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I had the honor of giving a keynote at #useR2025 🎉 at Duke University: “We R Together – How to learn, use, and improve a programming language as a community” 💜

Slides here 👉 https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1aqpMXNklUoj4DY_43tfFVe6sf2Q-OvFRK66w24eTM6c/

Video here: https://www.youtube.com/live/CTTvTQ-JZhw?si=dBuyXYANeTu1aEVU

#rstats #useR2025

WeRTogether-useR!2025Keynote

We R Together Yanina Bellini Saibene useR! 2025 Duke University How to learn, use and improve a programming language as a community

Google Docs

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We explored how Communities of Practice help us learn, grow, and shape the R programming language. All my examples comes feom @rOpenSci but we also mencioned @RLadiesGlobal, @thecarpentries and other R-related communities 🌎👩‍💻👨‍💻

#useR2025 #RStats

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I love frameworks to reflect on procress and I shared the “Pathway to Inclusion”, 6 steps from “never heard of this” to “this is my thing”:

1️⃣ Awareness

2️⃣ Understanding

3️⃣ Identification

4️⃣ Access

5️⃣ Belonging

6️⃣ Ownership

I learned this framewor vía @brainwane

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We talked about different ways people participate:

🔹 Convey / Consume

🔹 Contribute

🔹 Collaborate

🔹 Co-create

Another framework. This one by @TheCSCCE

And why moving toward collaboration & co-creation builds stronger, lasting communities.

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There’s great concern about the sustainability of open source software — and who will maintain it when the founders step back.

I believe part of the answer lies in how we enable people to become active and Successful participants in these movements.

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Communities aren’t just numbers — they’re connections 🤝

They grow through shared stories, mutual support, and creating spaces where people feel safe, welcome, and empowered to take responsibility.

We can only build these communities with diversity, equity, inclusión and accesibility at the center.

@yabellini Thank you for your work! Looking forward to digging into the speech.

People in #rstats #rlang reading this thread may be interested in my post https://harihareswara.net/posts/2024/double-standards-and-volunteer-behavior/ spurred by a conversation last year. R folks were reporting difficult experiences uploading packages to the package repository (CRAN), especially because of one particular long-timer volunteer in R.

Draft code of conduct for R: https://github.com/r-devel/rcwg/issues/34

Next week, on August 19th, #RLang #RStats has a R Contribution Working Group ("fostering a larger, more diverse community of contributors to R core development") meeting

https://fosstodon.org/@HeathrTurnr/115017072820315500

which could be an opportunity to ask what next steps need to happen to move forward on @HeathrTurnr 's draft Code of Conduct question https://github.com/r-devel/rcwg/issues/34

[edited to correct which meeting would be a productive one for this particular question, and to fix wording on current CoC status]

@yabellini

Heather Turner :rstats: (@[email protected])

@[email protected] @[email protected] This would be better discussed at the R Contribution Working Group meeting if you can make it (https://teamup.com/event/show/id/EErVoxXBZtA5Y58r5VYSuhnFN5zQWx - I’ve not updated the agenda for this month yet). The office hours are intended for co-working/getting help with making contributions to R vs discussion of policies/initiatives.

Fosstodon
@brainwane @yabellini This would be better discussed at the R Contribution Working Group meeting if you can make it (https://teamup.com/event/show/id/EErVoxXBZtA5Y58r5VYSuhnFN5zQWx - I’ve not updated the agenda for this month yet). The office hours are intended for co-working/getting help with making contributions to R vs discussion of policies/initiatives.
R Contribution Working Group

Tue 19 Aug 2025 6:30 PM - 7:30 PM (Time zone: UTC) @ https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88612135282?pwd=ZzSjahkaTd0cC4XQjMOI5WzZnW4IZH.1

Teamup

@HeathrTurnr

Understood, thanks! I'd also be very happy to discuss this asynchronously on the GitHub issue instead.

@yabellini

@yabellini Thank you for this speech!

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1aqpMXNklUoj4DY_43tfFVe6sf2Q-OvFRK66w24eTM6c/mobilepresent#slide=id.g363ac9bf08e_0_29 Slide 58: wow, really interesting to learn about moving into software peer review happening in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. Going to learn more about rOpenSci's steps to doing that!

WeRTogether-useR!2025Keynote

We R Together Yanina Bellini Saibene useR! 2025 Duke University How to learn, use and improve a programming language as a community

Google Docs
@brainwane thank you for watching. If you ever want to talk about that process, I would love to meet.
@yabellini Thanks for sharing, Yani! If anyone's curious to learn more, there's a three-part guidebook describing the model in detail available for free download here: https://www.cscce.org/resources/cpm/