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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

#181

Post by revelation »

comex wrote: post #114
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.

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.

There is always a large number of unconnected people participating in attacks. At any moment in time, there are paid chinese trolls appealing to unity and the party on topics from smog to foreign relations. Some of them, chance has it, are in active discussions with trolls from other governments.

Simply put, you will find trolls and people writing death threats wherever you look. These people do not exactly discriminate.

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

#182

Post by sharkweek »

haroldtootany wrote: post #166
sharkweek wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 re…

You'd list 'television' as an interest? Yeesh...

Absolutely - television can be an art to enjoy, just like a great film, piece of music or painting. Sure there's plenty of trash, but the good stuff is so worth it.

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

#183

Post by jonathankoren »

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…

> We can't trust that her and her husband were in love.

What the fuck is this? And how is this relevant? And when was the last time you heard a similar comment about a man?

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

#184

Post by return0 »

kolbe wrote: post #106
minimaxir wrote: post #36

Ellen Pao gives the reason for leaving on /r/self: http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/3cudi0/resignation_tha... > 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. This is believable because there have been odd business decisions under her watch, not just policy decisions. RedditMade,…

Reading between the lines and viewing her resignation in the context of what she's had to go through in the past few months, she was harassed out of the job by the user base.

E. Pao and Brendan Eich are the two polar examples why the word 'harassment' has lost its meaning.

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

#185

Post by stefantalpalaru »

muglug wrote: post #72

Will the anti-corporate brigades in these large community-driven sites make turning a profit impossible in the long-run?

No, the corporations will simply adapt and learn to play the anti-corporate tune to turn a profit.

See Continuum, American Odyssey, Mr. Robot, The Lego Movie, and so on. You want an anti-corporate message and you are willing to pay for it? There are corporations ready to fulfill your need :-)

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

#186

Post by sjtgraham »

justizin wrote: post #118
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.

> It seems like she's been the subject of vitriol primarily for being a woman

More like passing off a lack a simple lack of ability at KPCB as gender discrimination, having the temerity to file a meritless suit on that basis, losing it so conclusively, and then further demonstrating her lack of ability at Reddit thereby harming something a lot of people love a lot.

I find that easy to see how that is vitriol-inducing.

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

#187

Post by allthetime »

GhotiFish wrote: post #110
unchocked wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> this second backlash revealed her to be politically compromised could you elaborate on this?

In a very short period of time, a very vocal and visible part of the reddit community basically took over the site lashing out against Pao (you couldn't go there without reading about how Pao was ruining reddit). This happened once with the subreddit bannings, and then couple weeks later with Victoria's firing.

This powerful section of the reddit community's opinion of Pao is basically ruined at this point, and any further perceived transgressions on her part would no doubt lead to even larger, more damaging backlashes.

It seems the protests have had their intended effect and demonstrated to reddit's management that the community is essentially what drives the site's success (or failure) and that they need to keep this in mind when forming plans for the future. Keeping Pao on as CEO was only fracturing the community, so she had to go.

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

#188

Post by oldmanjay »

moskie wrote: post #168
oldmanjay wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has only watched this popcorn feast, I have the sense that she was the subject of vitriol primarily for taking actions that people didn't like. Many of the insults may well have targeted her gender, but that is not the same thing at all. I have seen literally no evidence that she was harassed simply for being a woman.

> I have seen literally no evidence that she was harassed simply for being a woman. Well, the litmus test can't be simply whether the harassment solely targeted her gender and nothing else. Sexism (and other forms of bigotry) have a more insidious nature to them.

I didn't say there wasn't sexism. I do indeed believe that gendered insults are the result of sexism. I am, however, stating that the genesis of the entire Ellen Pao affair seemed to be about her actions, not her womanhood.

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

#189

Post by shock-value »

justizin wrote: post #118
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.

That's nonsense. While the expression of disdain for her probably did come forth at times through misogynistic language from some misguided users, it was pretty clear that it was her actions and vision (or lack of a coherent one) that was driving the backlash. Further evidence against the idea that there's a latent misogyny among Reddit's userbase: the firing of a popular female employee is what set all this off (this time at least).

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

#190

Post by go1dfish »

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

She managed to institute a phenomenally subjective harassment definition while simultaneously throwing free-speech under the bus.
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