Sheldon's ender of the year AmA

[Hermes_]

It's out and free to read.

https://articles.starcitygames.com/sele ... 24PLn2Z-vU

[DirkGently]

I'm all for diversity of perspective, but I can't say that I understand why he's so vehement about having a minority voice on the RC. It's not like they're writing legislation. Why would banlists affect any particular ethnicity/gender/etc differently than any other? And then he also goes out of his way to say that they aren't necessarily looking for anyone with different perspective in terms of playstyle i.e. cedh - not that it should get any oxygen in the room imo, but at least that's a more relevant kind of diversity when it comes to managing a format I should think?

[Legend]

I'm all for diversity of perspective, but I can't say that I understand why he's so vehement about having a minority voice on the RC. It's not like they're writing legislation. Why would banlists affect any particular ethnicity/gender/etc differently than any other? And then he also goes out of his way to say that they aren't necessarily looking for anyone with different perspective in terms of playstyle i.e. cedh - not that it should get any oxygen in the room imo, but at least that's a more relevant kind of diversity when it comes to managing a format I should think?

I think he's just determined to err on the side of caution.

[pokken]

I think when you're a self reinforcing community you have to be deliberate about inclusiveness sometimes.

It's a fine line to walk and some community is always going to feel left out. But I think it's probably a net good idea to try.

[pokken]

(Moving this to a separate post since it's a lot of content and I didn't want to sign Wally up for liking something lol:)

I'm all for diversity of perspective, but I can't say that I understand why he's so vehement about having a minority voice on the RC. It's not like they're writing legislation

This is not me being contrary so much as thinking this through myself. Because I've in the past had a similar knee-jerk reaction to deliberately going out and trying to include minority groups. Like if my group of friends was like "we need to go meet some black guys to be in our friend group" that woulds be kind of strange and almost objectifying in a way -- my black friends are pretty sensitive to having to be white people's conscience.

So...as an almost stereotypical magic player (white computer guy) I don't see much from the inside of what it's like to be say, a black guy or a gay guy or a trans woman playing EDH. I know a little bit by talking with the few people of different groups I've played with extensively over the years, but I know there are challenges they face. These challenges are mostly influenced by the social side of magic, not directly by EDH rules. Like, banning Sylvan Primordial isn't going to help any minority communities feel more comfortable at the magic table any more than it would the rest of us

But I do see a few angles in which deliberate inclusiveness can help here:

1) Having representation can help improve the social climate. I've heard racist, sexist, and homophobic comments numerous times around the Magic table. Just having more representation should subtly improve the situation.

2) And this is a very very far outlier that I don't think is realistic, but I could see Commander having explicit philosophy language that was more inclusive. Things like (hypothetically) banning Earthbind, or even just a section recommending being mindful of sexually graphic card alters, that kinda stuff, could be on the table for inclusion.

It's just my perspective of course but I think the biggest problem in representation in commander is lack of women, and I hope they get a female voice at the table. There's absolutely rampant sexism in the MTG community to the point many women I know refuse to go to game stores to play because it's so uncomfortable.

[5colorsrainbow]

To add on some point Pokken talked on;

I think when you're a self reinforcing community you have to be deliberate about inclusiveness sometimes.

It's a fine line to walk and some community is always going to feel left out. But I think it's probably a net good idea to try.

The EDH/ magic community is also hugely diverse and as the RC is also the "face" of EDH community is helps for them to reflect how the community looks even more so as EDH is a multiplayer format that values socializing.

Also sometimes you do need to "look" for diversity as a lot of time groups like this will unconsciously end up being all or nearly all cis/hetro/white/men.

1) Having representation can help improve the social climate. I've heard racist, sexist, and homophobic comments numerous times around the Magic table. Just having more representation should subtly improve the situation.

We all have unconscious racist, sexist, and homophobic ect thoughts* we might not realize are hurtful and helps to have minority voices to point this out we as well as help fighting people who are being overtly bigots.

[Wallycaine]

(Moving this to a separate post since it's a lot of content and I didn't want to sign Wally up for liking something lol:)

Jokes on you, I liked it anyways

But yeah, basically agreed with all of this. While it's unlikely that they will need to make any banning decisions based directly on those sorts of things, there's a lot of other stuff that the Rules Council does as the "face" of the format that would benefit from having additional perspectives on the team. Even if it's as simple as having someone on the team that other gamers can look at and see themselves as part of the decision making process for their favorite format.

[DirkGently]

It's just my perspective of course but I think the biggest problem in representation in commander is lack of women, and I hope they get a female voice at the table. There's absolutely rampant sexism in the MTG community to the point many women I know refuse to go to game stores to play because it's so uncomfortable.

I've also seen pretty bad behavior at magic events (though I've also seen pretty widespread acceptance of trans people, maybe moreso than cis women interestingly). But I'm a bit skeptical that adding one diversity hire to the RC would make any difference. And I'm even more skeptical that talking loudly about it while (currently) doing nothing is going to have any positive effect. If anything, it's just going to give ammunition to those who, assuming it ever actually happens, will sneer and dismissively say "their opinion is rubbish, they only got hired because they're a minority". If you want to make a positive difference, imo, talk less and act more.

That said, I don't think I could name any member of the RC except sheldon without prompting, nor could I pick them out of a lineup, and I'm surely among the more clued-in commander players. If you'd asked me a few days ago "are all the RC members white cishet dudes?" I would have said "uhh....maybe?"

[pokken]

And I'm even more skeptical that talking loudly about it while (currently) doing nothing is going to have any positive effect. If anything, it's just going to give ammunition to those who, assuming it ever actually happens, will sneer and dismissively say "their opinion is rubbish, they only got hired because they're a minority". If you want to make a positive difference, imo, talk less and act more.

That said, I don't think I could name any member of the RC except sheldon without prompting, nor could I pick them out of a lineup, and I'm surely among the more clued-in commander players. If you'd asked me a few days ago "are all the RC members white cishet dudes?" I would have said "uhh....maybe?"

My recollection is that there's quite a bit of diversity in the CAG? So they're trying to do actual things. I was fairly sure they were all WHCD (is there a real term for this?) because they talked about it when the CAG was founded I think?

[DirkGently]

My recollection is that there's quite a bit of diversity in the CAG? So they're trying to do actual things. I was fairly sure they were all WHCD (is there a real term for this?) because they talked about it when the CAG was founded I think?

The only people I remember being in the CAG are the command zone guys since they have a public enough presence that I'm familiar with them. It doesn't really matter much whose in which group, imo, unless they're actually making a substantive difference in how the rules/banlists are decided (where I'm skeptical that those factors are relevant) or in the public perception of the format by being more visible. And part of the difficulty is that, especially when it come to decisions that the majority of people actually care about - namely, banlist and rules decisions - the RC is deliberately opaque, so whatever involvement people might have is largely hidden and therefore uninteresting. The people who actually get the visibility aren't the RC or the CAG, but whichever youtubers or subreddits people are following.

Mostly though I think what rankles me a bit is the performance of it. If you think the RC/CAG is best able to serve the community by having diverse voices that's great, y'know, you've got free license to do whatever you think is best, so by all means do it. Telling everyone why you're doing it - especially in such strong terms, not "we ought to have more diverse voices" but "we NEED to have someone who checks one of these boxes" - feels like it's less about trying to do the right thing, and more about wanting credit for it. Especially since, as I said, I think it's more likely to just give ammo to the worst parts of the community. I'm just not sure I see an upside to talking about it.

[Legend]

I think when you're a self reinforcing community you have to be deliberate about inclusiveness sometimes.

That's what I was getting at. The thing is to be ever vigilant towards unconscious bias to ensure you don't exclude someone because they don't look like you but not at the expense of excluding someone because they do look like you. Which unfortunately he seems to be doing.

[Dunharrow]

There is upside in talking about it, I just don't know that it was addressed properly. It isn't just about a need to represent a wider swath of the diverse player base, but in also highlighting and recognizing that there is a need for the RC to properly reflect the diversity of the player base.
If people aren't talking about it then many of us don't even notice it. The first step is to acknowledge the issue, the second is to act on it.

I work for a fortune 500 company. We published a sustainability report early in 2021, which talks about a lot of stuff... and one important thing included on the report was the diversity of the workforce and of the leadership. Our workforce is pretty diverse... our leadership looks awful though. One person of color and one woman vs a couple dozen white men?
After publicly acknowledging this shortcoming, they started forming opt-in open groups (internally) to discuss racism, women in business, LGBTQ+ Rights, and more... It was huge and well received by the thousands of employees.
And now when we see that they created a new position and hired a woman to fill the position (someone with a ton of experience), it resonates with us that they are making an effort to fix things.

The RC sticks out like a sore thumb compared to WOTC, which has consistently been a driving force for inclusion.

If you don't think the RC needs this kind of diversity, I will point out that in the article Sheldon mentions that it is hard to add someone to the RC because the 4 of them have developed a way of working together that would be difficult to integrate into.... Uhhh, that's not a good thing. It sounds to me like they are 4 people who are used to each other, their ways of thinking, and their approaches to solving problems. It is not a good thing. This is a major reason to try to open up to different perspectives.

On a more general note, there is a lot of backlash against stuff like this. I can't go a day without reading 'memes' about Netflix turning white characters into black characters, or about how every new show/movie needs to have an LGBT character.
I find these attitudes frustrating. We live in a society that until recently heavily favoured cishet white men in so many legal ways. Those laws have been changed bit by bit over the last 100 or so years but the infrastructures and cultural biases have remained behind the curve. Putting LGBT characters into mainstream shows and movies helps to normalize queerness. It helps teens who are struggling with their religious or societal taboos. It helps break down homophobia and transphobia.
Taking an alien or an elf and having them played by a black person changes nothing about those stories. All it does is normalize the idea that people of color are no different than white people. There is so much racism in the world and it is so backwards.
I know that when women or POC get hired over white men there is often an outcry of 'diversity hire' and that kind of trash. If the whole company consists of white men then a 'diversity hire' is actually a STRATEGIC hire. People of different backgrounds offer vastly different perspectives and this does nothing but improve an organization.

Sheldon should have done more than simply say that they 'need' to have more diverse members of the RC in the future. But it isn't wrong.


Anyway, I kinda ranted but it is something that has been bugging me a lot lately.
Sincerely,
A cishet white male

[TheGildedGoose]

Heterogeneity is strength. Ask Charles II of Spain.

[Dunharrow]

I think when you're a self reinforcing community you have to be deliberate about inclusiveness sometimes.

That's what I was getting at. The thing is to be ever vigilant towards unconscious bias to ensure you don't exclude someone because they don't look like you but not at the expense of excluding someone because they do look like you. Which unfortunately he seems to be doing.

To summarize - If they were down to a cishet white male or a trans asexual black woman, you feel like they should choose the more qualified candidate and not the 'diversity hire just cus'. I get that point of view but it is flawed.
By virtue of being different from the rest of the group they will gain much more than the person's experience and qualifications. They will gain a vastly different perspective.
Now, I'm not saying to hire someone unqualified because they check a box. That's obviously a flawed approach. The idea is that if they are looking to fill one position, you can assume that there are dozens of qualified candidates. The fact is that the qualified candidate that has a different background will vastly alter the stagnant and homogenous dynamic of the group.

They must also fight the cultural bias which makes them more comfortable with the familiar. We all need to fight that battle. When hiring someone there is a very real subconscious bias to hire someone more familiar. You may have an easier time understanding their perspective, an easier time connecting over common interests and experiences... But this is not necessarily a good thing. You can be dismissing a much stronger candidate because they are less familiar to you. For that reason I actually like the push to specifically increase diversity. Of course this introduces a new bias - you are ignoring potentially amazing candidates because they are white men, for example. That's why I say I understand your viewpoint. I just think it ignores the value of seeking diversity. As long as the candidate hired is qualified, I think it works.
Filling a position isn't about finding the best candidate and hiring them. It is about finding the best fit and the best value.

[Dunharrow]

Heterogeneity is strength. Ask Charles II of Spain.

I am afraid this is lost on me. What about Charles II of Spain?

[DirkGently]

I agree that hiring a different perspective is valuable, but in the context of the RC I'm not sure I follow why someone that belongs to minority groups would be a different perspective. We're not trying to reorganize the police force, we're managing a banlist, very occasionally tweaking some rules, and sometimes writing some format philosophy crap that nobody reads (unless they're trying to win an argument on the internet). Again, I kinda despise cEDH, but having a cEDH aficionado on the RC would be a way bigger shakeup than someone with similar views on the format who happens to look different. But Sheldon says they don't care about that sort of diversity - the more relevant sort of diversity. It just doesn't make much sense to me.

And I stand by what I said before as far as representation - nobody really cares or pays attention to who's on the RC. Except when they're mad, then they'll pick up whatever rocks they can find to chuck at them. And I think if Sheldon, for whatever reason, thinks that hiring someone with some minority tags is better for the format - and I agree that there are probably plenty of roughly-equally-qualified candidates, so sure, why not pick that person? - then he should just do it and shut the %$#% up about it. Because I guarantee that as soon as the RC makes an unpopular decision (hint: every decision they make will be unpopular with someone) the trolls are going to come out of the woodwork blaming that person. I mean, lots of people already bristle at the idea of preferring the minority candidate at ALL, let alone completely excluding everyone else. He's given them some lethal ammunition and they're definitely going to use it.

Plus it seems detrimental to the person getting hired. If I got hired to fill a quota, I'd certainly prefer to live in ignorance and assume I was the best candidate, rather than have my boss publicly say "we hired them because we needed to add some salsa to the sour cream." Imposter syndrome, population you.

[Hermes_]

Here's the plans for this coming year https://articles.starcitygames.com/sele ... -for-2022/

RC Expansion
I'm going to repeat some of the things I said last week in the AMA on this topic. It's simply time that we do it. We haven't had a change for nearly a decade. Regardless of the fact that the four of us have led Commander from a niche format to the most popular in Magic's long history, we need to think about and prepare for the future. I believe the time to go legacy shopping is when you're on top. So what does a new RC member look like? The short answer is "not like the four of us." The long answer is, well, longer.

In last week's piece, I listed the beginnings of what I see as the personal attributes of a new RC member or members, so please take a look at that. I will repeat that it's important for the next person (or at least one in the event of multiple appointments) be demographically different from the four of us. It's important because representation matters. While we don't have the space to represent every individual demographic, we want to move the needle away from being all to one side.

Sure, it's good optically, but that's not the heart of the matter. The real core is that there's a tremendous diversity among Commander players and we want the format's ruling body to better reflect that. The continuation of that thought is that that person or persons will bring a different level of both Magic/Commander and life experience with them. They won't bring just diversity of representation, they'll bring diversity of thought.

Right now, our best opportunity for additional representation lies with the Commander Advisory Group (CAG), since it's a much larger body. We have to be careful about making it too large; I think we're already pushing on the ceiling at twelve, but I'd be comfortable (maybe better put as not uncomfortable) with going to about sixteen.

Representation isn't just about personal demographics, either. Geographical ones are important, as we have few CAG members outside of North America. Other continents deserve representation as well. We don't currently have any specific CAG addition plans other than "it'd be nice to have some folks from the rest of the world," but we'll work on it. We might be able to resolve the issue in parallel with RC expansion, although the efforts won't really have anything direct to do with one another.

In the AMA, someone asked if there would be popular elections or something for any RC spots. While I encourage you to read the full answer, the short answer is no. That said, we're happy to hear your suggestions. I'm pretty sure we're aware of the folks who we feel could either step or grow into the role, since one of our criteria will be someone who's strongly invested in the format — which, by the way, doesn't necessarily mean a content creator; investment in the format takes on many forms.

Still, I wouldn't want to discount the possibility that there's someone who hasn't come across our radar that an interview would reveal to be a great candidate. We're certainly not going to do something akin to Wizards of the Coast's (WotC's) Great Designer Search. For one, we simply don't have the resources. Second and more significantly, we're doing something entirely different.

The next RC appointments will go to people of gravitas and capability. I'd like them to be the type of people who, even if you disagree with us appointing them over someone else, you can say that you still understand where we're coming from. I'll be honest that we currently have some people in mind — more different names than we can reasonably fill spots with — but nothing is anywhere close to a done deal. The four of us still have a great deal to talk about regarding how we're going to implement a change that's going to have a great deal of impact on the future of Commander. You'll definitely be hearing more about this from us in the near future.

[ISBPathfinder]

I am not particularly surprised by this AMA. Most of this is reiterating things he has said in the past.

I do wish they would step up the bans. I get their stance but the last few years of product has been overly hostile new card design and I don't think non action is better than stepping on the outliers. There are a few cards that have been a problem in the 99 but there have also been more than a few new commanders who have felt over the top to me that I would love to never see again.

[TheGildedGoose]

Heterogeneity is strength. Ask Charles II of Spain.

I am afraid this is lost on me. What about Charles II of Spain?

He was the result of generations of inbreeding.

[onering]

I am not particularly surprised by this AMA. Most of this is reiterating things he has said in the past.

I do wish they would step up the bans. I get their stance but the last few years of product has been overly hostile new card design and I don't think non action is better than stepping on the outliers. There are a few cards that have been a problem in the 99 but there have also been more than a few new commanders who have felt over the top to me that I would love to never see again.

The Golos ban, late as it was, helped, as does them admitting it should have been sooner. But it seems like there has been a lot of push back from the RC behind the scenes, and they've been using their relationship with WotC and specific designers and employees to convey their concerns, both about specific designs and the broader issue of so many pushed bs commanders lately, to make change.

If you look at Standard the past few years, WotC has really adopted a design philosophy of "Go nuts to sell packs and if we overshoot fix it with bans." I think they applied the same philosophy to commander/brawl products and cards targeted to commander and simply banning all the most obnoxious examples would reinforce that strategy. WotC would be like "Well, Golos, Tegrid, Chulane, Korvold, etc all got banned but boy did they move some cardboard!" It lets them reap the sales that come with such pushed nonsense and not have to pay the penalty of those cards permanently ruining formats and thus driving sales down. Over time, when players get tired of buying pushed cards and then seeing them banned, it will eventually have a negative sales impact, but that can be hidden or blunted if the game is growing overall.

By signaling that the RC will not just solve all of WotC's design mistakes via bans, they make Wizards become more careful about what they print. As Sheldon said, they've heard back that R&D agrees that Golos and others were mistakes and that these sort of gross easy mode value engines are bad for the game and won't be so pushed in the future. Hopefully this strategy works. If it doesn't, they can still swing the ban hammer later.

Also, love Sheldon saying they still won't do watchlists, but that Tergrid chick ruins everything amirite?

[onering]

Heterogeneity is strength. Ask Charles II of Spain.

I am afraid this is lost on me. What about Charles II of Spain?

He was the result of generations of inbreeding.

OG Handsome Squidward.

[Jemolk]

@DirkGently & @Legend --

Let me put it like this -- oftentimes, different life experiences translate into seeing things from a slightly different angle. Even if it's not obvious how at first. Players of less represented groups could easily enough have a different view of the nature of certain types of table dynamics, for example, or different play environments that could be relevant to curation of the banlist. Beyond that, if you want your community to be more inclusive for reasons more related to the social experience rather than the strict gameplay experience, you're going to need to do outreach, and having someone from those communities is pretty important to make sure you're not screwing it up.

To the point about drawing unnecessary fire their way -- that is an unfortunate and currently largely unavoidable side effect of being any kind of minority public figure on the internet. The only way it's going to get any better is to normalize it. Avoiding putting minority people in that sort of position, well-intentioned as it may be, merely gives the assholes and creeps what they want. I don't think that's a very good solution, unfortunately. Obviously we can, and should, mitigate that sort of behavior as much as possible, and I would argue for even going so far as to explicitly work to make bigots feel unwelcome in our communities and taking fire on ourselves when we can handle it mentally, but avoidance will not make the progress we so desperately need.

Just my two (white cis het male, but neurodivergent) cents.

[onering]

@DirkGently & @Legend --


To the point about drawing unnecessary fire their way -- that is an unfortunate and currently largely unavoidable side effect of being any kind of minority public figure on the internet.

Pretty much this. The people that would say whoever the RC brings on is a "diversity hire" would have still said that, with just as much fervor, had the RC said nothing. They'd say it if the RC brought on a woman or minority as the next member regardless of context.

[Dunharrow]

I agree that hiring a different perspective is valuable, but in the context of the RC I'm not sure I follow why someone that belongs to minority groups would be a different perspective. We're not trying to reorganize the police force, we're managing a banlist, very occasionally tweaking some rules, and sometimes writing some format philosophy crap that nobody reads (unless they're trying to win an argument on the internet). Again, I kinda despise cEDH, but having a cEDH aficionado on the RC would be a way bigger shakeup than someone with similar views on the format who happens to look different. But Sheldon says they don't care about that sort of diversity - the more relevant sort of diversity. It just doesn't make much sense to me.

And I stand by what I said before as far as representation - nobody really cares or pays attention to who's on the RC. Except when they're mad, then they'll pick up whatever rocks they can find to chuck at them. And I think if Sheldon, for whatever reason, thinks that hiring someone with some minority tags is better for the format - and I agree that there are probably plenty of roughly-equally-qualified candidates, so sure, why not pick that person? - then he should just do it and shut the %$#% up about it. Because I guarantee that as soon as the RC makes an unpopular decision (hint: every decision they make will be unpopular with someone) the trolls are going to come out of the woodwork blaming that person. I mean, lots of people already bristle at the idea of preferring the minority candidate at ALL, let alone completely excluding everyone else. He's given them some lethal ammunition and they're definitely going to use it.

Plus it seems detrimental to the person getting hired. If I got hired to fill a quota, I'd certainly prefer to live in ignorance and assume I was the best candidate, rather than have my boss publicly say "we hired them because we needed to add some salsa to the sour cream." Imposter syndrome, population you.

Commander is a social format. I would imagine that a person's background outside of magic has a big impact on how they play a social format. That inherently offers a different perspective.

As far as knowing you got hired to fill a quota - I am not sure how that person would feel. Maybe like they got a chance at a job that they would have otherwise never gotten because of prejudice? Like the willful decision to 'add salsa to the sour cream' (LOL loved this analogy) gave them an opportunity they deserved that they would not have gotten 10 years ago.
I am just speculating, but would like to hear from such a 'diversity hire' what it feels like to know that the employer had such an agenda.

As for racist trolls, they are going to cry out "diversity hire" every 2 minutes anyway so why bother factoring them into your decisions?

[DirkGently]

Let me put it like this -- oftentimes, different life experiences translate into seeing things from a slightly different angle. Even if it's not obvious how at first. Players of less represented groups could easily enough have a different view of the nature of certain types of table dynamics, for example, or different play environments that could be relevant to curation of the banlist. Beyond that, if you want your community to be more inclusive for reasons more related to the social experience rather than the strict gameplay experience, you're going to need to do outreach, and having someone from those communities is pretty important to make sure you're not screwing it up.

To the point about drawing unnecessary fire their way -- that is an unfortunate and currently largely unavoidable side effect of being any kind of minority public figure on the internet. The only way it's going to get any better is to normalize it. Avoiding putting minority people in that sort of position, well-intentioned as it may be, merely gives the assholes and creeps what they want. I don't think that's a very good solution, unfortunately. Obviously we can, and should, mitigate that sort of behavior as much as possible, and I would argue for even going so far as to explicitly work to make bigots feel unwelcome in our communities and taking fire on ourselves when we can handle it mentally, but avoidance will not make the progress we so desperately need.

Just my two (white cis het male, but neurodivergent) cents.

Sheldon explicitly doesn't WANT a difference of opinion, though. First on his list of criteria is "Resonance with the philosophy of Commander". The philosophy as defined by the current RC. Besides, there are a million reason why someone might have a subtly different perspective on banlist evaluation. But if that perspective isn't informed by one of those factors, it isn't useful? In most other situations - even, say, organizing magic events - I can imagine how these particular factors might be relevant, but when it comes to format management I really can't think of any reason why those factors would have an appreciable impact on viewing the banlist, especially compared to the much larger noise of simply different opinions. Among the largely wshm commander audience online and on this website in particular, we still have a huge range of (sometimes very angry) opinion despite our demographic similarities. What are we trying to suss out here, exactly? Are Asian people 8% more likely to want yawgwill banned?

I dunno, at this point I'm almost playing devil's advocate - if he thinks it's better to bring in someone who ticks some boxes, then more power to him. It's not like he's running a huge public company where having a blatantly discriminatory hiring policy would get him in legal trouble. As I've said, there are probably plenty of roughly-equally-qualified people, so there's not much harm in picking based on superficial qualities if that's how he wants to do it. Hey, maybe it will help, albeit probably in an almost-indistinguishable way. But I can't see him talking about it as anything except wanting pats on the back from twitter for being "one of the good ones".

As far as outreach...does the RC really do outreach? Can't speak for everyone, but when I want to know the latest on rules/banlist changes, I usually first find out about it from whichever random youtuber ends up in my feed, or reddit, or here. The only time I see the RC's "outreach" is if I want to read the specifics, which are usually either in plaintext on their website or on Sheldon's twitter feed, and I only find because they're linked by one of the primary sources. If they want to do outreach, I'd say the first thing on their list should probably be "having a substantial social media presence" because rn their visibility is pretty much as low as it can get considering they control a format played by millions of people.

In what universe is it "normalizing it" to say "we are explicitly only going to fill this position with a minority"? That seems very abnormal to me. If he wants it to be "normalized" then just...do it? The normal way to hire someone is to just hire them. I'm totally on board for him hiring whoever he wants to hire, even if I think it's a little silly to focus on such imo-irrelevant-in-this-context differences. But just shut up about it?

Will assholes still accuse them of being a diversity hire? Sure, probably. But by saying this, he's explicitly confirming their bias. If he says "we're hiring the best person for the job" and then hires a black woman, the bigots will have to first say he's a liar before they can claim that she's unqualified. But now he's told them "whoever we hire, we're only hiring them because they fit these minority groups". Even if they actually ARE the most qualified person, or at least as-qualified-as-makes-no-difference, he's preemptively said that they aren't, for all intents and purposes. If he'd at least softened it to something like "we're going to have a preference for a minority candidate" (even if his intention was to hire a minority candidate no matter what), then at least if you're taking him at his word, the newcomer would have to be reasonably qualified, but the way he's said it leaves room for them to be completely underqualified in theory. And people will happily run with that theory.

Do I see upside to doing what he's suggesting? eh....maybe a tiny bit? Do I see downside? Not really. So, go nuts. Seems harmless if kinda dumb imo.

Do I see upside to SAYING he's going to do it? Not really. Do I see downside? Yes, quite a lot actually. Seems ill-advised.

Pretty much this. The people that would say whoever the RC brings on is a "diversity hire" would have still said that, with just as much fervor, had the RC said nothing. They'd say it if the RC brought on a woman or minority as the next member regardless of context.

If he says they're the most qualified person full stop (even if they're not) people first have to call him a liar before they can accuse the newcomer of being unqualified. Which, if nothing else, takes some of the heat off them.

As far as talking about it, I see upside = zero and downside = not zero. I just don't see any good reason to do it besides brownie points.

As far as knowing you got hired to fill a quota - I am not sure how that person would feel. Maybe like they got a chance at a job that they would have otherwise never gotten because of prejudice? Like the willful decision to 'add salsa to the sour cream' (LOL loved this analogy) gave them an opportunity they deserved that they would not have gotten 10 years ago.
I am just speculating, but would like to hear from such a 'diversity hire' what it feels like to know that the employer had such an agenda.

(cropped out stuff I responded to above)

If you get the position, you already know that you've gotten a position you wouldn't have gotten X years ago assuming you think that's true (10 seems a little recent to me, but I guess it depends on the particular minority group). Why would knowing that you wouldn't have gotten it without discrimination be a good thing to know? I guess in this particular case, imposter syndrome might be a little bit of a leap since everyone on reddit has already convinced themselves they could manage the format better than the RC, but in the more general case I would think it would make me pretty anxious that I was underqualified. Trying to overcome bias by giving a boost to minority resumes? Sure, sounds good. Tossing all non-minority resumes into the garbage? In this micro scale, probably not a big issue, but not exactly a great look. If a major employer did something like that, there'd probably be a riot.