Overview of Forwards

What is Forwards?

Forwards is a taskforce actively working to improve diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in R Foundation related activities (R core, CRAN, useR!, etc).

We are organized as six sub-teams:

• Community: General outreach to help people from under-represented groups get into R and develop as useRs.
• Conferences: Focusing on R Foundation conferences, liaising with organizers/program committee on policies and inclusion initiatives.
• On-ramps: Creating paths for useRs to develop their skills and make contributions the R/BioConductor package ecosystem and/or R core.
• Social Media: Posting to Twitter and/or Facebook, soliciting blog posts and publishing them, maintaining website.
• Surveys: Running and analysing community surveys, packaging up data and tools and maintaining the Data page.
• Teaching: Methodology, materials and workshops designed for under-represented groups.

The (co-)leads of each team form a core team that keeps that taskforce on track.

Who can join Forwards?

Any R user or developer who wants to work on DEI initiatives can join Forwards.

When can I join Forwards?

Members can join any time, but we make a particular effort to recruit new members each July (around the time of useR!), so that is the best time to join.

How long am I signing up for?

We ask members to commit for a year (July - July). Each July we ask existing members if they would like to stay on, change roles, or step down.

What am I signing up to do?

We ask members to join one of the sub-teams, as their main focus. Members can join in with activities of any sub-team, but are expected to at least keep up-to-date with the work of their own sub-team and contribute where they can.

For examples of the activities of the teams, see the team project boards or the issues on the cross-team task repo.

You can also look at minutes of our past core team meetings and slackathons.

What is the time commitment?

We try to arrange tasks to fit in with the time members can offer, so this varies a lot from person to person.

However, members are encouraged to keep in touch on the Forwards Slack and to join in with the quarterly program of cross-team events:

• Month 1: Americas/Asia-Pacific 1-2 hour business meeting
• Month 2: Global event. Usually a "slackathon", spread over Monday - Thursday (still with plenty of free time). A dedicated period for us all to focus on the work of the taskforce, where we may organize talks, co-working sessions, etc.
• Month 3: Europe/Africa/Middle East 1-2 hour business meeting.

The cross-team events are intended to keep momentum going across the taskforce, share news, build community and increase our awareness of DEI issues.

Sub-teams are self-organizing and may have regular meetings, ad-hoc meetings, or organize via Slack/GitHub/email.

What are the responsibilities of team (co-)leads?

We aim to have two co-leads of each sub-team, to keep the team on track. Co-leads co-ordinate with each other to

• Curate the team tasks (often tracked on the tasks repo, labelled by team). Prioritise tasks, assign folk to tasks, add milestones, add tasks. The project boards are largely automated and help give a overview.
• Give feedback to others, e.g. review pull requests, respond to suggestions. Try to help if folk get stuck.
• Participate in the quarterly business meetings to provide a progress update for the team and keep abreast of what the rest of the taskforce is doing. Send an update by email if no co-leads can attend.
• Participate as often as possible in the quarterly global event to encourage the team to keep engaged and help move tasks along.

All taskforce members have a say in what activities the taskforce works on, so co-leads are not expected to come up with all the ideas themselves. However, co-leads will typically be people with some experience on the taskforce/relevant experience from outside. The co-lead system provides an opportunity for aspiring co-leads to be mentored in the role.

How do I join?

Please discuss with a member of the core team or contact rowforwards@gmail.com.

What happens when I join?

A core team member will get you on-boarded to the Forwards Slack, GitHub and email contact lists. Depending on the team/number of people joining at once, you may be invited to a 1-to-1 meeting or a sub-team meeting to get you started. We're all volunteers, so do ask questions and explore the Slack/GitHub yourself to get stuck in!