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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

#411

Post by pvg »

evolve2k wrote: post #394
pvg wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which was explicitly denied by reddit and is no different than any other piece of baseless speculation.

But it does seem to fit the corporate 'need to monetize' narrative quite well.

The bulk of that 'narrative' is speculative tinfoilhattery as well so of course it fits. See all the handwringing about potential monetization of AMA without anyone ever suggesting any kind of remotely plausible revenue model for it. And again, this is something reddit have addressed directly.

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

#412

Post by jellicle »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #90
post_break wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Reddits problem is they said anything goes, and then years later they saw what they created Isn't that basically what I said? > Where is the limit? Coontown, does that get banned? Sexwithdogs? Incest? SRS? I genuinely do not know, but they need to find that limit, they need to be transparent about how they came to that decision, and they need to be consistent and fair about applying it to subreddits. Like I said ab…

Banning a number of subreddits that you can count with the fingers on one hand, and zero users, is swinging the hammer down hard? What would be a light touch, then?

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

#413

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#414

Post by jrs99 »

spinlock wrote: post #160
justizin wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling her "Chairman Pao" is racist, but moreso, reductive.

that's a stretch. if the intent is to create a sarcastic nick-name that compares the ceo to a dictator, "chairman pao" is going to be a front-runner not because pao and mao are both chinese but because pao and mao are only 1 letter different from each other.

Regardless of the intention, they ARE both chinese. So is it really a stretch to see a racist element to this nick name? It is racist by default. I'm not saying that it is a greatly offensive nickname or even unfunny, but for someone to call it racist is not at all a stretch.

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

#415

Post by AnkhMorporkian »

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…

There's lots more to it. While I agree with the banning of FPH, the underlying policy that justified it was deeply flawed. The harassment policy was woefully vague to the point of absurdity.

There's the fact that she promised better moderator tools something like 6 months ago, and as we found out today, only last week dedicated employees to work on it; after the defaults revolted.

This is a small subset of all of the complaints of reddit's direction under Pao's leadership.

Honestly, I think she's a lovely person. I don't think she deserves a percent of the shit that's been thrown her way, but she definitely hasn't been an efficient CEO for reddit.

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

#416

Post by magicalist »

axlprose wrote: post #339
magicalist wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, abruptly trying to turn a conversation about disgusting comments made on reddit into one on the "clickbait media has to be called out" is like a parody of the parodies of gamergate. I mean, it's like well into Poe's law territory.

Did you even follow the original parent's argument? He didn't just bring up "clickbait media" as a non-sequitur while defending reddit comments. He highlighted how everything in this whole mess so far can be explained through the lens of questionable media, and literally none of his analysis+critique has been addressed so far, all that's been done is point out how he sounded like some angry mob person. Please explain…

> He highlighted how everything in this whole mess so far can be explained through the lens of questionable media

What "everything" are you referring to here? That's the problem with addressing this "analysis+critique". There's almost nothing being analyzed or critiqued. This was a pretty minor story even in the tech blogs, let alone major news outlets.

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

#417

Post by genericuser »

scrollaway wrote: post #368
genericuser wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Let's get two things out there right now : 1. Nowhere in this thread was someone saying "Rape is Bad", without a bunch of other words around it. Nor was there anyone saying "I disagree", without a bunch of nuances and explanations around it. 2. You're still playing the politician game, trying to reduce the argument down to what suits you best, even after being called out on it. I'm not falling into this trap. If you…

Show me the other CONTENT in this post besides that rape and death threats are appalling.

Patrick_Devine 2 hours ago | parent | flag

As an occasional user of reddit, this whole ordeal has confirmed the reason why I prefer not to hang out in its forums. I have no idea whether Ellen was a capable CEO, but the vitriol which I kept seeing peripherally (through other news articles and here on HN) was absolutely appalling.

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

#418

Post by jellicle »

sb057 wrote: post #275
makomk wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The harassment thing was not at all dubious: https://archive.is/wP0uB FPH was a nasty cesspit that had been leaking into the rest of Reddit for a while, going into other communities and targeting women who dared to post photos of themselves without meeting their standard of beauty.

What you linked to is indeed completely dubious: 1) not targeting nor contacting anybody; not harassment. 2) discussion of another reddit post is not harassment. there was a single comment made on the post which could be considered harassing. 3) victim willingly made comment. in addition, said victim is against the banning of subreddits. 4) I have no idea how this could be considered harassment. 5) see #2 6) you can…

That's quite a defense of harassing fat women that you've written.

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

#419

Post by vacri »

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…

> People are sick and tired of ... a small group of militant activists trying to silence people who they disagree with.

You're damn right people are tired of the shrill MRAs with their short-sighted, selfish, and immature wails, who can't think of anyone but themselves. They're a small group of militant activists crying over what amounts to a skinned knee, always trying to shout down other people, but never being pro-active and creating events of their own.

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

#420

Post by [deleted] »

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,…

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