User talk:Kobnach

WP: Roommmate Statement
To whom it may concern: I am not Yngvadottir.

Your comment about the computer security community
Hello. I wanted to talk to you about this claim of yours.

I work extensively in the computer security area and I will admit that there was only about 1 woman for every 10 men working there. However, when we interviewed 50 applications for the a new position only 4 of them were women.

I don't think a bias was the cause of this either for the following reasons:


 * We interviewed every person that applied and did not pick and choose.
 * We gave virtually no concern for education or prior job history, we only wanted a demonstration of abilities(most of our employees were hobby computer users and not professionals)
 * We gladly hired anyone who demonstrated the skills regardless of gender because we desperately needed people with those skills
 * The ratio of women in the work place was higher than the ratio of women applicants
 * It was a very friendly office with all manners of race, religion, gender etc... any sort of bigotry would result in immediate firing(it is Canada after all, such things are distasteful here)
 * Some of the highest positions in the company were held by women who were very respected in their position

The fact is the women seem less interested in the industry. If it is a bias then it likely goes back childhood(perhaps parents encourage boys to use computers more, or perhaps boys are just less popular and spend more time on the computer).

DEFCON is all kinds of fun by the way, I go there to get advanced info on security threats before they go public. There were some very nice women there, about 1 in 10 people again. My buddy works at Facebook and he says there is a similar ratio in both employees and in applicants.

Not saying this means anything in regards to Wikipedia, but is my own personal experience that a gender gap can be due to the preferences of females and not some sort of systemic bias or discrimination. Chillum 16:45, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

First of all, with regard to Wikipedia - I remain unconviced that there is a gender gap. It's well established that when faced with a gender neutral person ("the author"), there's a strong tendency for English speakers to presume the person is male. There are lots of Wikipedia names like Chillum, with no obvious gender marker. I fairly confidentally predict that 90% of folks encountering that name count you as one of the Wikipedia males, whether or not this is true. It's also, unfortunately, well established that there's a certain category of troll who picks on obvious females. So if I were advising an up and coming potential female editor (or any other woman planning to establish an online presence) I might well suggest a gender neutral handle.

Second of all, with regard to engineering careers - it's pretty clear there are multiple factors. Some of it is interest. Some of it is what I'll call lifestyle factors - being less likely to prioritize career ahead of everything else in life. And some of it does appear to be hostile atmospheres - my personal observations suggest that's gotten worse over the past 20 years, but that's purely anecdotal. (And FWIW, the proportion of true geeks in engineering has gone down, AFAICT.)

It's worth adding that I'm not in the same country as you, so I'm observing a different sample of engineers.

Finally, the security industry. I'm not *in* it, but I've worked with security people, and observed tech students discussing the choice of subfields. Whether or not the reputation is true, DEFCON, and security in general, has a bad rep. among (some?) women. And as it happened, I'd encountered quite a hostile discussion of DEFCON at my workplace just a few weeks ago - with 2 regular attendees (both male) being particularly scathing. So that's my opinion source, FWIW. Kobnach (talk) 17:09, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Welcome back..?
Hey Kobnach!

I just noticed your first edit since early 2015 was to Floq's RFA. I'm glad you're back, but your comment comes across as if you were here during this drama the entire time. May I ask why you've suddenly returned or what happened there? &#8211; MJL &thinsp;‐Talk‐☖ 18:37, 29 July 2019 (UTC)


 * @MJL: I wound up hearing a blow-by-blow description of the drama - as I've heard blow-by-blow decriptions of past drama - from real life sources. I usually try to ignore them; occassionally something bugs me enough that I go look. And quite often when I do I find that there's a very obvious other side to the story, and I don't really have a definite opinion after all.


 * The original drama didn't reach my threshold of "worth me expressing an opinion". But with Floq's RFA in the discretionary range, and about to close, I decided to weigh in. I've heard enough about them before this drama started to have an overall good opinion of them, and so wanted them to get their admin bit back.


 * I'm sure you're wondering whether I'm canvassed and/or posting as a "meat puppet". I don't think the stories of the drama and the RFA were intended as canvassing - more like as venting, just as when I tell my friends stories of drama in my workplace. But I guess I was kind of posting as a ghost :-(


 * I'm actually surprised it's been quite so long since I have editted, but while I somehow still feel like part of wikipedia, these days my ambition doesn't rise much beyond drive-by fix-ups when I happen to read a page that needs its grammar or spelling fixed, without being such a mess as to be a giant time sink.


 * This is actually much like my current attitude to StackOverflow - I've been crazy busy with work, and haven't answered a question there in literally years, but still feel like part of it, even without the RL contact I have with wikipedia.

Kobnach (talk) 02:09, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

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