Diversification Postmortem

Stephen Coles

Nearly 3 months have passed since the Diversifying TypeDrawers discussion. Despite our desire to include more voices on TD, particularly those of women and other underrepresented groups, very few continued to participate after the promising wave of activity during the summer. This troubles and saddens me. I am discouraged and I struggle to conjure any hope that we can break out of this cycle — but I don’t want to give up. So this is a sincere call for insight specifically from those who rarely post on TD.

How can we do better, both as members and as moderators? To what do you attribute your lack of activity since August? Is it disappointment in that diversity thread? Is it disappointment in the reaction to your posts in other threads? Is it the availability of other/better venues for discussion? 

Again, I think it would be most constructive to hear from those who are not frequent TD participants. To our regulars (who I love and appreciate): please refrain from posting in this thread. Thank you!

Erin McLaughlin

Hi Stephen! I saw your FB post so I headed on over!

As for me, my lack-of posting wasn’t a deliberate “I have been offended” or “I give up on this!” move. I just never think to come here! I am too busy with work and want to spend my free time on other things, rather than volunteering to critique peoples’ typefaces or to try to solve peoples’ technical issues.

I think that there are a lot of other people who are equally skilled as me who enjoy volunteering their time to critique typefaces. (and I’d rather be paid to do it, to be honest!) Same goes for the technical issue requests. Because there are so many people willing to volunteer, I don’t feel like I’m letting anyone down by not contributing. Plus, I don’t think there’s such thing as a “unique female perspective” in regard to answering the technical issues - I think it doesn’t matter who answers the question. 

I might end up coming to TD if I can't find an answer to a technical question of my own elsewhere, but I would likely just ask a type colleague in a private email first, which I enjoy more than publicly shouting my ineptitude

I’d say that most of the posts on TD seem to fall under those two categories - and maybe that’s one reason why achieving “diversity” on the message board doesn’t seem as relevant or important to me - important enough for me to make an effort to post when I'm otherwise not compelled to do so. I think the subjects in which personal perspectives are more likely to come into play are things having to do with business/education/cultural/historical and other people-centric topics. I would imagine that those types of discussions are where more interesting things are said, and where more diversity would be particularly helpful. Those don’t pop up too frequently, so I don’t find it worth the time to check for them, I guess.

I know that a lot of the women who were involved with some of the TD and twitter discussions are spending time working on new Alphabettes initiatives and help one another and converse in that forum. I think that they feel it’s a more positive and friendly place. But I’ll let those folks speak for themselves on this thread! I think that some of them have had specific negative experiences here. I'm hoping they'll share their views, too.

Lila Symons

I second Erin on so much of what she is saying. 

Though I loved some of the answers I have gotten to questions I have posted on here, there’s just some things I would rather talk to someone I know and trust in a private or semi-private environment. Sometimes, I just need a one sentence answer.

Many of us are working on proprietary projects exclusively and contractually cannot run the risk of unintentionally revealing work.

Also, how the diversifying typedrawers thread went down is another reason to why I don’t really spend tons of time on here. The community is not willing to make the necessary changes that will make this forum more welcoming to new points of view.

Jan Middendorp

Erin, I’ll contact you directly. Maybe I have some work you might like.

Lila, I’m taken aback by your negativism about “the community”. What would you like to happen? There will always be a few bitchy individuals of both all genders (or just type designers and designerettes prone to moments of sarcasm or political incorrectness), and heavy sanctions from the many reasonable and sensitive community members aren’t likely to contribute to the peaceful and tolerant atmosphere on a platform like this.

joeclark

Lila Symons said:

The community is not willing to make the necessary changes that will make this forum more welcoming to new points of view.

Citation needed.

Elizabeth Carey-Smith

TypeDrawers is neither peaceful or tolerant in its tone or community reactions even to innocuous topics -- if it were there would not be a flagging and banning system in place, let alone one that is in use, alive and well.

I find it a good resource for the occasional question, but as for building or fostering a community of people whose voices may not be as loud or tenured as others, I remain skeptical. There are 7 pages of argument about the issue of diversity alone, and it was eventually abandoned with little consensus gained. While many of the regulars on here deny it, (and I concede it's difficult to ascertain tone sometimes) many conversations veer into a contentious time suck.

The bright spot is that through this summer's exercise of trying to participate more, many of us have connected with each other and feel positively about resources elsewhere. And I, for one, have clarified with whom one can reasonably discuss very real issues of the day and whom one should avoid. It doesn't mean I'm going away, it just means I'm 'meh' about the whole thing.

Stephen Coles

Thanks, Erin, Lila, and Elizabeth for your honesty. You didn’t have to make an effort to respond, so I really appreciate it. It’s important for us to understand the reasons behind your absence, and it seems likely your views are shared by many others.

I think the subjects in which personal perspectives are more likely to come into play are things having to do with business/education/cultural/historical and other people-centric topics. Those don’t pop up too frequently, so I don’t find it worth the time to check for them, I guess.

Great point, Erin! I’ll do what I can to encourage these kinds of topics. Maybe it calls for jump-starting some conversations in the existing Business, History, and Education categories. Maybe there should be a Culture category.


I’m still hoping for more answers to this question from the perspective of infrequent participants:

How can we do better, both as members and as moderators?

If you know someone who has particular insight into this, and hasn’t posted, please encourage them to respond. 

I know it’s a tough question. There are no easy answers. And I understand that some people simply have no interest in posting to any kind of internet forum. I also know that it takes time for a forum culture to change, and for outsiders to recognize that change. I need to be patient. But we clearly haven’t made the necessary changes yet. And I want to believe there are some other concrete actions we can take to be more inclusive (beyond warning and suspending specific offenders — which is happening).

This doesn’t mean we haven’t heard many good ideas, which I’ve tried to implement personally and institutionally at TD. It may help for us to be reminded of posts from the previous thread, in which many, such as Indra, Chris, Lila, Victoria, Dyana, and Nicole offered useful suggestions. I hope they show — along with the enlightening posts about personal experience and the reality of privilege — that the discussion wasn’t an entirely negative exercise. 

But, so far, it has failed. 

TypeDrawers is intended for members of the professional type community. There are hundreds of women in that community, and yet TD posts are authored almost exclusively by men. That’s a problem I can’t ignore.

Kemie Guaida

In general, I enjoy reading TD, but seldom feel I have a question or answer to contribute. I don't feel specifically excluded, but certainly seeing more diversity would encourage me to post, to feel more like this is my space.

The diversity thread was a  huge disappointment to me. I got to it late, and by that point it was so much bickering about who had privilege and who had a right to be offended, that I felt participating in that thread was not productive. The inability of many members of the community to listen with an open mind was discouraging.

I'm sorry to say I don't have any specific ideas on how to make TD more inclusive, except by participating more myself. It's something that has to come from the community.

Richard Fink

My instincts tell me that it can't be wholly responsible, but could the "real names" policy have at least something to do with it? I've heard of forums where name policies made a huge difference in usage. And in my experience, women are more concerned with privacy than men and, to the extent that privacy==security, they are very much more concerned. Worth asking the question, I think.

Stephen Coles

Richard, I’ve heard from two women who feel uneasy about using their real name, so it’s certainly an issue for some. (We do allow confirmable brand names for those who would rather post under their foundry or studio identity.)

Still, allowing anonymity has its own dangers. I see far more abuse, trolling, and shameless attacks on sites (like Reddit) where anonymity is encouraged.

kupfers

With 167 posts down, not sure if I count as someone who rarely contributes here, but for myself, I have not participated in the past months because of the flagging and the “sobering signal that you are way out of line and should probably take a break from TypeDrawers, for the community’s benefit and your own” I got. Not sure if this prescribed break is up now, the duration isn’t specified in The Rules. But I feel that collapsing posts as frequently as it happened in the past months is not contributing to a tolerant and diverse atmosphere, rather one of policing non-conformative opinions. 

I still do not understand why a Twitter-link without comment I posted was flagged as Abuse by the moderators and collapsed. (Maybe I also just have a skewed definition of what the word ‘abuse’ means). While I do not agree with the comment by Joe above, I would not have collapsed it. Why? Why not let everyone see what someone writes and form their own opinion if it is not offensive and mobbing a particular person. (We had that in the past, these cases are not what I mean.) 

Type Drawers does not feel open and tolerant enough for me to go here frequently anymore. 

Chris Lozos

Is there a way where women [or anyone] could register under a real, verifiable name to the site moderators yet only show an online name so that they can avoid abusive contact?

Stephen Coles

I understand your concern, Indra. Forum moderation is always a tricky balance. How does one allow free and open speech, while also not tolerating the kind of speech which discourages large groups (such as women) from participating? Some might feel that too few possibly offensive posts are collapsed.

It is extremely difficult to meet everyone’s definition of tolerance and diversity. This is why I tried to form a balanced committee of moderators so that the definition is spread among a diverse group. What we could do is adjust the threshold by which a post is collapsed. Currently it’s 5 members or 1 moderator and that’s probably not ideal.

kupfers

What does your comment even say, Stephen? That it is difficult? Yes, it is.

Stephen Coles

Sorry, I accidentally posted before I finished. Please read second paragraph.

kupfers

I think moderators should have one vote only, so that it would take 5 people to collapse a comment, not just one person with one specific view on things.

Stephen Coles

That seems reasonable. I'll take this idea back to the moderators.

Jacques Le Bailly

In general, I enjoy reading TD, but seldom feel I have a question or answer to contribute. I don't feel specifically excluded, but certainly seeing more diversity would encourage me to post, to feel more like this is my space.

I often feel like Kemie.

Having observed TD fo a while, I noticed that like many other forums you often see the same people posting comments. It would be very good if more women would join by posting comments and reactions, but would it really change the overall feel/voice of this forum ?

Craig Eliason

I have to confess that when I see a collapsed post, my curiosity gets the better of me and I always reveal it to see what caused the reaction.
Which makes me curious if there are readers who don't do that--for whom collapsed really does mean removed from their experience of the site. 
But maybe the point is not to remove what has been said, so much as to frame it as violating community norms in the hope that similar posts are less likely to appear in the future?

Thomas Phinney

IndraKupferschmid said:

I think moderators should have one vote only, so that it would take 5 people to collapse a comment, not just one person with one specific view on things.

I think that the entire point of appointing moderators is that they are trusted users who can have a greater say. What's the point of having a moderator who can’t moderate? That said, making a moderator's vote worth, say, three votes instead of five might be a Good Thing?

If I have spare time, I will click on collapsed posts. If I'm in a hurry, I don't bother.

(And I'll shut up again, as this thread was originally supposed to be for folks other than me to comment.)

kupfers

I thought the point was to have a team that keeps an eye on the discussions and facilitate, or “mediate” if you will, in cases where an argument gets too stern. They can express their concerns about posts by flagging them, yes, or by intervening in the thread but I don’t think they are here to bowdlerize comments single-handedly.

Nick Shinn

Bowdlerize! Haven’t come across that word in a long time. Spot on, in a thread discussing boycotting.