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Sad how things went for Ellen Pao. The abuse she was subjected to was one of the worst I've seen and I bet there was plenty bleeding off into other aspects of

Sad how things went for Ellen Pao. The abuse she was subjected to was one of the worst I've seen and I bet there was plenty bleeding off into other aspects of her life other than her inbox. I genuinely felt bad for her, I wouldn't of been able to handle it at all. It was truly revolting and hateful.

qwertyuiop924 10y ago
I understood the hate (although it probably wasn't all her fault by any stretch), and I still think that everybody went too far.
- Scirra_Tom 10y ago
  I fail to see any reason to hate her, what reasons are there?
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    As I said, it wasn't her fault: She took much of the blame for many of Reddit's policies that users were unhappy about. Some of these policies were more-or-less good, like banning overtly hateful subreddits (fatpeoplehate, and so one), and some of them were really bad (omnipresent shadowbans, and totally ignoring the needs of mods, which had been loudly voiced, culminating in the AMA debacle, which caused the famous "Reddit Revolt", as the mods decided that they'd had enough). They probably weren't all her fault, but she took the blame. And if you already blame her, I can understand where the hatred might come from, justified or no.
    - yuhong 10y ago
      Though it was not like that Ellen was particularly good in the first place anyway. The lawsuit against KP is pretty famous by now.
    - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
      I think the problem was more that she attempted things that didn't work quite as well as she thought they would, and the Internet Hate Machine - amplified by the presence of the CEO's additional X chromosome - spun things out of control faster than they could have been fixed, by pretty much anybody. There was plenty to dislike about Pao's actions as CEO (as well as the KP lawsuit), but I think the real lesson is that the Internet Hate Machine is very difficult to slow down or stop once it flies out of control. Every nuance or worthy consideration is drowned out by waves of rage at even the smallest worthy object of complaint.
      - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
        That's a big part of it. But there were legitimate reasons it got to that point in the first place.
        rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
        Agreed. There are also legitimate reasons that a snowball becomes an avalanche.
    - FilterSweep 10y ago
      The issue was less due to /r/FPH getting banned, it was more /r/FPH getting banned WHILE other, overtly racist subs which equal or more impressions (prefer not to state them here), were not getting banned. It wasn't just a violation of the "free speech" promised by the original founder, but it was a selective "free speech" which indicated to affected individuals that they were offending the management/Admins while arguably even more offensive groups which targeted minorities that were not composed of management/Admin groups received a pass. Indeed, there was some schadenfreude with their wanting the same ill on these other offensive subs out of being selfish, but they did highlight a major inconsistency with Admins.
      - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
        Is I understood it, for most it was neither: it was the AMA debacle that really set the fuse alight.
  - toolz 10y ago
    Hard to sift through all the trolling and BS, but some people claim she was an entitled abusive entity inside of reddit. [This is the first obviously biased, but information dense post on her I found](https://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/2x79ql/pdf_public_court_documents_surrounding_the_ellen/coxkrgb/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/2x79ql/pdf_publ...). I don't make any claims to the accuracy of the accusations, but it's probably a decent starting point for anyone wanting to google around and learn more about the reddit crusade against her.
    - arbitrage 10y ago
      Anything coming out of /r/MensRights doesn't even deserve to be taken with a grain of salt. It should be ignored completely.
      - toolz 10y ago
        Bit of a fallacy there don't you think? I imagine it touches on a great deal of topics that can be googled for more accurate information, right? I just glanced over it and noticed the attention to detail, so while given the source it's probably not a great idea to follow the conclusions it draws blindly, it's likely still a great resource for keywords, no?
        pjc50 10y ago
        That's like saying that the virus-laden phishing PDF you just recieved might contain useful information. You shouldn't go anywhere near it. If there's real substance to the allegations, there will be another copy somewhere more respectable.
        toolz 10y ago
        Are you suggesting a reddit post could irreversibly damage someone if they read it? That's a bit extreme is it not? I was able to glance through and glean plenty of keywords that lead to me being able to search for reputable sources that before hand I wouldn't have known what to search for. Now I'm just hoping I didn't contract a virus somehow xD
BeetleB 10y ago
The amount of witch-hunting that went on against her with NO evidence whatsoever really repulsed me. This was probably one of the few times in my life where I defended the rights on principle of someone who had no evidence against him/her, and actually turned out to be right (sad reality, usually the accusations tend to be true). While I can feel smug about it, that whole episode in Reddit's history pretty much killed my respect for the Reddit community. Reddit used to be a place for diverse opinions, and non-hivemindedness. Ellen Pao's skewering showed me that those days are long in the past.
- exstudent2 10y ago
  > actually turned out to be right Ellen Pao not only lost her discrimination suit against KPCB but was deemed liable by the court for KPCB's legal costs. Reddit is laced with gender issues, someone filing a wrongful discrimination suit isn't the correct leader for that site. The Reddit users weren't willing to sweep that under the rug.
  - res0nat0r 10y ago
    > Reddit is laced with gender issues, someone filing a wrongful discrimination suit isn't the correct leader for that site. The Reddit users weren't willing to sweep that under the rug. That lawsuit had zero to do with Reddit though.
    - exstudent2 10y ago
      Reddit is basically just links to other sites. Many of the larger Reddit communities were already engaged in a discussion of her case when she became CEO.
  - BeetleB 10y ago
    Ellen Pao had all those issues prior to joining Reddit. However, things only blew up when the moderator was fired, and it had nothing to do with gender issues. The fact is: Ellen did not fire the moderator, and all of Reddit went into uproar insisting with no evidence whatsoever that she was responsible. I'm not saying Ellen was an angel, or even a good fit for the job. She had her issues. However, all of that had nothing to do with the criticism leveled against her for firing the moderator. The attack on her was a mob attack - no less.
debacle 10y ago
She was hamstrung by her position from defending herself. In hindsight it's clear that she was set up as a scapegoat. That said, the incendiary anti-Thiel op-ed she wrote last week was also out of place and ridiculous.
dlbucci 10y ago
Six PR firms were paid to smear her. SIX! That's honestly the most shocking/disgusting thing about this to me.
- exstudent2 10y ago
  The media was entirely on Pao's side. They were claiming discrimination before the case hit trial, during the trial, and after the pro-KPCB verdict! That's what a lot of Redditors found shocking/disgusting. If there were indeed six KPCB PR firms in play, they did a terrible job.

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

I understood the hate (although it probably wasn't all her fault by any stretch), and I still think that everybody went too far.

Scirra_Tom 10y ago
I fail to see any reason to hate her, what reasons are there?
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  As I said, it wasn't her fault: She took much of the blame for many of Reddit's policies that users were unhappy about. Some of these policies were more-or-less good, like banning overtly hateful subreddits (fatpeoplehate, and so one), and some of them were really bad (omnipresent shadowbans, and totally ignoring the needs of mods, which had been loudly voiced, culminating in the AMA debacle, which caused the famous "Reddit Revolt", as the mods decided that they'd had enough). They probably weren't all her fault, but she took the blame. And if you already blame her, I can understand where the hatred might come from, justified or no.
  - yuhong 10y ago
    Though it was not like that Ellen was particularly good in the first place anyway. The lawsuit against KP is pretty famous by now.
  - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
    I think the problem was more that she attempted things that didn't work quite as well as she thought they would, and the Internet Hate Machine - amplified by the presence of the CEO's additional X chromosome - spun things out of control faster than they could have been fixed, by pretty much anybody. There was plenty to dislike about Pao's actions as CEO (as well as the KP lawsuit), but I think the real lesson is that the Internet Hate Machine is very difficult to slow down or stop once it flies out of control. Every nuance or worthy consideration is drowned out by waves of rage at even the smallest worthy object of complaint.
    - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
      That's a big part of it. But there were legitimate reasons it got to that point in the first place.
      - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
        Agreed. There are also legitimate reasons that a snowball becomes an avalanche.
  - FilterSweep 10y ago
    The issue was less due to /r/FPH getting banned, it was more /r/FPH getting banned WHILE other, overtly racist subs which equal or more impressions (prefer not to state them here), were not getting banned. It wasn't just a violation of the "free speech" promised by the original founder, but it was a selective "free speech" which indicated to affected individuals that they were offending the management/Admins while arguably even more offensive groups which targeted minorities that were not composed of management/Admin groups received a pass. Indeed, there was some schadenfreude with their wanting the same ill on these other offensive subs out of being selfish, but they did highlight a major inconsistency with Admins.
    - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
      Is I understood it, for most it was neither: it was the AMA debacle that really set the fuse alight.
- toolz 10y ago
  Hard to sift through all the trolling and BS, but some people claim she was an entitled abusive entity inside of reddit. [This is the first obviously biased, but information dense post on her I found](https://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/2x79ql/pdf_public_court_documents_surrounding_the_ellen/coxkrgb/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/2x79ql/pdf_publ...). I don't make any claims to the accuracy of the accusations, but it's probably a decent starting point for anyone wanting to google around and learn more about the reddit crusade against her.
  - arbitrage 10y ago
    Anything coming out of /r/MensRights doesn't even deserve to be taken with a grain of salt. It should be ignored completely.
    - toolz 10y ago
      Bit of a fallacy there don't you think? I imagine it touches on a great deal of topics that can be googled for more accurate information, right? I just glanced over it and noticed the attention to detail, so while given the source it's probably not a great idea to follow the conclusions it draws blindly, it's likely still a great resource for keywords, no?
      - pjc50 10y ago
        That's like saying that the virus-laden phishing PDF you just recieved might contain useful information. You shouldn't go anywhere near it. If there's real substance to the allegations, there will be another copy somewhere more respectable.
        toolz 10y ago
        Are you suggesting a reddit post could irreversibly damage someone if they read it? That's a bit extreme is it not? I was able to glance through and glean plenty of keywords that lead to me being able to search for reputable sources that before hand I wouldn't have known what to search for. Now I'm just hoping I didn't contract a virus somehow xD

BeetleB 10y ago

The amount of witch-hunting that went on against her with NO evidence whatsoever really repulsed me. This was probably one of the few times in my life where I defended the rights on principle of someone who had no evidence against him/her, and actually turned out to be right (sad reality, usually the accusations tend to be true). While I can feel smug about it, that whole episode in Reddit's history pretty much killed my respect for the Reddit community. Reddit used to be a place for diverse opinions, and non-hivemindedness. Ellen Pao's skewering showed me that those days are long in the past.

exstudent2 10y ago
> actually turned out to be right Ellen Pao not only lost her discrimination suit against KPCB but was deemed liable by the court for KPCB's legal costs. Reddit is laced with gender issues, someone filing a wrongful discrimination suit isn't the correct leader for that site. The Reddit users weren't willing to sweep that under the rug.
- res0nat0r 10y ago
  > Reddit is laced with gender issues, someone filing a wrongful discrimination suit isn't the correct leader for that site. The Reddit users weren't willing to sweep that under the rug. That lawsuit had zero to do with Reddit though.
  - exstudent2 10y ago
    Reddit is basically just links to other sites. Many of the larger Reddit communities were already engaged in a discussion of her case when she became CEO.
- BeetleB 10y ago
  Ellen Pao had all those issues prior to joining Reddit. However, things only blew up when the moderator was fired, and it had nothing to do with gender issues. The fact is: Ellen did not fire the moderator, and all of Reddit went into uproar insisting with no evidence whatsoever that she was responsible. I'm not saying Ellen was an angel, or even a good fit for the job. She had her issues. However, all of that had nothing to do with the criticism leveled against her for firing the moderator. The attack on her was a mob attack - no less.

debacle 10y ago

She was hamstrung by her position from defending herself. In hindsight it's clear that she was set up as a scapegoat. That said, the incendiary anti-Thiel op-ed she wrote last week was also out of place and ridiculous.

dlbucci 10y ago

Six PR firms were paid to smear her. SIX! That's honestly the most shocking/disgusting thing about this to me.

exstudent2 10y ago
The media was entirely on Pao's side. They were claiming discrimination before the case hit trial, during the trial, and after the pro-KPCB verdict! That's what a lot of Redditors found shocking/disgusting. If there were indeed six KPCB PR firms in play, they did a terrible job.