I am a WIT. an actual, technical woman in tech, annoyed with myself for letting Newsweek basically troll me. I've noticed the MSM has "discovered" SV, and is doing the usual pieces (sexism! drugs! too much money!, etc.). While there are obviously so many problems in SV, they never seem to find any of the many, many, many (shudder! older) technical women at Google, FB, Intel, etc. to talk with. Everything is written through the more attractive, yet limited, prism of "young person asking for money, bad behavior ensues". I will not comment on the hypocrisy of bemoaning the limited access of women to the spotlight while turning to a self-styled male "expert" on WIT - it's easier to do that than track down actual women in SV to interview directly. I didn't feel represented by the article, I thought it was pretty opportunistic and to be honest, I don't think Newsweek cares for the "plight of women in SV", just about trying to become relevant again. And here I am, talking about it, so they were successful in their trolling.
If you don't mind me asking a personal question, I'm rather curious what your exposure to computers (or electronics that you could take apart, toys with gears, etc.) was like when you were a girl (say, ages 6-16).
Btw, I see some discussion on the thread about SAT Math, GRE Quantitative being skewed towards men (!) - every time I see this, I think of not just my experience, but that of so many girls I grew up with who _loved_ math and were good at it cause nobody had informed them they shouldn't. Look at the Eastern bloc, China, etc. - some of their idiotic policies had the unintended (perhaps) effect of making generations of women realize they can do math, physics, etc. I am not talking about being Alan Turing here, I can't comment on that. But calls to drop math from CS programs - no, just no :).
I am an immigrant. Grew up in the Eastern Bloc - no exposure to computers until high-school (given country), but tons of exposure in school to math, etc. Even in high-school, CS was absolutely more popular with boys and they were enacting the "hacker" model as they perceived it from distance, so there was some "girls don't belong here" attitude, but frankly, once you know you can do it, that stuff is much easier to ignore :). Again, they didn't know what "hacker" meant, more like adolescent posturing.
That's very interesting; I really appreciate your sharing.
Do you have any theories as to why, even in high school -- both in the US and the country you grew up in -- CS is more popular with boys than girls? And do you have any suggestions for how that could be changed?
Let me rephrase - it's not that CS was actually more popular with boys (it was fairly split, actually), it's that in addition to the CS courses there was a parallel community of teens trying to be "hackers". Mostly boys- and a lot of it had a social component (hanging out late, trying things out, etc.). Their parents got them computers - my parents, those of other girls didn't (I think it was a fairly new field). And they certainly wouldn't have been keen on their daughters staying up until 3 am with boys :) at the time.
That's not a theory, just an anecdote. Things have obviously changed tremendously.
Also, let me say that I personally don't see any problem with CS being more popular with boys. Sure, I hope many more women go into the field because it's a great field! So don't stay out for bad reasons (e.g. "can't do math" - what?!, "it's not social enough" - BS, my college experience was all about being social, albeit with other CS nerds , etc.). Get kids (boys and girls) excited about math, building things (wth is more empowering than that ?) early and watch what happens.
Personally, I think the "maker" culture was (also) a great way to recognize the contribution of women who traditionally made a lot of things from scratch for the home, etc. Someone else here made the same point, I believe.
The article does seem to go out of its way to make a point that could stand on its own. I am the first to admit I question people who don't make things, but "just" criticize, however that has nothing to do with gender, but with a different kind of bias.
Agree with the single people aspect, but a child whose parents are both employed is being cared by someone else. And unless the parents are well-off, that someone else is either not paid or badly paid.
Agree with a lot of what is being said here. Have seen vicious anonymous reviews in CS - as we all have - both due to someone misunderstanding the work but also due to people from "a different camp" simply disliking a given approach. This must be common in other fields as well. Someone said on this thread that anonymity is not a guarantee of quality - completely agree. The move towards "open reviewing" for conferences in CS is very encouraging, however we will see how far it gets.
Minor reform of the referee system is treating the symptoms, not the disease.
The disease is that there is no honest, mutual, voluntary exchange between a party that values a given research project and the party that produces it.
Rather, we have federal bureaucrats handing out money taken from taxpayers willy-nilly via an old-boy network as described above. (The difference between taxpayers and slaves is that taxpayers only must sacrifice a fraction of their productivity to this absurd system, not all of it.)
In CS, all the research we do either goes to benefit shareholders of companies that ultimately profit from it, or (the majority) is just ignored because it's part of the paper mill competition. Those companies should be the ones paying for the research, not the taxpayers. Those companies are free riding, and "we the people" should put an end to it.
I'm not sure what the one has to do with the other. My research is corporate-funded and my papers still get reviews from people who didn't read the paper carefully. Unless you're proposing to eliminate the concept of publishing research at all...
What one has to do with the other is that the entire system is broken, here's my explanation for why the system is fundamentally messed up, and my explanation for how it should be. Simply trying to change refeering by itself is treating the symptom, not the disease.
> Unless you're proposing to eliminate the concept of publishing research at all...
I think putting my research on my website would be just as good as publishing it in a conference proceeding. I'm not against sharing research and having it be public, but I think conference proceeidngs and journals in CS are of very little value. If people want my research, they can find it on my website. And I think this generalizes... if I want your research, I can (presumably) find it on your website.
Ultimately, it may be useful to have some kind of aggregation of what research is coming out in various subfields. Internet fora and the like would serve the purpose fine. But sure, having a group of referees and some way to screen research and highlight what is good could certainly be useful. All that stuff should develop organically as it is needed, though.
The model we have now, with peer review, journals made out of dead trees, etc. is a hold-over from a pre-Internet time when a few people in every sphere of life controlled the information that was disseminated, because it wasn't possible for things to be open, since we lacked the technology. That is no longer an issue. Of course, academics will hold onto their little racket as long as they can (probably indefinitely).
while I am willing to believe the Guardian may have overstated certain things, it's hard to imagine what they'd have to gain from fabricating a full quote .. Whisper editor-in-chief claims complete fabrication, but unless he was there the whole time, not sure if he can do so credibly (plus, i assume journalists still take notes). Why would anyone fabricate something that easily checked?
Question: in 1 e) above you mention you throw away the original IP info and then in 2 mention work w/ academics around not being able to group whispers from same users.
What is the relation between these statements and the ones in the article linked below about "delving into a user's history" in order to verify veracity of claims ? That would seem to suggest you are in fact aggregating user history information (e.g. sets of whispers) for at least a subset of users.. http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/01/24/3-reasons-....
