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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

#101

Post by cma »

revelation wrote: post #45
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…

You applaud them on a PR strategy that is akin to dictatorships all over the world denouncing opposition as "terrorists" and criminals? The community is not a coherent block. To give the impression that the criticism stems from an organized group of people that applaud and tolerate death threats is the equivalent of binding it to a strawman and lighting it on fire with gasoline.

From the "PR" that treats the community as "a coherent block":

"Ellen asked me to point out that the sweeping majority of redditors didn’t do this, and many were incredibly supportive. Although the incredible power of the Internet is the amplification of voices, unfortunately sometimes those voices are hateful."

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

#102

Post by objclxt »

devindotcom wrote: post #38

Maybe I missed it, but was there ever any information on why Victoria was fired, or whether Pao actually had anything (or everything) to do with it? From where I was sitting, it seemed like no one actually learned the full story, which might be confidential or take time to contextualize/safely explain, and everyone immediately threw it on Pao's lap and downvoted any holding maneuvers she and the rest of the staff tri…

> whether Pao actually had anything (or everything) to do with it?

Reddit only has around 70 employees, I would find it extremely unlikely a CEO at a company of that size wouldn't have been aware or involved in the decision (if only to rubber stamp it).

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

#103

Post by noir_lord »

joshjkim wrote: post #63
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…

Super good article about this: http://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/reddit-is-a-shrine-to-...

That article is good in that it calls out the obviously bad stuff pretty well (and some of that stuff is pretty fucking vile tbh) but it doesn't really address that a biggish minority of the users are just not that nice, take out all the porn, the trolls and the 'dank memes' and the few good subreddits and you are left with a group roughly split between 'nice enough people' and 'get the fuck away from me'.

Of course a cynic would say that reddit is just a reflection of the society we live in and that might be right but it's also a reflection of the society we live in where there are few consequences to been a complete dick (I think if you could punch someone through a computer screen reddit might be a better place).

I've been on reddit >7 years and I'd love to say that it was 'better in the old days' but honestly I don't think it was I just think I've reached a point in my life where I don't feel the need to surround myself with that crap.

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

#105

Post by kozukumi »

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…

Given her previous record with going after past employers I think Sam was just covering his back from a potential lawsuit.

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

#106

Post by kolbe »

minimaxir wrote: post #36

Ellen Pao gives the reason for leaving on /r/self: http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/3cudi0/resignation_tha... > So why am I leaving? Ultimately, the board asked me to demonstrate higher user growth in the next six months than I believe I can deliver while maintaining reddit’s core principles. This is believable because there have been odd business decisions under her watch, not just policy decisions. RedditMade,…

Reading between the lines and viewing her resignation in the context of what she's had to go through in the past few months, she was harassed out of the job by the user base.

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

#107

Post by mmanfrin »

amyjess wrote: post #83
Flammy wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two major publicly visible actions: 1) Banning of several 'hate' subreddits especially /r/FatPeopleHate for harassment. The harassment was kind of dubious, as while they certainly weren't saying nice things, it didn't seem like they were actively doing 'raids' or doxing. At the same time several significantly worse, but smaller, subreddits remained online (gore, racism, sexism, etc) More info: https://www.reddit.com/…

> Removal of several employees, likely because they wouldn't/didn't relocate to SF. Let's be perfectly honest here: that was Yishan's thing. He announced that change and set it into motion before he resigned.

? I thought Yishan left because he wasn't a fan of moving to SF.

e: half correct, they were in SF, moving to a new SF office but he wanted instead for the new office to be in Daly City:

"Then, when it came time to relocate from one San Francisco office to another, Wong put his foot down, Reddit sources say, and said he wanted to move the company to Daly City.

“I felt that locating an office in San Francisco proper is an incredibly difficult thing given the strains the city is facing and the high rents it imposes on employees who wish to live close to the office,” Wong said"

http://www.siliconbeat.com/2014/11/14/yishan-wong-leaves-red...

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

#108

Post by joshjkim »

pkorzeniewski wrote: post #32

“Ellen has done a phenomenal job, especially in the last few months,” he said. What exactly "phenomenal" has she done? Reddit works pretty much the same as it worked several years ago, but in the meantime she managed to piss off the majority of community, which is the only reason Reddit exists

Sam and the board are happy and pleased with her performance because she played the part of the suit pushing an over-corporate monetization-focused agenda and then eventually was offered up as a "sacrifice to the reddit ideals", and at the same time she moved the goal posts entirely so now the new CEO and board can "scale back" Ellen's initiatives but only part way, therefore simultaneously putting them in a more monetize-able position AND making them look like they are "fixing what Ellen did".

My best guess is that she fought too hard to monetize by bringing a level of "mainstream" quality and standards to the site which would allow reddit to sell more and better ads (big complaint for advertisers: I don't want my products next to weird subs, etc.), which clearly was not well-received by the community BUT which the board may have encouraged, at least partially.

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

#109

Post by joshuapants »

unchocked wrote: post #41
goldfeld wrote: post #11

So can someone summarize the ordeal?

Ellen Pao has been CEO of Reddit for 8 months. A month or so ago, Reddit banned several subreddits for organized harassment behavior. Since Pao had recently lost a gender discrimination lawsuit, aspects of the reddit community pattern-matched the occurances as "Social Justice Warrioring" and engaged in an organized hate-fest on Pao. About a week ago, Victoria, the admin who coordinated Reddit's "ask me anything" subr…

> Reddit banned several subreddits for organized harassment behavior

While leaving up other subreddits that also have organized harassment behavior. If they had cleaned out all the trash at once, the community impact probably would have been minimal.

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

#110

Post by GhotiFish »

unchocked wrote: post #41
goldfeld wrote: post #11

So can someone summarize the ordeal?

Ellen Pao has been CEO of Reddit for 8 months. A month or so ago, Reddit banned several subreddits for organized harassment behavior. Since Pao had recently lost a gender discrimination lawsuit, aspects of the reddit community pattern-matched the occurances as "Social Justice Warrioring" and engaged in an organized hate-fest on Pao. About a week ago, Victoria, the admin who coordinated Reddit's "ask me anything" subr…

> this second backlash revealed her to be politically compromised

could you elaborate on this?

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