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

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

#691

Post by madeofpalk » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 7:20 AM UTC

axlprose wrote: post #613

madeofpalk wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the overwhelming majority of our society will agree that the mentioned behaviour was misogynistic. That makes it a fairly objective statement. You can still disagree with it (in the same way people disagree with other objective statements, like vaccines and autism), but that doesn't make it subjective.

It's really not as obvious as you're making it sound. According to google, the most concrete definition of "misogyny" is: "an ingrained prejudice against women ." So immediately there are 2 problems here: 1.) Ellen Pao does not represent all women, nor would all women agree for her to represent them most likely. So dislike of Pao does not conclusively imply a dislike of women in general. Especially when we keep in mi…

> It's really not as obvious as you're making it sound

It's as obvious as the fact that vaccinations don't cause autism.

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

#692

Post by KVFinn » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 7:20 AM UTC

jodah wrote: post #266

Patrick_Devine wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> the vitriol which I kept seeing peripherally... was absolutely appalling. I'm not a Reddit user, but the vitriol seemed pretty commensurate with what motivated it, which among other things included the despicable (and possibly illegal) firing of an employee for having leukemia (more or less).

>I'm not a Reddit user, but the vitriol seemed pretty commensurate with what motivated it, which among other things included the despicable (and possibly illegal) firing of an employee for having leukemia (more or less).

That employee got cancer in 2012. He got a salary for almost two years while too sick to work, of the total three years he was at the company. Four months of that salary undo Pao. Then he got an additional full year of health coverage when they finally couldn't wait any longer to fill his position. He was never well enough to even move to the Reddit officers, which was the plan when they hired him in 2012.

That's not just not despicable, it's laudable, and it's better than how you'd be treated at 99% of companies in the US. And somehow this became twisted by the furious mob into a story about a vicious CEO firing someone for having cancer?

(Legally in the US you are guaranteed three months of unpaid leave for getting sick. Although ironically in this case this employee didn't even qualify for that since he got sick before he was at the company for 12 months.)

That this became the battle-flag for everyone to pitchfork is appalling. Seriously appalling.

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

#693

Post by vshan » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 7:22 AM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #672

bsder wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Do you expect Sam to slag her publicly? When was the last time any corporate board slagged a resigning CEO publicly? Sheesh.

There is a difference between slagging - whatever that is - and not gushing corporate BS. How about he be honest instead of just a shill? Sam seems to be good at "playing the game" and this type of thing falls right in line with it.

No -- it's just basic courtesy. Any criticism Mr. Altman has of Ms. Pao, he can share with her privately, and it's not privy to us.

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

#694

Post by badsock » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 7:23 AM UTC

axlprose wrote: post #410

badsock wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 smart…

It's not elitist to think that the average HN reader doesn't need a reminder that you shouldn't blindly trust the media interjected into any random discussion that involves the media. Most of us read 1984 in high school, just like you probably did.

What's elitist is to think that the other camp only holds their opinion because they've been duped by the media, and that you're the one that's managed to see through it all with your superior scepticism, which is what generic_user is basically doing with their "The knife cuts both ways" comment.

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

#695

Post by DanBC » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 7:28 AM UTC

nopenopeyep wrote: post #653

ThomPete wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the moderation is part of what keeps it a fairly enjoyable experience still IMO.

That's irrelevant to my comment. However, I don't think you have any evidence to support your assumption. As I expected: downvoted for pointing out the truth. HN is terrible.

> By extension of holding Pao responsible for all actions taken under her charge, I declare PG to be sociopathic, if not outright evil.

You don't think the downvotes are for this hyperbolic insult?

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

#696

Post by vacri » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 7:31 AM UTC

axlprose wrote: post #670

vacri wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even mentioning [negativity]... So when possible, it is good to avoid those kinds of unproductive remarks unless there's a good tie-in So then why are you shaming people with snarky remarks about Orwell? You say you aren't a hypocrite, yet you're doing exactly the thing you say shouldn't be done? Anyway, I'm tired and bored, and couldn't be bothered reading more of your efforts to somehow argue that a widespread sh…

I did admit wrong on the orwell part, but you seem to be taking this quite personally to be releasing that kind of frustration out so needlessly without even addressing any of my points. If anything, that shows you have clear bias there, but I need not point it out very much, for your frustration with this debate should've made that quite clear by now. Strong emotions always cloud analytical thinking. And it doesn't…

Well,

a) From my first reponse, I've been addressing your points. I haven't addressed every single last one of your points, just like you haven't done so with mine, because discussion works that way. Not to mention we'd end up with immense walls of text if we did. I just opted out in that last one, for obvious, declared reasons.

and

b) When the argument switches from arguing about a topic to arguing about the nature of the argument itself, it's boring. You can play semantic games into perpetuity like that. I've been arguing online since before the turn of the century; when it gets to this stage, it never goes anywhere, it's never interesting, and there's never any further insight to be gained by anyone.

My apologies though, I did forget your acknowledgment of the godwin stuff.

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

#697

Post by etherealG » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 7:32 AM UTC

KVFinn wrote: post #645

agildehaus wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt your last sentence, as I regularly use Reddit and never saw anything like the story you mention. Certainly there were bad comments in more sanely named threads, but no highly upvoted threads with that title like you mention here. Mind linking it?

http://web.archive.org/web/20150611050725/https://www.reddit... http://web.archive.org/web/20150611112054/http://www.reddit....

Can I suggest not browsing all

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

#698

Post by ablation » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 7:35 AM UTC

noir_lord wrote: post #28

This entire debacle and the 'communities' (the small vocal part that acted horribly) response pretty much hammered the last nail into the coffin for me when it comes to reddit. With the exception of a few niche subreddits and the (few) incredibly moderated major subreddit's the whole place has become a negative pit with horses beaten so badly to death Findus put them in their lasagna. Twitter often feels the same way…

Agreed. Reddit is, unfortunately, a cesspool now for many reasons.

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

#699

Post by albinofrenchy » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 7:35 AM UTC

vehementi wrote: post #679

albinofrenchy wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your entire point is that there is nothing a CEO can do, ever, that would let an outsider form an opinion on how effective they are. And even if I was an employee; well there are always disgruntled employees, their opinion isn't reasonable either. These are absurd arguments. By the same logic, the CEO of whole foods could hold a press conference and just go on a racist, hateful rant, and I couldn't possibly have a…

Pretty much, yes - as much as it feels super tingly great inside to feel like you've judged the career effectiveness of that person you don't know, you really don't have much info at all, and this doesn't fall into the extreme argument of "while you know 99% of the things, you technically don't know 100%, so it's unknowable - checkmate!" And yes, literally it is true that the CEO of whole foods could go on a huge rac…

The traffic log you linked does show significant hits, and a very large numbers of users claimed to have de-whitelisted reddit from adblock. Terms like 'voat' and 'reddit alternative' skyrocketed in trends. I don't think this is the 'digg moment' or anything, and I doubt voat exists for any length of time, but I very much doubt investors are looking at these trends and doubting the magnitude of the damage. Reddit is only profitable if it retains users, especially if they disable ad block and want to buy 'gold'.

More substantially, if all AMA teams really are going to be running the show without official reddit support, this cuts in a couple of ways. It shows a maintained lack of faith in reddit from the moderators, and it also is going to make the logistics of AMAs more difficult. The AMAs are unique content which is a substantial draw of new users, where a ton of the work was already done by volunteers. The logistical strain is going to make for less or worse content, pick your poison. High profile guests, especially those not technically savvy, are less likely to participate without admin support being available.

Strategically, reddit almost certainly wants to be involved in this -- they want to be tightly coupled, enough that the group can't spin off their own version.

I don't think this damage is irreparable, but I do think it's going to take substantial work to fix. And I mean, don't take that from me, take it from them -- https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3cbo4m/we_ap....

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

#700

Post by glass- » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 7:37 AM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #305

Patrick_Devine wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is the best description of reddit I've found so far: https://twitter.com/waxpancake/status/619625808403894272

That analogy doesn't account for what happens when a submission gets posted to both a "pinot" subreddit and a "sewage" subreddit, and subscribers in the sewage subreddit see the post in the pinot subreddit from the other discussions tab and "invade" the other subreddit.

Subreddits and their communities are not neatly contained in clearly labelled bottles.