the unnecessary
places

Mara Averick · Quansight · stdlib

stdlib

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How communities renew themselves

“Like many social groups that do not reproduce themselves biologically, the experimental particle physics community renews itself by training novices.”

Sharon Traweek, Beamtimes and Lifetimes: The World of High Energy Physics, Harvard University Press, 1988.

Levels of participation

Peripheral levels of participation in the community of scuba divers A concentric-rings diagram illustrating legitimate peripheral participation in a scuba-diving community, adapted from Lagache (1993). Four concentric ellipses represent levels of participation, with a curved arrow labeled "Trajectory of participation" pointing from the outermost ring toward the center. Outermost ring: New divers and casual sight-seers, including newly certified divers, tropical vacationers, and infrequent local divers. Second ring: Active sightseer divers, including tropical divers and frequent local divers. Third ring: Specialty and professional divers, including underwater photographers, scuba instructors and staff, dive shop employees, underwater hunters, shipwreck divers, sheriff volunteer divers, underwater salvage workers, and yacht hull cleaning divers. Center: "Old Timers" with broad experience in many aspects of diving.

Lagache, E. (1993), after Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991), Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, Cambridge University Press.

Sustaining… (2018)

Slide from a 2018 talk, stamped Vintage 2018: Sustaining… virtual spaces, technical tools, social norms. The words after Sustaining are blacked out. A callout beside the list reads: spoiler alert: they're interrelated.

An ecosystem of spaces (2018)

Slide from a 2018 talk, stamped Vintage 2018: logos for Discourse, RStudio Community, GitHub, Stack Overflow, Cross Validated, Twitter, rOpenSci, R4DS, R-Ladies, and Slack, with the words a bunch of other places… in the bottom right corner.

externalities

effects on people who weren't party to the transaction, which nobody prices

calibration

A chain of documentation

A scientist leads to documentation, which leads to another scientist, which leads to more documentation. The chain continues off the right edge of the slide.

The chain, interrupted

A scientist and an AI pass back and forth in a closed loop. Nothing continues to the right; the rest of the slide is empty.

Nine animals

A dust-devil of screaming horses, an eagle, a dove, a shark, two rattlesnakes and a great many gophers

Measured, specified, delegated, reported

measured

specified

delegated

reported

What care is

Care is everything we do to maintain, continue and repair our world, so that we can live in it as well as possible.

Fisher, B. & Tronto, J. C. (1990), “Toward a Feminist Theory of Caring,” in Circles of Care, SUNY Press, 40. · Tronto, J. C. (2015), Who Cares? How to Reshape a Democratic Politics, Cornell University Press, 3.

Levels of participation, again

Peripheral levels of participation in the community of scuba divers A concentric-rings diagram illustrating legitimate peripheral participation in a scuba-diving community, adapted from Lagache (1993). Four concentric ellipses represent levels of participation, with a curved arrow labeled "Trajectory of participation" pointing from the outermost ring toward the center. Outermost ring: New divers and casual sight-seers, including newly certified divers, tropical vacationers, and infrequent local divers. Second ring: Active sightseer divers, including tropical divers and frequent local divers. Third ring: Specialty and professional divers, including underwater photographers, scuba instructors and staff, dive shop employees, underwater hunters, shipwreck divers, sheriff volunteer divers, underwater salvage workers, and yacht hull cleaning divers. Center: "Old Timers" with broad experience in many aspects of diving.

Lagache, E. (1993), after Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991), Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, Cambridge University Press.

The power of invitation has not diminished.

What holds people back (2018)

Slide from a 2018 talk, stamped Vintage 2018. Contributing to FOSS. What holds people back? “I can't write code.” “I'm not really good at this.” “I'd just be a burden.” “They already have enough people smarter than me.” Beside the list, a photograph of a Portuguese man o' war floating at the surface, its tentacles trailing far below the waterline.

Lydia Pintscher, ed., Open Advice: FOSS: What We Wish We Had Known When We Started, 2012.

What holds people back (2018), continued

Slide from a 2018 talk, stamped Vintage 2018. Contributing to FOSS. What holds people back? “I can't write code.” “I'm not really good at this.” “I'd just be a burden.” “They already have enough people smarter than me.” Beside the list, a photograph of a Portuguese man o' war floating at the surface, its tentacles trailing far below the waterline.

They might not even know you're there.

Lydia Pintscher, ed., Open Advice: FOSS: What We Wish We Had Known When We Started, 2012.

Never encountered

Not rejected.

Never encountered.

End

Mending heart