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

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

#501

Post by LordHumungous » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 12:38 AM UTC

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

Why the fuck is someone else's sexual harassment lawsuit with their former employer any of your concern? Unless you have a political agenda against women who complain about sexual harassment.

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

#502

Post by killface » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 12:38 AM UTC

Uhhrrr wrote: post #212

rando3826 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the whole thing stunk like gamergate imo. I honestly don't care about whatever minor offense pao did, I wanted her to stay just so that the vitriol and misogyny on the front page attacking her would not "win".

It's very much like GamerGate. There is an attempt to deflect an overwhelming amount of legitimate criticism by pointing to a few trolls and characterizing all of it as "racist and misogynist".

Exactly. They seem to forget that she's part of a ponzi scheme, slept with married men to get ahead, etc.

Even if it was a bunch of racist/misogynist people, you have to consider that despite the messenger, the message might be valid. That's what being open-minded means.

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

#503

Post by vonklaus » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 12:40 AM UTC

vacri wrote: post #419

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…

Honest question, what do you think is an appropriate set of measures to curtail [people you don't like] on the internet? Do you believe the internet should be a safe space?

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

#504

Post by vehementi » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 12:40 AM UTC

axlprose wrote: post #485

geofft wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What takeaway should we have about those drunken coworkers? I see roughly three possibilities: * Their comments were funny / reasonable / etc.; there was nothing wrong with them. GP was wrong to find it disgusting. * Their comments were bad, but there's nothing we can do about them. Our society involves it being socially acceptable to tell jokes about how people should die because of their inability to articulate cle…

The 4th option would be to just not assign a moral value to their comments, and chose for yourself as an individual to not let yourself be offended by them. It doesn't mean the co-workers were right, but it doesn't penalize them if the didn't intend to be bad (because doing so would be a slippery slope to thought policing). Unless OP thinks his/her co-workers would face Pao in person and tell her those things, or wor…

OP did not say he was offended, just disgusted. Like "haha gross, look at these shitty guys". Just like if someone starts making racist remarks, even if I don't personally believe they would murder a black person in the street, I will feel embarrassed for associating with them, and recognize that they are shitty people at the moment, and that is not a slippery slope to thought policing. That is how culture slowly fixes itself.

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

#505

Post by mc32 » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 12:41 AM UTC

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…

I don't know if she was a bad leader or not.

My big concern is this populist approach to firing people. Enough people don't like a company officer? Cobble a "movement" and generate enough controversy to force them to step down.

I think unless they egregiously violate company policy or violate the law or do something which would bring damage to a company it should be up to the company to direct the fate of an officer... Not popular sentiment.

Maybe she deserved to be fired, maybe she was a terrible officer. Let the company make that decision. I dont like tho mob rule aspect to her stepping down.

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

#506

Post by chaostheory » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 12:42 AM UTC

I'm not even going to debate whether or not she was an effective CEO. At the end of the day it's about the lawsuit, and I'm not going to argue the merits of that either. The only thing she should have realized from the start was that you can't have your cake and eat it too. You either choose reddit or the lawsuit. You can't divide your focus between both or you lose both.

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

#507

Post by vehementi » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 12:42 AM UTC

Zuider wrote: post #286

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?

>Why did it take so long to deal with characters like violentacrez? He wasn't dealt with. He deleted his account in a frantic and futile attempt to avoid exposure. Violentacres/Violentacrez (had to block him twice) set himself up as king of the reddit underworld. The admins cast a blind eye to his antics, and in return he prevented the raw sewage from gushing onto the clean streets of the reddit front page. He was a…

Wait, who is right, you or danielweber above?

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

#508

Post by orbitur » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 12:42 AM UTC

axlprose wrote: post #455

madeofpalk wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

The point isn't whether it's "true" or "false", because that will vary depending on who you ask. Yes, even people you find disgusting are legitimate human beings with opinions too. Who are any of us to decide what is "right" or "wrong"? Good journalism is supposed to let you make those decisions on your own, not give them to you. So in order to be good journalism, it must be objective, and to not describe things in t…

> The point isn't whether it's "true" or "false", because that will vary depending on who you ask.

Please, it seems like you're the one who needs to be honest. The most vocal, outraged reddit users are clearly sexist.

Here's the top most used words in the petition. Sure, let's NOT use the word "sexism" here, since it's kind of unclear.

https://www.reddit.com/r/circlebroke/comments/3cetav/i_made_...

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

#509

Post by hansolo669 » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 12:43 AM UTC

azernik wrote: post #238

jerf wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"With the exception of a few niche subreddits and the (few) incredibly moderated major subreddit's" Sometimes I don't recognize what y'all are talking about, and I almost want to defend reddit, then I remember: I've long since adjusted my reddit to be virtually nothing but niche. My largest is ~320,000, but it's just a "Deals" reddit. I've got two at 150,000, both very focused. And it goes down from there. I'd hardly…

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

What's wrong with Reddit is the "default subreddit" concept and the difficulty of subreddit discovery. Building in some form of interest based subreddit discovery would go a long way to de-emphasising defaults and (eventually) mitigate much of the vitriol.

There is also something to be said for educating users on the effects of anonymity.

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

#510

Post by stefantalpalaru » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 12:44 AM UTC

nabeelahmed13 wrote: post #198

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also applaud Reddit's announcement for calling the community out on their childish BS You mean this? > [1] Disagreements are fine. Death threats are not, are not covered under free speech, and will continue to get offending users banned. All that opposition - strong enough to convince "Chairman Pao" to resign - reduced to death threats? All those arbitrary bans written off as a just punishment for criminal behavi…

No one is "reducing" anything. Altman is not justifying the arbitrary bans (or any Reddit admin shenanigans) here, that is not the topic of this sentence. He is talking strictly about one dangerous activity that gets offenders banned: death threats, which Ellen Pao (the human at the other end) received. We don't know why Pao went out. We can suspect it was the backlash (more likely), or disagreements with the board […

> No one is "reducing" anything.

Do you see another reference to the overwhelming opposition inside the user base? Anything in the vein of "the mounting opposition convinced us that there's no point in fighting our users"?

Because from what I read in the announcement, the opposition is presented as a vocal, hateful and criminal minority that should absolutely not be mistaken for the "sweeping majority" that was "incredibly supportive" of the CEO.