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Re:KatieConf by rwmj on Wednesday June 22, 2016 @11:28AM (#11954674)
It's incredibly patronising.

Edit: Controversial comment, so let's say something positive here. I found this site to be unfunny and unclear about its message. However it's easy to improve it.

The first thing I would add to the site at the bottom would be a list of recommendations for avoiding bias in selection of candidates. These would include things like always doing blind evaluation of speaker candidates.

Secondly it would be good to talk about how to get more people involved in projects, so that in future you have a more diverse range of speakers. How to broaden access, easier onboarding, removing toxic people.

Thirdly, talk about why it's good to have more diverse opinions. Give some motivation for doing this apart from some hazy feelgood factor. (See references here: http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbli...)

Number four, the site could link to projects like Outreachy which are already doing the above.

Re:KatieConf by untog on Wednesday June 22, 2016 @11:30AM (#11954690)
Not for nothing, but "being patronised" is usually right up there on the list of common female developer complaints.
Re:KatieConf by lsiebert on Wednesday June 22, 2016 @12:32PM (#11955140)
I'd just note that blind evaluation could be hard because of systematic discrimination biasing how you evaluate a candidate. For example, if you look at who has spoken at conferences before in your blind evaluation, it's blind, but biased by previous discrimination. it's the same sort of issue that crops up regularly in machine learning, where people assume that the data isn't the result of bias.

I'd say the correct way to avoid bias is to set a blind baseline of expectations (Like 3+ years in industry working with the topic) and then reach out to minorities. That said, even someone who doesn't have experience can be a good presenter if given the right support, I've seen great conference talk made by total newbies to a technology who were encouraged to write code making use of a new feature. They presented what they learned, problem spots that they found that might trip up someone new to the technology, and open sourced their app as a learning tool.