Blizzard Diversity and Inclusion hiring initiative

[Mormolyce]

I don't know... so for the army has operated on meritocracy... you pass the tests or you don't.

Wouldn't be surprised if the path to promotion in the army is largely determined by who your friends are rather than any real merit, just like in pretty much everything else.

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You are right, I shouldn't have used the term common sense. It would have been better and more fair to use the term common knowledge, in the way scientists do - ie, meaning a statement that is so well known and accepted that the requirement of a source becomes null and void. Now, I most certainly do no agree with your statement that difficulty is entirely subjective, and why would I - as someone that has studied biology/medicine/derivatives extensively, I happen to know for a fact that the statement is quite untrue. That's not how humans and our brains work. It is true that individual suitability and talent plays a very large role though, no question about that. Entirely on your side up until that point. Which, obviously, i no way negates the possibility that one subject is simply harder than another.

Also, your statement is a fallacy. While I'm admittedly ignorant on this 'Lacan' (unless we're talking about the famous psychoanalyst that is) and can't be bothered to google it, one can not compare what the different people already know about the fields of others. What is interesting, is how hard it would be to learn, in the case of the art student, how to solve an integral. As an example. And I'd bet a million and a half, that it would be easier for a theoretical physicist to learn how to become a sociologist for example, than vice versa. Which doesn't mean they (or the sociologists for that matter) would have an inherent aptitude, be any talented at it, or have any interest in it. Obviously. Some educations and professions still obviously suit some better than others.

The thing is, they aren't really equal examples - integration is ultimately about following an algorithm, so if the student was patient enough they would eventually learn it. There's a bit of an art to it if it's an exotic integral, but generally it's just a matter of learning techniques and applying them.

Understanding and analysing something like Lacan involves a kind of abstract thinking that I don't even know if you can teach.

I'm actually surprised that the defenders of the "STEM is harder" position have brought up every field except the one that might work for them - pure mathematics. Now that requires a kind of abstraction of thought comparable to some of the humanities. But it's kind of an exception - pure maths is a fundamentally different thing to most "STEM" subjects. Applied maths students frequently struggle to wrap their heads around pure maths - it requires skills that applied maths do not teach you, and in fact the way most "STEM" subjects are taught actively discourages that kind of thinking.

[Strangewayes]

If we look at hiring data, or callback studies, minority candidates have worse outcomes overall.

So one of two things are true;

1> Minorities are just inferior to white dudes, and their struggles reflect that, or
2> Prejudice exists, and affects hiring outcomes.

If you're denying #2, you're implicitly endorsing #1.

Minorities not being hired because they are minorities, I don't think ANYONE said that, and I have no idea why you are even suggesting such a thing was said.

Minority means, they are the minority of the population, therefore there is a small pool of candidates to choose from, thats why there are fewer in the first place.

Women aren't being hired in certain field because few Women go into learning in those fields, such as Programming.

While in other fields such as Psychology or Vetrinary Medicine, Women make up the vast majority.

[ravenswood]

People take comp sci and biology classes for easy As too.

I don't know where you've gotten the impression that programming is difficult.

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I'm challenging your preconceptions.

you aren't qualified to challenge my preconceptions, given that you've never actually completed a CS course and you think good code is just about formatting.vevidently you don't understand algorithmic efficiency, data structure space complexity, object oriented software and architectural design and effective software testing (i'm barely scratching the surface).

i have not met a single person in my core CS units who wasn't also a CS major, and in my nearly 5 years of university education in business, humanities and currently CS, nothing comes even close to the challenge of these subjects. can anyone do it, if they really put their mind to it? sure, but that's no different to anything else you learn in undergrad.

i have done humanities electives and while i agree there requires a degree of curiosity and critical thinking, it's ultimately just writing essays. the comparative challenge between humanities and CS, really any STEM degree, is just laughable.

[Mormolyce]

you aren't qualified to challenge my preconceptions, given that you've never actually completed a CS course and you think good code is just about formatting.vevidently you don't understand algorithmic efficiency, data structure space complexity, object oriented software and architectural design and effective software testing (i'm barely scratching the surface).

I learned about all of these things as a hobby. I never took a course in Comp Sci because it seemed like a waste of time to do a course on something I could easily learn on my own. And all of the skills you listed here are used in my career as well. Mostly learned on the job or in my spare time.

We did actually do some programming in my Science degree, it was very basic though.

i have not met a single person in my core CS units who wasn't also a CS major, and in my nearly 5 years of university education in business, humanities and currently CS, nothing comes even close to the challenge of these subjects. can anyone do it, if they really put their mind to it? sure, but that's no different to anything else you learn in undergrad.

i have done humanities electives and while i agree there requires a degree of curiosity and critical thinking, it's ultimately just writing essays. the comparative challenge between humanities and CS, really any STEM degree, is just laughable.

"Just writing essays" is as accurate a description of the humanities as "just writing instructions" is of programming.

[DrStiglit]

I'm gonna knee-cap this entire issue for you. You're talking about something that exists, at best, only in theory. In practice, except maybe for the largest firms like Google, it's not a thing.

I don't work in the Video Game industry. I work in robotics (still, computers). At least on the software side of the game industry (not the art side) people do jump around various subfields in the broader industry.

You want to make a stink about diversity hiring? You should make a stink about American production of qualified software engineers. It's a joke. It truly is. So much of the company I work at is foreign. Undergrad and grad school was foreign. My company today cannot hire enough qualified people to fill the team openings we have.

That's why I find it quaint to even discuss, or be remotely "bothered" by any kind of diversity initiative. It's not like the broader software industry is operating at a personnel surplus, particularly of Americans. Even with an enormous foreign born workforce, its a sharp deficit, and the best of the best people are hard to get.

And on top of that, nobody with a brain is seriously rushing to work in Video Gaming of all things.

Go look at how many "Senior" engineering jobs Blizzard has open:
https://careers.blizzard.com/en-us/openings

Minimum requirements for a Senior Software Engineer?
"Advanced understanding of C / C++
A minimum of 3 years’ application programming experience
Experience working with game engines
Strong mathematics skills"

Jesus christ, I had that 10 years ago. Any 24 year old programmer worth a shit would (I'm 34). I've been programming in C++ since I was 14 for fucks sake. And I'm not even special in that regard.

But there the jobs are, and they linger. Because the video game industry doesn't remotely pay enough to be competitive with other sub-fields. In fact, you'd have to be out of your fucking mind to have a degree and /or post-grad degree and work for Blizzard. Love of game goes far. Wad of money goes further. I'd probably make half what I do applying to a video game company.

Before we get our pants in a tizzy about *gasp* a field with not enough people in it hiring based on ethnic, racial or sexual background in part, I think the much, much larger issue is why this country produces so many worthless MBAs and so few Masters of Science. Because that's the problem. When there is an actual glut of talent that'll be forced to take low paying Game Industry jobs, then maybe we can talk about how its sorted.

Those are the same requirements for an internship! Well at least any I've found in NYC...

[Deleted]

I was wondering what other people thought of Blizzards announced worldwide Diversity and Inclusion policy.

Personally I think it's a bad idea to have diversity quotas at companies. You are essentially turning down qualified passionate applicants for jobs in exchange for people either less qualified or less passionate in order to meet quotas of gender and ethnicity.

I think this will result in a drop of standards in Blizzard games, as they hire people either underqualified, or disinterested in the industry they are working in, or at worst, people who are simply political idealogues interested in positions to make a political statement rather that because they have an interest in games or gaming. (eg: see Bioware)

I think you should post a source rather than start a discussion based on nothing.

[ravenswood]

I learned about all of these things as a hobby. I never took a course in Comp Sci because it seemed like a waste of time to do a course on something I could easily learn on my own. And all of the skills you listed here are used in my career as well. Mostly learned on the job or in my spare time.

We did actually do some programming in my Science degree, it was very basic though.



"Just writing essays" is as accurate a description of the humanities as "just writing instructions" is of programming.

Don't you see the irony, given that good code is all about formatting? I'm convinced youre trolling at this point, welcome to the ignore list.

[Grapemask]

Topics like these, and more importantly the way they turn out, show that simply banning subject matter does not address the problem of shitty opinions or shitty people. Suppressing the blatant avenue of the shitty idea does not fix the shitty idea. They just keep opening windows and let us all suffer through shitty ideas from a very specific crowd that all follow a very specific line of thought.

[ohwell]

I was wondering what other people thought of Blizzards announced worldwide Diversity and Inclusion policy.

Personally I think it's a bad idea to have diversity quotas at companies. You are essentially turning down qualified passionate applicants for jobs in exchange for people either less qualified or less passionate in order to meet quotas of gender and ethnicity.

I think this will result in a drop of standards in Blizzard games, as they hire people either underqualified, or disinterested in the industry they are working in, or at worst, people who are simply political idealogues interested in positions to make a political statement rather that because they have an interest in games or gaming. (eg: see Bioware)

The work place should reflect the population. Our population is not 1 of each type of person evenly distributed. If people sit and try to evenly distribute by race then eventually there is pretty much a 100% that white people who are qualified will not have a job. It's pretty much discrimination as such and should be treated as racism. This whole "we need diversity" is a way to get back at whitey without saying so.

[Grapemask]

I learned about all of these things as a hobby. I never took a course in Comp Sci because it seemed like a waste of time to do a course on something I could easily learn on my own. And all of the skills you listed here are used in my career as well. Mostly learned on the job or in my spare time.

We did actually do some programming in my Science degree, it was very basic though.

Eh, it's actually surprisingly hard to learn all of the things you learn in a CS degree on your own, mostly because it's hard to know the kinds of topics that are foundational unless you're in a program. They're so focused on computation that you can actually complete even a Master's in CS and be absolute shit at actual programming in the real world - but you can make an algorithm or an idea for a system that a fantastic real-world programmer can implement but not understand a thing about, while also being the best at what it does in the business.

It's kind of like programming is the art, but computer science is... well, the science.

[Mormolyce]

Eh, it's actually surprisingly hard to learn all of the things you learn in a CS degree on your own, mostly because it's hard to know the kinds of topics that are foundational unless you're in a program. They're so focused on computation that you can actually complete even a Master's in CS and be absolute shit at actual programming in the real world - but you can make an algorithm or an idea for a system that a fantastic real-world programmer can implement but not understand a thing about, while also being the best at what it does in the business.

It's kind of like programming is the art, but computer science is... well, the science.

I'm not really trying to dump on programming/comp sci, I'm just pointing out that a lot of non-"STEM" subjects are much more complex and/or difficult than some people give them credit for, and the converse as well.

[ramjb]

Does this mean Blizzard is going to end up like Bioware (refer to my profile pic for how much of a failure their last game, Andromeda was)? RIP Legion being the last good expansion.

[Strangewayes]

As far as I know, there's no quota from Blizzard IHI.

They can advertise first to Women about positions as much as they want, but unless there is some incentive, such as higher wages or something, you can't force people to enjoy industries or train themselves to be in industries they don't want to be in.

[Deleted]

Does this mean Blizzard is going to end up like Bioware (refer to my profile pic for how much of a failure their last game, Andromeda was)? RIP Legion being the last good expansion.

It is EA, they've ruined games and companies before diversity was even a thing.

[Grapemask]

They can advertise first to Women about positions as much as they want, but unless there is some incentive, such as higher wages or something, you can't force people to enjoy industries or train themselves to be in industries they don't want to be in.

Although it's an interesting side note that women used to be very interested in this industry. The number of women graduating with degrees in these fields has actually fallen over the last two decades, by double digit percentages, while increasing in every other science field. The same is true for actual employment numbers, too. Just as interestingly, computing-related fields are also the only fields that have seen a marked increase in discrimination against women from pretty much every measurable metric.

One of these days, people will drop the insanity of "a 2% difference in brain chemistry explains a 50% gap!" and other nonsense and understand that there is an actual cultural problem, and junk like this thread - and its horde of shittery - is part of it.

[Tijuana]

I was wondering what other people thought of Blizzards announced worldwide Diversity and Inclusion policy.

Personally I think it's a bad idea to have diversity quotas at companies. You are essentially turning down qualified passionate applicants for jobs in exchange for people either less qualified or less passionate in order to meet quotas of gender and ethnicity.

I think this will result in a drop of standards in Blizzard games, as they hire people either underqualified, or disinterested in the industry they are working in, or at worst, people who are simply political idealogues interested in positions to make a political statement rather that because they have an interest in games or gaming. (eg: see Bioware)

You should have provided a link, since we are left only to discuss your interpretation of the policy, rather than what it actually said. This could be a deal where halfway through, someone links it, and it changes half the prior stated opinions, due to specific things said in it.

I think "diversity" and the concept of judging human worth by race, extends our problems, rather than solving them. That is not to hand wave away the existence of race problems, just to disagree with this kind of solution. I also find it curious that the bigger proponents of this sort of thing, seems to be very anti-inclusion in diversity of ideas.

[Xar226]

Personally I think it's a bad idea to have diversity quotas at companies. You are essentially turning down qualified passionate applicants for jobs in exchange for people either less qualified or less passionate in order to meet quotas of gender and ethnicity.

This has always struck me as a nonsense argument.

There is no recruiting or hiring system that call tell you Candidate A is a 481.97 and Candidate B is a 483.15 and clearly Candidate B is better. Even if such a nonsense system existed, it's meaningless; the inputs are far too subjective and the numbering system, while deterministic, is meaningless. (What the fuck does a 1.18 difference mean?)

In other words: At the end of the day, you have a pool of candidates you believe are qualified for the job. The unqualified ones are already discarded.

How you value them beyond that is inherently subjective. Maybe, as some companies do, you value diversity. There's certainly evidence that that is an approach that can pay off. Maybe, instead, you value cost reduction; you take the less-experienced candidate because you can pay them less but think they can be equally capable. A few months while you get them up to speed may be worth it for potentially years of depressed total earnings. Or maybe it's the reverse and you value experience even though you have to pay for it. Maybe you value certain schools ahead of others. Maybe you like the guy who went to your alma mater. Maybe you like people with cool hobbies outside of work; maybe you like the ones with no life whatsoever outside of work, thinking you can get more out of them. Maybe one person strikes you as harder working and another seems like he's going to spend half his day fucking around on YouTube. And maybe you value all of these things in different proportions depending on what you're hiring for, the need, the sensitivity of a position, etc.

None of this is to say that some choices aren't better than others, nor is it to say that you don't occasionally get really shitty employees who make it into your selection pool (or really great ones who get rejected). But there is a reason that hiring is a labor-intensive process and not simply the result of the output of some algorithm. The idea that choosing because you value diversity inherently means choosing somebody less qualified is nonsense. It's a moot point in the literal sense of the term.

[ramjb]

It is EA, they've ruined games and companies before diversity was even a thing.

I think it's women. There is a clear association. Just look at Google as well. They put a woman in charge of youtube and she blew it all up (adpocalypse). Look at yahoo. They had a woman CEO then it went kaput (https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/31/why-...o-in-tech.html - Why Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer is the least liked CEO in tech). Look at the reddit CEO (Ellen Pao). The subreddit moderators staged a mutiny and got her removed for gross incompetence. Plus of course there's female Ghostbusters.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer may have launched her career in tech as one of Google's first employees, but her meteoric rise hasn't come without problems.

In fact, Mayer, 42, has just been ranked the least likable CEO in tech, according to a new survey from Owler, a business insights website.

Owler compiled rankings from its business professionals community and used an algorithm to analyze over 250,000 ratings. That process led to a list of the most likable CEOs across 50 cities and 25 industries.

Mayer performed the worst of all public tech company CEOs with a 32.8 rating out of 100, falling short of the industry's 69.7 average rating.

Mayer's low rating might not come as a surprise to most, as she has been widely criticized for her leadership since becoming Yahoo's chief executive in July 2012. After demanding that the company's remote employees resume working from the office, routinely arriving late to meetings and being called a micromanager by Yahoo insiders, Mayer has not gotten much of a break from public and employee disapproval.

Read the bolded part. That has been my experience of every female employee ever - unreliable, arrives late, 3 months in claims either stress, depression, pregnancy leave or resigns as "bored."

[Post]

How you value them beyond that is inherently subjective. Maybe, as some companies do, you value diversity. There's certainly evidence that that is an approach that can pay off. Maybe, instead, you value cost reduction; you take the less-experienced candidate because you can pay them less but think they can be equally capable. A few months while you get them up to speed may be worth it for potentially years of depressed total earnings. Or maybe it's the reverse and you value experience even though you have to pay for it. Maybe you value certain schools ahead of others. Maybe you like the guy who went to your alma mater. Maybe you like people with cool hobbies outside of work; maybe you like the ones with no life whatsoever outside of work, thinking you can get more out of them. Maybe one person strikes you as harder working and another seems like he's going to spend half his day fucking around on YouTube. And maybe you value all of these things in different proportions depending on what you're hiring for, the need, the sensitivity of a position, etc.

I love how every example you list actually has a reason for them to be the favorable one, but the best you can say for "diversity" is just "maybe you value diversity." I think that's kinda telling of the issue here.

[Doctor Amadeus]

It's fine a little late. Hope it's not misguided.