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

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

#861

Post by bruceboughton » Mon, Jul 13, 2015, 7:45 AM UTC

npizzolato wrote: post #154

ars wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that nothing much as changed, but "majority"? Not in the slightest, the majority could not care less about this ruckus and think those agitators are idiots. Those people are a small, but vocal, minority.

Maybe. I'm sure a large amount of redditors (maybe not majority) appreciate a well-run IAmA which manages bringing in celebrities and other big names. Pao's actions as CEO directly impacted their ability to do that.

There are plenty of people who use Reddit who have absolutely zero interest in IAmA.

Not everyone is obsessed with celebrity culture.

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

#862

Post by morbius » Mon, Jul 13, 2015, 8:45 AM UTC

npizzolato wrote: post #525

morbius wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Victoria was beloved despite the fact she was a woman, not necessarily because of it. I understand what you're trying to say, but it doesn't really hold up.

Well isn't that a convenient narrative? Any woman the community likes is despite the fact she's a woman. Anyone they dislike is because she's a woman. The outrage writes itself!

It's not entirely inaccurate.

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

#863

Post by dimino » Mon, Jul 13, 2015, 4:05 PM UTC

Nadya wrote: post #857

dimino wrote: post #812

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, it quite simply does not.

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

#864

Post by dimino » Mon, Jul 13, 2015, 4:09 PM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #753

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.

Actually we ended up proving that democracies are pretty sticky - it is hard to go from a genuine democracy to a dictatorship, both because people don't like to lose power but also because if a significant group becomes unhappy with the way things are going they will get enough political power to change things within the current system. In fact I don't know of a true democracy (defined here as a democracy where no gr…

Two points -- what you're describing is a republic moreso than a democracy, and those are pretty sticky indeed.

Reddit is also not a democracy -- it's a series of benevolent dictatorships, where the content is decided on by anarchistic vote, but can be controlled ultimately through a supreme leader, empowered by the virtue of their age (the oldest member of the subreddit gets to decide the content of that subreddit).

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

#865

Post by mindcrime » Mon, Jul 13, 2015, 5:11 PM UTC

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.

Fair enough.

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

#866

Post by arprocter » Mon, Jul 13, 2015, 5:29 PM UTC

MBCook wrote: post #276

sharkweek wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first rule of reddit is unsubscribing from all the default subs and searching for the ones most relevant to your interests. The day I discovered I could do that quickly made Reddit my favorite site on the web (/r/NFL, /r/homeimprovement, /r/television, etc). I'd love to see a discovery feature similar to that of Pinterest built into the signup process that algorithmically signs new users up for subreddits most re…

> The first rule of reddit is unsubscribing from all the default subs and searching for the ones most relevant to your interests. But isn't that really a huge indictment of their ability to run the site? If the users who really like the site I'll do it by avoiding the horridness of the main promoted content, doesn't that signal some sort of failure in their curation or moderation? How does a si but isn't that really…

Maybe the concept of default subs is the mistake?

It might be better to ask users a series of questions about their interests when they sign up, and then create each one a personalized list

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

#867

Post by spinlock » Mon, Jul 13, 2015, 8:14 PM UTC

rndn wrote: post #757

vacri wrote: post #749

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Free speech is meant to protect the most disgusting, heinous, pointless, hateful, ignorant, foolish speech. No it's not. It's meant to protect speech which the politically powerful find objectionable. It's not about protecting abuse, but protecting ideas . Rebellious and revolutionary ideas, for example. This is all a canard anyway - Reddit is not the (US) government. They get to set the rules for communication in…

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…

It's really not uncommon for hateful children to have thin skin.

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

#868

Post by natmaster » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 5:57 AM UTC

squeaky-clean wrote: post #846

natmaster wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not sexist, it's just plain offensive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bwGsOBTlhE

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

#869

Post by arprocter » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 2:54 PM UTC

vehementi wrote: post #498

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.

Redditors do not know anything about who works at Reddit, so they could not possibly be upset at the firing of "the most competent person". Most well liked public facing one to some people who read one of the subreddits, sure.

https://www.reddit.com/about/team/

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

#870

Post by arprocter » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 5:05 PM UTC

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #565

caminante wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't know this for HN, though I'd seen it on Reddit. Thanks for passing this along. On HN, it isn't as much a problem, from my experience, because the downvote button is masked for users with On reddit, I was familiar with the saying -- "downvote isn't disagree button." Though, the current rediquette has removed that language. Compare [1] (old) v. [2] (current). [1] https://www.reddit.com/wiki/reddiquette?v=08ebd…

> On HN, it isn't as much a problem, from my experience, because the downvote button is masked for users with Unfortunately, it is a serious problem. The moment you become a dissonant voice is the moment you're downvoted into unreadability by the choir. Make no mistake, many people here have enough karma points to downvote and they are quick to react.

I can't tell if the fact you got downvoted for this was a joke or not. Too many levels of meta?