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Mozilla to remove “meritocracy” from governance docs because it's “problematic”

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Re: Mozilla to remove “meritocracy” from governance docs because it's “problematic”

#101

Post by guitarbill »

sanxiyn wrote: post #88
guitarbill wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who gets to define merit? Say a certain style was more likely to pass code review. And that style was more often associated with people with CS degrees, vs self-taught programmers. Even though it's a stylistic choice, functionally equivalent, one is "better" than the other and is introducing bias. It's very easy to do, especially because consistency is important for legibility, but a stylistic choice nonetheless. I t…

You should follow the project's style when you start contributing. If style is pointed out in code review, fix it.

Well yes, I agree. It's a bit of a toy example, simplistic, but hopefully one we can all relate to.

It does illustrate the issue of using "meritocracy" without anything else. It's like saying "we follow a style guide", and then not providing that style guide. Obviously sub-optimal.

(The example breaks down since providing a style guide is doable, whereas providing a "merit guide" is hard/impossible? In that case, is it better to remove that? I don't know.)

Re: Mozilla to remove “meritocracy” from governance docs because it's “problematic”

#102

Post by bluecalm »

guitarbill wrote: post #84
bluecalm wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well meritocracy means we will try to select and give influence/recognition based on merit. When someone tries to push an idea like "let's have more Asians" or "let's have more men" in the project we can direct them to the very first statement where they see we do selection based on merit and not skin color, gender or sexual orientation. Any attempt to introduce gender/race/sexual orientation quotas will promptly be…

Who gets to define merit? Say a certain style was more likely to pass code review. And that style was more often associated with people with CS degrees, vs self-taught programmers. Even though it's a stylistic choice, functionally equivalent, one is "better" than the other and is introducing bias. It's very easy to do, especially because consistency is important for legibility, but a stylistic choice nonetheless. I t…

Just because it's hard to accomplish pure meritocracy doesn't mean we can't strive for it or have it our stated values. It has an advantage that we can reject all efforts which contradicting the principle and could possibly undermine the project.

Re: Mozilla to remove “meritocracy” from governance docs because it's “problematic”

#103

Post by cucumberferity »

quantummkv wrote: post #96

This frightening shift away from meritocracy sounds suspiciously like what happens in India. In India, everything from government jobs, admissions to colleges and universities, etc is based on this quota system based on caste, religion, and other subdivisions instead of meritocracy. The intentions are undoubtedly good. But the actual results? Every government department is horrifically inefficient because a whole lot…

This is about changing the very nature of how open source projects work for people with radical political views to 'feel included', specifically to have their political views validated.

It is not about improving actual diversity, Mozilla already has those efforts. Mozilla should welcome and support contributions by everyone, I even recognize the systematic barriers that some people face, but I don't think we should be altering how key open source software projects function to affirm the believes of a small but loud group of radicals, particularly when their solutions for diversity don't actually increase diversity, they just increase the power of that loud group.

Re: Mozilla to remove “meritocracy” from governance docs because it's “problematic”

#104

Post by cucumberferity »

jds375 wrote: post #16

After reading the comments in the linked google group it seems like the issue is that they just need to more clearly define (and perhaps more fairly) what ‘merit’ is. Each team/role should have this clearly defined to eliminate bias/subjectivity. Also by clearly defining that, you help escape a meritocracy where ‘authority’ decides what ‘merit’ is behind close-doors (which isn’t really a meritocracy). Instead of aban…

> Instead of abandoning a meritocracy because it has implementation issues, why don’t they just fix the problems?

Because the small group of people pushing these changes don't want meritocracy, they want power and influence merely for having the correct political opinions.

They rely on the cooperation of well-meaning people who support diversity but don't see it's ploy for control and power.

Re: Mozilla to remove “meritocracy” from governance docs because it's “problematic”

#105

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

danharaj wrote: post #81
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "good thing" words to describe values are kind of bad. This makes no sense to me. Values are principles or standards of behavior. If I try to keep good values, this makes me evil somehow? Why would common standards of behavior for a group with a common goal be bad? Wouldn't it help the group continue in the same direction?

You have to separate the word from the underlying concept(s). They're not the same thing. If they were the same thing, I could conjure of invisible pink unicorns with an utterance and make all the world utopia by having everyone recite "I am a good person and I won't do anything bad". Words can fail and everyone acknowledges that at least tacitly. Hypocrisy is the purest form of words failing. Let's put it that way:…

If your argument against the use of "meritocracy" is true, it would apply just as much to "diversity" or "equality", meaning that you are arguing those generically good words should not be used as well. Am I missing something?

Re: Mozilla to remove “meritocracy” from governance docs because it's “problematic”

#106

Post by cucumberferity »

connorelsea wrote: post #63
cucumberferity wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are already attempting to control use of language and the foundational view of how open source works, based on their world view that equality is an illusion and only through use of selective discrimination against unpopular groups, as dictated by them, can equality be achieved.

lmao. so you're basically saying they made u mad because you think changing the word meritocracy discriminates against the ultimate oppressed group, White Males

No.

Eliminating meritocracy as a value doesn't discriminate against cis white males.

Nor does meritocracy as a value discriminate against non-cis non-white people.

This effort is a power-grab by a small group of people based on their radical political views, couched in feel-good words like inclusion.

They seek to have their political views reflected in language choice, to advance their specific political agenda over the project.

It has nothing to do with race, gender, or skin color, nor does it have anything to do with diversity.

They rely on the cooperation who want to 'do something' but it is about control.

Re: Mozilla to remove “meritocracy” from governance docs because it's “problematic”

#107

Post by tjpnz »

cucumberferity wrote: post #95
tjpnz wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what might preclude someone who happens to be of a different race or gender from also being the most competent person for the job?

The people pushing this radical view on diversity and equality tend to paint all people they see as marginalized as unable to compete on a level playing field.

This has always bothered me. Interviews for technology related roles are almost always an assessment of innate cognitive ability, something that has no real correlation with race or gender. The idea that certain groups might be disadvantaged here and require help is especially insulting.

Re: Mozilla to remove “meritocracy” from governance docs because it's “problematic”

#108

Post by moduspol »

ggggtez wrote: post #99
moduspol wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the idea, but Mozilla is building things . If I want the best engineer to build my bridge , I don't want to give bonus points for skin color or private parts. It's not like the trucks going over it will be any lighter or have smoother tires because the person building it grew up in a single parent household or something. When the rubber meets the road, some engineers are better than others and it affects the en…

For someone who doesn't care about private parts, why are you the first person to bring it up? If you care about delivering success, you should take a moment and think hard about why you feel so strongly about the race/gender aspect, and are not thinking about the probability theory.

> For someone who doesn't care about private parts, why are you the first person to bring it up?

Sorry--sometimes the endless stream of euphemisms and language policing bores me. This isn't an isolated event and I think we all know what's being said here.

> If you care about delivering success, you should take a moment and think hard about why you feel so strongly about the race/gender aspect, and are not thinking about the probability theory.

I really don't care about the race/gender aspect, but it's being injected into Mozilla's governance statement and here we are discussing it.

Re: Mozilla to remove “meritocracy” from governance docs because it's “problematic”

#109

Post by malwrar »

danharaj wrote: post #90
wtfstatists wrote: post #78

Meritocracy means your elevation within a group is not influenced by your ancestory, wealth, socail status, who are your friends with, how much you were/are-being oppressed, charisma or twitter followers. The group has a mission. You help with mission, you go up. You work against the mission, you go down. Thats meritocracy.

> The group has a mission. You help with mission, you go up. You work against the mission, you go down. Thats meritocracy. Honest question. Do you think you've cleared anything up with this definition? I don't think you've gotten anywhere closer to the truth. If only it were so easy to know what the mission is or what is in service of the mission. In life, in software, there are enough derelict projects, aspirations,…

If only it were so easy to know what the mission is or what is in service of the mission

Seems pretty straightforward to me.

An engineering team's goal is to take a problem and implement a solution. That is the mission. Anything that leads towards the completion of the problem their team wants to solve is in service of the mission. I don't understand what is complicated about that, what are you seeing that we're not?

In life, in software, there are enough derelict projects, aspirations, visions, dreams to fill a graveyard

Once the mission is no longer worth pursuing or becomes muddled, teams fall apart and motivation crumbles. My github has plenty of repos I've stopped working on because I stopped seeing why it was worth my time to work on those projects and moved on to things that would be of greater benefit to me. That's how things should be.

Re: Mozilla to remove “meritocracy” from governance docs because it's “problematic”

#110

Post by plcancel »

"This proposal does not seek to change how Mozilla is governed, only how we talk about how Mozilla is governed, which may be reasonably be regarded as contentious."

...said another way?...

"It is reasonable to expect a few questions after we emphasize the importance of changing how we talk about x while we also emphasize that changing x is not the objective."

The reasoning in this part of the email is pretty good.

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