SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
It has been a little while now that this fledgling community has been around and it remains one of my favorite stories about communities. A splinter of a much larger community took it upon themselves to challenge the rest and make a move to a new home. Shedding the shackles that were being placed on them was a bold move, but one that has been fantastic.
The community here is great, but here is my question. Overall, we are amazingly tolerant of others, of the choices they make, and of their beliefs. I would then be curious, if we are such a tolerant group, how do we address intolerance in our ranks? I recently came across what I can only say filled me with pity and sadness. I find it saddening that in this day and age, and especially in this group, there are still such hate-filled people.
But this poses a question: how does a group that is tolerant deal with intolerance within it's ranks? Does our acceptance of others extend to accepting someone that has thoughts and beliefs which are far from the norm within this community, or is there a limit placed on how far from our own values a member of the community may be?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday April 14 2014, @01:45PM
I'm sorry, I have to disagree with this, as far as the part about Brendan Eich. Eich was not an employee. He was the CEO. CEOs and other executives are not employees in the normal sense of the term. If he was some low-level coder, then yes, it would have been absolutely wrong to dismiss him just for making a publicly-visible political contribution (though it may have been legal, not sure about that though, that depends on state law). The company's CEO is the public face of the company, so the company has every right to be picky about who fills that seat. Should a company overlook the fact that someone is a KKK leader when they apply for a CEO position there? Of course not; that would reflect extremely poorly on that company. It's no different here. Brendan's values clearly did not reflect well on the company, so there was likely (we don't really know) pressure on him to willingly step down.
Here's another example: a company selling Kosher foods wants to make a TV ad, and needs a male actor. Mel Gibson wants to audition for the part. Should the company be required to overlook his infamous anti-Jewish outburst and consider him for the part? Of course not; they'd be destroying their own reputation with their customer base by airing a commercial with him in it, so they have every right to discriminate based on someone's opinion.
(Score: 1) by linuxrocks123 on Wednesday April 16 2014, @02:35PM
For certain extremely visible positions -- essentially political positions -- this may be the case. However, the position of CEO of Mozilla wasn't such an extremely visible position, at least until some people decided to make it that way. I don't know what the exact job requirements of the position would have been, of course, but I would imagine it would be setting the direction for the commercial activities of the Mozilla Corporation under heavy guidance of the sole shareholder of that corporation, the Mozilla Foundation. He wouldn't have been making speeches day in and day out; he would have been supervising high-level technical employees, perhaps making and reviewing budgets, stuff like that. Despite the title, he wouldn't have been the "big boss" by any means: the CEO of Mozilla Corporation reports to the Board of Directors, which are chosen by the Mozilla Foundation, which is the organization really in control (yes, they have a weird org chart). One complaint Mozilla had about this whole thing is that the none of the few (less than 10) employees who tweeted that they wanted Eich to resign actually reported to him, either directly or indirectly.
---linuxrocks123