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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

#311

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

moskie wrote: post #234
oldmanjay wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I just think it's important that we don't gloss over the possibility that the level of criticism and outrage could very well have been exaggerated as a result of latent/subconscious sexism.

Sure that's possible and it's likely that there are a lot of misogynists that have participated; but that doesn't make everyone who was critical a misogynist.

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

#312

Post by noobie »

jff wrote: post #111
noobie wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"it's basically just the regular explanation with the regular expression s/website/pub/ applied" would've sounded wittier but, joke aside, I am sorry you see it that way.

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

#313

Post by generic_user »

magicalist wrote: post #249
generic_user wrote: post #221

The knife cuts both ways. The clickbait media and various groups are trying to paint the now predictable narrative of '50 white male racist misogynist neck beards' who want to chase women out of tech again. Over 200,000 people with legitimate concerns sign a petition to have Pao step down yet they still carry on with there charade. People are sick and tired of the media and a small group of militant activists trying…

> The most critical things against Pao and her husband I have seen are posts about there phony extortion sexism and racism law suits. All of which is factual information available to the public and even the media has to admit these things are facts. Oh please. You can disclaim the disgusting statements made all over reddit recently as not part of a coherent community or whatever, but don't pretend they didn't exist a…

The most disgusting posting I have seen is by our good friends the yellow journalists trying to weave there 'Reddit is misogynist' narrative. While Redditors are upset that Pao fires perhaps the most competent and well liked woman working at Reddit.

Urinalism is largely discredited at this point due to there bias and agenda.

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

#314

Post by magicalist »

eli wrote: post #306
axlprose wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean, seriously, what on earth are you addressing here? Who are you talking to? For anyone that's equally confused, I highly recommend reading the book "Trust Me, I'm Lying": http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator... What's happening right now isn't entirely intuitive, so it's understandable to be a bit lost, but what the parent is talking about is a serious, legitimate issue.

Is it possible to explain it in a few sentences for those of us who are confused but don't wish to read a book?

I'd also appreciate it. Just note many of our minds won't be blown by the idea that the media is used to manipulate, and maybe focus on explaining what this has to do with nhf's points that this is a good move on reddit's part and that they were glad that Sam explicitly called out recent trends in Reddit discourse.

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

#315

Post by golergka »

So, there are two stories people use to sum all the affair up: either "the witch is dead", or "pitchfork mob got what they wanted".

But neither of these stories really fit the information we have right now. Both of them fit some of it, and look realistic — unless you look at the whole picture.

The best conclusion we can have here is that we don't actually know what's _really_ going on, just a bunch of facts and a couple of theories.

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

#316

Post by sbilstein »

golergka wrote: post #271
sbilstein wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I'm so disappointed that Reddit's management allowed such a crappy culture to evolve in their forums for so long. I remember signing on in 2010 and just feeling really uncomfortable browsing any of the major subreddits. Why did it take so long to deal with characters like violentacrez?

> feeling really uncomfortable browsing any of the major subreddits Genuinely curious: why?

Hard to explain objectively; I think the things that turned me off to reddit back then (now it's more mainstream) were people's willingness to assume tons of knowledge of topics they didn't really know about, the general white, upper middle class male from the burbs tastes of things like r/music and other cultural subreddits. It felt like walking into a videogame fraternity and realizing I didn't belong there.

That's a highly subjective opinion...but it's how I felt. r/shitredditsays probably captures a bit of what made me uncomfortable.

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

#317

Post by gjulianm »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #235
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.

Really? What are the decisions she has made that seem so substantially larger than past Reddit CEO mistakes? Worse than selling to Conde Nast? Worse than closing subreddits for content? To me the uptick in personal insults seems obvious, and uncorrelated to a long history of questionable decisions by Reddit admins. Although I think her being labelled as a feminist false accuser is as much the reason as her being a wo…

Not to defend the harassers and neither to say that there wasn't sexism, but I think that the uptick is mostly related to what she did banning FPH. Previous controversies [1] were either non-issues for the majority of reddit (selling to Conde Nast triggers some "Reddit is going down" but not uproar, is just a business decision that didn't affect content in that precise moment) or easy for the admins (distributing private intimate photos, subs regarding beating women or, what's worst in the Reddit set of rules, vote manipulation and brigading).

However, FPH wasn't as bad in the eyes of many users and the community was really big (150.000) users. You don't ban it without a major backslash. I think that's when all the insults got really heated up, I didn't see such a big anti-Pao circlejerk before the FPH issue.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communiti...

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

#318

Post by InclinedPlane »

jerf wrote: post #299
azernik wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with Reddit is that politics.vitriol.hate.anger has a very large presence in the default subreddits.

I strongly believe causality runs the other way... becoming a default reddit puts you into an Eternal September that no community could possibly survive. But in the end, the result is the same.

AskScience is a default sub, I think, and they've survived alright. Interestingly, AskHistorians asked to not be a default sub-reddit for precisely the reasons you've given.

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

#319

Post by Nadya »

eli wrote: post #306
axlprose wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean, seriously, what on earth are you addressing here? Who are you talking to? For anyone that's equally confused, I highly recommend reading the book "Trust Me, I'm Lying": http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator... What's happening right now isn't entirely intuitive, so it's understandable to be a bit lost, but what the parent is talking about is a serious, legitimate issue.

Is it possible to explain it in a few sentences for those of us who are confused but don't wish to read a book?

Pick a topic with many shades of gray. Paint it black and white - preferably around a modern controversial issue (this day and age it's sexism/racism).

Frame the narrative to fit the controversy ("50 white male racist misogynist neck beards' who want to chase women out of tech again!") Ignore the 199,950 shades of gray and all other motivation behind the users and everything else. Zoom in to these 50 people. Cast them in the worst light. Cast Pao as a saint and Reddit as being "in the right" for "standing up to these 50 white male racist misogynist neck beards".

Fan the flames and stir the pot to generate traffic (and ad revenue).

Keep the fire alive as long as possible. You look good and get money. Reddit looks good and gets money. You both win.

Alternatively throw Reddit under the bus as well and find past controversies surrounding Pao. Cover those as well. You'll get more money for this.

As for all the users who aren't the 50 being covered? Fuck'em. You're too busy lining your checkbooks.

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

#320

Post by city41 »

colinbartlett wrote: post #260
DennisP wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the subreddits. With my subscriptions I barely noticed the whole thing.

I've been a heavy reddit user for 8 years and I did not know about this until I read about it in the New York Times. It's really a small subset of the reddits that were touched by the entire ordeal.

It completely and totally dominated /r/all for days, even weeks. /r/all is an aggregate of the most popular posts for the entire site, so I disagree only a small subset were affected. Maybe in number of subreddits, but the subreddits that were affected are absolutely gigantic.
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