Does anybody actually believe that diverse cultural backgrounds are at all relevant to ideas about programming language design or compiler programming? Claims that diversity is good for project organization sound believable, but I see no reason to think the diversity of background has any impact on technical contributions.

There is no moral obligation to have a diverse group, just to have a group that is tolerant of diversity, in the interest of fairness for members of minority groups. Encouraging actual diversity is just a strategy to avoid letting people who don't care about this stuff develop bubbles of intolerance in homogenous bubbles where intolerance isn't challenged regularly. The presence of diversity indicates a lack of intolerance, but a group consisting entirely of one demographic could be just as tolerant, and its homogeneity just a coincidence or a result of lack of advertising. So I find it a little strange when a group is "congratulated" on its diversity.

Thank you for coherently and politely saying what others have said in... less eloquent terms. I think many people feel this way but find it difficult to express in these contexts without coming off as (or at least being accused of) a bigot or something.

My post above was a super-passive expression of this.

> but I see no reason to think the diversity of background has any impact on technical contributions

Exactly this. The internet is the great equalizer. There is no need for anyone to know anything about me unless I choose to bring it up.

For a technical project, conducted and run over the internet, my work can stand entirely on its merits in a way that would not be possible in a regular office environment.

Since you are prepared to make that argument, in what way will it benefit?

Does the color of my skin, my gender or my sexual orientation matter when providing feedback for a project such as this?

I would argue that those things are entirely irrelevant in this context, and wouldn't want them connected/associated with any contribution I made.

The general idea here is that when you are part of a majority, it's alarmingly easy to accidentally set up your community in such a way that makes those from a minority feel less welcome. It's a potential unknown-unknown. I assume the Rust community is trying to find out if this is the case.

Put another way, your skin color, sexual orientation, gender, etc. likely will not change your contribution. But if it turns out that people of a particular skin color, sexual orientation, gender, etc. are somehow disincentivized from contributing, that's a problem.