Leaked Internal Blizzard Memo: "Global Diversity And Inclusion Initiative" - Sensationalist Headlines

*shrug* If their recruiters are dumb enough to recruit someone without talent and solely based on minority then the business suffers and that's their problem. I don't see the issue really.

[QUOTE=LeonS;52561705]not really. how does hiring a say black person suddenly make it more interesting? it can be just the same, or even worse. theres absolutely no guarantee that your game will suddenly improve just because you suddenly hired 20 women or people of different ethnicities. just as theres no guarantee itll be good if you only had 50 white dudes working on it.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=aussiedropbear;52561710]Also you say that like if the minority are more capable of coming up with interesting ideas, characters, environment or stories than the majority.[/QUOTE] I figure it goes without saying that different people of different ethnicities, cultures and groups have different experiences in life that shape them to be who they are - [I]because [/I]of who they are? In writing for instance (ie. character-development / narrative) people like this can give personal insights into how the dynamics of a culture work that you wouldn't get (or would otherwise misinterpret) if it was written by someone [I]not [/I]from the culture/ethnicity in question, and so they can bring ideas and experiences to the table that can flesh out and diversify characters and stories even further. We're not talking about a single individual shaping a story-line, by the way, in development there's usually a large [I]team [/I]of writers that do this stuff, and when working on something that needs to be expansive then a wider diversity is a huge advantage. This can be applied to any branch of development, by the way - I'm just using writing as an example. [QUOTE=aussiedropbear;52561710]Also you say that like if the minority are more capable of coming up with interesting ideas, characters, environment or stories than the majority.[/QUOTE] Well, no, I'm saying if you have a diverse team you can come up with more interesting ideas because you have a wider range of life experiences and cultural differences. I'm not saying that minorities would provide [I]better [/I]ideas, I'm saying they would provide more [I]different [/I]ideas.

minority groups representing 14% of their workforce seems absolutely normal and acceptable, after all they are minority groups, what do we expect? what's the target number? they are minorities; there are not many of them

[QUOTE=TheServer;52560763]I wish big game companies hired creative people instead.[/QUOTE] part of the idea of hiring underrepresented workers is the assumption that doing so will provide a greater diversity in thought and experience - I'd rather have a bunch of creative people from different backgrounds (whether socioeconomic or ethnic, culturally, age, etc) than a host of the most creative from only one group This is the precise reason why the supreme Court ruled that colleges have an interest in promoting diversity

[QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;52561682]whereas I and many other see equality as equality of opportunity.[/QUOTE] Which doesn't exist because of prejudice. Legally, sure, everyone's vote is worth the same, and there are anti-discrimination laws, but there are still cultural biases, and a lot of very old fashioned people in power

[QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;52561682]Depends on your definition of "equality". You see equality as being equality of outcome, whereas I and many other see equality as equality of opportunity. I don't have to support this so called "corrective action" that tries to leverage certain people over others to support equality. I see the fact that not everyone has the same opportunity to become what they want to be troubling, not that we don't have a proportional split of the demographics in every work field.[/QUOTE] I look for equality of opportunity as well, but I also see it will never be achieved by ignoring the problem. The opportunity is not equal specifically because the industry is fucked up and the workforce imbalanced. It won't just go away just because we stopped stoning women or banning them from particular jobs, and it won't go away no matter how long you shout "ignore people's gender, please". Action has to be taken and the equilibrium has to be helped manually.

[QUOTE=millan;52561893]I see equality of opportunity as well, but I also see it will never be achieved by ignoring the problem.[/QUOTE] But everything you've been advocating for does nothing to solve the problem either. It's a band-aid so you can hold a piece of paper saying "see, we're diverse!" instead of trying to solve the core issues, or make them irrelevant. [QUOTE=millan;52561893]The opportunity is not equal specifically because the industry is fucked up and the workforce imbalanced. It won't just go away just because we stopped stoning women or banning them from particular jobs, and it won't go away no matter how long you shout "ignore people's gender, please". Action has to be taken and the equilibrium has to be helped manually.[/QUOTE] See, in your first sentence, you say that you see equality of opportunity, then you later go on to conflate it with equality of outcome. They are not the same and can't be treated the same.

[QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;52561912]But everything you've been advocating for does nothing to solve the problem either. It's a band-aid so you can hold a piece of paper saying "see, we're diverse!" instead of trying to solve the core issues, or make them irrelevant. See, in your first sentence, you say that you see equality of opportunity, then you later go on to conflate it with equality of outcome. They are not the same and can't be treated the same.[/QUOTE] There will be no equal opportunity until the "outcome" (and I disagree with you on that term) is closer to equal as well, what don't you get? [editline]11th August 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;52561912]But everything you've been advocating for does nothing to solve the problem either. It's a band-aid so you can hold a piece of paper saying "see, we're diverse!" instead of trying to solve the core issues, or make them irrelevant.[/QUOTE] No, it does everything to solve it. It's been proven times and times again, that the lack of diversity [I]is also the main reason for the lack of diversity.[/I] Surprise surprise, an industry where women aren't the minority, is somehow more open, and less hostile to women! Who would have thought? This has been shown and proven in multiple industries, as well as academia.

[QUOTE=millan;52561893]I look for equality of opportunity as well, but I also see it will never be achieved by ignoring the problem. The opportunity is not equal specifically because the industry is fucked up and the workforce imbalanced. It won't just go away just because we stopped stoning women or banning them from particular jobs, and it won't go away no matter how long you shout "ignore people's gender, please". Action has to be taken and the equilibrium has to be helped manually.[/QUOTE] How? By hiring people with less skill and talent in the name of diversity, in the hopes of blindly jump-starting equality somehow? I work in a field which is historically dominated by white males by a staggering amount. Every week there's a new scholarship for women and minorities sent out. As a white male, the chances of me getting a scholarship depend solely on rigorously competitive academic performance, while everyone else is being thrown free money. It stings, and I get pissed off every time I receive a notification about one (more because it's not useful to me at all), but it works - our class is ~60% female and ~35% minorities. Still, I know that I can still get through this and in the end, after years of study and training, I'm going to be judged by the quality of my work. When I toss my resume into the ring and try to launch my career, I know it's going to be judged based on whether I would produce a good work product for my employer. Except that's not what happens. About a third of our internship listings right now have either a "strong preference" or outright requirement for female or minority applicants. I am practically barred entirely from a third of my employment options because I'm a white male - something I have no power to control. Even if I am the valedictorian of my class, these employers will outright refuse to hire me in the name of diversity. While not being tossed money in the form of scholarships stings, being outright prevented from working with an employer because I'm a white male does not sound like the right solution. An eye for an eye isn't where we need to be going to solve this problem. [QUOTE=millan;52561931]It's been proven times and times again, that the lack of diversity [I]is also the main reason for the lack of diversity.[/I] Surprise surprise, an industry where women aren't the minority, is somehow more open, and less hostile to women! Who would have thought? This has been shown and proven in multiple industries, as well as academia.[/QUOTE] First, can you cite this, please? I'm not disagreeing with you but I'd like to know where this comes from beyond "it has been proven time and time again". Second, how does this justify brute-forcing diversity by explicitly removing equal opportunities from others?

[QUOTE=Snowmew;52561945]How? By hiring people with less skill and talent in the name of diversity, in the hopes of blindly jump-starting equality somehow? I work in a field which is historically dominated by white males by a staggering amount. Every week there's a new scholarship for women and minorities sent out. As a white male, the chances of me getting a scholarship depend solely on rigorously competitive academic performance, while everyone else is being thrown free money. It stings, and I get pissed off every time I receive a notification about one (more because it's not useful to me at all), but it works - our class is ~60% female and ~35% minorities. Still, I know that I can still get through this and in the end, after years of study and training, I'm going to be judged by the quality of my work. When I toss my resume into the ring and try to launch my career, I know it's going to be judged based on whether I would produce a good work product for my employer. Except that's not what happens. About a third of our internship listings right now have either a "strong preference" or outright requirement for female or minority applicants. I am practically barred entirely from a third of my employment options because I'm a white male - something I have no power to control. While not being tossed money in the form of scholarships stings, being outright prevented from working with an employer because I'm a white male does not sound like the right solution. An eye for an eye isn't where we need to be going to solve this problem.[/QUOTE] [quote]No, it does everything to solve it. It's been proven times and times again, that the lack of diversity is also the main reason for the lack of diversity. Surprise surprise, an industry where women aren't the minority, is somehow more open, and less hostile to women! Who would have thought? This has been shown and proven in multiple industries, as well as academia. [/quote] It's as simple as that. And yes, it will take literal generations before this finally has the desired effect. It will take the time before the daughters hear from their mums and aunts that they are successful engineers and developers and coders on regular basis, and until the women in male dominated industries aren't regularly (or at least incomparably more frequently than in the opposite direction) sexually harassed or at least shunned and ignored in managerial things, before women who do come in don't by the norm often give up on it. And if you can't make the connection that once half the people in there are women, it will be far less frequent for them to face negative bias in the workplace, then I dunno what to tell you. [editline]11th August 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Snowmew;52561945]First, can you cite this, please?[/quote] Are you seriously asking me for a citation on "people are happy in groups where where they aren't alien to others? [quote]Second, how does this justify brute-forcing diversity by explicitly removing equal opportunities from others?[/QUOTE] Equal opportunity is, first and foremost, a massive lie right now. Opportunities in many areas are getting more equal, but less in others even in the west, actually, as the distribution of wealth as well as income gets worse. You can't just pretend that once you put people into a towel to cover up what they look like, they are suddenly welcome wherever they want to go. Secondly, it's not like this memo or any of these systems mean some sort of doomsday for white male contenders. If you're legit good, even with all this affirmative action, being a white male still nets you a massive statistical advantage.

[QUOTE=millan;52561931]There will be no equal opportunity until the "outcome" (and I disagree with you on that term) is closer to equal as well, what don't you get? [editline]11th August 2017[/editline] No, it does everything to solve it. It's been proven times and times again, that the lack of diversity [I]is also the main reason for the lack of diversity.[/I] Surprise surprise, an industry where women aren't the minority, is somehow more open, and less hostile to women! Who would have thought? This has been shown and proven in multiple industries, as well as academia.[/QUOTE] So until we have proportional diversity, women and minorities won't have the same opportunity to get educated and be hired? The HR person is just going to say "nope, we don't have enough women, so we can't hire anymore." That's so stupid it hurts.

[QUOTE=millan;52561953]It's as simple as that. And yes, it will take literal generations before this finally has the desired effect. It will take the time before the daughters hear from their mums and aunts that they are successful engineers and developers and coders on regular basis, and until the women in male dominated industries aren't regularly (or at least incomparably more frequently than in the opposite direction) sexually harassed or at least shunned and ignored in managerial things, before women who do come in don't by the norm often give up on it. And if you can't make the connection that once half the people in there are women, it will be far less frequent for them to face negative bias in the workplace, then I dunno what to tell you.[/QUOTE] I am all for making a positive change in the work environment but again, there has to be a better way of going about this than "let's just stop hiring white males because they cause all the problems". I've said it twice now and I'll say it again, this is addressing the problem from the wrong end. You need to encourage people to enter the career by providing them with a positive benefit, not by removing opportunities for everyone else. I am all for scholarships for underrepresented classes. That provides a positive encouragement that doesn't risk dragging other people down. But when you take this policy to the extremes and start to push negatives on the overrepresented classes by flat-out removing them from consideration based on their sex and race on the employment side, you're crossing a line. Blizzard's policy doesn't explicitly do that. But that's what you're proposing here, for some reason. [QUOTE=millan;52561953]Are you seriously asking me for a citation on "people are happy in groups where where they aren't alien to others?[/QUOTE] You made the claim: [QUOTE=millan;52561931]It's been proven times and times again, that the lack of diversity [I]is also the main reason for the lack of diversity.[/I] Surprise surprise, an industry where women aren't the minority, is somehow more open, and less hostile to women! Who would have thought? This has been shown and proven in multiple industries, as well as academia.[/QUOTE] Where has it been proven? If you can't cite to a study on it, can you even cite to any of the "multiple industries" or "academia"? [QUOTE=millan;52561953]Equal opportunity is, first and foremost, a massive lie right now. Opportunities in many areas are getting more equal, but less in others even in the west, actually, as the distribution of wealth as well as income gets worse. You can't just pretend that once you put people into a towel to cover up what they look like, they are suddenly welcome wherever they want to go. Secondly, it's not like this memo or any of these systems mean some sort of doomsday for white male contenders. If you're legit good, even with all this affirmative action, being a white male still nets you a massive statistical advantage.[/QUOTE] I never said that Blizzard's memo encourages the extreme policy that I'm experiencing and you're arguing for. I did say, however, that scholarships are a great way to encourage diversity and fight against income disparity dictating career opportunities. So I'm not sure that's really an argument that you need to make.

[QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;52561978]So until we have proportional diversity, women and minorities won't have the same opportunity to get educated and be hired? The HR person is just going to say "nope, we don't have enough women, so we can't hire anymore." That's so stupid it hurts.[/QUOTE] Not a rhetorical question, but, do you have a job you value? If so, can you honestly tell me - did the choice of the job begin and end with the HR person? Were there no other factors involved? [editline]11th August 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Snowmew;52561982]I am all for making a positive change in the work environment but again, there has to be a better way of going about this than "let's just stop hiring white males because they cause all the problems". I've said it twice now and I'll say it again, this is addressing the problem from the wrong end. You need to encourage people to enter the career by providing them with a positive benefit, not by removing opportunities for everyone else. I am all for scholarships for underrepresented classes. That provides a positive encouragement that doesn't risk dragging other people down. But when you take this policy to the extremes and start to push negatives on the overrepresented classes by flat-out removing them from consideration based on their sex and race on the employment side, you're crossing a line. Blizzard's policy doesn't explicitly do that. But that's what you're proposing here, for some reason.[/QUOTE] I never said I am for removing the majority from consideration, I am for it to be a part of the weighted factors on basis of which the choice is made.

[QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;52561978]So until we have proportional diversity, women and minorities won't have the same opportunity to get educated and be hired? The HR person is just going to say "nope, we don't have enough women, so we can't hire anymore." [B]That's so stupid it hurts.[/B][/QUOTE] So's your comment. If an empty role exists, it'll be filled. Nobody is going to "stop hiring" just because they can't fill the position with a minority/woman. Where did you get this ridiculous strawman from?

[QUOTE=millan;52561991]Not a rhetorical question, but, do you have a job you value? If so, can you honestly tell me - did the choice of the job begin and end with the HR person? Were there no other factors involved?.[/QUOTE] It began with a resume, an offer letter that I accepted, and a call from HR for paperwork. Then my supervisor got in touch to get my sizes for my PPE and my estimated start date, but by that time the paperwork was signed.

[QUOTE=millan;52561991]I never said I am for removing the majority from consideration, I am for it to be a part of the weighted factors on basis of which the choice is made.[/QUOTE] Except the endgame of this strategy is either the factor is weighted so heavily as to remove opportunities from overrepresented classes (as in my case) or not have any serious effect. The result is you're going to pick a person who is otherwise less qualified solely on the basis that they are of an underrepresented class that they don't control. If you don't do that, then your solution doesn't work. That's the problem here. You hide this behind the guise of "it's just one of many small factors!" but in the end, to be successful, it still has to take away some jobs from well-qualified applicants and give them to less-qualified applicants. Whereas with a supply-side strategy, you're not taking that opportunity away. You're not telling someone, "hey bud, you know this job that you need to survive in today's society? Yeah, we're not giving that to you, because you're a white male." You're telling someone, "hey bud, you know this job? Yeah, we have so many qualified applicants that we picked someone else who was more qualified and happens to not be a white male." Once you can grow the workforce's diversity, then there's an argument to be made for enforcing diversity in employment, if and when a disparity appears. But when your employment diversity is the same as the industry as a whole and the workforce it draws from, to push for more diversity at the employment level creates an imbalance that discredits the overrepresented classes.

[QUOTE=Snowmew;52562027]Except the endgame of this strategy is either the factor is weighted so heavily as to remove opportunities from overrepresented classes (as in my case) or not have any serious effect. The result is you're going to pick a person who is otherwise less qualified solely on the basis that they are of an underrepresented class that they don't control. If you don't do that, then your solution doesn't work. That's the problem here. You hide this behind the guise of "it's just one of many small factors!" but in the end, to be successful, it still has to take away some jobs from well-qualified applicants and give them to less-qualified applicants. Whereas with a supply-side strategy, you're not taking that opportunity away. You're not telling someone, "hey bud, you know this job that you need to survive in today's society? Yeah, we're not giving that to you, because you're a white male." You're telling someone, "hey bud, you know this job? Yeah, we have so many qualified applicants that we picked someone else who was more qualified and happens to not be a white male." Once you can grow the workforce's diversity, then there's an argument to be made for enforcing diversity in employment, if and when a disparity appears. But when your employment diversity is the same as the industry as a whole and the workforce it draws from, to push for more diversity at the employment level creates an imbalance that discredits the overrepresented classes.[/QUOTE] You seem to have this strange idea going on where [I]less qualified people[/I] are being hired to create diversity, as if there's a "quota" that needs to be met? There's no grand conspiracy here. I mean, I can't speak for your industry, I don't know it, but as someone who works in [I]this [/I]industry (the one the topic is about) and as someone who (for the record) is a white male, I don't see what the hell you're talking about. To me, Blizzards decision makes total sense. I'll pose to you a fictional scenario. You have two candidates for a position. Both are equally qualified, and of equal skill. There is zero difference between them in terms of skillset, drive or compatibility. But one of them is a woman. Now, say your office is 35% female, 65% male. The logical decision here is to hire the woman. You balance out the workforce and you acquire someone with ideas and experiences that the other candidate doesn't have that can contribute to the workplace environment and potentially (in some industries) the ideas delivered for a project. Likewise if your workforce is flipped (35% male, 65% female) then the man should logically be employed. This never happens, of course, because everyones skillset is unique and weighted differently depending on the role and what needs to be fulfilled - and I hope you get that I'm just posing a point of how an employment decision would be made. THESE are the many factors Millan is talking about (I assume). Ethnicity, gender, sexuality and so forth come secondary to the main requirements, and if they can be fulfilled ALONG with those requirements, then that is in all means a good thing. Like I said in my post further up, diversification is a good thing. Especially in an industry like this, where a wide range of life experiences and cultural differences can bring up a whole array of new and interesting ideas that overrepresented class might not even think about.

[QUOTE=Coyoteze;52562059]You seem to have this strange idea going on where [I]less qualified people[/I] are being hired to create diversity, as if there's a "quota" that needs to be met? There's no grand conspiracy here. I mean, I can't speak for your industry, I don't know it, but as someone who works in [I]this [/I]industry (the one the topic is about) and as someone who (for the record) is a white male, I don't see what the hell you're talking about. To me, Blizzards decision makes total sense. I'll pose to you a fictional scenario. You have two candidates for a position. Both are equally qualified, and of equal skill. There is zero difference between them in terms of skillset, drive or compatibility. But one of them is a woman. Now, say your office is 35% female, 65% male. The logical decision here is to hire the woman. You balance out the workforce and you acquire someone with ideas and experiences that the other candidate doesn't have. Likewise if your workforce is flipped (35% male, 65% female) then the man should logically be employed. This never happens, of course, because everyones skillset is unique and weighted differently depending on the role and what needs to be fulfilled - and I hope you get that I'm just posing a point of how an employment decision would be made. THESE are the many factors Millan is talking about (I assume). Ethnicity, gender, sexuality and so forth come secondary to the main requirements, and if they can be fulfilled ALONG with those requirements, then that is in all means a good thing. Like I said in my post further up, diversification is a good thing. Especially in an industry like this, where a wide range of life experiences and cultural differences can bring up a whole array of new and interesting ideas that overrepresented class might not even think about.[/QUOTE] If the situation where it becomes applicable never happens, whats the point? Just free PR?

[QUOTE=Cliff2;52562073]If the situation where it becomes applicable never happens, whats the point? Just free PR?[/QUOTE] Read the whole post. It's applicable, just not to the extreme I proposed. I was making a point using an exaggeration. [quote][B]Ethnicity, gender, sexuality and so forth [/B][B]come secondary to the main requirements[/B], and if they can be fulfilled ALONG with those requirements, then that is in all means a good thing. Like I said in my post further up, diversification is a good thing. Especially in an industry like this, where [B]a wide range of life experiences and cultural differences can bring up a whole array of new and interesting ideas that overrepresented class might not even think about[/B].[/quote]

I wonder from where comes the idea that wanting some diversity in your team implies hiring people of lesser skills. Seriously, there's a lot of great artists out there and they aren't inferior for being women or having a different skin.

[QUOTE=Coyoteze;52562059]You seem to have this strange idea going on where [I]less qualified people[/I] are being hired to create diversity, as if there's a "quota" that needs to be met? There's no grand conspiracy here. I mean, I can't speak for your industry, I don't know it, but as someone who works in [I]this [/I]industry (the one the topic is about) and as someone who (for the record) is a white male, I don't see what the hell you're talking about. To me, Blizzards decision makes total sense. I'll pose to you a fictional scenario. You have two candidates for a position. Both are equally qualified, and of equal skill. There is zero difference between them in terms of skillset, drive or compatibility. But one of them is a woman. Now, say your office is 35% female, 65% male. The logical decision here is to hire the woman. You balance out the workforce and you acquire someone with ideas and experiences that the other candidate doesn't have that can contribute to the workplace environment and potentially (in some industries) the ideas delivered for a project. Likewise if your workforce is flipped (35% male, 65% female) then the man should logically be employed. This never happens, of course, because everyones skillset is unique and weighted differently depending on the role and what needs to be fulfilled - and I hope you get that I'm just posing a point of how an employment decision would be made. THESE are the many factors Millan is talking about (I assume). Ethnicity, gender, sexuality and so forth come secondary to the main requirements, and if they can be fulfilled ALONG with those requirements, then that is in all means a good thing. Like I said in my post further up, diversification is a good thing. Especially in an industry like this, where a wide range of life experiences and cultural differences can bring up a whole array of new and interesting ideas that overrepresented class might not even think about.[/QUOTE] Your hypothetical is heavily undermined by the fact that you admit it never happens. In any event, even if it did happen, I wouldn't really have a problem with it. Let me give you a non-fictional scenario. A male student in the top 10% of a well-diversified class loses a job position to a female student in the top 50% of the same class. Both applicants have exactly the same extracurriculars. Both applicants received roughly equivalent praise from references. Yet the employer says, sorry bud, you're male, we're only hiring females right now. That [i]does[/i] happen. I've seen it happen. It would happen to me, had I wasted time applying to these positions. There are employers out there who will outright deny applicants of overrepresented classes. Okay, you say, that's pretty extreme, I wouldn't encourage something that unfair, but that doesn't say anything of using diversity as a separate factor. Here's the problem - the [i]end result[/i] of a factor-based approach is exactly the same. At some point, you are giving the job to someone who - however slight - is less qualified outside the fact that they're underrepresented. If you try to sneak around this, the approach [i]simply doesn't work[/i] without a supply-side change. If the workforce you're drawing from is not diverse enough, trying to enforce diversity in employment will [i]force[/i] you to overlook better-qualified applicants. There's no getting around that. To solve the problem, you [i]have[/i] to fix it on the supply side.

Three years ago I applied for an internship at Venmo in NYC. I passed the phone screen and a programming challenge, and was flown out there for a final onsite interview. If I passed that, then I'd get the job. The onsite interview consisted of 3 interviews by different engineers. In total there were 4 female engineers and 3 male ones. Towards the end of the onsite interview I asked one of the male engineers what they were looking for in a candidate. He talked about the typical stuff you'd look for in a software engineer, and then went on a tangent about cultural fit. "Basically, we're trying to not hire white males." And then he laughed. I didn't get the job.

[QUOTE=Snowmew;52562150]Your hypothetical is heavily undermined by the fact that you admit it never happens.[/QUOTE] I'm sorry, are any of you reading the full post or do you just stop at "this never happens"? Read the whole thing, please. I make it pretty clear that these situations occur, just not to the extreme I proposed because I trying to make a point - one which pretty clearly went right over your head, at that. [QUOTE=Snowmew;52562150]Let me give you a non-fictional scenario. A male student in the top 10% of a well-diversified class loses a job position to a female student in the top 50% of the same class. Both applicants have exactly the same extracurriculars. Both applicants received roughly equivalent praise from references. Yet the employer says, sorry bud, you're male, we're only hiring females right now. That [i]does[/i] happen. I've seen it happen. It would happen to me, had I wasted time applying to these positions. There are employers out there who will outright deny applicants of overrepresented classes.[/QUOTE] Again, read my full post. I said pretty clearly that I don't know your industry, so I can't answer for it. I'm answering for mine - or rather I'm answering from my own experience. If that's an actual problem in your line of work then that sucks. But, to be brutally honest, your job isn't the topic of this thread right now. [QUOTE=Snowmew;52562150]Okay, you say, that's pretty extreme, I wouldn't encourage something that unfair, but that doesn't say anything of using diversity as a separate factor. Here's the problem - the [i]end result[/i] of a factor-based approach is exactly the same. At some point, [B]you are giving the job to someone who - however slight - is less qualified outside the fact that they're underrepresented.[/B] If you try to sneak around this, the approach [i]simply doesn't work[/i] without a supply-side change. If the workforce you're drawing from is not diverse enough, trying to enforce diversity in employment will force you to overlook better-qualified applicants. There's no getting around that. To solve the problem, you have to fix it on the supply side.[/QUOTE] Again, I can't answer for [I]your [/I]line of work, but in mine this doesn't happen. Speaking anecdotally (really, both of us are), but nobody "less qualified" than someone else gets hired. If you have two applicants and one shows a clear edge over the others you pick that person regardless of their minority-status (or lack thereof). In this industry (I feel like I'm wearing this phrase down a lot today) there's usually [U]a set list of requirements[/U] to get hired for a position. If you fill them, you're a valid applicant. If you don't, you're out. If you have additional skills over the ones sought after then that's a great bonus [B]but [/B]it doesn't make you more qualified for the position. When applicants are nearing very similar levels of skill in the requirements (which tends to happen in a creative world where general rules like topology in 3D play a major part in the end result) then you can start looking at these additional factors. And one such factor would maybe be diversity. If you have 35% females working among 65% males and the applicant is a woman, you hire her. You balance the scales. You bring in someone with different viewpoints & life experiences. I really feel like I'm going around in circles here, just repeating myself. My point is, and has been from the start, that [I]you don't hire someone unless they're qualified for the position and they show a clear edge over the other applicants.[/I] You're bordering on theorizing conspiracy with statements like "they're hiring less qualified people for diversity". Diversity only comes into play when applicants are [B]all [/B]fully qualified. Not before.

[QUOTE=Coyoteze;52562260]I'm sorry, are any of you reading the full post or do you just stop at "this never happens"? Read the whole thing, please. I make it pretty clear that these situations occur, just not to the extreme I proposed because I trying to make a point - one which pretty clearly went right over your head, at that. Again, read my full post. I said pretty clearly that I don't know your industry, so I can't answer for it. I'm answering for mine - or rather I'm answering from my own experience. If that's an actual problem in your line of work then that sucks. But, to be brutally honest, your job isn't the topic of this thread right now. Again, I can't answer for [I]your [/I]line of work, but in mine this doesn't happen. Speaking anecdotally (really, both of us are), but nobody "less qualified" than someone else gets hired. If you have two applicants and one shows a clear edge over the others you pick that person regardless of their minority-status (or lack thereof). In this industry (I feel like I'm wearing this phrase down a lot today) there's usually [U]a set list of requirements[/U] to get hired for a position. If you fill them, you're a valid applicant. If you don't, you're out. If you have additional skills over the ones sought after then that's a great bonus [B]but [/B]it doesn't make you more qualified for the position. When applicants are nearing very similar levels of skill in the requirements (which tends to happen in a creative world where general rules like topology in 3D play a major part in the end result) then you can start looking at these additional factors. And one such factor would maybe be diversity. If you have 35% females working among 65% males and the applicant is a woman, you hire her. You balance the scales. You bring in someone with different viewpoints & life experiences. I really feel like I'm going around in circles here, just repeating myself. My point is, and has been from the start, that [I]you don't hire someone unless they're qualified for the position and they show a clear edge over the other applicants.[/I] You're bordering on theorizing conspiracy with statements like "they're hiring less qualified people for diversity". Diversity only comes into play when applicants are [B]all [/B]fully qualified. Not before.[/QUOTE] You posed a "fictional scenario" which "never happens". Your words, not mine. You're reducing this decision to what would otherwise be a coin toss, correct? A group of applicants is otherwise so equally qualified that you hire the one which would promote diversity. Nobody's arguing against that. You're repeating yourself to people who aren't arguing against you. If you want to come out and say - your words - "nobody less qualified than someone else gets hired", then fine, that's great. But ultimately that's not what happens. We're talking about careers where the workforce pool is dramatically imbalanced. At some point, you dry up the supply of diverse applicants who are equally qualified. What happens then? If you need more diversity in the name of diversity, you take the path of hiring less qualified applicants. You claim this doesn't happen. The only other option is just to hire the non-diverse applicants, and keep going down the line strictly in terms of qualifications. But you don't want that, because it doesn't effectively encourage diversity. There's no winning on the employment side. You either screw someone over for being non-diverse, or you stick to the status quo and you don't boost diversity. That's why I say, the supply side matters. Logically, on a broad scale, there's no way to have a diverse team when you're drawing from a non-diverse workforce without discrediting otherwise qualified applicants. These miniscule edge cases that you're talking about, where you're pitting two equally qualified applicants and you pick the diverse one, are just what you say - fictional. In the grand scheme of things, if and when they do exist, they don't have enough of an effect on diversity to matter. [editline]11th August 2017[/editline] Let me try to give an example here... Let's assume, for a moment, that these edge cases of equal qualifications exist. You have 100 applicants. You split them into 10 groups 10 applicants with "equal" qualifications - ranks A through J. You need to hire 25 people. As it happens, 20% of the applicants are female, distributed evenly, so 2 out of every rank are female. You start out by hiring ranks A and B right off the bat. That's 20 hired. 4 female, 16 male. Still 20% female, just the same as in the workforce pool. You then piece through rank C. Okay, let's hire the two females right off the bat, because we want to be diverse. Let's also randomly pick three other males, so we round off our requirement of hiring 25 people. We've ended up with 6 female, 19 male. That's 24% female. Now that's a great improvement and all, but this is just a hypothetical with very clearly defined ranks with a lot of members in each rank. The point is that the range of potential gender diversity is limited here - you can never reach an ideal 50% female/male ratio without sacrificing the other qualifications. Let's take this to a realistic example. You're hiring 25 applicants. There's the same 20% distribution. Except now, instead of ranking applicants into 10 groups, you're able to more finely rank their qualifications to the point where they're effectively paired off. You hire the top 24 applicants. 4.8 are female, 19.2 are male (let's just say on average). When you're comparing the next pair to see which is going to get hired, you have a 64% chance of it being two males, a 32% chance of there being one female, and a 4% chance of there being two females. In the end, here's your probabilities: - 64% chance of hiring 4.8 females, 20.2 males (19.2% female) - 4% chance of hiring 5.8 females, 20.2 males (23.2% female) And a 32% chance of either hiring the female to promote diversity (getting to that 23.2% number) or hiring the male for some reason (getting to the 19.2% number). Let's say, for the purpose of the hypo, that you can either hire the female outright or use a coin toss to pick between the two. If you hire the female outright, you have a 64% chance of getting 19.2% females, or a 36% (32+4) chance of getting 23.2% females. If you use a coin toss, you have a 80% (64+32/2) chance of getting 19.2% females, or a 20% (32/2+4) chance of getting 23.2% females. So once you weight those diversity "scores" against their probabilities, you end up - on average - with 20.6% females hired if you always hire the female as a tiebreaker, or 20.0% females hired if you use a coin toss. Your grand solution to this huge problem nets you a whole 0.6% increase in gender diversity under real-world conditions. [b]The only way to change this is to change the 20% female input of the workforce pool.[/b] If you don't do that, to get any real change in employment diversity, you would have to break the model and hire less-qualified applicants. There is no way around that. You need a more diverse pool of applicants in the first place. I'm comfortable with the idea of picking diverse applicants when all other qualifications are equal, but ultimately that solution is just a farce to try to get your foot in the door so you can turn around and say, "whoops, I guess this doesn't work, maybe if we started to hire diverse applicants to force this change, we'll get it done," and that's when you cross the line into hiring less-qualified applicants. If you want to see change without hiring less-qualified applicants, the only way is by fixing the supply. And you think you're the one having to repeat yourself...

[QUOTE=LAMB SAUCE;52561524]nice one. unfortunately for your narrative a LOT of women leave jobs for this very reason, shockingly enough in 2017. They don't want to look after a baby in a high work hours job, and if they can't cut back hours will quit and re enter workforce later. women are still stuck in the social construct in a majority of cases where they will have to do this sacrifice and not the men, it's not right but it is what it is. hopefully it will change in the future, but it has started changing already.[/QUOTE] For a large amount of those women in the US, this is due to the fact there is no real guarantee for maternity leave. Even if they do get maternity leave, it's usually for a very small amount of time, typically 1-3 months. For comparison, Sweden gives 480 days of maternity leave, as well as 186 days of paternity leave, paying up to 80% of the parent's salary out of social security. There is a [b]massive[/b] difference between having to put a one year old in daycare and having to put a three month old in daycare, and this is the kind of thing that needs to be worked on in these companies.

[QUOTE=Maestro Fenix;52562087]I wonder from where comes the idea that wanting some diversity in your team implies hiring people of lesser skills. Seriously, there's a lot of great artists out there and they aren't inferior for being women or having a different skin.[/QUOTE] I doubt it happens as often as people would have us believe. In the end it really doesn't matter. If a recruiter manages to nab an employee that is both qualified [I]and[/I] a minority, that's great. If the recruiter just follows a minority quota and hires someone less qualified then... who cares? Their business, their problem.

[QUOTE=DeEz;52562677]I doubt it happens as often as people would have us believe. In the end it really doesn't matter. If a recruiter manages to nab an employee that is both qualified [I]and[/I] a minority, that's great. If the recruiter just follows a minority quota and hires someone less qualified then... who cares? Their business, their problem.[/QUOTE] Uh, the person who deserved the job but doesn't get hired cares.

[QUOTE=Beetle179;52560887]I think there's some merit to this strategy. Not to say I think this is [I]the[/I] solution, but I think it does address a core issue. A lot of these minority groups, and women, suffer from a desperate lack of representation -- there are really no role models in a lot of fields (in this case, game development) for anyone besides... well, white guys. Gabe Newell, Peter Molyneux, Kojima, Sakurai, Garry, Notch -- you have a ton of big-name men in the industry, people that are often cited as inspirations for other aspiring game designers. Of the ones I just said, all of them are white besides Kojima and Sakurai hailing from Japan, which is not exactly a minority group in gaming. What I'm reading here isn't that they want to enforce affirmative action and turn down qualified candidates because they aren't unique enough. I'm reading "let's create a better environment for underrepresented people so we can give them a fair chance at earning their place in the industry". And I'm not reading very deep to see that -- [...] This is a good thing.[/QUOTE] Ironically (and positively) enough, this is pretty much the exact same thing the Google memo said should be done. It's not really a direct reply to your post, but it's interesting that Blizzard seems to follow the same course of action that got someone fired at Google for proposing it.

[QUOTE=Snowmew;52562728]Uh, the person who deserved the job but doesn't get hired cares.[/QUOTE] But they'd never know they were rejected over an unqualified person anyway.

[QUOTE=DeEz;52562752]But they'd never know they were rejected over an unqualified person anyway.[/QUOTE] That wouldnt make it okay?