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That’s a weird take though. >> a tie breaker is how many talks you have already done Why? That’s not a meritocracy, it is tenure based. Tenure does not always
by eanzenberg 6y ago
That’s a weird take though.
>> a tie breaker is how many talks you have already done
Why? That’s not a meritocracy, it is tenure based. Tenure does not always correlate with merit, so the basis of your example is moot.
- ghaff 6y agoThe better scenario there is: A has a solid proposal and they're a known good quantity on the "speaker circuit" B is a newcomer and their proposal looks really interesting too--maybe even more so--but we don't know them so maybe A is the safer choice (I'd argue that this is the way that a lot of conferences have historically operated and many still do to some degree--which is OK to a point. You don't want to exclude traditional crowd-pleasers.) But maybe if A's proposal is just solid, it wouldn't hurt to reach out to B for some additional information and to offer mentoring rather than just go with the safe easy choice.
- a1369209993 6y agoSure, but to the extent that you're going with the safe easy choice, you're not deciding based on merit. There are cases where that makes sense, but the ones where it doesn't aren't a problem with meritocracy; they're a problem with giving up on meritocracy.
- tchaffee 6y agoIt's easy enough to use my thought experiment to make it a meritocracy. We watch their latest talks. Fred is a better speaker. Thanks to more experience because he has done more talks. Thanks to confidence because he has never heard "no thanks". He got more talks and experience thanks to sexism.