Merge DEI committee with Jupyter Community Building (JCB) WG, reclassify JCB as Standing Committee

[mfisher87]

Important

DEI more important to the Jupyter community than ever in these times, and this change reflects that by empowering the Jupyter Community Building (JCB) committee, which includes all members of the DEI committee, to act more holistically in the interest of the community by including DEI in its scope of responsibilities, and defining it as a Standing Committee.

Important

Work in progress. Will mark ready for review soon :)

Resolves #293

In #293 @marthacryan proposed the idea of merging the JCB and DEI groups. Thanks @marthacryan for the idea and starting the discussion! We got positive feedback on this so this PR is moving that forward. In addition to DEI as an explicit area of responsibility, we felt a need for the JCB to change its status from WG -> Standing Committee.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Every member of the DEI committee is a member of the JCB. Our focus and skillsets also overlap. Everyone on JCB cares deeply about DEI and we feel we can most productively move forward with a single committee that can focus on DEI as a critical component of community health, instead of treating DEI as something different. As a single committee, we can also offer more capacity to DEI initiatives.

Our concerns

We recognize a potential for an emotional reaction to the removal of the DEI committee's charter. Without context, this can look really bad! We need to do lots of messaging and make it really clear why this is happening, and that this strengthens DEI within Project Jupyter.

Standing Committee

The primary difference between Standing Committees and Working Groups is that Standing Committees are intended to be permanent; they are only created and dissolved by a joint vote of the EC and SSC. In contrast, Working Groups can be created and dissolved by the EC acting alone.

Community-building is never done. To best serve the community's needs, our committee needs to be defined as, and build processes that support, a permanent effort.

Checklist

• Comment in Discussion on DEI Committee + Community Building Working Group #293
• Zulip post
• Announcement in Community Call (Feb 25)
• Announcement blog post with full context?
• ???

[mfisher87]

We just kinda went for it with the team compass. Is this an OK place for it to be hosted?

I think we should change it to jupyter.org/community-building-committee.

[aprilmj]

We recognize a potential for an emotional reaction to the removal of the DEI committee's charter. Without context, this can look really bad! We need to do lots of messaging and make it really clear why this is happening, and that this strengthens DEI within Project Jupyter.

I hope that Project Jupyter contributors feel protective of DEI and have a strong emotional connection to DEI as a concept, since growing a diverse, equitable and inclusive community makes it a better & more interesting place for all of us to be.

So we'd love feedback about ways the Community Building Committee can continue to strengthen DEI work and values across the project.

[aprilmj]

Also I think the communication checklist you collected at the end of your top comment is great @mfisher87!

[marthacryan]

Hey @mfisher87 and @aprilmj! So excited that you guys are working on this :D Thank you for picking up the work on the charter changes! One thing that came to mind when I looked at the change to standing committee was that we had discussed at some point removing "Building" from the already-long name to simplify things. I feel like "Community Committee" is still pretty clear but I'm open to other opinions on that :) I have been feeling a little confused by the word "standing" in "standing committee" for a while as well but that's a discussion for another day 😂

I'll try to provide more feedback but of course I trust your judgement here and I have limited time (and energy 😢) to work on this!

BTW I love the disclaimer at the top about not forgetting about DEI! I didn't know github had that feature but it helps draw attention to that point in a great way.

[mfisher87]

One thing that came to mind when I looked at the change to standing committee was that we had discussed at some point removing "Building" from the already-long name to simplify things

We went back and forth on this a lot. Naming is hard! I think the consensus we came to was that not changing the name would avoid confusion. We also discussed that "JCC" as an acronym would collide with a common defintion of "Jewish Community Center" and maybe make it harder for readers to disambiguate the acronym when seen in the wild (e.g. with a Google search). Do you think that's a sensible decision?

I'll try to provide more feedback but of course I trust your judgement here and I have limited time (and energy 😢) to work on this!

Understood! We've missed seeing you recently ❤️

BTW I love the disclaimer at the top about not forgetting about DEI! I didn't know github had that feature but it helps draw attention to that point in a great way.

If only the syntax were compatible with literally any other markdown system 😆 They just invented their own!

[marthacryan]

We went back and forth on this a lot. Naming is hard! I think the consensus we came to was that not changing the name would avoid confusion. We also discussed that "JCC" as an acronym would collide with a common defintion of "Jewish Community Center" and maybe make it harder for readers to disambiguate the acronym when seen in the wild (e.g. with a Google search). Do you think that's a sensible decision?

Ok totally! I had the same thought about the Jewish Community Center thing haha that would probably confuse some people. I'm okay with keeping it Community Building 👍

[mfisher87]

@marthacryan @aprilmj @RRosio @jasongrout @LahariChowtoori do you feel ready to mark this ready for review?

[aprilmj]

Yes!