YAPC

[purplecat]

I've been volunteering, on and off, as a DreamWidth developer for about eighteen months - ever since I saw a post saying how easy DW was to volunteer for compared to other Open Source projects. I had the advantage, of course, of having programmed in Perl before, and some experience finding my way around other people's code bases. On the other hand, I've never worked on a project with a large team, let alone one that expected to put comparatively polished pieces of code out into an actual live production environment (academia, with a few notable exceptions, very much takes the view that code development ends at the point where you upload a prototype and say "feel free to use it if you're interested" or even, "it worked once, on my machine, which totally means it counts as a scientific result". User support generally ends somewhere around that point as well.)

Since DreamWidth takes its volunteers very seriously, they offered to pay (at least in part) for any volunteer who had submitted a patch in the last year, to go to a Perl Programming tech conference in Texas. YAPC::NA, to be precise. In a piece of classic programmer humour, that stands for "Yet Another Perl Conference: North America" - which is not a joke that is worth explaining.

For various reasons, to do with the cost of flights, I arrived a day before the conference so seized the opportunity to go to a pre-conference workshop, Git for Ages 4 and Up. I'm half tempted to try explaining what Git is and why it is interesting because, from my point of view, the workshop was definitely the highlight of the conference. But discretion has proved the better part of valour. I'll just note that Git joins the Gimp on the list of really useful software that I wish someone had put more thought into naming. I am now trying to persuade my boss that we should use it at work. He's a bit dubious but has agreed that I can switch to it if I can persuade our user it's a good idea. I also now know what tinker toys are.

YAPC itself was full of interesting bits and pieces. There was an interesting talk on "Roles" - not Roles as used in agent organisational programming, but as an alternative to inheritance in object oriented programming. I also now know what you can do with the "Services" menu item that appears in the File Menu for every Mac application.

The Perl community was in the throws of a distinctly tedious brouhaha over whether or not the conference needed a Code of Conduct. A rather surprising parade of perfectly intelligent people were pitching various kinds of tantrum at the concept that there might be *gasp* a minimum standard of behaviour at a tech conference and that *swoon* maybe some public procedures for handling complaints might be a good idea and even *shock horror* the suggestion that attendees avoid doing things that might make other people feel unsafe and unwelcome. Most of these otherwise apparently sane and sensible people seemed to be of the opinion that the moment you had a Code of Conduct you would be summarily ejected from the conference by a swarm of jack-booted feminazis if you had the temerity to so much as swear. The fact that these people frequently expressed these opinions in more than colourful language and yet the jackbooted feminazis conspicuously failed to materialise did not seem to make much difference to the discussion. That said, apart from the vocal minority behaving like a toddler who has been told they have to share their toys, everyone seemed very friendly and welcoming.

I was really impressed by the time-keeping at the conference. Few of the sessions were moderated and yet, invariably, talks ended on time. The "Lightening Talk" sessions were moderated and talks were limited to 5 minutes with a whistle at the 4 minute mark and a gong at the 5 minute mark. Only two of those over-ran, one of which was summarily clapped off stage once the gong went. The second was a eulogy and the audience had the politeness to wait that one out. I got a minor role in one of the lightning talks where the speaker wanted to persuade folk to attend a contradance event that evening. She wanted dancers to demonstrate the style (and to prove that you didn't need much experience to participate). Both afuna and I got dragged into this.

In the evenings we often hung out in each other's hotel rooms. To be honest, these were more suites than rooms, with separate living areas and kitchenettes. DreamWidth took us out for a meal one evening and, on another, sarah persuaded us all to go and watch the largest urban bat population leaving its day time quarters and heading out into Austin to hunt.

Video of bats heading out to hunt, with a bonus video of one crawling over my feet, having just crawled over allen's feet.



We also had an opportunity to visit DreamWidth's servers. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the server company but we had a group photo outside:



We did get to go in and look at the actual machines which are hosting and running everyone's journals. We also got T-shirts.

There are also, you will note, an awful lot of short women working for DreamWidth. afuna is shorter than I am which is a particularly rare occurrence. You'll also notice my hair is braided, and possibly that my nails are painted. zarhooie was handing out beauty styling in return for bug fixes. I think I'm in almost permanent bug debt now.

Comments

[zorkian]

Thanks for writing this! I really like seeing things from other people's perspectives.

Yeah, the Code of Conduct thing at YAPC really bugs me. I'm trying to keep a finger on it and see how the conversation goes, because I want to figure out what DW should be doing next year for volunteers and conference attendance.

[purplecat]

It has to be said, beyond the Code of Conduct business (which included being asked my opinion about it - presumably because I was a woman), I found everyone at YAPC to be friendly and welcoming and I never felt remotely unwelcome or unsafe. The vehemence of the reaction was a bit off-putting though, especially in advance, given tech conferences don't exactly have a good reputation in this area.

[dreamatdrew]

I am actually really glad I got to meet you.

[purplecat]

Me too.

[shadowspar]

You'll also notice my hair is braided, and possibly that my nails are painted. zarhooie was handing out beauty styling in return for bug fixes. I think I'm in almost permanent bug debt now.

Heh, I have no doubt that this was exactly her evil plan. The convo during my fingernail-painting session went something along the lines of:
shadowspar: "Oh, hey, what exactly is this for? I mean, I haven't fixed a particular bug you've asked for yet."
zarhooie: "It's ok; this just means I'll feel less guilty when I do ask."

The Code of Conduct thing -- yeah, it's just as you say. What particularly got under my skin was the seeming perception that the Code was about banning swearing per se, instead of realizing that it might, you know, actually be targetting language that is hurtful or exclusionary.

Perhaps sadly, there is no legion of jackbooted feminist thugs. Geek feminists are more like a ragtag band of guerrillas, though, which is much cooler. =)

[purplecat]

I think it was an implicit slippery slope argument - i.e., if you forbid hurtful language then sooner or later someone will claim to have been hurt by something silly and then oh noes! the end of days will be upon us - probably with a slight mix of anxiety and denial about the exponents own past behaviour. On one level it betrayed a lack of trust that the community leaders could apply a Code of Conduct sensibly.

I particularly disliked Larry Wall's assertion that if you state boundaries then people will push against them who otherwise would not have done - i.e., that by having a Code of Conduct you create Code of Conduct breaking behaviours. Because we all know that every community above a certain size has problem individuals who need to be managed with clearly stated and firmly enforced boundaries.

At some point during the week I believe deborah achieved feminazgul status, which is even cooler than than a ragtag band of guerrillas, though I don't believe her opponents ever fell into a swoon at the presence of her dread shadow.

[misskat]

At some point during the week I believe [personal profile] deborah achieved feminazgul status, which is even cooler than than a ragtag band of guerrillas, though I don't believe her opponents ever fell into a swoon at the presence of her dread shadow.

That you know of.

[purplecat]

This is so true.

[a-cubed.livejournal.com]

You may get a request from me to interview you for one of my current projects, on the incentives for involvement in FLOSS projects.

[louisedennis.livejournal.com]

I'm happy to talk to you, but you might do better to go to the source. misskat (on DreamWidth) handles community management and has a talk she gives to tech conferences on the care and feeding of volunteers. denise and mark (the CEOs, also their account names on DreamWidth) are also, naturally, very concerned about managing a good volunteer community and might well be prepared to make time to talk to you.