"I used to believe that most programming and open source communities were meritocracies ..." People cannot judge you on your merits unless they know you exist

"I used to believe that most programming and open source communities were meritocracies ..." People cannot judge you on your merits unless they know you exist and what you've done. Stand up and be counted. Now, there is the case that some people assign special value to other people by virtue of their being known, and don't bother to find out why someone is known. TV is filled with people who are famous for being famous. Maybe some tech circles are like that, too. I've had people look to hire me who mention that they were Googling for something or other and my name kept coming up, so they figured I was the person to contact. Far be it from me to to discourage such people :). But I also know that the bottom line is you have to live up to these people's expectations.