Elon musky wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 6:17 pm
I did not presume showing favoritism was a good thing or a bad thing in my post. But if the server as a whole comes to conclusion that favoritism is shown, then as a server we come to the conclusion that it isn’t right, then we have collectively identified a problem, and we work towards a solution.
But vise Versa, if we collectively decide that favoritism is actually in the best interest of the server, then we have recognized that something is present, but it isn’t necessarily a problem.
To get to either solution, we have to first ask the question of is favoritism even a thing, and if people are not willing to admit that it is in fact a thing, then the further conversations don’t truly matter. You can’t have a conversation about morality without recognition.
I agree with your premise: you have to confirm that it exists before you can move on to addressing it. But I don't think that's what you're doing.
"Do people think bias exists" is not the same as "does bias exist".
The way you're approaching this: people think bias exists => bias exists.
There are many parallels to be drawn with real life debates about potential bias. Take gender bias in the workplace for example.
You can ask 1000 people if they think women are disadvantaged in the workplace. Even if they think so, that's no indicator that it's actually true. You're just polling people's perceptions on the issue. Like you said, perceptions are important, but they are also biased themselves and by no means prove that something is real.
So you go down a layer and start investigating the data. Aha, women make less money than men, bias confirmed! Well no actually. Bias
could be one of the reasons why this happens, but there are many others. (e.g. women being less career-oriented and competitive on average, not being as likely to work 60+ hours a week, choosing not to prioritize career over birthing and raising children and so on).
These are complex multifaceted issues and bias is just one possible factor for why there are differences, if you've even gone as far as to confirm that there are differences and aren't still stuck on the perception level. To actually determine that bias exists you have to look at
why there are differences. Fortunately you have already pointed out that the "why" is exactly what you're interested in so it seems we are on the same page there.
But back to our staff bias. I will say this: for the purpose of doing a proper analysis of this, having that level of transparency would be beneficial. But in my 10 years on this server I have never seen anyone use transparency that way. All they do with it is pick out individual cases to argue about. No one ever uses it to properly investigate large scale issues, only as a tool for applying pressure to get what they want (i.e. making sure the people they dislike get punished as hard as possible and making a lot of noise when they feel they themselves have been punished too harshly).