The #ylj19 program (confengine.com/yow-lambda-jam) has ONE woman (AFAICT). It's not news, but #FP still has a huge diversity problem. We have a lot of work to do.
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Something is very wrong. Screw the technical banter, this is going to be my main talking point in the hallway track this year.
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Yeah, it's a huge shame that we've not managed to attract more diverse groups to FP. It's just so dang beautiful and nice, but we still have so much more work to do to build bridges towards other communities.
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As part of this I really hope we can have the strength to call out people unduly attacking other languages and communities. I hope we stop rewarding that kind of behavior. It's cheap and lazy, and alienates many people who might otherwise be interested in what we are up to.
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Given this has always been a problem with Lambda Jam, I have three independent longer term options to consider:
(1) Partner with a related conference/community which has a better track record in this space and see if it will bootstrap better diversity
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(2) Pivot the conference into 2 days of beginner level workshops into FP to encourage more practitioner diversity, hopefully turning into better speaker diversity
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(3) Consider that proceeding with such poor diversity in speakers is strengthening the biases in the system and cancel the conference.
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Thanks. I bring it up with people, but I keep getting push-back on it. TBH I'm almost ready just to give up on the FP community in general given the lack of interest. I've never really identified with the it personally, even if I find the ideas around it appealing. 😞
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Sorry if that's a bit bleak - I'm in a bit of a bleak mood this evening. I think there's still hope. It just makes me think more and more that FP will remain a backwater in Melbourne which is saddening, because there's so much to love about it!