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I’m suggesting that your meritocracy doesn’t exist - if your organisation is structured to exclude people who may (and likely do) have contributions of merit, i

I’m suggesting that your meritocracy doesn’t exist - if your organisation is structured to exclude people who may (and likely do) have contributions of merit, it is not a meritocracy. Then, the question is simple - who do you exclude? People who abuse others, or the people they abuse? Note that this is a community issue, not a code issue. If somebody wants to sit on their own, publish patches to their own website, and somebody else wants to import those patches into a community project, fine - there’s no non-technical interaction needed there, and little actual reason to exclude their code. It’s excluding them from the community that we’re talking about here.

roenxi 8y ago
> I’m suggesting that your meritocracy doesn’t exist Nothing ideologically pure exists - technically there are no democracies in the world either, because, eg, places like the US dilute the will of the masses with the court system (which is not democratic). It is still a pretty democratic country. > if your organisation is structured to exclude people who may (and likely do) have contributions of merit, it is not a meritocracy Sure it is. That is like saying you can't have a democracy in Australia if people in Tanzania who aren't Australian citizens, because a a palce ruled-by-people is excluding people. It is reasonable to argue that excluding people who have great potential is a bad idea, which it is, but you can still have a meritocracy. > Then the question is simple - who do you exclude? People who abuse others, or the people they abuse? No, that isn't the question at all. The question is simple and it is "how do we support the people making the greatest technical contributions?". In an extreme case, that might mean putting up with some off-color characters who happen to be inspired technical experts. It isn't perfect. What is? But that is what meritocracies do.

roenxi 8y ago

> I’m suggesting that your meritocracy doesn’t exist Nothing ideologically pure exists - technically there are no democracies in the world either, because, eg, places like the US dilute the will of the masses with the court system (which is not democratic). It is still a pretty democratic country. > if your organisation is structured to exclude people who may (and likely do) have contributions of merit, it is not a meritocracy Sure it is. That is like saying you can't have a democracy in Australia if people in Tanzania who aren't Australian citizens, because a a palce ruled-by-people is excluding people. It is reasonable to argue that excluding people who have great potential is a bad idea, which it is, but you can still have a meritocracy. > Then the question is simple - who do you exclude? People who abuse others, or the people they abuse? No, that isn't the question at all. The question is simple and it is "how do we support the people making the greatest technical contributions?". In an extreme case, that might mean putting up with some off-color characters who happen to be inspired technical experts. It isn't perfect. What is? But that is what meritocracies do.