Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief • Hacker News Board

Re: Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

#61

Post by noobie » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 9:42 PM UTC

goldfeld wrote: post #11

So can someone summarize the ordeal?

Here's an analogy:

Imagine a pub (Digg) that everyone in town went to. Everything was great until the pub decided to try to make more money by forcing patrons to sit a certain way. Everyone in town decided to boycott this pub, and then they found another pub (Reddit), that didn't have the silly monetization scheme that the Digg pub had. The influx of new patrons turned this quiet little pub in the corner of the town into the main pub in town. Everyone was welcome in this pub - sports types, gamers, geeks, fitness nerds. Everyone had their own little corner, and for a few years the pub provided the town with a place to meet up with people of similar interest, even if the interests were darker in nature.

During the last year, the pub decided to hire a new manager (Ellen Pao). The new manager wants the pub to be a more welcoming place for people of all types so she decides to ban a group of rowdy patrons. However, other patrons felt that Ellen Pao intruded on their freedom to express themselves and their own opinions in the pub, and an uprising took place. To calm the uprising, Pao decides to completely silence people who talked shit about her (shadowbans, subreddit bans), and bans out even more groups of people. Patrons were NOT happy about this situation.

Then, the managers of this pub decided to fire a very well loved employee who contributed a lot to bringing awesome guests to the pub, without letting the patrons or the other employees know about it. This made other employees of the pub very angry, as they all loved what she does for the community. To make matters worse, the managers make snide comments about the situation. Due to the previous Ellen Pao bannings and the recent firing, everyone in the pub decides to riot in whatever way they can. They also consider moving to a new pub in town (voat.co) though the pub seems to always be full.

People were angry, and they knew they have the power to completely render Reddit unpopular, just like they did with Digg. Reddit listened to the community rather than got stuck inside their own views on what the website should or should not be and the resignation of Pao was the outcome; a good PR move.

Re: Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

#62

Post by amyjess » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 9:42 PM UTC

noir_lord wrote: post #28

This entire debacle and the 'communities' (the small vocal part that acted horribly) response pretty much hammered the last nail into the coffin for me when it comes to reddit. With the exception of a few niche subreddits and the (few) incredibly moderated major subreddit's the whole place has become a negative pit with horses beaten so badly to death Findus put them in their lasagna. Twitter often feels the same way…

I'm glad that most of the communities I'm part of sat out of this mess.

The top subs I read and/or post to are /r/asktransgender, /r/ainbow, /r/comicbooks, and /r/kamenrider. None of them would've benefited from taking part in any kind of blackout (the first two of those function as support groups and any blackout could seriously hurt someone who needs help, the third is a mid-sized fandom where people care more about talking about their hobby than staging a juvenile protest, and the fourth is an extremely niche fandom so small that nobody would notice a blackout).

Re: Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

#63

Post by joshjkim » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 9:43 PM UTC

noir_lord wrote: post #28

This entire debacle and the 'communities' (the small vocal part that acted horribly) response pretty much hammered the last nail into the coffin for me when it comes to reddit. With the exception of a few niche subreddits and the (few) incredibly moderated major subreddit's the whole place has become a negative pit with horses beaten so badly to death Findus put them in their lasagna. Twitter often feels the same way…

Super good article about this:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/reddit-is-a-shrine-to-...

Re: Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

#64

Post by lingben » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 9:43 PM UTC

bedhead wrote: post #39

During the KP trial I had always kept an open mind towards her arguments...until I later learned she was married to Buddy Fletcher, one of the biggest scoundrels and thieves in the investment world in recent years. The character and judgment of a person who would fall in love and wed someone like that says more than I can articulate. It's oddly reassuring to see my (and many, many others') skepticism about both her j…

Everything about their saga is bizarre. Did you know that up until his marriage to Ellen, Buddy had lived as a homosexual? he was living with a partner of multiple years (Hobart “Bo” Fowlkes) and was openly gay. Not that there is anything odd or wrong about that.

It is just rather strange how these two polarizing figures came together in a union.

For more info and details see:

http://www.vanityfair.com/style/scandal/2013/03/buddy-fletch...

And then there are the KP employee reviews and other internal documents which became public as a result of the trial she lost that show Ellen Pao to be a thoroughly unproductive and toxic employee who was given every opportunity to shape up but was too busy engrossed in the internal office politics and making 'enemy lists'.

If someone made a movie about this stuff and the people involved, most would think it too unrealistic.

Re: Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

#65

Post by davmre » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 9:43 PM UTC

devindotcom wrote: post #38

Maybe I missed it, but was there ever any information on why Victoria was fired, or whether Pao actually had anything (or everything) to do with it? From where I was sitting, it seemed like no one actually learned the full story, which might be confidential or take time to contextualize/safely explain, and everyone immediately threw it on Pao's lap and downvoted any holding maneuvers she and the rest of the staff tri…

This (deleted) Quora post is the best explanation I've seen thus far: http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--N83GXLMb...

Re: Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

#66

Post by albertoleal » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 9:44 PM UTC

devindotcom wrote: post #38

Maybe I missed it, but was there ever any information on why Victoria was fired, or whether Pao actually had anything (or everything) to do with it? From where I was sitting, it seemed like no one actually learned the full story, which might be confidential or take time to contextualize/safely explain, and everyone immediately threw it on Pao's lap and downvoted any holding maneuvers she and the rest of the staff tri…

There isn't any beyond rumour; and those reasons aren't likely to be disclosed for a long time (probably never).

Re: Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

#67

Post by tosseraccount » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 9:44 PM UTC

There's a fine line between being polite and being so boring that it's stifling. Every commenting site has it's herd mentality and punishment of thought crimes.

Reddit users just wore it on the their sleeves and trying to suppress them was silly.

It might turn into DIGG 2 pretty fast and might not recover.

The investors and the "community" are just too far a part on this.

Re: Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

#68

Post by josso » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 9:44 PM UTC

onewaystreet wrote: post #43

> “It became clear that the board and I had a different view on the ability of Reddit to grow this year,” Ms. Pao said in an interview. “Because of that, it made sense to bring someone in that shared the same view.” Does this mean that the board thought Pao was being too aggressive in pushing growth or not aggressive enough ? If it's the latter then the Reddit community is in for a shock.

Not aggressive enough:

> So why am I leaving? Ultimately, the board asked me to demonstrate higher user growth in the next six months than I believe I can deliver while maintaining reddit’s core principles.

http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/3cudi0/resignation_tha...

Re: Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

#69

Post by nawitus » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 9:44 PM UTC

nhf wrote: post #10

I think this was the right thing to do from a PR perspective. Having Steve back as the new CEO will definitely be good for the community. I also applaud Reddit's announcement for calling the community out on their childish BS: > As a closing note, it was sickening to see some of the things redditors wrote about Ellen. [1] The reduction in compassion that happens when we’re all behind computer screens is not good for…

Did the "community" make death threats? I didn't see any, and I don't think the average redditor would approve those. There will be death threats in almost any large-scale, heated discussion. The typical upvoted comments actually consisted of valid criticism against Pao and reddit's management.

Re: Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

#70

Post by sharkweek » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 9:45 PM UTC

revelation wrote: post #45

nhf wrote: post #10

I think this was the right thing to do from a PR perspective. Having Steve back as the new CEO will definitely be good for the community. I also applaud Reddit's announcement for calling the community out on their childish BS: > As a closing note, it was sickening to see some of the things redditors wrote about Ellen. [1] The reduction in compassion that happens when we’re all behind computer screens is not good for…

You applaud them on a PR strategy that is akin to dictatorships all over the world denouncing opposition as "terrorists" and criminals? The community is not a coherent block. To give the impression that the criticism stems from an organized group of people that applaud and tolerate death threats is the equivalent of binding it to a strawman and lighting it on fire with gasoline.

The first rule of reddit is unsubscribing from all the default subs and searching for the ones most relevant to your interests.

The day I discovered I could do that quickly made Reddit my favorite site on the web (/r/NFL, /r/homeimprovement, /r/television, etc).

I'd love to see a discovery feature similar to that of Pinterest built into the signup process that algorithmically signs new users up for subreddits most related to their interests.