Social inclusion is a fundamental feature of thriving societies. This paper first investigates barriers for social inclusion in online Software Engineering (SE) communities, by identifying a set of attributes and organising them as a taxonomy. Second, by applying the taxonomy and analysing language used in the comments posted by members in 189 Gitter projects (with > 3 million comments), it presents evidence for the presence of the social exclusion problem. Third, it presents a framework for improving social inclusion in SE communities.

Bastin Tony Roy Savarimuthu

University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

New Zealand

Zoofishan Zareen

Independent Researcher

United Arab Emirates

Jithin Cheriyan

University of Otago

New Zealand

Muhammad Yasir

university of otago

New Zealand

Matthias Galster

University of Canterbury

New Zealand