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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

#381

Post by [deleted] »

natmaster wrote: post #373
squeaky-clean wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> . The most critical things against Pao and her husband I have seen are posts about there phony extortion sexism and racism law suits. What about the subreddit comparing Ellen Pao to Pyongyang [0]. Jokes about Pao with over a +4000 positive score [1] [2] Jokes comparing Ellen Pao to Hitler. [3] I remember a post to /r/pics or /r/funny of Hitler's Wikipedia page, with Pao's photo instead of Hitler. I ran into some ol…

What exactly is sexist about comparing someone to Hilter? Would the sexism change if the person being attacked fit under another demographic? Is it OK to criticize say Christopher Columbus because he is a white male. Please enlighten me.

[deleted]

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

#382

Post by generic_user »

joshjkim wrote: post #108
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 mon…

With reddit gold most of Reddit has no problem with Reddit making money if they do it the right way. But if it means censoring content and speech and changing the community interaction that is totally unacceptable.

I see the backlash against Pao as a reaction to the wrong type of monetization form the communities perspective. Done by a CEO that seems to not have much of an understanding of what Reddit means to the people that use it.

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

#383

Post by throwaway54984 »

smitherfield wrote: post #96

I'm sorry to see it go down like this. Redditors treatment of her got really ugly (/r/all after the FPH banning was shocking) over the past few weeks, and it's disheartening to see people's bad behavior rewarded.

What about her bad behavior which affected many redditors?

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

#384

Post by oldmanjay »

muglug wrote: post #254
mindcrime wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so, because the degree of "anti corporate" sentiment varies dramatically from sub to sub. The thing is, it almost doesn't even make sense to talk about "The Reddit Community" as though it was any one, unified, cohesive whole, because it largely isn't.

Agreed, but there's a subset of the reddit community that passionately rallies against comprehensive attempts to make the site more commercial in nature. And now, with this resignation, they're likely to feel emboldened.

I'm not sure that keeping them around matters a whole lot to reddit as a company. People who resist monetization so heartily are unlikely to be anything but a drain on resources anyway.

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

#385

Post by Dylan16807 »

pbreit wrote: post #175
ncallaway wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was not made public why Victoria was fired. Neither of the parties are talking about it, so generally it's unknown. The /r/iama mods were not upset that she was fired. They were upset that there was no transition plan in place. > it seems like there was a lot of finger pointing before anyone knew what was actually happening There was finger pointing because nobody knew what was happening. Functions that Victoria w…

I'm not sure how that squares with: "We mods truly feel that she is irreplaceable" or the many other similar statements from the mods.

It might be more that trust is broken and she can't be replaced now.

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

#386

Post by pvg »

tedunangst wrote: post #337
generic_user wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most disgusting posting I have seen is by our good friends the yellow journalists trying to weave there 'Reddit is misogynist' narrative. While Redditors are upset that Pao fires perhaps the most competent and well liked woman working at Reddit. Urinalism is largely discredited at this point due to there bias and agenda.

Protip: it's their, not there.

Urinalism sounds like a (sadly, apparently discredited) singular, though!

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

#387

Post by pavanky »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #288
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. What about the subreddit comparing Ellen Pao to Pyongyang [0]. Jokes about Pao with over a +4000 positive score [1] [2] Jokes comparing Ellen Pao to Hitler. [3] I remember a post to /r/pics or /r/funny of Hitler's Wikipedia page, with Pao's photo instead of Hitler. I ran into some ol…

Frankly every public figure is compared to Hitler at some point or the other on the internet. There have been pretty personal attacks on Ellen Pao on reddit, but every link you posted here is relatively mild. Similar posts and subreddits were made about Yishan Wong[1] when he was CEO. Hell, reddit also makes fun of little kids[2]. You can not police what people make fun of.

The personal attacks and name calling, which haven't been linked in your comments, were a bit much. However they were few and far in between.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/yishansucks

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcoop

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

#388

Post by eli »

scrollaway wrote: post #356
eli wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think "the media" is intentionally causing confrontation as part of some collusion with Reddit to make money? Neither Reddit nor journalism generally is particularly profitable. And isn't painting all of the media in the same cynical light for the actions of, at most, a small minority pretty much exactly what you claim they did to you? I saw racist and sexist posts personally, so I know that's not a complete fabr…

> You think "the media" is intentionally causing confrontation as part of some collusion with Reddit to make money? GP isn't implying any collusion. The media is intentionally causing confrontation just fine on its own. > I saw racist and sexist posts personally Nobody is claiming the hateful stuff didn't exist. But painting "Reddit" as sexist while conveniently ignoring the 90-9-1 rule and focusing on Pao's gender i…

It's jarring -- that is, newsworthy -- to see overt sexist or racist remarks with hundreds of upvotes, suggesting at least widespread if not majority support. So, yeah, that fact is going to find its way into many articles.

What is the argument against Pao anyway? It seems like the only non-personal complaints I've heard are that FatPeopleHate was banned and a well-liked moderator was fired on her watch. Is there more to it?

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

#389

Post by axlprose »

eli wrote: post #365
axlprose wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize you're commenting on a HN thread for a New York Times piece, right? A piece that casually included terms such as "racist" and "misogynistic" as if they were describing the weather. If those terms do sound natural enough to use in something as casual as describing the weather, then congratulations, you've discovered the dangers that this book tried to highlight.

You lost me. What is the linked article supposed to be an example of? Would we be having a different conversation if the thread linked to the Reddit announcement instead? And I don't think racism or sexism is something to be taken lightly. I don't think the New York Times does either, which is probably why the fact that there were racist and misogynistic posts about Ellen Pao was noteworthy enough to include in 8th g…

> What is the linked article supposed to be an example of?

It's an example of exactly what the book talks about: subtle, lightly filtered "news".

> Would we be having a different conversation if the thread linked to the Reddit announcement instead?

No, because if you read my previous summary of the book, you would realize that the mechanisms in these two outlets is exactly the same. A single highly emphasized voice/view, with little curation/filtering, being projected loudly through network effects.

If you're still unsure about what I'm talking about, or how it fits in, I can only recommend that you pick up the book. It's really quite an interesting and quick read. And interestingly, the issue you're having of having difficulty seeing what I'm talking about, is basically exactly what the book talks about.

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

#390

Post by amyjess »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #243
oldmanjay wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no problem with the notion that those running reddit suffer from extreme cognitive dissonance over this issue. They've been acting in extremely odd ways for some time now. Actions like the banning of subreddits for the actions of a few bad actors belie the notion that this is how you and they describe it.

You were modded down, but I don't know why. On what planet does it make sense to ban /r/fatpeoplehate while permitting /r/CoonTown? If you don't have a coherent content policy -- and no sane person could argue that Reddit does -- then you're better off with none at all.

FPH was targeting individuals for harassment.

The subreddit was filled with photographs that were either a) creepshots taken off the street without the subject's permission and b) friends-only Facebook posts shared with the public without the subject's permission (which is a violation of Facebook's TOS).

Then, on top of that, they were harassing imgur staff members for enforcing their ToS.

CoonTown, as disgusting as it is, wasn't doing that, at least not in the sheer volumes of numbers FPH was. Most of that sub consisted of making racist statements about news articles and misinterpreted statistics.

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