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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”

#21

Post by sanxiyn »

The post cites "Gender difference and bias in open source" as a supporting evidence, but it is super unconvincing.

The study found, in the study's own words, "Surprisingly, our results show that women’s contributions tend to be accepted more often than men’s". They still conclude bias against women (not men)! They have their reasons, but they don't stand up to scrutiny. For more details than you probably want, see http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/02/12/before-you-get-too-exci...

Meritocracy may be problematic, but the proposition needs better evidence than that.

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

#22

Post by ssivark »

This is the suggested modification:

"Mozilla is an open source project. Our community is structured as a virtual organization. Authority is primarily distributed to both volunteer and employed community members as they show their ability through contributions to the project. The project also seeks to debias this system of distributing authority through active interventions that engage and encourage participation from diverse communities."

While it removes the word "meritocracy" it clarifies and validates the exact manner in which meritocracy is being promoted: "members as they show their ability through contributions to the project". While there is a debate to be had between the two formulations, the current HN title seems misleadingly editorialized for two reasons:

1. It is a proposal by two members, yet to receive ratification from the organization.

2. The suggested change still emphasizes the principle of meritocracy without using the word.

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

#23

Post by ggggtez »

bluecalm wrote: post #10

Can someone explain how striving for meritocracy stems from assumption of equal opportunity? I want projects I am part of or benefit from to be guided by meritocracy. It means some people have better chances to contribute or gain influence there than others. Those are more competent people who often got better opportunities through life. I want that because I care about those projects. I don't see how chances not bei…

Let's say you get "a" tries to succeed. You'd expect equally talented candidates x, and y, to have Pr(x|a) == Pr(y|a).

But what if y only had "b" tries, where bAnd that's all there is to it. If you no longer assume everyone has an equal chance to show their skills, then the meritocracy isn't actually working as intended. Good "y" candidates are getting ignored for worse "x" candidates, just because "x" candidates had more chances.

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

#25

Post by blattimwind »

autarch wrote: post #12

I think this bit from the email is the most important: > To sum up: > -Declaring Mozilla to be a de facto “meritocracy” fails to acknowledge evident bias in representation in the project. > -The word “meritocracy” itself has become a bone of contention which is unhelpful to us. > -Meritocractic principles remain highly desirable and should be explicit. > -We should also acknowledge the importance of measures we take…

Do you think people which get really upset by word X representing entity Z will not get really upset after a while by word Y representing the same entity Z?

This is quite literally how euphemism treadmills start out.

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

#26

Post by remarkEon »

autarch wrote: post #12

I think this bit from the email is the most important: > To sum up: > -Declaring Mozilla to be a de facto “meritocracy” fails to acknowledge evident bias in representation in the project. > -The word “meritocracy” itself has become a bone of contention which is unhelpful to us. > -Meritocractic principles remain highly desirable and should be explicit. > -We should also acknowledge the importance of measures we take…

>Is it worth fighting that, or can you just use different words for the same thing?

Today it's "meritocracy". Tomorrow it's "talent".

It will never be enough.

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

#27

Post by oldcynic »

cucumberferity wrote: post #11
connorelsea wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Words are important. Devs will argue over a correct variable name for hours but think names in other places have no meaning

Words are important. Diversity is important. Changing words like "meritocracy" does not improve diversity. It is the illusion of diversity, a feel-good opportunity for well-intentioned bystanders. The true intent is for a small group of highly politically motivated people to gain more control. The governance documents are about control and changing those documents means a shift in control. The movement we are seeing…

When it cropped up here a while back I don't remember anything seeming problematic with FreeBSD's new CoC. What's the issue with it?

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

#29

Post by sanxiyn »

bluecalm wrote: post #10

Can someone explain how striving for meritocracy stems from assumption of equal opportunity? I want projects I am part of or benefit from to be guided by meritocracy. It means some people have better chances to contribute or gain influence there than others. Those are more competent people who often got better opportunities through life. I want that because I care about those projects. I don't see how chances not bei…

It doesn't. I can't explain falsity.

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

#30

Post by danharaj »

Meritocracy, like all words that reduce to "good thing", are always troublesome. No one ever claims to be a "bad thing"ocracy. The issue is the opacity of the concept of merit. How do you distinguish being a meritocracy in some good sense from insisting you are a meritocracy and thus poisoning any discussion that you are not one?

Using words to maintain a culture has a sort of Newton's third law. It might push you towards striving to be "good thing", but it also pushes back, making people resistant to the idea that you aren't striving for "good thing". This is an inescapable fact of how humans hold values.

Better words are the ones that aren't exclusively evaluated by humans. These are things on which people can agree there exists an impartial measure of the thing. There is no such measure of merit. Merit is an undecidable value at best and an incoherent one at worst.

So, counterintuitively, "good thing" words to describe values are kind of bad. It is easy to construe acknowledging their badness as thinking the underlying concept is bad. I think that is happening in this comment thread. I think rewarding people with trust and responsibility based on merit is a great idea! I think it is detrimental to the cause to codify that in your mission statement.

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