Moving Forwards: Greater Equity and Inclusion in the R Community
Heather Turner
@HeathrTurnr
Forwards taskforce @R_Forwards
29 February 2020
heatherturner.net/talks/celebration2020
heatherturner.net/talks/celebration2020 @HeathrTurnr @R_Forwards
Current Challenges
User Community
- outreach beyond white women
heatherturner.net/talks/celebration2020 @HeathrTurnr @R_Forwards
Current Challenges
User Community
- outreach beyond white women
Developer community
- widening participation from underrepresented groups
heatherturner.net/talks/celebration2020 @HeathrTurnr @R_Forwards
Outreach to underrepresented groups
Two principles in tension
Nothing about us without us
— common saying esp. among disability activists
The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction
— Toni Morrison
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Minority Ethnic/Racial Groups
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The Importance of Community
Dear Danielle,
— Danielle Smalls-Perkins (@smallperks) January 29, 2020
Remember these incredibly brilliant, talented, and kind women data scientists whenever you feel like “the only one,” on a team or in a space. Thanks to #rstudioconf2020 for bringing us together! #rladies pic.twitter.com/sA312EibH5
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MiR Community
🧵! Do you identify as an underrepresented minority users of R or want to help support minority useRs? If so, MiR(My-R) is the group for you! You can sign up here: https://t.co/fR1qP6RlhF. (1/n)
— Dorris Scott (@Dorris_Scott) February 17, 2020
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Ally Actions
- Let people in your workplace/RUG/etc know about MiR
- Join MiR if you want to particularly engage with this initiative
Sign up link: bit.ly/2unAM8b
NEW Medium post: MiR: A Community for Underrepresented Minority useRs
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useR! Regional Hubs
- Pilot in Munich this year
- Hoping to scale up next year to include hubs in e.g. Africa, Latin America, Asia
- reduce environmental cost with maximum in-person interaction
- reduce financial cost
- reduce travel time
- potential to allow languages other than English
- potential to incorporate remote participation
- avoid visa issues
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AfricaR Community (@AfricaRUsers)
- Started in 2019
- Plans for 2020:
- Write governing documents (mission statement, CoC)
- Rotating curator Twitter account
- Tutorials in French
- Website (events calendar, blog)
- Package(s) to address African needs, e.g. NLP library that supports Arabic, Swahili, etc.
New leadership team
- have been able to develop several RUGs and had two SatRdays.
- been able to really bring together R users in their respective regions, who did not know each other before
- leadership has representatives from Egypt, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya and South Africa
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Ally Actions
- Share your contacts in underserved regions
- Potential speakers/hosts for meetups, workshops
- Double up already prepared talks/workshops
- Reach out to local groups when travelling
- Offer to present remotely
- Some people do not identify as disabled (e.g. some Deaf, Blind, Autisitic folk etc)
- Some prefer person-first, some prefer identity first
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R for Blind Users
Jonathan Godfrey has provided many resources
- Let's Use R Now (LURN) e-book for blind users
- BlindRUG mailing list
- BrailleR package
- text descriptions of graphics
- WriteR software to produce R markdown documents
- Tips for writing accessible markdown documents
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Accessibility of R Conferences/Events
Liz Hare has been leading the development of best practices for events
Informed call for proposals for useR! 2021, e.g. asking if venue had
- step-free access
- disabled parking close to venue
- gender-neutral bathrooms
- policy allowing children on premises
Aim to integrate recommendations throughout organization for 2021.
heatherturner.net/talks/celebration2020 @HeathrTurnr @R_Forwards
Ally Actions
- Educate yourself/others on accessibility
- Expect disabled people at your events
- including as speakers, chairs, committee members, etc
- remove barriers to inclusion, don't wait for people to ask
- Give feedback on/help develop best practices
- (R-specific) advice for creating accessible/inclusive presentations
- advice for social media managers
- chicken-and-egg problem (don't see them so don't accommodate; don't see them because their no accommodated)
- planning with accessibility in mind from the start saves time and money over retrofitting.
- remove barriers
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General Ally Actions
- Organizers: use best practices in your events
- Noa Tamir is working on guide for meetups
- Expand your network
- Support the initiatives of underrepresented groups
- Share opportunities
- Do what you can to lessen the burden
sponsoring
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R Foundation Actions?
- Better information on R project webpage
- Information about Forwards!
- Pointers to community groups, including #rstats Twitter
- Information on resources for blind R users
- Adopt BlindRUG mailing list to ensure its sustainability
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Directions in Statistical Computing
Format 2014-2019
- Both invited speakers and invited participants
- Mostly R Foundation members, plus special guests
- Prior to useR!
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Directions in Statistical Computing
Format 2014-2019
- Both invited speakers and invited participants
- Mostly R Foundation members, plus special guests
- Prior to useR!
Barriers to Inclusion
- Special guests can feel out of place
- Expect new contributors to come as experts already
- Community members that would be interested are left out
- Information is not shared
Explain a bit what these meetings are
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R Implementation Optimization and Tooling
Format 2016-
- Open call for speakers, open to useR! participants
- Parallel with useR!
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R Implementation Optimization and Tooling
Format 2016-
- Open call for speakers, open to useR! participants
- Parallel with useR!
Barriers to Inclusion
- Not same effort to reach out to underrepresented groups
- Very little promotion to general community
- Details hidden away on separate website
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Work in Progress
DSC 2020
- Speakers are invited, but anyone can attend
RIOT 2019
- First time RIOT was advertised on useR! 2019 website
Room for improvement
- Better liaison with R Foundation Conference Committee and useR! organizers
- Better promotion of events, with a focus on diversity
- Alternative formats (e.g. breakout session) to enable new contributors
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Package development workshops
Forwards package development workshop materials
- Full day and 2 hour versions
- Workshop run in Auckland, Budapest, Chicago, York
- Upcoming in Johannesburg, Montevideo
- Working on guide for other to run workshop
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Reluctance/Nervousness to Submit to CRAN
- Bad experience on CRAN/official mailing list
- Decide to not to publish/host on GitHub
- Hoops to jump through
- A lot of information: CRAN Repository Policy, Checklist for New Submissions
- Feedback can be unpredictable and underspecified
- Involved process: updating NEWS, DESCRIPTION, running checks and tests
- R-package-devel provides limited support
- can still be an intimidating experience
- focus on specific questions
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Basic Onboarding?
- Potential for basic onboarding service for first-time (underrepresented) submitters
- guidance through checklist
- help with errors/issues that come up in checks/tests
- help solve issues identified by CRAN
- give guidance on resubmission as they "graduate"
- Work with CRAN support team to keep Checklist for New Submissions up-to-date
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Python Core Dev: Adding Women to the Team
I want at least two female core Python Devs in the next year
— PyCon 2015, Guido van Rossum
From Victor Stinner's PyCon 2019 talk:
2016: 0 women core devs
2017: 2 women core devs
2018: 4 women core devs
2019: 5 women core devs
~ 30 active core devs
Benevolent dictator for life
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Process of Becoming a Python Core Developer
Mariatta Wijaya described process in her PyCon 2018 talk
- Read the Dev Guide devguide.python.org
- Join core-mentorship and python-dev
- Find issue in bugs.python.org
- Propose pull request
All these steps can be done by non-core members
@mariatta
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Getting to be Invited to Be a Python Core Developer
Promotion to core dev depends on trust
Trust earnt by core devs getting to know people via
- Pull requests (PRs)
- PR review
- Interacting on mailing lists, IRC, Zulip
- Becoming a Developer on issue tracker (able to triage issues)
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Mentoring
Victor Stinner in his PyCon 2019 proposes mentoring as a scalable solution to both core dev burnout and lack of diversity
Recent/current work by Python Core devs (Ref1, Ref2)
- Move to GitHub (2017)
- Document promotions process (dev guide)
- Mentoring guide
- Contributor tutorial
- Core dev office hours (public and private)
- Adding enforcement procedure to code of conduct
typically a few emails a week, less onerous than GSoC
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More Ideas from Other Communities
Rust: mentored projects (diversity scholarships)
- mentees invest 2-5 hours per week over 3 months
- expenses paid scholarship to Rust conference following year
Various: outreachy projects for underrepresented groups
- paid internship, 40 hours per week over 3 months
- require mentor(s) to invest 5 hours per week
vs 2-3 hours for google summer of code project
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Outreach from R Core
Tomas Kalibera and Luke Tierney wrote a call for help Reviewing Bug Reports (R Developer Blog, October 2019)
Could do more to reach out to underrepresented groups
- Core devs/bugzilla veterans could offer mentoring/tutorial
- Work with Forwards, R-Ladies, etc to reach potential contributors
- Blog post could become part of more comprehensive Developer Guide
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More involvement of R Core in useR!
At useR! 2020
- outreach slot adjoining keynote talk
- parallel session dedicated to R Core speakers
- tutorial by Tomas Kalibera on contributing to base R
Consider making room for more personal interactions
- conscious effort to mix at social events
- opportunity for participants to book time with one/more R core person?
- R core booth? Live coding lounge? AMA session?
10 min talk plus 10 min Q & A
heatherturner.net/talks/celebration2020 @HeathrTurnr @R_Forwards
Input from R Community
Micheal Lawrence floated idea of Requests For Proposals on perceived deficiencies in R
- community teams propose solutions
Possibly consider equivalent of python-ideas mailing list and Python Enhancement Proposal (PEP) process described in the dev guide.
heatherturner.net/talks/celebration2020 @HeathrTurnr @R_Forwards
Summary
We can all support community-driven efforts for better inclusion of under-represented groups
- Forwards is working well here
A lot of ideas from outside and inside R community of how to get more contributors from under-represented groups
- Currently don't have enough active members on Forward on-ramps team
- Needs active participation of R Core and other contributors