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

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

#721

Post by nailer » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 9:17 AM UTC

Zuider wrote: post #286

sbilstein wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I'm so disappointed that Reddit's management allowed such a crappy culture to evolve in their forums for so long. I remember signing on in 2010 and just feeling really uncomfortable browsing any of the major subreddits. Why did it take so long to deal with characters like violentacrez?

>Why did it take so long to deal with characters like violentacrez? He wasn't dealt with. He deleted his account in a frantic and futile attempt to avoid exposure. Violentacres/Violentacrez (had to block him twice) set himself up as king of the reddit underworld. The admins cast a blind eye to his antics, and in return he prevented the raw sewage from gushing onto the clean streets of the reddit front page. He was a…

> He wasn't dealt with. He deleted his account in a frantic and futile attempt to avoid exposure.

Doxxing is doxxing. It doesn't become 'exposure' when people you like do it.

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

#722

Post by thelamest » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 9:21 AM UTC

rustynails77 wrote: post #686

ryanmonroe wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>These persons life aren't at risk because they can't express opinions, isn't that what is meant by FoS ? No

This thread is very interesting and I deeply appreciate the comments people are making, including FoS, fear to comment on FoS, etc. I personally respect freedom of speech, except hate. For example, HN strongly discourages attacking another member personally (eg. calling someone else idiot). I consider this a reasonable limit on freedom of speech, but concepts and opinions should be fully open for discussion (eg. pro/…

For some reason there is still lots of inequality in education, work and culture so some sort of change is still needed. And I really don't think you get seriously labeled a bigot just for any criticism of a minority member.

> Both developed a bad reputation as leaders. Yet, one of these people is being defended and the other is not.

You mean Ballmer?

We know nothing specific and substantial about internal Reddit politics, so the cause for seeing all this hateful scapegoating can only be some kind of mass stupidity.

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

#723

Post by cLeEOGPw » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 9:26 AM UTC

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…

It will only be good if he unban the banned subreddits. If he leaves them banned it means that they did unpopular changes, laid blame on one person, remove the person but leave the changes.

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

#724

Post by sampo » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 9:26 AM UTC

joshuapants wrote: post #109

unchocked wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> While leaving up other subreddits that also have organized harassment behavior.

I think "organized harassment" here means, people form the banned subs reached out to harass people in the real life, outside of reddit. Not just posting vile stuff in a sub.

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

#725

Post by benihana » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 9:29 AM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #600

dmfdmf wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At last, a voice of reason in hundreds of pointless comments. Free speech is a principle and people should be free to say whatever they want no matter how disgusting or distasteful to the majority or mainstream. This is the ideal of a free society and people who can't make the distinction between supporting the principle and yet rejecting the advocates of idiocy are implicitly advocating some form of government censo…

What about duty of thinking ? I'm often weirded by the freedom of speech argument in non critical contexts. These persons life aren't at risk because they can't express opinions, isn't that what is meant by FoS ? not just a free card to be able to let yourself loose in public. I have no solution, but far too often FoS ends up a noisy non-discussions. ps: I'll add that I was somehow afraid to express my views on Freed…

> These persons life aren't at risk because they can't express opinions, isn't that what is meant by FoS ?

No. That's the exact opposite of free speech. Free speech is meant to protect the most disgusting, heinous, pointless, hateful, ignorant, foolish speech.

That's the whole freaking point - nobody wants to silence unoffensive opinions.

>ps: I'll add that I was somehow afraid to express my views on Freedom of Speech. Funny.

It is funny. Because it's the people who want silence others' free speech who repeat the "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" meme as justification for their horrible actions.

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

#726

Post by agumonkey » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 9:35 AM UTC

arrrg wrote: post #720

zmb_ wrote: post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I personally respect freedom of speech, except hate. The problem is that as soon as you draw such a line, you need to appoint a censor to determine what qualifies as "hate". As Christopher Hitchens asked: "To whom would you want to delegate the task to decide for you what you could read? To relieve you of the responsibility of hearing what you might have to hear?" Typically this job falls to the public prosecutors.…

Counterpoint: Censorship is awesome. It creates and shapes places that are just great and pleasant all around. Being an excellent censor is a great ability and there are sadly way too few out there who can give a clear voice (not in the sense of being one voice, necessarily, though that can also be great!) to something and be really excellently opinionated about their censorship. I want more great censorship, not les…

It's interesting. Instead of censorships I'm fond of the idea (though experiment so far) of shaping the place with costs and plateaus. Make sensitive things possible but with a bit of effort, so only people needing and meaning it will go the distance. The other will `naturally` fall back to their comfort zone.

reddit does that actually, until you're a well known user, you cannot submit more than a few per minute, after that delays kick in, if it really was something you wanted to share, you'll come back. No censor involved.

That's just an idea, but you get the point.

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

#727

Post by benihana » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 9:35 AM UTC

rustynails77 wrote: post #686

ryanmonroe wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>These persons life aren't at risk because they can't express opinions, isn't that what is meant by FoS ? No

This thread is very interesting and I deeply appreciate the comments people are making, including FoS, fear to comment on FoS, etc. I personally respect freedom of speech, except hate. For example, HN strongly discourages attacking another member personally (eg. calling someone else idiot). I consider this a reasonable limit on freedom of speech, but concepts and opinions should be fully open for discussion (eg. pro/…

>> I personally respect freedom of speech, except hate.

I'm sorry. You don't respect freedom of speech then. Drawing an arbitrary line on what you (or anyone else) considers acceptable isn't free speech.

Put it this way: Things that were unacceptable in the 1950s are completely banal and uninteresting now. Things that were considered in poor taste in the past are horribly offensive now (look at Andy Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's). Are you going to be some society guardian, constantly updating what is and isn't acceptable to say as our values shift with the times

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

#728

Post by jacalata » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 9:39 AM UTC

vonklaus wrote: post #710

mc32 wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say she sucked at her job. Let the org fire her. These actions were the result of thought that they needed to heed public opinion. As if officers need to walk on eggshells. What should matter ate results rather than dictated by the winds of public opinion. I wish the board, management, etc. in these situations would who resolve and say, no, sorry, this is our choice, we stand by it. But no, we see them capitula…

#1 rule in tech: listen to your users.

Wow, Steve Jobs is forgotten so soon?

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

#729

Post by Nullabillity » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 9:40 AM UTC

Nadya wrote: post #150

dimino wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came this close to not even knowing about this, until someone posted something in /r/dataisbeautiful about Ellen Pao's comment karma over time. Just like Facebook, it's almost entirely related to what you subscribe to/follow. /r/chess was entirely mum on the situation, for example.

This? https://i.imgur.com/nrYiK5M.png I find it telling it was negative a majority of the time. Usually "mods" get +1'd just for being mods (common on many forums). It shows, to me at least, that what she said rarely was supported by the community.

Reddit doesn't flag your admin/modship next to your post unless you explicitly opt in for that post.

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

#730

Post by thelamest » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 9:45 AM UTC

ryanlol wrote: post #278

sbilstein wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I'm so disappointed that Reddit's management allowed such a crappy culture to evolve in their forums for so long. I remember signing on in 2010 and just feeling really uncomfortable browsing any of the major subreddits. Why did it take so long to deal with characters like violentacrez?

Why should the reddit administration interfere with communities ran by third parties? IRC networks are still running just fine with minimal intervention.

On IRC plenty of people who cry about getting a ban or K-line are ridiculed and told to go elsewhere. There is drama there as well, but it's a smaller and less exposed thing.