add the frequency of the meetings so that the folks who want to join the WG have an idea of the commitments prior. |
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| - The method of voting on projects and proposals will be determined by the working group. | ||||||
| - Preferred method of voting will be electronically (email or chat) and the vote results will be reported via email to the board in the monthly report. | ||||||
| - Asynchronous communication will be preferred as membership will be in many different time zones. | ||||||
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| ## Reporting | ||||||
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| - The Diversity and Inclusion Working Group will submit by email a monthly report to the DSF board of Directors. | ||||||
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Member
There was a problem hiding this comment. None of our other WGs do monthly reports, this feels very ambitious. Why do you suggest this frequency?
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There was a problem hiding this comment. +1 on @thibaudcolas 's comment. My additional comments;
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| ## Appendix | ||||||
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| ### Decision Making Procedures | ||||||
| - Discussions will happen via online communication platforms, video chat, or mailing list. | ||||||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. This just repeats "comms" above? |
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| - With respect to new policy recommendations: | ||||||
| - The working group may solicit feedback on proposed drafts. | ||||||
| - The working group will consider outside input, edit the document, then vote for final approval. | ||||||
| - The working group will vote on new standards and will require a quorum of two-thirds of the voting members for approval of motions / content. | ||||||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. I don’t understand the difference between "final proposal" and "new standards" when it comes to "new policy recommendations"? |
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Isn't this pretty vague? What does it mean to increase participation, and what is our understanding of an underrepresented group? I have several related concerns here: