Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 877 posts

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

#351

Post by nawitus »

mwfunk wrote: post #321
nawitus wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"There will be death threats in almost any large-scale, heated discussion." Dude, seriously. And I'm pretty sure "dude" is appropriate here: no, no there will not be death threats in any large scale discussion. Not among adults at least. Little kids fight all the time but when they grow up that's called "assault and battery". Maybe in your world little kids threaten to kill each other over the Internet all the time,…

So there will not be, but there was?

It's my estimation that if there are hundreds of thousands of anonymous or pseudonymous discussion comments it's very likely that a few individuals will a make death threat (which are likely not intended to be taken seriously). My point is that stating that death threats were made is not particularly interesting, as that's not a rare occurrence when we're talking about very large number of comments by very large number of people, some of which are anonymous or pseudonymous.

"Dude, seriously. And I'm pretty sure "dude" is appropriate here:"

Could you refrain from sexist comments like that?

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

#352

Post by zxcvcxz »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #311
moskie wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn't it strange that you have to say this? These people are literally insane.

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

#353

Post by genericuser »

scrollaway wrote: post #336
genericuser wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So now she got all those threats because she's a woman? What? No one in this chain of comments said that; besides maybe the GP you are defending. I referred to her as a woman and said the type of hate was horrible. There was no causation there. >You know the .... No shit, whats your point how does that justify ANYONE getting death and rape threats for doing their job in a manner others consider badly? So what if som…

> Look if a person does not want come across as supporting rape and death threats it is best not to disagree with posts which are only pointing out how horrible those type of threats are. It's a pretty basic idea. And if a person does want to support rape and death threats, they should just flat out say so, that way they can be removed as a user on whatever sites want to have actual conversations. This is the same di…

I have a riddle for you. If literally the only content of what someone says is "Rape is Bad" and a person disagrees.... Does the disagreeing person support rape?

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

#354

Post by Uhhrrr »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #288
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. What about the subreddit comparing Ellen Pao to Pyongyang [0]. Jokes about Pao with over a +4000 positive score [1] [2] Jokes comparing Ellen Pao to Hitler. [3] I remember a post to /r/pics or /r/funny of Hitler's Wikipedia page, with Pao's photo instead of Hitler. I ran into some ol…

What's wrong with the jokes? Ellen is a grownup and a public figure. Jokes come with the territory. No one is seriously comparing her to Hitler.

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

#355

Post by geofft »

scrollaway wrote: post #329
geofft wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yishan was actually an incapable CEO and a bad choice. And all the complaints about Ellen apply to him too: he censored subreddits with no clear policy, he was at odds with his own staff and his own board, and he presided over lots of unhappy departures of valuable employees for stupid reasons. A lot of the problems we see now are his doing. Did he get the same sort of personal, visceral threats?

While we're at it, there were two unpopular firings last month at reddit. The Reddit Gifts guy, who was let go without much fanfare, and chooter (Victoria), who got the entire website to support her, go dark in protest, and fast-forwarded Pao's resignation. But we don't mention those, no no. It's only "sexism" and "mysoginy" because we don't like what happened to a woman . When it's good for a woman, that's just shee…

I agree that, from the public information, it sounds like both of those terminations were potentially ill-advised. (There's also rumors that both of them were loosely tied to Yishan's everyone-in-SF policy, as it happens, but only rumors.) Obviously there's more going on than the public will ever know, unless Reddit corporate email ends up on Wikileaks, so I don't actually have an opinion on them because I don't have anywhere near enough information to make having an opinion worthwhile.

However, unless I misread this thread, the conversation wasn't about whether employee terminations were well-advised. I was talking about which Reddit employees received interminable ugliness from Redditors, and whether it was correlated with what the public knew about their performance in their jobs.

To my knowledge, there was no public discussion, vitriolic or otherwise, of either /u/kickme444 or /u/chooter's performance before their terminations, so I'm not sure what point you are making. (There were some comments that received flak for supporting /u/ekjp's "Removing Harassing Subreddits" post.)

edit: I should also note that I'm not taking any position on the merit of /u/ekjp's departure, as mediated by the Board. Probably it was the right thing to do for the site, and quite likely it was the right thing to do for her, as well, but again, I'm not privy to anything that would let me have a well-informed opinion. I am only taking a position on the vitriol leading up to it. I think we'd both agree that it would be a bad thing if the vitriol was causative -- either if the Board relented to the worst parts of the mob (instead of, say, to respectful argument about why she's the wrong CEO), or if she stepped down because she couldn't take it any more -- and I'm hoping and assuming that it's not the case.

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

#356

Post by scrollaway »

eli wrote: post #335
Nadya wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

You think "the media" is intentionally causing confrontation as part of some collusion with Reddit to make money? Neither Reddit nor journalism generally is particularly profitable. And isn't painting all of the media in the same cynical light for the actions of, at most, a small minority pretty much exactly what you claim they did to you? I saw racist and sexist posts personally, so I know that's not a complete fabr…

> You think "the media" is intentionally causing confrontation as part of some collusion with Reddit to make money?

GP isn't implying any collusion. The media is intentionally causing confrontation just fine on its own.

> I saw racist and sexist posts personally

Nobody is claiming the hateful stuff didn't exist. But painting "Reddit" as sexist while conveniently ignoring the 90-9-1 rule and focusing on Pao's gender instead of atrocious track record is... in bad taste, to say the least.

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

#357

Post by zxcvcxz »

tedunangst wrote: post #337
generic_user wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Protip: it's their, not there.

Protip: If you have to resort to attacking someones grammar when you're out of counter arguments it means you lost the debate.

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

#358

Post by oldmanjay »

georgeglue1 wrote: post #333
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…

There are dozens of posts with 1000+ upvotes comparing Ellen with Hitler. As far as I can tell, there's something larger and terrible going on within reddit's community.

You mean there might be thousands of jerks in a population that is measured in 9 figures? Say it ain't so!

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

#359

Post by fredkbloggs »

pnathan wrote: post #284
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…

There was a lot of evil stuff spewing about relating to Ms. Pao. It was pretty sad, and those people should feel ashamed of saying those things about anyone. On the other hand, I don't think that she did a very good job managing the crisis (the first one caused by banning certain douchy subreddits, and the second one caused by the firing), which is one thing a CEO needs to be able to do.

Yeah, exactly. Also, firing someone without some kind of plan for redistributing her duties is a Management 101 no-no. Ellen Pao failed as CEO of Reddit. That has nothing to do with the 1% or whatever of Reddit users who are racists and/or misogynists. That's just the real world; you have to get past the obnoxious idiots and focus on what matters. The reason Ms. Pao was fired (let's be honest) is that she failed to make Reddit more profitable, attractive to users, and generally awesome. Not because she's a woman, not because there are people out there who don't want to see women succeed. Make money and all is forgiven. Pissing off large, meaningful chunks of your user base is not conducive to making money.

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

#360

Post by cheald »

post_break wrote: post #56
pavel_lishin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Will reddit lessen their censorship efforts? I doubt it. Garbage like FPH should have been dealt with much sooner. The reason there was a backlash about that at all, imo, is because they let it drag out too long. Reddit was the friend-parent for so long that when it finally came time to enforce some discipline, it came as a shock and felt like a betrayal.

Where is the limit? Coontown, does that get banned? Sexwithdogs? Incest? SRS? They seemed to hide behind the vail of harassment and not peak behind the curtain of what reddit really is. Reddits problem is they said anything goes, and then years later they saw what they created.

> Where is the limit? Coontown, does that get banned? Sexwithdogs? Incest? SRS?

Cynically? When they start making /r/all.

My own personal opinion is that FPH was an embarrassment to reddit because it had gained enough traction that it was visible outside of its own little bubble, so they nuked it and took a few other inconsequential subs with it to provide plausible cover that they weren't just straight up censoring FPH for the sake of the brand image.

Post reply on HN