I'm noticing a pattern here ...

[kallistixf]

Take a look at the people involved in Google+ architect +Yonatan Zunger's discussion of hashtags ... don't worry about any of the details, just look at who's talking.

What do you notice?

PS: also on Google+

Comments

[giglet]

Hey, I think your link is malformed. This works (but I don't know enough to infer any pattern.)

https://plus.google.com/u/0/103389452828130864950/posts/gJ8Wqu8FLCM

[kallistixf]

oops, sorry about that -- thanks! fixed now.

[copracat]

Ahahahaha! On the post highlighting it, Jon Pincus calls it a 'major skew'. Oh bless you, understatement man. /sarcasm!

[brewsternorth]

Interesting thing is that the commenters at Pincus' post, though fewer, skew the other way.

[copracat]

Indeed, and underlines the need to have male allies talking out. And it was Pincus who posted it to the other site that highlighted men talking to themselves.

[kallistixf]

Very true. And it's a virtuous cycle: since I speak out so much (and do the other things I recommended to Yonatan) the skew often goes other way on my threads ...

[azurelunatic]

From the names, it looks like mostly men; I identified one person likely to be a woman (who is not using her last name); it also feels like more of the men are white and/or have Western names, although it does get more diverse as the discussion goes on.

[mad_maudlin]

If it's Sai you spotted, Sai is male-bodied and agender (but uses masculine pronouns). He's also mononymous--he legally changed his full name to "Sai" and has the documents to prove it. Google employees have nevertheless suspended his account twice.

[azurelunatic]

It was actually Melina M who I spotted; I recognized Sai's name from some previous nymwars fun.

[kallistixf]

+Melina M (the woman who had posted in Yonatan's thread) kicked off another interesting discussion at http://goo.gl/Pmiey ... Yonatan has gotten involved in all three threads, acknowledged the problem, and asked for suggestions. Here's what I said:

As an individual, just by making these kinds of posts in the different threads you're doing a big thing by making it clear that you really do want involvement. Some of the things I do that work out well: participate in comments on threads led by women (and blogs like Geek Feminism); try to share at least as many posts by women than by men; also share posts with private circles where it's especially important to get diverse feedback; occasionally ask friends to ask questions for me.

There are also things you can do as Architect for Google+. Treat diversity goals as you would any other business priority: design for them, track metrics, get familiar with the existing research, listen to feedback. +Mel Faulkner had some great points in a post almost three months ago at http://payattentionpeople.com/index.php/2011/07/21/why-women-users-are-important-for-google-plus/ ... Kathy Sierra gave some perspectives at http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/?p=2918#comment-179952

He said that they do treat diversity as a priority; I asked for what their goals were. His reply:

We have diversity goals around hiring and so on, but for Google+ I wouldn't describe it in terms of bonuses or consequences around diversity per se: rather, those consequences are tied to the success of G+, and we are deeply, passionately aware that this success is going to come from getting women (and other groups, too! Diversity isn't just about gender) to feel at home here. Social networks live and die by how women use them. So it's not that we're having conversations about diversity; it's that these concerns drive our core designs and plans, and pervade all of our product conversations.