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Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

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

#851

Post by dredmorbius »

mistermann wrote: post #827
vehementi wrote: post #824

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So when I said FAQ I was referring to the FAQ links at the bottom, which deal explicitly with SRS (see also https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3cxedn/i_am_steve_huf... ) and with brigading vs harassment. By FAQ I did not mean "paragraph". > Which is a blatant lie, as everyone knows. I don't know that, and upon further inspection it is not obviously a lie, and is actually pretty reasonable. How did you determine t…

Relevant: https://www.reddit.com/r/NoParticipation/wiki/intro Then go here and click some links - notice anything? https://www.reddit.com/r/shitredditsays

Um. So, SRS presents the up arrow as down arrow, and scores as negative, via its subreddit CSS.

I believe that tends to violate site rules.

Ah, here's where the change was proposed: https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitRedditSays/comments/p0yaf/meta_...

Seems like this is vote manipulation

https://www.reddit.com/wiki/faq#wiki_what_constitutes_vote_c...

"Don't edit the CSS of your subreddit to willfully mislead users."

https://www.reddit.com/wiki/faq#wiki_what_constitutes_vote_c...

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

#852

Post by Khaine »

jrs99 wrote: post #448
oldmanjay wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it racist to acknowledge that Ellen Pao is of Chinese ancestry? I don't get how but I don't get a lot of the modern sensitivities.

Certainly if you want to denigrate someone and you bring up their gender or ethnicity, it can be sexist or racist.

but they aren't denigrating her because she is Chinese. They are denigrating her because they perceive her to be a terrible CEO, and Chairman Pao is a easy way to belittle what they see as her 'authoritarian' ways

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

#853

Post by rndn »

Veedrac wrote: post #843
rndn wrote: post #757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wished the ideal of free speech would include the ideal of being open to discussion (perhaps even the scientific method). I think many movements fail in that regard, for example it was pretty much impossible to have reasonable discussions with FPH subscribers. You were immediately downvoted when you tried to argue against it. If people are completely ignorant towards alternative, consistent points of view, they don…

Forcing people to listen, act in certain ways or to follow specific practices is basically the opposite of freedom. Saying that people should be open to your arguments privileges those ideas you yourself hold. How do you tell which arguments get such treatment?

It wouldn't be the opposite of freedom (that would be suppression), but definitely a limit to the freedom we currently have in certain regards. However, we already have formal and informal rules that restrict the actions of people and forces them to follow specific practices, so it wouldn't be entirely new. In fact it would probably improve the situations at both extremes: on the one hand some taboos would be revoked (as that's also a way to avoid discussion), and you could exclude crazy and confused people who don't partake in any actual discourse.

I didn't say at all people should be open to my particular arguments, but to arguments in general.

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

#854

Post by Veedrac »

rndn wrote: post #853
Veedrac wrote: post #843

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forcing people to listen, act in certain ways or to follow specific practices is basically the opposite of freedom. Saying that people should be open to your arguments privileges those ideas you yourself hold. How do you tell which arguments get such treatment?

It wouldn't be the opposite of freedom (that would be suppression), but definitely a limit to the freedom we currently have in certain regards. However, we already have formal and informal rules that restrict the actions of people and forces them to follow specific practices, so it wouldn't be entirely new. In fact it would probably improve the situations at both extremes: on the one hand some taboos would be revoked…

> I didn't say at all people should be open to my particular arguments, but to arguments in general.

If it's arguments in general,

* you can't hang up on salesmen,

* you can't kick 911 conspirators off your unrelated forum,

* you can't remove most trolls,

* you can't ban homeopathy threads from /r/science,

* etc.

In general, you lose the ability to moderate conversations in spaces you own, or decide what you spend your time doing. This is, to be honest, a pretty extreme idea if taken literally.

Or you could deem salesmen, 911 conspirators, trolls and homeopathy proponents as "crazy and confused", but who decides that? How is that any more unwanted than posting critical meta commentary to /r/fatpeoplehate?

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

#855

Post by rndn »

Veedrac wrote: post #854
rndn wrote: post #853

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't be the opposite of freedom (that would be suppression), but definitely a limit to the freedom we currently have in certain regards. However, we already have formal and informal rules that restrict the actions of people and forces them to follow specific practices, so it wouldn't be entirely new. In fact it would probably improve the situations at both extremes: on the one hand some taboos would be revoked…

> I didn't say at all people should be open to my particular arguments, but to arguments in general. If it's arguments in general, * you can't hang up on salesmen, * you can't kick 911 conspirators off your unrelated forum, * you can't remove most trolls, * you can't ban homeopathy threads from /r/science, * etc. In general, you lose the ability to moderate conversations in spaces you own, or decide what you spend yo…

You are confusing an implication for an equivalence. I've said that those who are not open to arguments should not have a voice. From that it doesn't follow that those who argue should always be listened to.

I imagine a concrete implementation of this idea as a meme that people themselves would recognize this as a good rule and that they would consider it as a decision aid whether or not to participate in a certain group.

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

#856

Post by seanflyon »

dredmorbius wrote: post #849
seanflyon wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. We have decided that no one is more trustworthy to pick our leaders than large bodies of anonymous people.

Is it, really? I mean, beyond Winston's quip, what empirical evidence do you have to support that? Democracies have been known for only a few brief periods of human existence. They emerged for a few hundred years, in a very limited sense, in one city-state within Greece, 2500 years ago. And then disappeared until just over 200 years ago, with some spread since. Fewer than half the people on Earth today live in democr…

Yes democracy has its problems as well, that's the entire point of that famous quip. Which countries would you most want to live in and how many of them are democracies Nazi Germany accomplished some impressive things, but they were the exact opposite of good government. A clear majority of countries are either actual democracies or pretend to be, because of a near worldwide consensus that democracy is the best option we have.

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

#857

Post by Nadya »

dimino wrote: post #812
Nadya wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused how having a negative karma on Reddit is not a sign that people on Reddit find you disagreeable. It's a metric designed to showcase one's agreeability or disagreeability. If more people agree with you than disagree with you: karma will largely reflect that. If it's consistently negative, people consistently disagree with you. Having a trend over time allows for a better judgement as karma is a metric tha…

There are reasons other than "I disagree with your specific comment" that a person might be downvoted. And do you know something about Victoria's firing that everyone else doesn't? Do you know why she was fired?

>There are reasons other than "I disagree with your specific comment" that a person might be downvoted.

Including, but not limited to, "I hate this person so will downvote everything and anything they say."

Which makes you a disagreeable person if enough people hate you enough to downvote anything you say.

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

#858

Post by dredmorbius »

seanflyon wrote: post #856
dredmorbius wrote: post #849

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it, really? I mean, beyond Winston's quip, what empirical evidence do you have to support that? Democracies have been known for only a few brief periods of human existence. They emerged for a few hundred years, in a very limited sense, in one city-state within Greece, 2500 years ago. And then disappeared until just over 200 years ago, with some spread since. Fewer than half the people on Earth today live in democr…

Yes democracy has its problems as well, that's the entire point of that famous quip. Which countries would you most want to live in and how many of them are democracies Nazi Germany accomplished some impressive things, but they were the exact opposite of good government. A clear majority of countries are either actual democracies or pretend to be, because of a near worldwide consensus that democracy is the best optio…

So: when did "democracy" become an overt policy goal? And how?

(There's a story there. It's interesting.)

There are numerous states that have functioned quite well that _weren't_ (or aren't) democracies.

Nazi Germany was, in fact, a democracy. Hitler stood for election in Germany's presidential elections of 1932. While he didn't win a majority of the July vote (none of the _six_ candidates did), he was appointed chancellor following a series of inconclusive elections.

A concern of mine is whether democracy brings wealth, or wealth democracy. Causality's arrow is sticky.

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

#859

Post by lmartel »

Natsu wrote: post #626
lmartel wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't Google just remove the confederate flag from Shopping Express and ads, not from search results? They don't sell Nazi flags in their store or (afaik) let people advertise using them, so this doesn't seem as inconsistent to me as you make it sound.

Yes, and Google is happy to sell you all manner of Nazi items: https://www.google.com/search?q=nazi+swastica&ie=utf-8&oe=ut... Not to mention copies of the Mein Kampf, etc. Thankfully, the various non-Nazi uses of the swastika appear to be the most popular, but you can find plenty of Nazi items. I dislike the meaning of both symbols, so I have a hard time imagining any logic where it's okay to sell one of them but no…

Oh, then you're right, this is definitely less okay. I was under the impression that they just stopped delivering them from Walmart (or wherever) via Shopping Express, rather than special-casing the search results.

I guess the argument one could make is that the confederate flag is more dangerous and relevant today, but I don't really buy that.

Occam's razor suggests this is just an easy PR grab. They get a few headlines in mainstream tech press for free, and very minor backlash from "free speech nutjubs" as the only downside.

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

#860

Post by cthalupa »

LGBT_2000 wrote: post #836
cthalupa wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>comments about her personal relationships Is it not a relevant comment on her character that she has married someone who (allegedly) defrauded over a hundred million dollars worth of pension funds? That she later sued a company she was fired from over supposed sexism for the exact amount her husband needed for his legal defense fund? That she lost the case miserably due to a complete lack of evidence? (The case agai…

> I don't understand how anyone can defend her and her husband after one of them (allegedly) ruined the pension funds of thousands of clients who trusted them This is 2015, I really hope you don't need someone to explain to you that women don't have to share the blame for their husbands (alleged) misdeeds. Disgusting.

Based on your comment history I can't tell if you're a troll or just severely misguided. On the off chance that you do legitimately believe this, I'll go ahead and respond.

Fundamentally, you misjudge my stance: I don't care Pao's a woman. If I learned that the woman I married had done that to people, I would not stay with them, because I cannot reconcile being married to someone who can do that with my own ethos. That she has speaks volumes of her character. If Pao had committed fraud, and her husband had stayed with her, I would have the same feelings about him.

(From your comments, I suppose this is the part where you claim that Male White Nerds on the internet always say that, but never do it, etc.)

Second: It's not even just a matter of staying with him, but she has sued a company that turned out to be innocent for sexual discrimination asking for the exact amount in damages that he needs to cover his legal fees. To me, that steps beyond just having suspect character, to outright being complicit in the attempt to prevent him from paying for his crimes.

Pao is disgusting, and it has nothing to do with her gender. Only her actions.

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