Hi RO,
From what you write, I believe we share many objectives, including to
safeguard the project’s long-term reputation and health and to increase
diversity within the project. We agree that the concept of meritocracy
could introduce bias against under-represented groups (although I think
you believe that it tends not to in practice, I argue there is evidence
to say it does). Where we diverge: you believe that continuing to
enshrine “meritocracy” in Mozilla’s governance statement is important to
the project’s reputation, I believe we can make a clearer statement of
the principle, without inferring the whole system.
You clearly hold that the term “meritocracy” is important and beneficial
- many people would agree with you. I’m attempting to preserve the best
of it in the proposed statement. Clearly, people contributing to a
project need to know that their abilities and effort will be recognised
and rewarded.
But I am also asserting that “meritocracy” is understood differently by
different people. You don’t appear to accept that the term has negative
connotations for anyone other than a constituency you don’t necessarily
believe should be represented (“activists” / “those with a very specific
ideology/worldview”). Minimal desk research demonstrates that the term
is also increasingly understood by many to mean something closer to its
original coinage [0].
From my point of view, you have not commented if you feel the proposed
replacement language corresponds with your idea of a good system of
governance, only argued about the context in which its made. I don’t
believe that the proposed wording aligns with any ideology. It’s plain
and less open to interpretation. I’d encourage you to comment on that.
You argue that open source lends itself to diversity by its nature. I
agree that it should do, but it has been demonstrated not to, and the
concept of “meritocracy” as a justification for existing power
structures is known to introduce bias [1]. I don’t accept that this is
a dramatic change that would distract from the real work of promoting
diversity. For one thing, it is a modest proposal (you described it as
“window dressing”, after all!), and secondly, from discussing with those
who work on diversity and inclusion at Mozilla, I am very confident they
feel this is a helpful change to their work.
Your argument that we should not address the question of “meritocracy”
in our governance statement until its proven to promote positive change
is somewhat circular. Obviously, if every project takes that view, no
change will ever happen, will it? Let’s neutralise the issue and lead
by being clearer about what we stand for.
Patrick
0.
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/25/world/michael-young-86-scholar-coined-mocked-meritocracy.html
1. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2189/asqu.2010.55.4.543
On 5/28/18 6:44 AM, recalcitrantowl via governance wrote:
1. You’re concerned that this change is a sop to the politically
militant, and that this is a slippery slope.
I believe the proposed change of language is intended to bring it in line with
a very specific political ideology/worldview.
2. The proposal itself is cosmetic and does little or nothing to advance
diversity which you believe is not a problem in open source, at least
not relative to proprietary software development.
My point was that open source by itself lends itself to diversity by it's very
nature.
We can always do more. Translations are a good place to start for most projects.
I support all kinds of diversity in open source and would like to see more
diversity in open source.
I do not believe changing words to align with very specific political
ideologies, whatever ideology that is, contributes to substantive diversity.
3. Focusing energy here is a distraction (or worse) to Mozilla as an
open source project.
Focusing energy on changing language to appease activists who have it out for certain words is a distraction, not just from development of code but from actual diversity efforts.
Until there is real data to show increased diversity in projects that reject
meritocracy as a formal value/policy I don't think a change should be made.
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