Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We apologize

reddit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 230 posts

Re: We apologize

#131

Post by serve_yay »

emehrkay wrote: post #10

I like Reddit, a lot, but the community is shit. I read this apology and then Ellen's reply and that has negative 55 hundred votes. They have no real reason to dislike her. They have no real reason to be mad at the one woman being fired. They're just coming off as a bunch of upset kids with some "authority" in the form of votes or moderation. As a casual user I have no need to dislike Ellen or feel slighted by the wo…

If they're the problem, why is she apologizing to them for doing wrong by them?

Why is a supposedly community-based website run by someone the community hates?

You don't have to love reddit's community to smell a rat here. It's a complete shitshow.

Re: We apologize

#132

Post by darkmighty »

hsod wrote: post #123
snowwrestler wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to wonder how many of these issues are the result of poor allocation of limited resources. Reddit runs on a shoestring for an audience that big, and still loses money. As I understand Victoria's position, a full salary went to hand-hold celebrities during AMAs. That's a lot to spend for a portion of the participants in one subreddit (I don't think every AMA got that support). Given limited resources, that mean…

Celebrity AMAs are the biggest way Reddit gets media exposure. I would think investing in making them run smoothly would be a high priority for Reddit.

Yes, unless you could automate "Contact courteously celebrities, explain everything, answer questions, and guide them.", it should be money very well spent for Reddit.

Re: We apologize

#133

Post by blfr »

psychometry wrote: post #85
shock-value wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could say the same about Twitter's hosting individuals who espouse toxic views. I believe that Reddit essentially wants to be a Twitter for communities (as opposed to individuals), in that they aren't interested in guiding the moral ethos of its userbase (beyond removing illegal or harassing content). So, honest question, would you apply your criticism to Twitter? (and if not, why not?)

I don't use Twitter, so I have no idea. But each company, despite their freewheeling public images, has a right to dictate how their services are used. If that means adopting a stronger stance on these toxic elements in order to improve their user experience (and attractiveness to advertisers), it's probably best to do it. Reddit is not beholden to to their users to the degree that those users probably believe. Nor a…

Every company has a right to dictate how their services are used but they don't have a right to keep their "freewheeling public images" if they do a lot of dictating.

Re: We apologize

#134

Post by axlprose »

psychometry wrote: post #85
shock-value wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could say the same about Twitter's hosting individuals who espouse toxic views. I believe that Reddit essentially wants to be a Twitter for communities (as opposed to individuals), in that they aren't interested in guiding the moral ethos of its userbase (beyond removing illegal or harassing content). So, honest question, would you apply your criticism to Twitter? (and if not, why not?)

I don't use Twitter, so I have no idea. But each company, despite their freewheeling public images, has a right to dictate how their services are used. If that means adopting a stronger stance on these toxic elements in order to improve their user experience (and attractiveness to advertisers), it's probably best to do it. Reddit is not beholden to to their users to the degree that those users probably believe. Nor a…

> Reddit is not beholden to to their users to the degree that those users probably believe. Nor are they beholden to some imagined ethos about being a place where all speech is protected.

You're right, but it doesn't matter whether they're "beholden" to it or not, they're the consumers and they're telling the market that they want a platform with transparency and where speech is protected. It's just supply and demand, so if there are signals that reddit isn't satisfying what its market demands, how exactly is reddit immune from your average market forces here? It's a popular site, sure, but so were digg and myspace. Just because users have certain expectations of a site, that the site itself may or may not have actually promised, does not make the site immune from competition.

So in reality, it's not so much about users feeling entitled to anything, it's that reddit seems to have been getting complacent about what it feels it needs to deliver to stay relevant to its content producers and power users (which are the main drivers of a site like that).

Companies can dictate how their services are used all they want, but that doesn't mean they have an automatic right to remain successful/profitable/relevant, especially if how they went about dictating their terms hurt their PR (whether reasonably or not).

Re: We apologize

#135

Post by hawkice »

idlewords wrote: post #13
jacquesm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are Ellen Pao's qualifications for running a site like Reddit? edit: what's up HN, this is a genuine question. I see that she's made a couple of mistakes that I'd qualify as 'tone deaf' but on the whole she could do a lot worse. What I am wondering about is how a position such as CEO of Reddit (which is first and foremost a community effort) is picked, it would seem to me that you would make a short-list of peop…

What were Terry Semel's qualifications for running a site like Yahoo? Or John Sculley's for running Apple? There are routine examples in tech of people without domain experience being asked to bring themselves up to speed on the job. The level of abuse being directed at Pao seems disproportionate to her deficiencies as CEO. I can't avoid the niggling thought that this is really still about ethics in game journalism.

I keep getting the sense this is some major inside-baseball stuff getting played out in public because moderators and admins on Reddit have giant megaphones. The complaints seem reasonable, the responses seem reasonable, but almost none of it has any impact on users of the site.

Re: We apologize

#136

Post by celticninja »

McGlockenshire wrote: post #125
sanderjd wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a given that responding to the community is the proper role for a CEO? I can envision a configuration of reddit corporate structure where there is a responsive, deeply involved, and powerful "head of community" position who would respond to the community in these situations, while the CEO does more traditional CEO stuff like talking to investors and press (among other things). The problem seems to me to be that…

> Is it a given that responding to the community is the proper role for a CEO? No, it isn't. Ellen Pao being at fault for everything is a meme spawned by the Gamergate/MRW/anti-SJW crowd. The recent mishandling of the fatpeoplehate ban and then the lack of communication about letting Victoria go have just fanned those existing flames. If the CEO was some boring old white man, nobody would be calling for his head like…

i think you are comparing the reddit CEO to some bluechip company like Apple or IBM. It isnt anything like them, they produce no goods, their users are their product and more so their moderators. They are a social media company, if you cant deal qwith social media on your own site how are you supposed to be trusted with a social media site?

If the CEO was some boring old white man and he had done the same thing then yes his head would be called for. You are trying to make this an issue of her gender and her race when it is nothing to do with that.

FUnnily enough one of the reasons that she inspires such dislike is because she played the victim of sexism card and then after a trial she was found to have no case. And actually what came out of the trial was the truth about her self-serving behaviour. The trial documents make it very clear that she was no angel, she was sexist toward other females, she hads an affair whilst married, with a married man, and then blamed that on the other person all the while there were text messages and emails showing she was as much to blame as he was.

Coupled with all of this her partner is currently facing a lawsuit on a case of fraud. Stuff like that pisses people off and with reddit there are a lot of users that care a lot about the site, they care about how it is perceived and they see her as detrimental to the site in part becuase of her behaviour as CEO but also due to her behaviour prior to becoming CEO which has been well reported regardless of her reddit position.

Re: We apologize

#137

Post by rodgerd »

joeevans1000 wrote: post #2

They are trying to reframe the discussion around the idea that they failed in communicating. What they failed in, actually, was keeping an astounding and dedicated employee their users loved.

> What they failed in, actually, was keeping an astounding and dedicated employee

As far as you know. Last time a reddit employee was fired and there was a public discussion around it, it didn't go so well for the employee.

Re: We apologize

#138

Post by Sharlin »

darkmighty wrote: post #132
hsod wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Celebrity AMAs are the biggest way Reddit gets media exposure. I would think investing in making them run smoothly would be a high priority for Reddit.

Yes, unless you could automate "Contact courteously celebrities, explain everything, answer questions, and guide them.", it should be money very well spent for Reddit.

Never mind getting the celebs to want to interact with said automaton as opposed to a living, breathing person.

Re: We apologize

#139

Post by innguest »

iaw wrote: post #65
pbreit wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She's not very likable. You don't see down voting like this for Alexis, Yishan or, elsewhere, PG and SamA. She still speaks more in MBA-ease like "providing tools" and "listening to users" and "communicated poorly", etc. And the person fired was by most accounts a well-liked, very visible, performing employee. Dismissing someone like that with very little care was horrific management. Edit: I don't know why I include…

I've met a lot of people I'd consider 'success' focused individuals in the Ivies, I suspect if I met her I'd consider her in the same group. There is a focus on a narrow definition of success that is more important than anything else. How that success is accomplished doesn't matter, just that it is. The behavior is surprisingly irrespective of traditional intellect or competence, it's pure focus and drive. It also is…

It's called Narcissism.

Re: We apologize

#140

Post by dang »

oldmanjay wrote: post #113
psychometry wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have no idea what bigotry is. It's possible to criticize the actions of a group of people without being prejudiced and my assessment is based on actual posts and comments that I've read over the past week. Seeing what kinds of content is upvoted gives you a sense of the overall sentiment and it's hard to rationalize the vitriol of the user base in response to this particular event. Also, reddit's age and gender d…

Interesting opening sentence in your reply. I didn't bother reading past it since starting with an insult like that is as good an excuse to ignore your thoughts as I need. Thanks for making it easy!

Please, both of you and everyone else, follow the HN guidelines when commenting on this site. That means replying civilly and substantively, or not at all. This is the rule here, irrespective of how wrong or provocative another user may be.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Post reply on HN