Defining diversity group and next steps

I think the "significant, structural barriers to entry" are doing to be hard to judge. I'm also assuming you mean entry to Drupal not entry to the United Kingdom. Please assure us that there's not going to be a committee of Drupalers sitting around a skype chat deciding whether someone's barriers are significant enough! :-)

Rest assured! I really should have formulated that as a question, which I tried to do at the very end. A better way of putting this: What kind of selection process would help promote the goals of the diversity and outreach group?

I agree that an independent scholarship is good idea, but we should connect with the Association about it.

Totally agree. Do you know how to effectively connect with the Association? ;) -- part of the point of the "proposal" is to encourage thinking about scholarships generally, precisely for the reasons you mentioned (DrupalCon is a very important event in the life of the community, we know how to raise funds fairly effectively -- it seems practical and impactful to me)

I won't be in London, but it makes a lot of sense to start getting this on the agenda now.

"Please assure us that there's not going to be a committee of Drupalers sitting around a skype chat deciding whether someone's barriers are significant enough! :-)"

But isn't that what's happening now? B-D Who else is going to inform the criteria of selection for a possible scholarship, if not those of us who have access to this conversation string? As it stands, we are missing perspectives. It may not be my fault (or is it?), but it is my problem.

I think Jack's point over the buzzword of diversity, hits the nail on the head. It means many things to many people, because as humans we all have different experiences. Experiences that include being excluded and stereotyped. However, at the BOF session at DrupalCon there was hesistancy over using the word for fear that it would result in a "symbolic representation" at major Drupal events and as one person put it — we don't want to play the number games.

I agree that a scholarship to DrupalCon London would make for an interesting idea, however I would add that the whomever we sent agree to hold another BOF Diversity session. This would allow us to tap into ideas and best practices from others who may not know this group exist and who are doing good work.

I'm having second thoughts about this proposal for two reasons.

1. Europe and the UK are very different contexts for a discussion about diversity (and definitely diversity's more radical [accurate] re-writing in terms of privilege and power). I don't mention this to dissuade anyone from promoting the discussion in London, but the concept of diversity is not simply transferrable.
2. If the scholarship provides support for someone on the basis of need and other structural barriers, it's unfair to also put upon the scholarship recipient an obligation to spark discussions about diversity, inclusion or privilege.

I still love the idea of independent scholarships, and I still love the idea of promoting and evolving these discussions at Drupalcon. But I think the combination is tricky and possibly harmful.

Some of the comments above have focused on the interest in supporting someone's Drupalcon attendance if they want to promote this discussion, but it's not clear if the "need" criteria is still part of it too.

I feel like I served to disintegrate this discussion, and I regret that. I'll reiterate and rephrase my support.

Independent scholarships are a worthy cause to support, but I do not think they should have special obligations attached to them. I also think someone should have a good faith conversation (or do some research) with the DA about their scholarships. What is the criteria? Who gets rejected? What kinds of things make a scholarship allocation a success or a failure? What kinds of strings to they attach to the scholarship?

Expanding the conversation at Drupalcon Europe is necessary. There are UK and European Drupalers who would be keen to participate and who could even be called upon to spark the discussion with a BoF. We also have people in this group who will be attending Drupalcon London.

Any discomfort I have with talking about "diversity" at a European Drupalcon originates in the fact that I do not reside in Europe. One of the topics of the diversity discussion is how to reduce barriers and expand community, so this requires knowledge of the community and the context. Perhaps I'm being too sensitive.

I'm can support someone's trip to Drupalcon because they want to participate in that discussion, but this shouldn't be called a scholarship and it should not be the plan to make this conversation evolve.

I've been following the discussions here and on other threads and wonder if we ought to consider changing the order of terms in the name. Or consider calling this group something else altogether like Outreach and Inclusivity or Global Community.

Diversity makes people think they can only be involved if one minority or another, and therefore separates rather than brings us all together. Why set up barriers when the idea is to break them down? I think this issue underlies some of the confusion that sets in when discussing projects, like scholarships or library books. Or even when discussing how much people charge for services (breaking assumptions that "we" means American/European vs worldwide is the goal).

I hope this is an okay moment to say this. I kept thinking about it during the Library discussion but was unable to participate at that moment.

I thought this was a great discussion. That said, could we figure out if we want to move forward with idea of a scholarship/fellowship? Could we start a +/- 1 on it? After that is figured out, then we can start the logistic of criteria, plus how much we need to raise concurrently?

I wonder how I am different from others. I wonder what results someone would have with a few days/weeks of mentor ship... Not that I am difficult, just that how I learn and interpret things seems to be alien for others. I do not see what is different so I would be interested to know what conclusions would be drawn from an exercise like this.

I hate to narrow the scope of the group in anyway. I would like to see it broadened too incorporate new aspects yet to be discussed or as mentioned. I like the idea that the group is what you make of it, and it becomes what you want from it.