[cucumberferity]

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 here opposes meritocracy on political principle, as part of their worldview. It does not stop there though. They believe the only answer for "diversity" to put them in charge, beginning with government documents that reflect their radical worldview, see FreeBSD Code of Conduct. Even if you support diversity, you have to realize these people do not care about diversity or inclusion, they are little authoritarians who want more power to dictate what people say and whose opinion matters more/less based on immutable characteristics. We cannot allow authoritarians with such warped views of the world to seize control of key open source projects.

[MaupitiBlue]

They're "proposing" to transform from rule by Engineering, i.e. meritocracy, to rule by HR.

Why am I feeling a sudden urge to read Animal Farm?

[oldcynic]

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?

[cucumberferity]

The problems in FreeBSD CoC were widely discussed.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16406946

When people approached some of the FreeBSD Core Team with their concerns about vague language that could be subject to abuse, they were basically told they were all racist transphobes who weren't welcome to contribute to FreeBSD anyways.

So it was a pretty obvious politically-motivated power-grab.

[tomlock]

What control do you feel these figures will gain by removing the word meritocracy, specifically?

[cucumberferity]

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.

[connorelsea]

you sound like a conspiracy theorist. it is changing an inappropriate word, not shifting control over the entire company Mozilla. i doubt you care about diversity or improving the quality of the open source project

[cucumberferity]

The evidence cited for meritocracy being an inappropriate word, a study on GitHub pull requests, has been widely debunked.

Meritocracy is only an inappropriate word if you believe that certain groups of people will never be able to participate on a level playing field.

That notion is of course incredibly condescending towards members of those groups.

The goal should be to advance everyone in the meritocracy through outreach and training, not to abandon the value of meritocracy.

The proposal itself makes it clear the change is merely for cosmetic purposes, to make certain people feel better, not actually increase diversity.

If you care about diversity you should oppose the notion that certain groups of people are incapable of participating on their own terms.

This is about empowering a small but loud group of political activists who want to remake a software project to fit their fringe world view.

Do you care more about affirming their politics or the quality of software?

[connorelsea]

your arguments are hypberolic in some cases, as changing or clarifying a word or sentence even is not "remake(ing) a software project". and I think the word meritocracy is vague, a overarching word used to describe many things to many people, mozilla should instead simply be more clear about what that means. what is the "playing field", that itself is a metaphor for sports and physical ability I guess. How will the ability of those chosen for participation under this meritocracy be judged

[nailer]

Really? People who interpret 'meritocracy' in a narrow, little known historical context, as being a conspiracy against miniorities, rather than it's currently accepted form, sound like conspiracy theorists.

[connorelsea]

that is quite the stretch. thinking a word should be updated or clarified does not make me a "conspiracy theorist". What am I conspiring against? people fighting so hard against a simple change to make the sentence more inclusive are just fighting to keep their antiquated system of bias in place

[cucumberferity]

They are proposing removing meritocracy based on their political view that certain classes of people will never be able to participate on a level playing field.

They are the ones advancing a narrative of exclusion, telling individuals in whole swaths that they can never compete in open source projects.

They have no evidence to support this of course, just what they were taught in their sociology classes at uni.

In reality though they are the ones pushing outdated bias.

[nailer]

> does not make me a "conspiracy theorist". What am I conspiring against?

Being a conspiracy theorist means you believe someone else is conspiring against you.

[guitarbill]

and yet Mozilla put out a proposal to discuss this, not something people just do for trivial matters. so they clearly feel strongly about it, but this dude can't?

also, there's no need for the ad hominem attack. if he is a conspiracist, it should be easy to point out a more simple explanation.