Hacker News Reader

> * Baker calling a former conservative employee's views "traumatic and damaging" in their obituary - https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2018/08/07/in-memoriam-gerva....

She went a little far in what she said publically, but she wasn't wrong. I knew Gerv from very early on. He was a convert to christianity and as most converts, was vehement in it's absolute correctness to the detriment of his relationships. But, when you think you have an absolute truth of life after death on your side, people become a secondary concern.

> * Promoting BLM and anti-racism content via Pocket and their homepage

So, I will admit that I don't see there being any valid stance besides being against racism, and for treating all human life with value.

If somebody is toxic enough that you'd criticize them in an obituary, you should not allow them to keep working for your organization. It's really that simple.

I don't disagree.

Sorry, I was reading defensiveness into your comment that apparently wasn't there.

Funny how being against racism is now considered left-wing politics.

BLM is a political organization, being against racism is not a left leaning thing but BLM certainly is.

BLM as used today is much more a slogan than a reference to a specific organization, unless specified otherwise.

BML started as a twitter hashtag. A couple hangers-on started an organization with the same name. BLM is a movement, there is an organization too, but the vast majority of people are part of the movement that has no official organization behind it.

> The Brendan Eich situation

I'm going to repeat what I said about Eich in another thread:

Mozilla built a brand around openness and the idea of "putting people first" and making them feel "empowered, safe and independent." (Those quotes are from at least one version of their mission statement.) Eich's backing of the anti-gay-marriage initiative was a PR problem for them in a way that it might not have been for many other companies. Also, he violated the first rule of holes (i.e., when you're in one, stop digging); it's possible they might have been able to do effective damage control without booting him if his initial response hadn't been, in so many words, "it's my money and I can do what I want with it."

And, sure: it is, and he can. The CEO of a nonprofit Catholic hospital chain could also use their money to donate to Planned Parenthood. But, if they did, we can be reasonably sure the hospital's boards of directors would have words with them about it.

As for the others, well:

> Baker calling a former conservative employee's views "traumatic and damaging" in their obituary

It sounds like he was not merely conservative, but extremely strident and pushy about certain things. Also, you're giving that obituary a super reductive reading, given all the nice things Baker also says about the guy despite their obvious disagreements over those views.

> The removal of "meritocracy" from the governance document in the name of D&I

Some might argue that this kind of nitpicky language monitoring is an awfully unimportant tiny hill to die on. Maybe so, but it's hard not to see "I must take a stand in defense of phrasing changes I probably wouldn't have noticed if this blog post hadn't made a point of calling them out" as, well, an even smaller and less important hill, isn't it?

> Promoting BLM and anti-racism content

If someone is truly offended by "anti-racism content," I'm gonna have questions about them.

> Recall Michael Jordan's reason for staying away from politics, "Republicans buy sneakers too".

Just for the record: he's donating $100 million to Black Lives Matter.

> left leaning politics

It doesn't matter which way their politics lean, does it? The point is that a software company can't put politics over technology.

Unless it's specifically software politics and relevant to the organization's purpose, like the FSF. But if Mozilla had a political stance expressed through software (e.g. openness, user empowerment?) it has been somewhat muddled for quite some time now.

there’s no such thing though- all organizations are political. You can pretend that libertarian technocrat capitalist is neutral, but that says more about your politics than anything else

Alienating to some, welcoming to others.