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    1602 points rebelwebmaster | 15 comments | | HN request time: 1.393s | source | bottom
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    dblohm7 ◴[] No.24122017[source]
    [I am a Mozilla employee, and yes, I do recognize how my position influences my perspective.]

    One thing that always frustrates me a bit whenever Mozilla comes up on HN or elsewhere is that we are always held to impossibly high standards. Yes, as a non-profit, we should be held to higher standards, but not impossible standards.

    OTOH, sometimes it just seems unreasonable and absurd. Stuff like, to paraphrase, "Look at the corporate doublespeak in that press release. Fuck Mozilla, I'm switching to Chrome."

    Really? That's what's got you bent out of shape?

    Sure, Mozilla has made mistakes. Did we apologize? Did we learn anything? Did we work to prevent it happening again?

    People want to continue flogging us for these things while giving other companies (who have made their own mistakes, often much more consequential than ours, would never be as open about it, and often learn nothing) a relatively free pass.

    I'm certainly not the first person on the planet whose employer has been on the receiving end of vitriol. And if Mozilla doesn't make it through this next phase, I can always find another job. But what concerns me about this is that Mozilla is such an important voice in shaping the future of the internet. To see it wither away because of people angry with what are, in the grand scheme of things, minor mistakes, is a shame.

    EDIT: And lest you think I am embellishing about trivial complaints, there was a rant last week on r/Firefox that Mozilla was allegedly conspiring to hide Gecko's source code because we self-host our primary repo and bug tracking instead of using GitHub, despite the fact that the Mozilla project predates GitHub by a decade.

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    hn_throwaway_99 ◴[] No.24125514[source]
    I certainly don't think the corporate doublespeak is reason to switch to Chrome, but I do think the corporate doublespeak in this announcement is just awful.

    When you're doing a layoff, just announce the layoff, show compassion to the affected employees, and if you want to announce other changes, do it in a separate announcement. Putting stuff about the fight against systemic racism in the opening paragraph of a layoff announcement is just inviting a tidal wave of eye rolls.

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    1. mulmen ◴[] No.24125941[source]
    It really doesn't. I can support diversity while also not being impressed by corporate PR. I'm not sure how they are actually related at all?
    replies(1): >>24126839 #
    2. hn_throwaway_99 ◴[] No.24126084[source]
    Honestly, I think the exact opposite of what you're implying. If you truly value diversity, you don't use it as some sort of cover in the first paragraph of your layoff announcement.
    3. nilkn ◴[] No.24126236[source]
    It depends on whether the reader feels diversity should be reduced to a PR tool and a mechanism of distraction, which seems disconnected from whether you’re for or against diversity as a goal for the organization. In fact, I’d think both folks for and against it would find this reductive usage onerous at best.
    4. ekianjo ◴[] No.24126432[source]
    > That depends entirely on how the reader feels about diversity.

    Or that depends entirely on how the reader is used to seeing buzz words the whole time used in unrelated contexts. You know, not every mundane thing is life bears relation to high ideals.

    replies(1): >>24126843 #
    5. AOsborn ◴[] No.24126494[source]
    I don't agree. I think the whole press release comes off quite dishonest and manipulative.

    I'm not quite sure who the intended audience of the release is. Releasing a statement announcing the layoff of many employees while trying to position the company as "a technical powerhouse of the internet activist movement" just screams insincerity.

    replies(1): >>24132702 #
    6. johnnyanmac ◴[] No.24126947[source]
    >Critical thinking means removing your emotional bias from analysis.

    it also means not immediately dismissing different perspectives.

    It is self defeating to remove emotional bias when the statement in question is an emotional plea. That's likely the root of all the reservations you're getting in replies.

    replies(1): >>24126995 #
    7. johnnyanmac ◴[] No.24126962{3}[source]
    >EDIT: ...aaaaand you downvoted me. Typical.

    this isn't reddit. Even if you have downvote priveledges, you can never downvote direct replies to your own comments. so it was not them.

    replies(1): >>24128873 #
    8. staycoolboy ◴[] No.24126995[source]
    I never dismissed anything. You literally dismissed ME. sigh
    9. esperent ◴[] No.24127582[source]
    > six people claimed I was wrong, which means they can read minds

    No, it means you communicated badly, and your edit and replies are doubling down on that.

    10. tracker1 ◴[] No.24127899[source]
    Any corporate entity making claims of supporting diversity without creating efforts to improve actual diversity which requires much earlier interaction long before hiring, is likely not really concerned about diversity but virtue signaling.

    This is just my own opinion. There's also the consideration that merit and talent should exceed diversity as a goal. For developers, I find that those that I would hire are roughly 10-15% of those I've interviewed. I've always paid more attention to content and character, and that has shaken itself out to include quite a bit of diversity in the end without being a goal.

    Maybe it's a side effect of coming from a generation online before cameras and even gui interfaces were really much of a thing. I never really cared much about someone's sexual or racial identities, only what their ideas and statements were. I almost wish we could return to those things. When I see a pull request on github, I don't go looking into the person, only the code.

    11. SpelingBeeChamp ◴[] No.24128873{4}[source]
    *privileges

    (just a friendly heads up)

    12. tempestn ◴[] No.24128876{3}[source]
    You're getting downvoted and all the replies are disagreeing with you. Is it because everyone else is misunderstanding your clear, reasonable argument, or is it more likely something to do with the way you're communicating it?
    replies(1): >>24132508 #
    13. staycoolboy ◴[] No.24132508{4}[source]
    It appears to be the former because no one addressed my point that people have different viewpoints.

    In my original post I stated that people would only eyeroll a reference to diversity based on how they view diversity. That's it.

    I thought that was harmless and succinct. People have different points of view, and no person can anticipate how another person will react. Then people tried to explain to me that I was wrong, which means: people's views DON'T actually play into how they react, which is demonstrably false. See that? In order to argue me, you have to take the position that you know exactly how everyone will already react.

    replies(1): >>24138134 #
    14. zentiggr ◴[] No.24132702[source]
    To me it seems not so much insincere, but incoherent.

    This all sounds like a bunch of grasping at big picture straws, not announcing a new actual direction.

    I'd be very wary of what we hear from Mozilla leadership in the next few months.

    15. tempestn ◴[] No.24138134{5}[source]
    OK, so what's the point you were trying to make with your initial statement? If you were just making the tautological statement that people act based on their points of view, a fact which if meant literally is both obvious and irrelevant, then what was the point of making that comment?

    Rather, your comment strongly appeared to suggest that you were implying one would support Mozilla's statement if they supported diversity, and vice-versa. But if you were trying to imply that, it appears you missed the point of the parent's comment. And if you weren't trying to imply that, and weren't just stating a tautology, then it still isn't clear what point you are trying to make.