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Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

nytimes.com

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

#111

Post by jff »

noobie wrote: post #61
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…

That's a pretty poor analogy since it's basically just the regular explanation with s/website/pub/ applied.

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

#112

Post by Flammy »

amyjess wrote: post #83
Flammy wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two major publicly visible actions: 1) Banning of several 'hate' subreddits especially /r/FatPeopleHate for harassment. The harassment was kind of dubious, as while they certainly weren't saying nice things, it didn't seem like they were actively doing 'raids' or doxing. At the same time several significantly worse, but smaller, subreddits remained online (gore, racism, sexism, etc) More info: https://www.reddit.com/…

> Removal of several employees, likely because they wouldn't/didn't relocate to SF. Let's be perfectly honest here: that was Yishan's thing. He announced that change and set it into motion before he resigned.

Really? Didn't know that. I'm pretty sure Victoria at least was still in New York when she was fired... 3 years after that decision.

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

#113

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

oldmanjay wrote: post #51
revelation wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 notion of group responsibility for individual actions is insidious, because it's too easy to mount a circular-logic based offense and also because it leads to humanity's favorite game, us v. them.

Humans aren't really individuals, though they labor under the illusion of such.

They're weak hiveminds. Individuals, if they exist at all, are rare and want nothing to do with the rest of you.

When foreign hiveminds come into contact, one attempts to absorb the other, and failing that, to destroy the other. Memes are highly infectious, and so it's often important to police memes to make sure no foreign ones disrupt the hivemind's self.

One or another hivemind sent off a few spurious signals, and a few highly excited human units acted on those. The hiveminds in question don't feel responsible because they didn't intend to send those signals (or want to pretend they didn't).

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

#114

Post by comex »

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.

I don't think it gives the impression of organization at all. Rather the opposite: it gives the correct impression (unlike in the case of terrorists and criminals) that quite a large number of unconnected people were actively participating in attacks on Pao to some extent or other, rather than it being a smaller organized subgroup of the community, which frankly wouldn't be as bad.

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

#116

Post by noir_lord »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #74
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 think it's unfair to compare your un-curated Reddit experience - which you admit is pretty good in a few niche subs - with your highly curated Facebook feed. It's like saying that food in New York is awful because you reached into a trashcan and found a rancid bagel, but is awesome in Chicago because you looked up the nicest restaurant and spent $500 on a meal there.

Not really a matter of fairness or unfairness more an explanation of why I prefer Facebook to Reddit in that it allows that curation.

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

#117

Post by mhomde »

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 think it's a little unfair towards Reddit. Any community large enough will be taken over by trolls if nothing else for the fact that they're the ones making the most noise. Subreddits are perfect way to contain those people away from others since the majority won't be posting in niché subreddits, and those few who do can be moderated.

If anything might be a lesson on community design it might be to put up a few more "barriers" between subreddits and the general population and think about how to control interaction between them.

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

#118

Post by justizin »

ElComradio wrote: post #100

PR that comes out of corporations cannot be trusted. We cannot trust Altman is being honest that he appreciated her efforts. We can't trust that her and her husband were in love. All of this that comes out of spokesmen is carefully crafted as a result of a numbers game. When do we hear "so and so CEO did a horrible job and was forced out by the board."? Never. So are we to believe there is no such thing as a terrible…

> Pao does not get a pass on this dynamic for being a woman.

It seems like she's been the subject of vitriol primarily for being a woman, since a lot of the vitriol predates the past few days.

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

#119

Post by stefantalpalaru »

pkorzeniewski wrote: post #32

“Ellen has done a phenomenal job, especially in the last few months,” he said. What exactly "phenomenal" has she done? Reddit works pretty much the same as it worked several years ago, but in the meantime she managed to piss off the majority of community, which is the only reason Reddit exists

They would probably raise her a statue just to avoid the kind of lawsuits she is famous for.

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

#120

Post by erikj1321 »

unchocked wrote: post #41
goldfeld wrote: post #11

So can someone summarize the ordeal?

Ellen Pao has been CEO of Reddit for 8 months. A month or so ago, Reddit banned several subreddits for organized harassment behavior. Since Pao had recently lost a gender discrimination lawsuit, aspects of the reddit community pattern-matched the occurances as "Social Justice Warrioring" and engaged in an organized hate-fest on Pao. About a week ago, Victoria, the admin who coordinated Reddit's "ask me anything" subr…

Pao was CEO for only 8 months until now, she even says so in her resignation note.

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

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