cutting off their nose

Posted Oct 28, 2025 12:31 UTC (Tue) by AntiISO (guest, #179626)
In reply to: cutting off their nose by corbet
Parent article: Python Software Foundation withdraws security-related grant proposal

But it is worth saying that "judge people by their abilities" is exactly what a good DEI program is about — ensuring that all people can bring their abilities, regardless of what they look like or how well they chose their parents.

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This is your good faith reading of the "book cover".

This is also what any reasonable person would expect before opening the book, and what any reasonable person would and should support.

But as it happens, your good faith expectation couldn't be more wrong about the book's content.

The person who authored the most adopted code of conduct in software projects, including the linux kernel itself, that very same person also authored a document that is literally titled "The Post-Meritocracy Manifesto". That second book's cover should give you a better idea about the previous book's content.

Not that I consider it relevant, but I happen to belong to a "sub-group" that would theoretically benefit from such "programs". But living in a "post-meritocratic" world is the last thing I want to see happen.

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cutting off their nose

Posted Oct 28, 2025 14:47 UTC (Tue) by niner (guest, #26151) [Link] (3 responses)

It stands out to me that you advise not judging DEI by its "book cover" and instead going into detail, while simultaneously judging the Post-Meritocracy Manifest solely on its "cover" and refusing to engage in its actual content. If you'd do that you'd quickly come across this sentence: "It is time that we as an industry abandon the notion that merit is something that can be measured objectively, that can be pursued on equal terms by every individual, and that can ever be distributed fairly."

This alone makes it clear that this manifest is not at all arguing for completely ignoring merit. Instead it's based on the realization that merit cannot be measured objectively. This ties it back directly to DEI, because it's clear that we perceive contributions as more or less important not only on the contribution itself but also because of who contributed it. And there we do tend to value those higher that are more like us. So DEI is a way to _fix_ meritocracy, not to replace it.

cutting off their nose

Posted Oct 28, 2025 15:38 UTC (Tue) by AntiISO (guest, #179626) [Link] (2 responses)

The main point is, the grand parent's comment assumption:

> But it is worth saying that "judge people by their abilities" is exactly what a good DEI program is about

is outright rejected by that manifesto, as "abilities" (a.k.a. merit) is argued to be just

> a form of recognition, an acknowledgement that “this person is valuable insofar as they are like me.”

I have no interest in showing/arguing what I (and presumably anyone who hasn't been "hypernormalized" in certain echo chambers) humbly consider clear illogical fanatical bullshittery in that document, which I read in full the day it was made public btw. What's relevant here is that that is the set beliefs being operated on, as you yourself acknowledged, with the core one being that merit is apparently immeasurable.

cutting off their nose

Posted Oct 28, 2025 18:00 UTC (Tue) by stijn (subscriber, #570) [Link]

How much of this is people taking strong positions, engaging with worst faith interpretations of statements, focusing on the loudest and most polarising voices, and trying to win, shut down or diminish a debate rather than gain an understanding of why there is a debate, where the other person is coming from, and allowing for nuance? I have a hunch that there is common ground to be found, but when you write 'clear illogical fanatical bullshittery' what's the point of engaging? Have you read the contribution by twiens among these comments? It is observant.

cutting off their nose

Posted Oct 29, 2025 12:18 UTC (Wed) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link]

the core one being that merit is apparently immeasurable

I don't think there's an absolute “merit” scale where if you score highly everybody will be falling over themselves to roll out the red carpet for you. You can presumably be a priceless asset to project A based on your outstanding technical capabilities, vast experience, pleasant personality, and burning zeal to contribute to project A, and still be nobody in particular to project B based on exactly the same traits (possibly just because you're a crackshot Rust programmer but project B happens to be based on Java). Or your combination of traits may be just what project C is looking for while project D already has loads of other people who do what you're doing, and (while they'd be generally happy to have you chip in) would really welcome a different type of volunteer who could fill a real gap. So even if “merit” is in fact “measurable”, the same yardsticks don't seem to apply everywhere.

Props to the Python Software Foundation for standing up to its principles. Money is nice but it is more important to be welcoming and to encourage and enable people who want to contribute, regardless of their background.

cutting off their nose

Posted Oct 28, 2025 17:19 UTC (Tue) by excors (subscriber, #95769) [Link] (2 responses)

> The person who authored the most adopted code of conduct in software projects, including the linux kernel itself, that very same person also authored a document that is literally titled "The Post-Meritocracy Manifesto". That second book's cover should give you a better idea about the previous book's content.

I don't see why you're implying we should be surprised or outraged about that. It's saying we can't objectively measure "merit", because it's such a vaguely defined term that in practice it's usually twisted (intentionally or unintentionally) to mean "people like me". And even if we could measure it, we shouldn't judge people on that measurement, because open source communities are social groups of humans, and groups benefit from having a range of skills and viewpoints, and humans have value beyond their ability to write code, so we should embrace that value rather than dismissing anyone who doesn't fit our narrow objective criteria.

That seems entirely consistent with the Contributor Covenant: it says communities should be welcoming and respectful to all. It doesn't say this only applies to the objectively best C hackers. The kernel's CoC explicitly calls out "levels of experience", which will be a big part of any attempt to measure merit - inexperienced programmers will write poorer code, but the kernel says they should still be welcomed and respected. That lets them contribute to the project now, and gain experience and contribute even more later, which is pretty obviously a good thing for the group.

(Incidentally, the term "meritocracy" was coined in a satirical, dystopian novel, so it seems weird to hold it up as an ideal that cannot be criticised or improved upon. It has benefits over some other models, but it has always been an imperfect concept.)

In any case, I think Post-Meritocracy is a significantly different thing to corporate DEI and you shouldn't conflate them. Companies can't welcome everyone equally: a job opening will have dozens of applicants and they have to make binary judgments on who to accept, so there's an unavoidable exclusivity. The best they can do is refine their criteria to reflect what's actually good for the group (avoiding the simple, selfish criteria of "people like me"), and identify and minimise their biases when evaluating those criteria, and support the successful applicants to work as effectively as possible based on their individual needs, which are the processes that will be called DEI (and that the government gets upset about).

cutting off their nose

Posted Oct 29, 2025 0:10 UTC (Wed) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link] (1 responses)

A crucial point is that the value of any member is relative to the needs of their organization. A good team needs people with a wide range of skills. If you focus exclusively on one skill set as the most valuable, you'll wind up with a team that can only do one kind of thing. If instead you try to get a well rounded group with a wide range of skills, you can do more kinds of things. It's not that, say, a technical writer is more "meritorious" than a programmer, but a team with only programmers might benefit more by adding someone to bring their documentation up to date than they would by adding another programmer. A rock band consisting of four lead guitar players might benefit from trading one for a drummer, even if the drummer isn't quite as good a musician.

cutting off their nose

Posted Oct 29, 2025 12:17 UTC (Wed) by AntiISO (guest, #179626) [Link]

This sounds like a variation of "a solution in search of a problem". Except here, it sounds like a rationalizing attempt at retrofitting a "solution" into an imaginary unsolved problem.

When the task is technical writing, a technical writer very much has more merit than a programmer who is not good at it, although technical writing still requires at least a minimal level of topic/field expertise obviously. If there is a problem finding the right people for that job description, then that's what needs to be improved, measuring the "merit" of technical writers.

But neither did humanity at large somehow had a comprehensive problem groking such banality until a decade or two ago (i.e. recognizing the importance of job descriptions and different skill sets). Nor is nuking the concept of "merit" needed, or presents an actual workable solution in any way, to solve this supposedly existing problem.