Collect Big 8/Big 10 representation information on sign up

I would highly encourage folks to read the motivation behind the development of the Big 8/Big 10 categories because it addresses several of these concerns: https://www.isdnetwork.org/what-is-diversity.html

Namely - it addresses intersectionality and a broad base of representation in a relatively lightweight way without other-ing people by leaving them out of a supposedly comprehensive list of identities. (which is doomed to fail to be truly comprehensive)

This was first trialed with our speaker registration forms for DrupalCon and has been successful there in providing us meaningful data about our speaker make-up.

That said - no effort is ever perfect from the get-go - so I'm sure we can make improvements, and this is well-thought-out and well-meaning feedback, so thank you.

I see the list of them and a glossary of other terms on that page, but not an explanation of their development or how they can be used for data collection - did you mean to paste another link?

You're right that the page I linked isn't as detailed as what I remembered. I'll go back through my notes and see if I can find a link that digs into the underlying motivation behind that construction. There was a great discussion of intersectionality and this construction being designed precisely to avoid (or try to) the problem of exclusion by oversight.

Actually be explicit about which groups of people are underrepresented!

I don't disagree this in principle at all. It's a good idea - and we try to give more comprehensive examples on the documentation page linked from the field (which, for that matter, can be more easily updated with additional explicit identifiers, not just by us but by other members of the community, and without a code deployment).

As it currently stands, I don't think the data this form is collecting is meaningful.

On that point, I disagree. Yes there are meaningful differences between different types of racial discrimination for example, and meaningful differences between how a person of one ethnicity might feel unrepresented in one part of the globe and not in another - but even the categorical information can tell us --- 'No one who identifies as part of an underrepresented ethnicity signs up for an account - something's going badly wrong.'

There are a few pragmatic issues here we're balancing (which, to be absolutely clear, do not outweigh the underlying need to get this right) - namely:

• How do we source a comprehensive list of axes of identification and specific identifiers without resorting to categorical groups like the Big 8/10/12, and yet avoid exclusion by oversight? A catch-all textbox for anything we might miss has already been firmly rejected by some members of our community as othering. Even efforts like the excellent open demographics initiative, will inevitably struggle to be complete.
• The principle of 'if it's not our business, and doesn't directly help the user, we shouldn't ask.' Using categorical representation a) does not enforce our norms of what 'counts' and b) doesn't ask for more data than we would be able to meaningfully act upon once we aggregate it together to try and address what it reveals about our community.
• Balancing explicit affirmation of identity against making users feel forced to out themselves (even in a private field).

This is all not to say that this is even good enough yet - but it's light years better than what was there before and I think we have no other option but to incrementally improve on this. It's too great a challenge and too important than to presume we can get it right all in one go.

Updated the issue summary with a screenshot of what the field looks like on the new account welcome page and a link to the docs, since that page isn't visible to users who already have an account.

@mdrummond I'm afraid we're talking past each other a bit, and I'm sorry for that 🙁 I think we're actually argue-agreeing with each other.
It's a critically important topic and that gets tense.

In terms of why this was 'rushed out the door' as it were - you actually summed it up really well in the other issue:

Agreed that the top priority is getting rid of the terribad gender field stat. Don't wait for the perfect solution before correcting a serious problem.

Our intent was to stop the bleeding with a fast-response first step, so that we can then go back and make better, more thoughtful, more impactful improvements. That's part of why that other issue is still open - we don't consider this issue to have resolved everything by a long shot.

So please understand that this is a step not the final answer.

What sort of user testing was done on this change?

1. Consultation with specific individuals, both in public fora, such as these issues or slack or twitter, and in private
2. Our own analysis of use of these same fields on the speaker session submission form

Were people from underrepresented groups consulted about whether or not *they* felt that this was useful across all of the various axes?

• Yes people with lived experience in one or more of these underrepresented groups were consulted. Not every group/axis, but as many as I was able to reach out to.

The Open Demographics questions have much more clear rationales for what is asked and how to ask it: https://drnikki.github.io/open-demographics/

Yes! And as I've tried to say before/said in the other issue (which is pointedly still open for a reason) I think the open demographics initiative is wonderful and we should implement it.

This change was a first step because what we were already asking was actively harmful and offensive. Now it may very well be non-specific enough, but I'm hopeful that it is at least not actively harmful.
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Pragmatically - to move this issue forward what would be really helpful are suggestions on how to implement the Open Demographics initiative questions.
- Can we find a way to put them on the welcome page without it becoming way to unwieldy? Or do we need something shorter on the welcome page, with a whole fieldset/vertical tab for the complete Open Demographics on the profiles themselves?
- Can we build an integration that automatically pulls in more answer options from Open Demographics as that repo continues to be updated?
Some thought needs to go into how to do it right now that we can slow down a bit.
In retrospect - maybe it *would* be a good idea to close this issue and open a follow up for "Implement Open Demographics Initiative" or rename the "Fix Gender Field" issue to that more broad title.

Following conversations at DrupalCon Nashville with @drnikki and @sparklingrobots, I've decided to go ahead and spin off a separate issue for the next step #2971410: Implement Open Demographics Initiative on Drupal.org

Going to close this issue as our temporary fix while we're moving in that direction.