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

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

#401

Post by dj_axl » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 11:46 PM UTC

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…

> I saw racist and sexist posts personally

Honestly Reddit in general could be taken as "racist and sexist" by an outsider. By an outsider. The humor tends to be sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek, over-the-top, and in-group. For example any references to /r/pyongyang can be written off, 99% of the time it's part of a dedicated running joke that's not intentionally malicious. Pao as Hitler is jarring? You seem naively unfamiliar with Reddit.

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

#402

Post by vruiz » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 11:46 PM UTC

return0 wrote: post #370

vruiz wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Objectively? Pao was criticised for her present actions while at the job, Eich because someone pointed at his past.

... and he did a good job for years while she doesn't have much to show. What's your point? edit: i figure u re saying one was harassed more than the other?

I was just answering your question. Some might think that context matters. As in, what happened to Pao just comes with the job while what happened to Eich was purely personal.

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

#403

Post by alayne » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 11:46 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #302

notsony wrote: post #44

> Sam Altman, a member of Reddit’s board, said he personally appreciated Ms. Pao’s efforts during her two years working at the start-up. “Ellen has done a phenomenal job, especially in the last few months,” he said. This is clearly nonsense, otherwise there wouldn't have been a grassroots campaign to remove Ellen Pao from her role. If Sam Altman honestly believes that Ellen did a "phenomenal" job, he should reconside…

> This is clearly nonsense, otherwise there wouldn't have been a grassroots campaign to remove Ellen Pao from her role. When "SJWs" get someone fired we're told a loud, vocal minority has too much power and is dangerous. The same folks seem to be calling the same thing in a direction they like a "grassroots campaign". I find that interesting. Pao's most downvoted posts still got only a few thousand of Reddit's tens o…

More than 200k signed, so you're off by a factor of 10. I think that's too many to dismiss it as a vocal minority.

I think a lot of things were incorrectly attributed to Pao. It doesn't really matter though. I don't think she was ever going to get back the community's confidence.

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

#404

Post by madeofpalk » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 11:47 PM UTC

axlprose wrote: post #350

eli wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... news sites are getting less reliable. Ok. What does that have to do with Ellen Pao or the new CEO?

You do realize you're commenting on a HN thread for a New York Times piece, right? A piece that casually included terms such as "racist" and "misogynistic" as if they were describing the weather. If those terms do sound natural enough to use in something as casual as describing the weather, then congratulations, you've discovered the dangers that this book tried to highlight.

Are those "racist" and "misogynistic" claims false? Judging by the top post(s), here https://www.reddit.com/r/Ellenpaoinaction/top/?sort=top&t=al... I would say no. That's pretty "racist" and "misogynistic". There was another sub reddit that was worse, but I can't seem to find it on my phone.

If you think the NYT article made those claims lightly (I don't) then I think that says more about the state of the Internet and its communities in general (or perhaps just you) rather than "The Media"

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

#405

Post by scrollaway » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 11:47 PM UTC

eli wrote: post #388

scrollaway wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 i…

It's jarring -- that is, newsworthy -- to see overt sexist or racist remarks with hundreds of upvotes, suggesting at least widespread if not majority support. So, yeah, that fact is going to find its way into many articles. What is the argument against Pao anyway? It seems like the only non-personal complaints I've heard are that FatPeopleHate was banned and a well-liked moderator was fired on her watch. Is there mor…

Victoria's firing was the final straw. The general complaint is that moderators are in an abusive unpaid relationship with reddit and are treated like crap, that she is/was completely out of touch with the reddit userbase (going so far as posting a link to her own inbox in /r/self in a grandma-emailing-c:\\paths.jpg fashion; something she later explained as an administrative mishap), that she got rid of well-liked programs such as redditgifts and was behind other much less popular programs and very unpopular decisions on the site. And the whole lawsuit thing didn't help, either.

She doesn't deserve the blame for all of it, but things easily snowball on reddit. Once the mob finds its pitchforks, there's no stopping it. That's not unique to reddit in any way.

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

#406

Post by jellicle » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 11:48 PM UTC

Nadya wrote: post #150

dimino wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came this close to not even knowing about this, until someone posted something in /r/dataisbeautiful about Ellen Pao's comment karma over time. Just like Facebook, it's almost entirely related to what you subscribe to/follow. /r/chess was entirely mum on the situation, for example.

This? https://i.imgur.com/nrYiK5M.png I find it telling it was negative a majority of the time. Usually "mods" get +1'd just for being mods (common on many forums). It shows, to me at least, that what she said rarely was supported by the community.

It shows to me that she was dogged by misogynists and MRAs excited by the discrimination lawsuit, from the start of her Reddit tenure through to the end.

In a similar fashion, if Barack Obama posted something like "Mom and apple pie are both great.", it would be downvoted by his political foes and upvoted by his political allies. That should not be taken as an indication that "the community" opposes or disagrees with his viewpoints on Mom and apple pie.

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

#407

Post by ceejayoz » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 11:48 PM UTC

alayne wrote: post #403

ceejayoz wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is clearly nonsense, otherwise there wouldn't have been a grassroots campaign to remove Ellen Pao from her role. When "SJWs" get someone fired we're told a loud, vocal minority has too much power and is dangerous. The same folks seem to be calling the same thing in a direction they like a "grassroots campaign". I find that interesting. Pao's most downvoted posts still got only a few thousand of Reddit's tens o…

More than 200k signed, so you're off by a factor of 10. I think that's too many to dismiss it as a vocal minority. I think a lot of things were incorrectly attributed to Pao. It doesn't really matter though. I don't think she was ever going to get back the community's confidence.

> More than 200k signed, so you're off by a factor of 10.

So half a percent of the userbase or so? I'd call that a vocal minority.

http://www.redditblog.com/2015/06/happy-10th-birthday-to-us-...

> I don't think she was ever going to get back the community's confidence.

Likely true. Backing down here likely means zero chance of addressing toxic communities in the site for the foreseeable future.

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

#408

Post by CountSessine » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 11:49 PM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #356

eli wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

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

Do you have any evidence of this?

atrocious track record

Like what? That she shut down a forum called "Fat people hate", where posters singled out the obese for vicious, personal online harrassment?

is... in bad taste, to say the least

Do you even understand what that means? Criticising Reddit or its community is in bad taste? Seriously?

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

#409

Post by scrollaway » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 11:49 PM UTC

oldmanjay wrote: post #399

geofft wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There's something offputting about referring to people by their reddit usernames as if that's an important facet to their personhood. It makes me think, perhaps without justification, that you have your identity far too tied up in a silly website.

This is off-topic, but you might like this little thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3chaut/why_...

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

#410

Post by axlprose » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 11:49 PM UTC

badsock wrote: post #379

axlprose wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So questioning ethics in any kind of journalism anywhere is automatically BS now because of some random highly-opinionated internet drama? Way to discourage critical thinking. Orwell and Huxley would be proud.

The topic at hand is journalism and misogyny. That particular phrasing was often used as a thin veil over many vile attacks on women in visible positions during the gamergate thing. I see a lot of similarities with what happened to Pao (not that I'm defending her in particular, she's pretty dodgy, but the hatred was palpable). And really, you're on HN, this is not the place where you need to fly the "don't trust the…

> And really, you're on HN, this is not the place where you need to fly the "don't trust the media" flag with such earnestness. I doubt many people here do, certainly not me.

This is another common trope that happens a lot. We as HN readers are not any more special or immune to proven psychological tactics than anyone else. We are all still humans after all. This elitist sort of viewpoint that HNers are somehow smarter, better, or faster than most people at nearly everything isn't very helpful. I guarantee there are many people here that could benefit from 'basic' knowledge like this, because we all have our biases.

You can know not to trust most media, and apply it to 99.9% of the media outlets you encounter, but if that remaining 0.1% are sources like the New York Times or Fox News, because for whatever reason, your experiences led you to believe they were 'reliable', then knowing that 'you shouldn't trust most media' is useless when those outlets do you a disservice.