Both approaches seem reasonable to me, from different perspectives.
At a minimum, we should all ensure that the projects we involve ourselves with should welcome all contributors, proscribe harassment, and not ignore bad behavior. If all projects went at least that far, the situation would already become immensely better. Any project refusing to take those steps has serious problems.
In some cases, projects (or more to the point, motivated people within those projects) take the additional step of organizing outreach programs to counteract the massive imbalance in contributors. If people want to take such steps, they absolutely should, and doing so can help provide a more friendly environment and a more active indication that a project really does welcome all contributors. On the other hand, I don't consider it reasonable to call a person or project *wrong* for not taking such steps, as long as the person/project doesn't stand in the way of someone else volunteering to do so. (I've seen cases where people feel so strongly about maintaining $attribute-blindness, for values of $attribute including gender, that those people actively objected to outreach programs and similar; I can understand the reasoning behind such a position, but I consider it unreasonable to block someone *else's* efforts for that reason.)
Power management, mobile and firmware developer on Linux. Security developer at Aurora. Ex-biologist. mjg59 on Twitter. Content here should not be interpreted as the opinion of my employer. Also on Mastodon.
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Re: AP
Date: 2012-05-22 06:52 am (UTC)At a minimum, we should all ensure that the projects we involve ourselves with should welcome all contributors, proscribe harassment, and not ignore bad behavior. If all projects went at least that far, the situation would already become immensely better. Any project refusing to take those steps has serious problems.
In some cases, projects (or more to the point, motivated people within those projects) take the additional step of organizing outreach programs to counteract the massive imbalance in contributors. If people want to take such steps, they absolutely should, and doing so can help provide a more friendly environment and a more active indication that a project really does welcome all contributors. On the other hand, I don't consider it reasonable to call a person or project *wrong* for not taking such steps, as long as the person/project doesn't stand in the way of someone else volunteering to do so. (I've seen cases where people feel so strongly about maintaining $attribute-blindness, for values of $attribute including gender, that those people actively objected to outreach programs and similar; I can understand the reasoning behind such a position, but I consider it unreasonable to block someone *else's* efforts for that reason.)