Comment by ssivark | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ssivark | Hacker News Reader

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.

It also adds language about debias.

So it doesn't simply remove meritocracy to appease the far-left activists.

It specifically inserts language to appear them, reaffirm their world view.

Is it really necessary to create a safe space for fringe political activists to create substantive diversity? No.

It's also promoted by high-level Mozilla employees in response to a recent anti-meritocracy movement.

After what happened to FreeBSD's CoC you can hardly claim this is happening in a vacuum, it's a cause now.

> It also adds language about debias.

I'm confused as to why debiasing here is bad. If your contention is that bias doesn't exist, then this shouldn't have any effect. And if the distribution of authority does have a bias other than "ability and contributions to the project", why wouldn't they want to fix that?

Exactly, it’s equivalent to saying “meritocracy”, except that it uses words approved by the far-left in place of a word disapproved by them.

Insofar as many people's definition of meritocracy seems to preclude any consideration of someone's race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, etc, they're not equivalent.

Bias can't be addressed by ignoring attributes you suspect to be affected by it. In the new wording Mozilla explicitly commits to address bias, which is important.

"The project also seeks to debias this system of distributing authority through active interventions that engage and encourage participation from diverse communities."

That sounds a lot like affirmative action.

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