SIGMOD Santiago, Chile, 2024
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Diversity and Inclusion in Database Conference Venues

The Data Management community is committed to the promotion of diversity and inclusion in all aspects of our professional activities. We celebrate the diversity in our community and welcome everyone regardless of age, gender identity, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic background, country of origin, religion, sexual orientation, physical ability, education, and work experience. We also welcome people and opinions of all political persuasions, as long as they abide by the ACM policy against harassment. Our initiative coordinates D&I efforts across the data management community and includes this year’s D&I chairs of SIGMOD, VLDB, SoCC, and ICDE.

For more information, please refer to https://dbdni.github.io/

Please follow this webpage for updates on the steps we are taking to enhance the inclusivity and diversity of our conference and community. As we pursue more initiatives, we may have some missteps. We value your feedback and ideas to help us all build a healthier and more welcoming community.

INCLUSION AND DIVERSITY IN WRITING

As a large scientific and technical community that has a direct impact on many people from different backgrounds around the world, Diversity and Inclusion are crucial for the data management community. ACM explains these goals as follows. Diversity is achieved when the individuals around the table are drawn from a variety of backgrounds and experience, leading to a breadth of viewpoints, reasoning, and approaches (also referred to as "the who"). Inclusion is achieved when the environment is characterized by behaviors that welcome and embrace diversity ("the how"). Both are important in our writing and other forms of communication such as posters and talks.

Inclusion

Be mindful of not using language or examples that further the marginalization, stereotyping, or erasure of any group of people, especially historically marginalized and/or under-represented groups (URGs) in computing. Of course, exclusionary or indifferent treatment can arise unintentionally. Be vigilant and actively guard against such issues in your writing. Reviewers will also be empowered to monitor and demand changes if such issues arise in your submissions. Here are some examples of such issues for your benefit:

Examples of exclusionary and other non-inclusive writing to consider avoiding:

Diversity

Going further, please also consider actively raising the representation of URGs in your writing. Diversity of representation helps create an environment and community culture that could ultimately make our field more welcoming and attractive to people from URGs. This is a small but crucial step you can take towards celebrating and improving our community’s diversity.

Examples of infusing diversity into writing to consider adopting:

Responsibility

Finally, if your work involves data-driven techniques that make decisions about people, please consider explicitly discussing whether it may lead to disparate impact on different groups, especially URGs. Consider discussing the ethical and societal implications. For example, see this article discussing the potential for disparate impact of facial recognition in healthcare and strategies to avoid or reduce harm. This SIGMOD Blog article also gives a comprehensive overview of various dimensions and approaches for responsible application of data management ideas. We hope our community can help permeate this culture of responsibility and awareness about potentially harmful unintended negative consequences of our work within the larger computing landscape.

Acknowledgments and Further Reading:

Credits
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