 So, hello everyone and welcome to this week's Training Tuesday. My name is Angela Jinn and I am thrilled to be hosting this chat today as our topic is one that I'm personally very passionate about and it's even better today because I am joined by a number of fantastic women to talk about encouraging diversity in meetups and work camps. So, I'd like to start off with a round of introductions if you don't mind sharing your name where you are based and how you are involved in the WordPress community, that would be wonderful. So, I'm going to go by the order on my screen. Allie, would you mind starting us off? Yeah, absolutely. My name is Allie Nimins. I'm based in Miami, Florida, North Miami, Florida and I do a lot of stuff in involving WordPress. I work at WP Buffs, which we primarily provide maintenance services for WordPress websites. So, I see that as community work and so far as making sure that a large number of websites using WordPress are safe and updated and healthy and we're educating people every day on how to use WordPress and how to make it better. I also speak at word camps and at meetups, not very many recently given the lockdown that we're experiencing, but yeah, I try to be as active as I can speaking at as many word camps and as many local meetups as I can and I'm fairly active online on Twitter in the WordPress community, really just trying to be welcoming and inclusive and positive and encouraging and all of those fantastic things and just being a good community ambassador. So, that is what I do with WordPress and how I'm involved in the community. Thanks, Allie. JC, you are next on my screen. I'm JC Palmes and I am from Ilo Ilo City Philippines. I am a front-end engineer at WebDub Studios and my involvement with WordPress, I contribute to design and code and I've also been the lead organizer for WordCamp Ilo Ilo 2018 and 2019 and currently the organizer of WordCamp Asia. Excellent, thank you and Joe, over to you. Hi, my name is Joe Binder. I'm located split between Vancouver and Vernon, British Columbia in Canada and I'm the lead of the WordPress diverse speaker training group where we help more people from marginalized and underrepresented groups feel comfortable and want to start speaking on WordPress stages that meet up some of our camps and that's 50% sponsored by automatic. Fantastic. Thank you, Joe and Mary. Do you mind introducing yourself? Hi everyone, my name is Mary Job. I live in Lagos, Nigeria. I'm a co-organizer for the Lagos and Nigeria WordPress communities. Also, it's in rep for the WordPress global community. I basically spread WordPress everywhere I go. I have a village in the village where I'm from, where I teach girls and women, teenagers and women how to use WordPress at no cost. And I currently work at big memberships for a plugin development firm. Excellent. Thank you so much, Mary. And thank you all so much for being here today. I've seen each of you do a lot of work around diversity in the WordPress space. So I'm very grateful for this opportunity to sit down and discuss something that is important to each of you and for the WordPress project. And so in fact, let's let's talk about that first because this word diversity encompasses a lot. So what does diversity mean to you and why is diversity important? So I'll start. I'll jump actually very recently kind of had to define this really for myself. Diversity to me means different. It means as much variation within a group as possible. So I think of the word like homogeneous, which is like everything being the same, and we want to aspire for things to be the least homogeneous as possible. So that means different kinds of people and not just, you know, men versus women, but different races, different languages, different backgrounds, different experiences, you know, different opinions, as much diversity as possible, meaning variation. And so I think that for a lot of people, especially right now, when you hear diversity, we primarily think diversity in gender or diversity in race or even diversity in like sexual orientation, because those tend to be the most kind of polarizing right now in in social ways and economic ways and political ways. But when we're thinking about diversity within our WordPress community, I think we can benefit by thinking about it from every possible perspective. And it's important because we want to grow like the point of what we're doing every day is to grow and to get better and to improve. And it doesn't make sense to just keep getting the same ideas from the same sorts of people over and over. It doesn't make sense to work in an echo chamber and just have those same ideas over and over again. The only way that things improve and the only way that things get better is when you have new challenging ideas. And so that doesn't necessarily always come from, you know, oh, we're going to add more women to our group, but it means we're going to add maybe more designers, whereas maybe right now you're more developer centric, you know, things like that, because new ideas and new perspectives and new questions are always going to push the conversations forward, which then pushes the technology. Nothing good in history has ever happened because the same people were just talking about the same things all the time. Good things always come from somebody saying, hey, nobody's talking about this or nobody's mentioned this or nobody's thought of this yet. And that comes from variation and change and differences. And so I think whether you're thinking about it from, you know, your workplace that uses WordPress or your WordCamp or your Meetup or your social media feed, any sort of variation means more education and more knowledge and more growth. And that's the way that I think about it. So I'm not going to add to definition for a reason why it's important. I think in WordPress, especially we have such a variety of different kinds of users and we do, we are pretty good in WordPress of different kinds of developers, designers, not all looking alike and coming from the same background. But that's not necessarily represented in the people who are contributing, the people who are showing up at events, in the audiences, in the organizers, in the speakers. And we want more representation. We want people to know that, you know, if they're the only person from the group that they identify from, they're going to feel like, you know, if I was the only woman showing up, I would feel like I don't belong here. But if there's other women or if I was a person of color, if there was others, I would, I would feel like I belong in the group. I would feel welcome. I would want to start contributing more. And once different kinds of people are contributing more, like Ali said, it could be, you know, from different genders, races, classes, sexual ability, but it can also mean designers, developers, marketers, just different, mix of different. Once more people are contributing, then two things happen. One is it becomes more inclusive for everybody because more people's needs are being thought of. And to, to jump on what Ali was saying, also it becomes better for everybody because once those new fresh perspectives come in, then we wind up creating something that everyone benefits from as well. And then to jump on that, like diversity creates more diversity. I've had so many people who, you know, if I asked them to speak at a word camper, you know, apply to speak at a word camp or apply to speak at a meetup. And they say, well, I'm not a developer. And they automatically think that because it's a WordPress focused event that they have to be the super duper accomplished, you know, business owner and developer. And I, you know, tell them we have people as long as you use WordPress, as long as you're familiar with it and have something to say, we want to hear from you. So I think having people like that who are speaking and having that be very public facing encourages other people and gives them the confidence to participate as well. And it really becomes this super positive cycle. I fully understand what Allie and Jill means by diversity, but for me, diversity means that I recognize and understand that each person is unique regardless of differences, whatever that may be, whether they are different race, gender, programmer, designers. So diversity is not just about respect or acceptance. You, as a person, need to fully understand that each individual is unique and we can just put them in a box and label them, which is what we usually do when we see a person for the first time. And I try to get that out of my head because I usually do that. I try not to. So and it is very important right now because the world is becoming an open space and with it comes exposure to different people, cultures, traditions. So if you do not understand and accept those, we'll never get to see a new perspective and gain friends and experience life the way that it needs to be experienced and without boundaries. So that's my take on it. Totally agree with everyone. For me, diversity to me is showing up at a meetup and seeing more people, like more women for me. So I would speak about this from a personal experience because I don't want to generalize. At a typical meetup, any meetup event we hold, we usually have maybe just few women. As an example, you could have three women and 50 men. Even being a community leader, it's not comfortable because you're like, OK, so like there are no other women here like we are all the women also seeing different age groups, seeing young people, you know, like teenagers and then seeing older people. Not just people who are of the same age range with you. And then one last thing that I want one last group of people that I lost that chain of thoughts. Sorry. OK, so why is it important? Why I feel it's important is because when you are building any software for a software like WordPress, you're not building for just a group of people you're building for like everybody. Like you say you want everybody to be able to use WordPress. You want to democratize publishing, which means that everybody should have a say in how the software is built considering the fact that it's open source. If it wasn't open source, then I would say no, even if it was even if it wasn't open source and it's been sold for profit. I mean, if you if you're trying to sell a software to somebody, you have to make sure that the person understands or it's it solves the problem for that person, which means you need to understand how that person thinks. So whether it's open source or not, and it needs to be really open and taking into account this, you know, everybody's thoughts when you're building the software. That's what I think. But so what is so big and the truth is you can't I think one problem for me is you can't understand the old world. It's not possible to understand the old world, but you can at least try to be human, be kind when you see somebody who looks different than from you or it's different from what you're used to. You don't have to make the face. You know, you could just understand that, OK, this person is from somewhere that I don't know about, but I'm open to learn where this person I'm open to learn more about this person. That's what I think. And that's why I think it's important. It's an important discussion to have. Excellent. Thank you. It sounds like if we are able to see more diversity in the WordPress space, there would be a lot of benefits for everyone involved. And Jill, I really like what you said about diversity leads to more diversity. So and I think that would be amazing to make happen. So how do you think we can get? Yes. How do you think we can get more people from marginalized and underrepresented groups in attendance? And how can we make them feel welcome and included? It's it I think it really kind of goes back to what we were saying is, you know, if you have one person and they notice, you know, I maybe I am the only woman in the room or I'm the only person of color in the room instead of that person kind of saying, OK, well, this is not the environment for me. Kind of shifting that mindset to say, OK, well, how can I how can I reach out to my circle and bring more people into this group? Which can be tough because that kind of that kind of insinuates that it is the job of the underrepresented person to make more diversity, which is not necessarily true. But I think that it it starts from somebody reaching out their hand and that can be a marginalized person or a non-marginalized person. And so I think that, you know, last year at WordCamp Miami, when Josepha Hayden, she gave a fireside chat, she had just been hired as the job that she has now, the position that she has now, I like cried listening to her because I saw this woman of color in this position of leadership and power very, very high up in the WordPress hierarchy. And I felt so inspired and I felt so much like I could I now had I felt like her being there was that hand reaching out to me to say that, you know, I'm welcome in this community and I can impact change and I can do all these other things. And pretty much everything I've done in the in the in the year following that up until now has been in large part due to being so inspired by her. And so I think that having diverse individuals in positions of leadership and positions of power very publicly saying, you know, I'm here and I'm not here just because I'm a woman or just because I'm a person of color, but I'm here because I'm good at my job and I'm strong and I'm smart and all these other things. It tells other people that it's possible for them to also be included. And so to kind of get back to answering the question, it starts with somebody reaching out their hand and reaching out their hand to say, I value you based on the value that you bring to this group, not necessarily because you're an undervalued person and we want the group to be more diverse. That's always a benefit and that's always a plus, but to find the things that we do have in common with other people, to find common ground and to say, hey, I noticed that you're really, really great at XYZ or you're really, really smart or, you know, you have the superpower and we need you. We need that. Please come join us that bridges every gap that there is. And so, yeah, it's really just kind of reaching out that hand and as simple as inviting somebody in. And, you know, if they, if they say no, if they decline, there's always another person that you can welcome in and invite. I feel like I've met people who have kind of maybe tried to bring people in from diverse groups and it hasn't worked. And so they've given up and I think that we consistently need to be trying to recognize any failings that we have in our groups that maybe are too homogenous and constantly trying to rectify that, if that makes sense. I think if we as a community show that we accept and respect each other, this marginalized and underrepresented groups will at least have the courage to show up. And when they do, we have to make sure that we understand boundaries, their boundaries, our boundaries, and we make them feel that they are part of the community and we sort of outright show them that we are intolerant of intolerance. And I agree with that. Ali said we need to stick out this marginalized voices and we can't just wait for them to come to us. The community as a whole needs to pay attention to what we are saying. And we also have to have the voice to speak out to the community and be heard. Need to educate the community that any hateful and derogatory speech at a particular group needs to be stopped immediately. It needs to be nipped at the bud. And I think that's a that's a really big point to bring up. And would someone like to help me define what a transgression is and then suggest some ways of how to address that? So I grabbed a line from our code of conduct that I think I got some help on this. And we think that it's summarized with the sentence from the repressed code of conduct, any unacceptable behaviors, including intimidating, harassing, abusive, discriminatory, derogatory or genuine conduct by any attendees, leaders, organizers, anybody at the events. In addressing transgression, we have to understand that it is done by choice and not because there was no choice. It is an intentional and blatant disregard of authority and loss. And to address it as such, if something like that happens, how can we how can we overcome that? How can we make sure that people feel safe and welcome in our spaces? May I think first we need to identify that this is a problem. If we have, if we know that behaving this way is a problem, then it's easier to address the problem when it happens. Not having to wait until somebody does something out of the ordinary or somebody does something against like, as an example, there was this time last year when in the committee, I don't know which committee there was this issue of somebody wearing a T-shirt that apparently was I'm not sure what that was about, but people were unhappy that, you know, like some people were for and people were against like, OK, I have the right to I have every right to to believe in whatever cause I want to believe in. So for me, I think it's not rocket science. Let me give you an example. If there is somebody here that maybe from another country that. Obviously, like we can see it touches people and then I wear a T-shirt of that person's face. And then I wear it to, I don't know, a garden somewhere else. It's not rocket science. I don't think anybody should support anybody who is torturing. It's not about free speech or free, whatever. And there's this saying that when your freedom stops, another person's freedom begins, right? So it's not about saying, oh, no, I have the right to. I don't I don't understand the concept. She can't support Babditz. I completely agree with what Mary is saying, and it brings to mind I don't dwell on this too much because people finally kind of stopped talking about it. But a couple of months ago, there was the issue of people wearing very politically charged hats of a certain color to word camps and meetups. And there was a lot of debate about, you know, whether that was considered a transgression, whether that was considered offensive or not. And it was that same argument of, you know, well, I have the right to wear whatever whatever I want. And my argument was always there is no community of one. Community means multiple people coming together to share experiences, to learn from each other, so on and so forth. And so if I'm wearing something like say, for example, if I go to visit Mary in Nigeria and I'm wearing a T-shirt that to me is not offensive, but maybe there are there are cultural traditions in Nigeria that this T-shirt has content on it that is offensive to other people. It doesn't matter how it affects me. It matters how it affects the community that I've entered into. And so it is up to me. It is my responsibility to rectify that and make sure that I'm not causing harm to others. And so, yeah, sometimes people do things or wear things or say things that to them doesn't seem offensive to them. It just seems like another day. But it's how it affects others. And if you have somebody in the community who is doing something or wearing something or saying something that is hurtful to other people and they are not willing to acknowledge the feelings of others, it doesn't matter what the intention is. It matters that they are not willing to do something very basic, like removing a hat or turning their T-shirt inside out or just not saying a word to make other people feel safe. That is such a basic ask to change one small thing to make dozens of other people feel safe. It's so basic. And if somebody is digging their heels in, that's really not somebody I feel that we want in our community. That just shows a lack of compassion that I feel is unacceptable. And so, that to me is how we address those transgressions is to educate people and say, hey, this is not okay, please change. And if they don't, that's showing blatant disregard for the community that we are trying to build and that person needs to be addressed respectively. Yeah, just to add, there's this saying that when you go to room, you behave like the Romans. There are so many other things like that. It's like going to, for instance, the first time I went to the northern part of Nigeria, I didn't want to wear the miniskirt and my part is fine. It's totally okay. Nobody would look at you because it's normal. But in their part, they're not used to seeing women dressed like that. So all my clothes, I made sure I packed clothes that were like top to bottom because I don't want to go there and disrespect whatever they have going on. I mean, if I come back home, I could totally put on my miniskirt if I wanted. But being there, if I decided to do against, you know, like go against their dress code, because I did notice I went to the market. They don't have women in the market. They have men. It's the men who come to the market. So you could imagine if I was wearing something like that. Yeah, I could say, oh, it's, it's my body. I could wear anything I want, but at the same time, they're not used to seeing people like that. So why do you want to knowingly disrespect that doesn't make any sense for me when you get back home, you can do what you want. That's what I think. I love these examples and some of the ways to address it. And I wanted to also kind of add in some clear steps for people who are listening to this and who are like, I still don't know what to do in that situation. I'm pulling it out from the code of conduct again. First, it might be a case where you it's, it might be appropriate to educate them like Ali was saying, and I love that if you can. If it's something. If it's not appropriate in that moment to educate, like it's something you just need it to stop immediately. You ask the person to stop. And the person is expected to comply immediately. And if they don't comply, then you have the right to take any action that you do appropriate up to and including removing them from the conference without warning or refund. So as an event organizer in the WordPress space, you are allowed to do what you think is appropriate to with this situation. We've talked a lot about increasing diversity. And so I want to bring up a common sentiment that I've seen as we all talk about diversity more. And I think it's based in some fear of loss and lack of understanding, which is that promoting diversity takes away opportunities from people who have been doing this a long time or have put in a lot of efforts. What is your take on that? Again, I would bring this back home and make an example of it. So in our past, if you look at our government structure, you see a lot of older people. Like 70s and 80s. You have to see 30s. I don't think you would even say 20 something. There might be, but you have to see people in their 20s or 30s. It's mostly 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. And the argument is always that they are more experienced. They know better. You know, they've been doing this for so long. You know, they are so good at it. But for me, I think that's, for me, I always talk to people when they bring up the argument that as a, as an old person, anyone above, I think anyone under the age of 30, or 40, you should have people that you're mentoring to take over from you. So when you're 50, I believe you shouldn't be everywhere. I mean, that's why people have personal assistants, isn't it? At a point, even a personal assistant gets promoted to the stage where they go to speak on behalf of the boss, isn't it? So the argument that that person is more suited, more experienced, for me, it doesn't work because if you're that old and you don't have, or if you have that, if you spend 12 years in WordPress, for instance, and you don't have young people who, maybe not necessarily young, but you don't have people who are like one or two years into WordPress, looking up to you that asks you questions that come up to you, you know, for help. Then I think you have a serious problem. I think you have a serious problem. That's what I think, because if everyone should have people that they actually teach or train, is that when parents give birth to kids, you train your kids to be better than you, isn't it? To not make the mistakes that you did. So if you, if you have that much experience and you don't have people that you're training or that you're teaching to, you know, to step up and be the face or be the leader or something in WordPress, to step up and be the face or be the leader or something in whatever field you're in, then I think you are filled personally. And I like that I see in WordPress community, a lot of people who are so good, they also teach, you know, they have YouTube channels, they have books, they have people, I think this is the only community I've seen where people are so down to it, and they are so responsive when you reach out to them and say, I'm trying to learn this, could you put me through that that we have in this community and I'm grateful for that. So, but that's the way I see it. The way that I think about it. It is complicated because in some ways there are some instances where, yeah, if you're promoting diversity, it can be argued that you are taking away opportunity from other people, but it's about leveling the playing field. If you are valuing and prioritizing diversity, you have to balance the scales, right? So if there are, if there is an issue in the tech community, like there is right now where women are underrepresented and people of color are underrepresented, giving those sorts of people more opportunities. It doesn't actually level the playing field entirely. It makes an effort and it makes things a little bit better, but it's still always an uphill battle. And like I said before, there is no community of one. So if you are a person from a highly represented group of people and you feel as though you are having opportunities taken from you in lieu of people from underrepresented communities. Think about how many opportunities you've already had that have not been offered to people from those groups. So when you think about it outside of this one instance and you think about maybe your entire career, how level has that playing field been really? And in this instance, do you really think it's going to completely derail your life to step aside and let somebody else have an opportunity that they haven't been fighting for, that maybe you have not had to work as hard for? I think it's all about perspective and it's all about thinking outside of yourself and thinking what is going to be the best for my community? Is it the best for my community for me to have yet another opportunity to speak or yet another opportunity to lead? Or is it going to be better for my community for me to bring somebody else in who has been trying to claw their way up and who has not been able to? I thought about this a lot when I was doing speaker selection for WordCamp Miami a couple of months ago. And basically what I did was I said to myself, I am prioritizing diversity. I am prioritizing diversity as much as I am prioritizing any other skill or any other bullet point that you might give somebody when judging between two speakers. So if I had two speakers for a slot and they were both really accomplished and they both had lots of experience and they had a great talk prepared, but maybe one person came from an underrepresented community and the other person didn't. I took that as a bullet point in that person's favor. And a lot of times that underrepresented person got that slot. And so our selection was very, very balanced because we had tons more applicants from highly represented groups than otherwise. So it all ended up coming out equal. And if you look at it that way, if you look at it literally like balancing scales, you're not really taking anything away from anyone you are helping. Selecting speakers for WordCamp is really, really hard. During the initial planning for WordCamp Asia last year, when we had to choose speakers, we had a really hard time. We tried to prioritize diversity, but because it's the first WordCamp Asia that never happened yet. We had a lot of people applying from well represented groups and we also had a lot of people from underrepresented groups. But I think we did a pretty good job with selecting the speakers. A lot of people were not agreeing to that, but because of the selections, I mean the options that we had, we had to make sure that we at least reach the diversity goals that we had as a group. It may not be the goal, diversity goal of other more established WordCamps, but it was our first time and we wanted to make sure that we make those small voices heard, but also give the community, the Asian community the big voices that they are waiting to see on the live stage. And I think once the community understands how important diversity is, the initial disagreement between diversity goals and who to choose, who to not choose will no longer be valid. And I think now more than ever, we as a community must accept that diversity is something that we can no longer just put in the back burner. It is important, it is urgent, and it is something that needs to be addressed and prioritized, especially by the well represented group, because we are not taking anything away from them, as Ali said. It's not even leveling the playing field, it's just giving these voices a stage to be heard. Well, I don't want to at all insinuate that this is easy. I didn't mean to come off to say that at all, but it's just one, two, three and you're done. Like it is extremely challenging, it is extremely complicated, and the best you can do is the best that you can do. And I don't think that it's ever appropriate to approach someone and say, you suck because your lineup isn't diverse, or you're not, you don't prioritize diversity because your numbers aren't exactly 50-50. We don't always know what happens behind the organizers doors, you know what I mean? And so, JC, I'm so happy that you guys were prioritizing diversity and I am happy that it was important. And, you know, thank you. Thank you for doing that. It was one of the main goals of our camp Asia. I'm so happy. It truly is not easy. Speaker Session is probably the longest group call that we always do. And there was a lot of arguments. And I have approached people on Twitter before and said, you know, privately said, hey, this event looks great. I would love to see more diversity on this panel. What are you doing to encourage diversity? And I've gotten all sorts of answers. And sometimes it's, you know, we did all we could and it just didn't work out this year. And sometimes that happens and I have to say that it's fine, but the best that you can do is the best that you can do. And we just have to support each other and get better every single time. So yeah, I want to, I want to add to the things that both of you have said, I'm going to start with the speaker diversity part. If you as a WordPress event organizer meet up or work camp are finding that you're not getting applications from, like you're getting applications from a homogeneous group. And you would like to get a mix of applications from different groups. We have a workshop that will. So right now what's happening is a lot of people are saying, you know, they're not seeing themselves. You know, I'm not seeing myself represented on stage as much. And so I go, well, I don't belong on stage. And once I see, like Ali saw with Josepha speaking, once we see more people like us on stage, then then we feel like, yes, we belong there. So this workshop helps people see. Yes, we are experts. We actually have often usually we have the same amount of knowledge. We just frame it differently in our minds. And so the workshop helps people shift their perspectives to realize. We do have the same amount of knowledge and we do belong up there. And it also helps people frame their knowledge of like, how can I present myself in the best light and how can I present myself as an expert. Given how how much extra imposter syndrome that we feel. And also helps people figure out what we could talk about. So if you as a lead up or word camp organizer, where to run this workshop for your community, chances are you're going to have more applications. And that's what we found in Vancouver. When we run this workshop, we have three times the number of applications from people from marginalized and underrepresented groups. And we are, we several years, we've hit 50% or more diversity in our speaker lineup. And so if you want to know more about that, there's a link, which I'm sure we'll post later, but just quick for now, tiny dot CC slash WP diversity is where you can learn more about that temporarily during COVID times when it is harder to learn how to work, run a new workshop. Well, first of all, we have a training coming up in July on that, but also while it's harder to learn how to run a new workshop, my team is directly running this workshop for your participants online currently once a month. And so that's something that you can also learn more about. Wanted to add to I love the other points that you've both been saying about how it, you know, if somebody's had the spotlight for a long time, give chances to other people. And as a reminder, in WordPress, we are, we're not supposed to be about celebrity voices and certain egos and people. It's supposed to be about the whole community. And so it really should be lifting up everyone's voices. We want new voices and just think about, you know, for those who are thinking about how it's going to benefit yourself, think about how amazing it will be to hear new perspectives, to hear new ideas, and how that's actually going to benefit you and your work to have fresh ideas coming in and how you can use that in your own work and how that's also going to benefit the whole community. And so I think it's important to build on what I'm saying. You really, you know, as a person who's privileged and a person who can help shape this community, please champion more diversity in your audiences, in your contributors, and especially your organizers and your leaders, that is going to make a really big difference. And your speakers always speak, speakers is kind of kind of leaves into the rest. Then they get noticed for, we get noticed for our skills and abilities, and we get asked to do more and also builds up our own confidence. This is why I love the speaker group because speaking leads to so much more. But thinking especially about your organizers and your leadership, it shows people that they are welcome. It helps make your events more inclusive for everyone, because then you're going to have more voices saying, what about this? Like for example, childminders may not be able to attend events nine o'clock at night. And that might be why you might not have as many moms and dads in your coming out to your events. So you might want to ask people what time would work better for you. And you might not even think about that if you don't have childminders in your organizing team. So having different kinds of people will help you think about the bigger things as well as come up with unique ideas that helps everyone. I really love where this conversation is going. And I want to take a quick minute to think outside of the WordPress community. I'm curious, have any of you seen any efforts around diversity outside of the WordPress community that has gone really well that we might be able to apply to our space and work camps and meet-ups? Say the WordPress community is the most diverse community that I'm a part of right now. So I don't really have very many other examples. Yeah, me too. But I do know, we're all in tech, but yeah, there are a lot of tech companies that are slowly adopting diversity in their workplace and with a lot of success. But I can't really say much about this. Some companies really. But I do know that my company wholly supports diversity in the workplace. And I am really happy about that. And mostly because I have a voice and I am recognized because of what I can do. And I was never marginalized because of my gender or my ethnicity. And I believe that is something that we can do in the WordPress community as well to recognize talents and individuality regardless of gender, race, religion, age, status, gender. There are a couple of other things that I know about. I know in the world of making video games, they have conferences specific to different marginalized groups. For example, there's, I forget what it's called, but they have conferences for people who are queer who make games. And so they have ways of lifting up voices by actually giving a specific platform to those voices. And that's something that we actually have started doing WordPress. We have some groups around the world that are for women of WordPress. And I think those groups do an amazing job of saying to their members, hey, we're here to support each other, but please don't become an isolated silo. You're here so that we can build you up and help the main group and contribute there. And that's really what it's about. We don't want to become subgregated groups. So if there's a way that we could do more of that, having more specific groups who support each other with the goal of helping people contribute more to the overall project. Also in Drupal, because of some specific circumstances that happened, they created a specific group called Drupal Diversity and Inclusion. They're not officially part of the Drupal community. They're kind of an offshoot that are rebels. But I love what they're doing. They're doing everything that they can to bring more diversity and inclusion to the Drupal project. For example, they hired me to bring in the diverse speaker workshop, and we are working on changing the landscape in Drupal through that. So just having the same thing, either having groups to support each other or having groups to have a say and try to make that change. I don't know how that fits exactly in WordPress. I don't have the second one fits, but those are some things. I don't know anything that's wildly successful, but they're at least examples of efforts that are making some difference for sure. Going back to the WordPress community, Giuseppe posted on the WordPress.org blog recently. It was a post titled Equity and the Power of Community. If you haven't read it, I highly encourage you to. This is one of my recent very painful events in the US, and I want to read a few lines that stuck with me in particular. The WordPress mission is to democratize publishing. And to me that has always meant more than the freedom to express yourself. Democratizing publishing means giving voices to the voiceless and amplifying those speaking out against injustice. It means learning things that we otherwise wouldn't. It means that every voice has the ability to express themselves, regardless of race, wealth, power and opportunity. And she goes on to say, I know the WordPress community is capable of changing the world. So my question to all you wonderful women is, what can the WordPress community do to hold space for marginalized voices in our community? Not just now, but always. I think that's what my group does. So I think it's important to let people know, especially during this time, it's harder for a lot of people and a lot of people don't have the bandwidth right now to participate. But we want people to know that we always want to hear their voices anytime that we're, we're not here to give people more work, we're here to help amplify anybody who does want to be speaking. And so we want to let people know, we want to hear from people always. We want to hear from different voices because it's actually so valuable for us to hear from different voices. It adds to everyone's experience. It adds to everyone's, I don't have another word for that. And to let people know that anytime, anytime people want help, you know, you as an event organizer can help mentor people. And when you mentor, be sure not to speak over people, only help with what people are actually asking for help with, or ask first if you want to give help on something you can, you can ask and say, would you like help with your slides, for example, would you like, can I give you some, some tips, can I help you craft a new topic title? Can I help with your description? But it's better if people come to you asking what they want help with. And also running the workshop, it helps people work through. So imposter syndrome is a little phenomenon where people feel like we don't know as much as everybody else in the room. And we are going to be found out and everybody will know and kick us out of the room or whatever version of that people have in their heads. And I do want to say most people have imposter syndrome, but people who see themselves well represented feel it and think, okay, well, I know a little bit about this topic. I can speak anyway. And the rest of us who do not see ourselves well represented think I only know a little bit about this topic. So I'm not going to speak up. I'm not going to speak up. I'm not going to speak up. And so helping people see, you know, just as much as the rest of the people. And we do want to hear from you. And you might even see, oh, you did this great job on this project. Can you tell us about that? You know, give actually asked for a very specific thing that, you know, would be a value to the community. And also asking, you know, WordPress events are moving more towards giving. There's a lot of how to talks, how to tell the stories. People learn better from learning how someone learned rather than just learning a bunch of facts of how to do something. You can still do the facts of how to do something, but you can do it in a storytelling format. And so that also positions people as recognizing that it's my story. It's my experience. I'm always an expert in my own story. So encouraging that as well. And letting people know. It's not just now. We, we have always wanted to hear from more voices and we always will want to hear from more voices. When people want to do that. He needs to, we must continue to push boundaries. And to be all inclusive. And we can just turn a blind eye or cover our ears because it's the same thing to do. We have to continue to listen. To reach out and to seek out this marginalized voices, but not to make them feel that. We are, we are to say, I forgot my train of thought, but yeah, so we always have to make the effort to listen. So that this and her voices will be heard. And most of this marginalized voices. I'm one of them. We rarely asked for help. We rarely asked for help. We rarely asked for help. We rarely asked for help. Because imposter syndrome is real. There are different versions of it for sure. I as a developer. I rarely talk about. Development stuff, because I think I don't know what I'm talking about, although. I do know what I'm talking about. But I'm not sure how to. Tell people, make people feel that I do know what I'm talking about. So it's, it's really scary. And. If I can see someone. Talking on stage, someone like me, then it really gives me a boost to actually go up and speak up and let people know. That I know what I'm talking about. And I can do what you can do. I can do it better. So. I mean, I think the communities are doing a good job. And one thing I think that they should do. Which people may have forgotten. But if one of the things I mean. When your fight started middle. You know, those five good faith rules. That they send and tell you to go to. I mean, those five rules, they seem like just five points, but they actually carry a lot of points. If you break it down. I. I started live by. This philosophy that everybody was something that the other person doesn't do. And when I did active, like when I ran active events, I always let people that safe. You can tell me that you don't know something. That I don't know. There is something you know right now. That I don't know about. And maybe the community should find a way to remind me of organizers like around the world. Let them know that meetups are informal events. Because for me, I see middle grounds as a place for people to practice. Practice before they get on the what comes. On the what comes page. If people speak often at meetups chances that they are more likely to submit an application to speak at a what kind because then they would have been doing this in the community. On a consistent basis. So I think one of the problems we had when we started meetups was people would usually come and then they'll just save and then listen. And then we'll try to look for somewhere else. But I think about three years ago, I, we had the first meetup in general. And I told everybody, I said, it's going to be different going forward. There won't be any cut down approach anymore because everybody comes and they listen to take something away, but you don't share. It's not going to work. You have to learn to share. You have to, even if it's for five minutes, just come up and tell us something about what you're doing. And then I think the community also needs to remind people that WordPress is not just about developers and bloggers. When you say WordPress, people will start to think, I don't know how many times people have told me that I'll call me a developer. People just automatically assume that I'm a developer. And even when I say that I'm not a developer, I'm like, why are you lying? You know, why are you, I'm like, but I'm not a developer. I'm not a developer. I'm not a developer. I'm not a developer. I'm not a developer. I'm like, but I'm not a developer. I don't consider myself a developer. You know, yes, maybe I know the basics of that for me. That doesn't qualify me. So I think they need to remind people that, see, they're like 16 different ways when you go to make, you know, there are 16 different ways to go to WordPress. The developer aspect is like, I think that's just call and, you know, and then maybe blogging, documentation. What about the other 14 ways to call it? Those people will speak multiple languages, you know, you have to let all of these people know that people who are into photography, who will do editing and stuff. There's a space for that. And I think that's one of the things that makes me like WordPress so much the fact that there is almost nothing that you can be doing on this planet that you won't, you can't have a piece of WordPress. That's what makes it exciting for me. So maybe the committee needs to remind people, especially people who are organizers that other people look up to like, let people give people a chance to speak at middles. Give people a chance to come up and say, let everybody have a voice. Let everybody have a say in what you talk about in the community. And maybe if they did that, then people will remember that, oh, I don't have to always go look for the best pass to come speak. I mean, if you're here, it's because you would use WordPress on one way or the other. Okay, come and tell us how you use WordPress. There are little things, but little things make up big things, I believe. So I think for me, I think that's what the committee needs to do. Remind people of those five good faith rules, and the reason why the committee insists. I agree with everything that's just been said, this has been, I love listening to all of this. I just sort of wanted to add that, like Mary said, you know, the community is not just developers. We are all sorts of people with all sorts of talents and all sorts of skills and all sorts of backgrounds. And when we're focusing on, you know, holding space for marginalized voices or uplifting marginalized people, we need to make an effort to understand the problem. We don't always understand what the root of the issue is, or we don't always understand what the best thing is that we can do for somebody to help. Like Joe said, sometimes we need to ask, you know, what can I do to help you? Like we don't, I think for a lot of people who are developers, the primary part of your job is being right, right? Like the primary part of being a developer is solving a problem and getting to an end result and saying, okay, this is, this is the clear cut solution that I've found that I've solved it. Now I can move on to the next thing, but community work is not about being right. And I think it's hard for people sometimes to acknowledge that I don't, and I will never understand what it's like to be a marginalized person. For me personally, as a woman and as an African-American woman, I do still have a lot of privilege. I'm lighter-skinned. I have had a really, really good education. I have all of these privileges. I have a house that is safe and clean. I have access to food and water. I'm not ever going to understand what it's like for a lot of other people. I was talking to someone just the other day about how, you know, the protests and the things that are going on in America right now, I'm not going to ever fully really understand what people are going through because I am of a lighter skin tone. Just that alone creates a huge separation. And so from a privileged position that I'm in, I need to talk to other people and ask them, what is something that I can do to help you? What's something that I can do to make your life or your experience better? And I think that while our role as WordPress community members is not necessarily to solve racism in America, if we want to prioritize diversity, if we want to uplift marginalized voices, we need to have these sorts of conversations with people, either publicly like we're doing right now, or privately reach out to somebody and say, hey, I don't understand what it's like to be you. I never will understand what it's like to be you, but I want to inflict a positive change that will help you. From your perspective, what can I do to do that? And keep in mind that it is not always that person's job or they don't always have the bandwidth to have those sorts of conversations with you because they can be very emotionally taxing, but I think it is always worthwhile to ask and not assume that you know what the answer is, that you know what you can do to solve the problem. You have to acknowledge the deficiency in your knowledge sometimes and ask for help when it's necessary. And I think that since becoming a more active community member, I have noticed more and more people asking questions and asking, what can I do to help? Or can you explain this aspect that I don't understand? And while I've seen that, I still think that it can happen more. It needs to happen more both publicly and privately, like I said, depending on your comfort level, because sometimes it's, sometimes there are not conversations we want to have in a public forum. Sometimes it's uncomfortable and it's awkward and it's embarrassing, but the conversation still needs to happen if we want to make that difference. Love everything that was just shared here. We, we as a large community, a global community, have so many gifts to share with each other. And that ability to deeply listen and understand each other is such a powerful, it's a gift to give as well. So Ali, JC, Jill, Mary, thank you all so much for being here today and for sharing all of your very valuable insights. These conversations are, they're hard, they're not easy, but having them makes us stronger. And I look forward to continuing these chats with you and with the rest of the WordPress community as well. Thank you all so very much.