Have you often wondered how decisions get made across scientific open source projects? Communications sometimes a little ‘off’? Think we can do better? Then now’s the time to get involved.
Most folks who have been involved with open-source communities have thoughts and ideas about what we can do to be more inclusive and welcoming. However, rarely do we get a chance to have these conversations and express our points of view in a constructive, collaborative way.
As part of our CZI grant to Advance an Inclusive Culture in the scientific Python ecosystem, we (maintainers and contributors to NumPy, SciPy, Matplotlib and pandas) have been working in collaboration with May Ireland to create a report with areas that are top of mind when we talk about improving our projects’ cultures and being more inclusive. We want to be more intentional about attracting, supporting and retaining people from diverse backgrounds to join as contributors.
As a result of this report, we should like to focus on how we communicate with each other, resolve disputes and make more informed decisions. We’ll soon be kicking off a series of DEI Culture Labs to work on these three areas, and we would like to invite participation from members of our communities, whether already engaged with the projects or not. We would love to hear your ideas and understand what we can do differently.
Read the DEI Insights Report and find out how you can help! You can also sign up here to the Contributor Experience Zulip chat, which is the communication channel we will be using for these conversations.