In-group behavior is not a good indicator in terms of being a meritocracy. Rather it indicates that people don't expect anyone to scrutinize them.
Say there's a summit on internet governance and someone is making a point about this statement against PRISM and wants link to his commit message. Say that someone is part of the US government and the audience is middle eastern business men. Who is taking away from the meritocracy now?
I thought hackers were for meritocracy, and not nitpicking silly things like avatars.