The Coq mailing list

[Talia Ringer <tringer AT cs.washington.edu>]

I see posts here like once every few months asking how we can improve diversity in the Coq community. A community in which it's a fairly regular event for me to go to a conference, walk into a room full of 40 people, and be the only woman. Usually conversations about diversity are welcomed in this group, and I am an active participant in those conversations.

Kenny and I aren't claiming to represent every PL researcher ever, though I can see how the wording might be a bit misleading there. You are reading "we in the global programming languages community" to include an implicit "forall" that is not there. We've refined this to "we, as members of the global programming languages community," but next time we would appreciate more constructive feedback about phrasing.

As far as people on the list not subscribing to an anti-racist view, well, sounds like that's part of why there's such an urgent diversity problem in the Coq community. I am unapologetic about that. This is an event for PL researchers to take action to improve diversity in the field, and I am co-organizing, and I am a well-known Coq researcher. There is plenty of precedent for this kind of post on the list.

Separating politics from work is not only unattainable, but also not at all how this community operates. Spend ten minutes with the Coq developers over dinner at any conference, and I promise you there will be plenty of politics.

On Tue, Jun 9, 2020 at 1:43 PM Tadeusz Litak <tadeusz.litak AT gmail.com> wrote:

On 09.06.20 22:16, Stefan Monnier wrote:

I think the original post was meant as an announcement of an event for
PL researchers, and to this extent, I think it was not out of place (at
least, based on the fairly large amount of announcements I see on this
list for other events targeting the same group).

But Klaus was right that the post was making claims on behalf of the entire community that many people on this list do not subscribe to.

An agreement to close the discussion should entail an agreement that nobody in future plays the role of a self-appointed spokesperson for all of us. It doesn't seem much to ask for, and without such an agreement, you cannot expect people to keep silent in such situations.

Best,

t.

PS.  This is a textbook example of "moral grandstanding being a major source of conflict in the world today":

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/are-you-a-moral-grandstander/