> Being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences.

> Gracefully accepting constructive feedback.

> Showing empathy and kindness towards other community members.

Yada yada, seemingly inclusive and tolerant then goes on to add a catch all list where every possible action can be deemed unacceptable, getting you expelled everywhere and "identification of the participant as a harasser to other members or the general public."

Anti meritocracy is a cover for the most intolerant.

Which of the actions they've listed would you like to be able to do without fear of repercussion? This sounds an awful lot like "No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service? So much for the 'tolerant left.'"

  > Anti meritocracy is a cover for the most intolerant. 

The Paradox of Tolerance indicates that a society that is infinitely tolerant will eventually be overrun by the least tolerant.

Having a written set of guidelines that define the behavior expected seems like...I dunno, a good idea?

Me too! I used to frequent their Matrix room a year or so ago and it was a very nice place. Very refreshing to find a tech community that made me feel like I could say what I wanted without being interjected by STEM and debate lords.

Unfortunately life drove me away from the project, especially now that I work remote and barely leave my home, but every now and then I feel like contributing again just because of how nice everyone is.

Well, they banned folks for really minor reasons from their Matrix channel, e.g. saying "Hi guys, I have a question about ..." can get you banned. So no, this CoC leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth for the entire project.

I have no memories of that happening. They'll probably tell your not to use the word "guys" in that context though, which is fair imo.

it happend on Wed, Apr 24 2019, if you want to review it.

You like an ANTI-meritocracy statement? We truly have gone backwards.

Here's the issue with meritocracies: They pursue individual excellence at the expense of group excellence.

We know[1] that a more diverse group creates better group outcomes than a non-diverse group where specific individuals may have better performance. Even from a wholly selfish perspective for the people running a project, prizing diversity of qualified individuals over a pure meritocracy is the right play.

From a "making the world a better place" perspective where some altruism is shown, it also helps to acknowledge that not everyone has all the same advantages and tailwinds so that it is fundamentally more difficult for them to have had all the same opportunities and advantages, and providing those opportunities and advantages to them gives them that chance to even the playing field. The amount of unconscious bias built in to humans also means it is difficult for us to be effective judges of ability for those that are not like us. You don't have to be racist/exist/homophobic/transphobic/etc. to have built in biases - you just have to be human. They're difficult to overcome without explicitly stating goals around it.

[1] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,44&as_vis=...

I agree with the last paragraph of your comment. However, the “wholly selfish” economic argument for “diverse” workplaces is management consultant bullshit which is not supported by the evidence. Here’s an excerpt from the first article that comes up in those Google Scholar search results:

> The result of [social] categorization processes may be that work groups function more smoothly when they are homogeneous than when they are more diverse … This analysis is corroborated by findings of, for instance, higher group cohesion (e.g., O'Reilly et al. 1989), lower turnover (e.g., Wagner et al. 1984), and higher performance (e.g., Murnighan & Conlon 1991) in more homogeneous groups …

> In contrast to the social categorization (and similarity/attraction) perspective, the information/decision-making perspective emphasizes the positive effects of work group diversity. The starting point for this perspective is the notion that diverse groups are likely to possess a broader range of task-relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities, and members with different opinions and perspectives … Corroborating this analysis, some studies find an association of diversity with higher performance and innovation (e.g., Bantel & Jackson 1989).

> In their simplest form (a main effect of diversity), neither analysis is supported. Evidence for the positive effects as well as for the negative effects of diversity is highly inconsistent (Bowers et al. 2000, Webber & Donahue 2001, Williams & O'Reilly 1998) and raises the question of whether, and how, the perspectives on the positive and the negative effects of diversity can be reconciled and integrated.

The case for workplace diversity needs to be argued on social justice principles, because there isn’t enough evidence for the economic efficiency argument.

The word 'meritocracy' was coined as a derogatory term about the education system in England in the 50s in a satirical text. It mocked the idea that such a thing could exist because the system obviously wasn't designed for it. If you value "intelligence", but only give rich people access to good education, then you've just created a two-step process that selects for rich people.

Ok, so what? It's not used in that context anymore. It's the same pitfall as the master/slave/blacklist/whitelist/etc. arguments: people have a problem divorcing historical meaning from present-day usage. Meanings change and evolve over time. If we follow this stunted logic, then there's going to be a lot of other English words/phrases that need to be banned as well. The only people associating them with their historical meanings are those wanting to ban the phrases. These etymological fallacies do nothing but pointlessly divide people. It needs to stop.

The term was coined in a derogatory manner because the person who coined the term thought it was a ridiculous concept.

No one is saying ban the word meritocracy, but people are saying that if you're arguing for one, you've missed the point.

The concept that was considered ridiculous was only giving rich people access to the resources to make it in a meritocracy.

But for a while, the UK actually didn't do that. New universities were created, "grammar schools" were mostly replaced, new hiring practices adopted, and the stranglehold of the establishment was broken a little bit, for a little while.

That was because as ridiculous as the original idea might have been, good people with good intentions started to believe in "meritocracy", and used the idea to make changes.

The present-day usage of the term still refers to an impossibility.

I don’t think this is an accurate summary of the book. The satirical history of the “modern education system” in chapter 3 describes how funding for public education was increased, and students were aggressively streamed into different schools based only on IQ tests. Eventually expensive private schools went out of fashion because they were attended only by students who couldn’t get into the best public schools, so they no longer conferred academic prestige. Early in the book, capital levies are introduced which prevent the building of new fortunes, and in chapter 7, an Equalization of Income Act is passed so that all citizens receive the same basic income. The meritocracy is transformed into an aristocracy not because “merit” is a proxy for heritable wealth, but because “intelligence” (as defined in the book: “the ability to raise [economic] production, directly or indirectly”) is also heritable, and in the book this effect was amplified through eugenics. You can find a more modern and less satirical take on this argument in Fredrik deBoer’s The Cult of Smart.

it's not like what their doing is rocket science

And, yes, I believe the world would be a better place if we followed these rules with many projects regardless of the field.

Btw, there are some interesting facts about the history of the word, "meritocracy": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy#....

A recent PEL episode went into why meritocracy is not as good as it seems: https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2020/10/12/ep-254-1-sandel...

> We have an ethical responsibility to refuse to work on software that will negatively impact the well-being of other people.

Such as creating a platform for people to listen to music for free by sharing it with others without paying the artist?

Does BitTorrent fall under that? Or YouTube? Plex? Google Drive?

BitTorrent, yes.

YouTube, no. They take down videos with copyrighted material.

So by extension browsers allowing file downloads also falls under that? That's just what BitTorrent is after all.

And knives. They can be used to kill people too.

You can also say it benefits the artist because it makes it easier to listen to them, which incentivises people to give them money to support them. This is more or less the entire model of Bandcamp.

You can indeed say that - and people who demand artists work for "exposure" often do.

But there's no evidence it's factually correct.

And Bandcamp's model is based on selling tracks and albums with free previews, which is entirely different to free listening.

Right, and Bandcamp is probably the most pro-artist of the major music platforms, I would say. The project also benefits the artist but creating an infrastructure not controlled by Youtube or Soundcloud.

Source?

Yeah, I don't like it. It says making wrong jokes is an offense. On the plus side, it doesn't yet say that failure to report someone else for making wrong jokes is an offense.

To include some important information you left out:

It says that sexual harassment is bad and that racism is bad, and using jokes to "ironically" do things like that is also bad.

Problem is, making accusation of such is a breeze.

> Intentionally posting or disseminating libel, slander, or other disinformation.

Let's face it. It's just a policy that allows them to expel anyone that doesn't fit their views, whatever that may be.

Which community have you been a part of, online or otherwise, where "flagrant violation of the norms" doesn't carry the potential for expulsion?

Without a written code of conduct, there are still values, views, and norms, usually created and run by the most disruptive members who are free to behave in any way they see fit and ostracize those who that behavior hurts.

>that doesn't fit their views, whatever that may be.

Their "view" is that sexual harassment is not something they want on their platform.

(deleted, I was overreacting a bit)

Americans come from a country where, in living memory, having a different colour skin removed whole areas of your legal rights. Interracial marriage was banned in several states until roughly the time of the moon landings. This is why Americans are rather touchy about people making light of racism.

There is a middle ground between "sending people to camps for a wrong joke" and "no one should be held accountable for any of their actions if they claim they are jokes"

A joke is not an action. It can never bring harm to another person.

Here's an NIH paper going over the harms this brings to other people:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4659767/

There is no yet identified metaphysical difference between speech and other actions, and freedom of expression laws frequently also protect non-speech actions such as burning flags.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will really hurt me"

>someone else's wrong joke

>punishing people for jokes

Again, we're talking about sexual harassment and racism. It's important not to leave that part out.

It's still a dangerous territory. Do you remember when Adria Richards overheard two guys talking about dongles and forking at a conference, assumed it was offensive/sexual and got them fired, before we learned that... they were talking about dongles and forking?

We can agree both things are bad.

People shouldn't use jokes as a cover for racism, sexism, etc. We know people do this. We should do things to stop it. No one is saying you can't make whatever jokes you like in private with people you know won't be offended, but they are saying that those jokes can be harmful to people they want to have in their community, and that you can't say them in that community. It's their right to do so.

People also shouldn't try to get others fired over things like people talking about dongles and forking, assuming they're actually talking about dongles and forking. If someone approaches you and makes a joke about how they want to fork you with their dongle, well, it's pretty obvious what they mean. If you overhear someone talking and hear the words fork and dongle, well, it's not so obvious and we probably shouldn't get them fired.

That being said, it sounds like the joke was at least in part actually a sexually charged joke about a "big dongle" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5398681 - though the forking seems to have not been intended to be sexually charged. This is perhaps another reason that people should consider their words - if you just made a joke about a "big dongle" and then immediately say "I'd fork his repo," there's a chance it's going to be interpreted in a sexual manner because of the context.

Making a joke about "big dongles" in public is probably not something you should do. Someone being offended doesn't automatically mean they're right, but it's also not a high bar to not make dick jokes around thousands of other people that you don't know and don't know how they'll take it.

So on the one hand, we have a massive systematic problem across virtually all online platforms. This problem involves (at least) thousands of new examples every day and so far has proved nearly impossible to control. And next to that we have a different problem based largely on idiosyncratic examples, and extrapolations from those idiosyncratic examples to hypothetical worst case scenarios.

I find this way of engaging with the problem to be profoundly misguided in two ways. One, it's a failure to correctly evaluate the relative scale of the two problems, and to consistently think and speak clearly about them in terms that reflect their relative scale.

And secondly, it mistakenly sets up the two problems as being in a relationship of interference with one another, such that talking about one is used to mean we should stop talking about the other. Instead of saying "this statement that racism is bad and sexual harassment is bad is a statement I do not support" it would be more helpful say "yes, that is a problem, I agree, we need to solve it. And meanwhile here's this other thing, but don't let this other thing detract from the importance of the first problem or imply we don't need to actively work on the first problem."

A free, decentralised and open network with an enforced code of conduct? I cannot reconcile these 2 concepts.

I'm guessing the code of conduct primarily concerns the software development process?

Doesn't seem so:

> If a community member engages in .... up to and including expulsion from all Funkwhale spaces

The maintainers have no power over federated instances. The code of conduct is pertaining to the repository and official Funkwhale communities (such as the Matrix chat and discussion boards).

IIRC you can't just kick out an instance from a federation by switching a button?

> We have an ethical responsibility to refuse to work on software that will negatively impact the well-being of other people.

Except musicians apparently

How ironic that this statement of inclusivity is preceded with this one:

>We're sorry but funkwhale.audio doesn't work properly without JavaScript enabled. Please enable it to continue.

JavaScript is a choice. Inclusivity generally refers to things which are not a choice.

Is it a choice on iOS 9?

Yes. On every version.

Is it a choice if my browser freezes up on a simple site with JS enabled, and there is only a global JS toggle?

They were taken from https://postmeritocracy.org/ by Coraline Ada Ehmke.

Anti-meritocracy just sounds to me like you want to be judged or given privileges by who or what you are, not by what you contribute. It pretty much goes against equality but is being presented as a means to equality.

Am I just misinterpreting it or do people supporting it just not thought more deeply about what it is they're supporting?

> The registered office is located at 92, rue Consolat, 13001 Marseille, France

> The field of software development embraces technical change, and is made better by also accepting social change.

Really? All social change is good for the field of software development? Utter nonsense. This product itself is, if anything, a rejection of the social change towards centralized ad-supported streaming services.

> We understand that working in our field is a privilege, not a right.

I don't have a right to work as a software developer? Last I checked, I lived in a free country where I can do what I want. This is some authoritarian language, implying that people should be ejected from the industry if they don't play according to one person's set of rules.

You don’t have a “right” to work in any particular field. Harvey Weinstein has no right to work in the movie industry because of his actions. For that matter, coal miners have no right to continue being coal miners - those jobs are outmoded. You have a right to earn a living, but not to any particular job.

In the absence of a licensing authority for software developers, we have the freedom to work for anyone who will hire us, or for ourselves. No one has the right to work for a particular employer, but also no one can kick a person out of our industry altogether.