[Air-L] Rerearch on Github Contributors and LinkedIn

Brenda Moon brenda at moon.net.au
Tue Aug 4 18:55:35 PDT 2020


I know that a lot of women use gender neutral or male names on GitHub to avoid problems, so identifying women may be difficult.

Regards,

Brenda

> On 5 Aug 2020, at 11:13 am, Ushnish Sengupta <ushnish.sengupta at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hello
> Has anyone completed research on Github contributors?
> 
> Lets say for example my hypothesis is that the contributors for a
> particular software project are mostly male, and very few are female. You
> might say this is a given, but Open Source Software production is
> notoriously gendered, racialized etc. there is some broad research
> indicating these imbalances, and I would like to try it on a software
> project basis to affect real change.
> 
> The good news: Github provides the list of contributors, number of commits
> for each project.
> But, the contributors are listed by username, by itself not useful in
> determining demographics.
> From the username, and some biographical details, I can probably locate
> most contributors on another open platform LinkedIn to determine
> demographics of contributors to a particular project on Github.  So all
> analysis will be based on open and publicly available data.
> 
> Anyone done any similar analysis on Github or LinkedIn?
> 
> I know identification of gender and other demographics from social media
> profiles is fraught with problems.  But I also see many activists, doing
> this type of analysis to gather data on race, gender etc to shine a light
> on imbalances.  And although the initial analysis is flawed and incomplete,
> the company/organizaion/project eventually responds wih substantial changes
> (including proper demographic surveys!).  So sometimes the ends justify the
> initial means.
> 
> Sincerely
> Ushnish Sengupta
> 
> -- 
> *Recent Book Chapters:*
> Monoculturalism, Aculturalism, and Postculturalism: The Exclusionary
> Culture of Algorithmic Development
> <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3621779>
> 
> Business Process Transformation in Natural Resources Development Using
> Blockchain: Indigenous Entrepreneurship, Trustless Technology, and
> Rebuilding Trust <https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030443368>
> 
> *White Papers:*
> 
> Meeting Changing Customer Requirements in Food andAgriculture Through
> Application of Blockchain Technology
> <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3429200>
> 
> Business in the Front, Crypto in the Back: How to Be a Blockchain Startup
> in Fintech <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3423179>
> 
> 
> 
> *Key Articles:*
> 
> The Future of Social Economy Leadership and Organizational Composition in
> Canada: Demand from Demographics, and Difference through Diversity
> <http://interventionseconomiques.revues.org/2794>
> 
> Indigenous Cooperatives in Canada: The Complex Relationship Between
> Cooperatives, Community Economic Development,Colonization, and Culture
> <http://www.jeodonline.com/sites/jeodonline.com/files/articles/2015/08/13/6sengupta13aug2015.pdf>
> 
> Indigenous Communities and Social Enterprise in Canada:Incorporating
> Culture as an Essential Ingredient of Entrepreneurship
> <http://anserj.ca/anser/index.php/cjnser/article/view/196>
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