Hello!
This is Elizabeth with the CHAOSS Project. In the CHAOSS project, we are developing a Diversity & Inclusion Badging Program. This program is aimed at helping event organizers signal to their communities that diversity and inclusion is a high priority for them, and be recognized for their excellent diversity & inclusion work.
As you know, by increasing diversity on a team or project, there are benefits associated with lower risk, increased quality of results, and a broader base of users that can find utility in the final outcome. Inclusivity is paramount to attracting and maintaining a more diverse team of contributors and participants, which is why these initiatives must work together.
In open source, in particular, there are many folks working on these issues, but there is still a lot of work yet to be done. Badging focused on diversity and inclusion must, therefore, incorporate two factors not present in other open source badging programs:
- An open peer-review and mentoring process.
- A timed, regular set of “rebadging” windows that ensure fidelity of a project’s ongoing culture to the aim of increasing diversity and inclusion.
The goal of the Diversity & Inclusion Badging Program is to encourage events to obtain D&I badges to signal to potential speakers, attendees, and sponsors that D&I is a high priority for the organizers, and for reasons of leadership, self-reflection, and self-improvement on issues critical to building the Internet as a social good. This includes:
- Establish an environment where events can engage in the badging program
- Aligning the badging program with best practices, guidelines, and recommendations from D&I efforts on the CHAOSS project
Because of your involvement in the open source community diversity & inclusion efforts, we are reaching out to you to see if you would have an interest in serving as a reviewer for the Diversity & Inclusion Badging Program. As a reviewer you would be asked to:
- Review event submissions requesting a Diversity & Inclusion Badge.
- Help applicants in this review process to understand how they can improve their event diversity & inclusion practices
- Review no more than one event per month
Reviews are based on the event alignment with current CHAOSS-defined event diversity & inclusion metrics. These include:
- Code of Conduct
- Speaker Demographics
- Attendee Demographics
- Diversity Access Tickets
- Family Friendliness
The review process is meant to be as objective as possible where you would review things specifically as:
- An event Code of Conduct is available to all and provides a clear path for expressing and resolving event diversity & inclusion concerns
- The event uses an inclusive process for selecting event speakers
- The event has a clear process for measuring Attendee demographics.
- The information about event Diversity Access Tickets is public and easy to find.
- The event claims to provide services/facilities for families.
We would really hope that you can help us with this effort. We will have three virtual calls next week (September 7th, 8th, and 11th) to introduce new reviewers. Please complete this preliminary form for an invitation to these onboarding calls. You would only need to attend one call, and if none fit your schedule are happy to make individual arrangements.
As the Diversity & Inclusion Badging Program is in its early stages, your insights would prove invaluable to this effort – not only in helping events think about their diversity & inclusion efforts but to also help us develop new diversity & inclusion metrics at the CHAOSS project. Our goal is to improve how we address diversity & inclusion at events but we need the help of people to make this work in the most transparent and constructive way possible.
Thanks for any consideration!
Elizabeth Barron