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Two major publicly visible actions: 1) Banning of several 'hate' subreddits especially /r/FatPeopleHate for harassment. The harassment was kind of dubious, as

by Flammy 11y ago

Two major publicly visible actions: 1) Banning of several 'hate' subreddits especially /r/FatPeopleHate for harassment. The harassment was kind of dubious, as while they certainly weren't saying nice things, it didn't seem like they were actively doing 'raids' or doxing. At the same time several significantly worse, but smaller, subreddits remained online (gore, racism, sexism, etc) More info: https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/39bzdf/why_was_rfatpeoplehate_along_with_several_other/ https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/39bzdf/why_wa... 2) Removal of several employees, likely because they wouldn't/didn't relocate to SF. Notably Victoria, who coordinated numerous AMAs with key people, and her removal completely cut off communications with several planned AMAs, including several that were live. More info: https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/3bxduw/why_was_riama_along_with_a_number_of_other_large/ https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/3bxduw/why_wa... Both events were followed by a large amount of anti-Pao hate and general massive amounts of spammy posts for 2-3 days taking over the front page of reddit. The first instance also involved lots of new subreddits that would get banned, before another dozen would appear in an endless game of whack-a-mole.

amyjess 11y ago
> Removal of several employees, likely because they wouldn't/didn't relocate to SF. Let's be perfectly honest here: that was Yishan's thing. He announced that change and set it into motion before he resigned.
- mmanfrin 11y ago
  ? I thought Yishan left because he wasn't a fan of moving to SF. e: half correct, they were in SF, moving to a new SF office but he wanted instead for the new office to be in Daly City: "Then, when it came time to relocate from one San Francisco office to another, Wong put his foot down, Reddit sources say, and said he wanted to move the company to Daly City. “I felt that locating an office in San Francisco proper is an incredibly difficult thing given the strains the city is facing and the high rents it imposes on employees who wish to live close to the office,” Wong said" http://www.siliconbeat.com/2014/11/14/yishan-wong-leaves-reddit-because-hes-completely-worn-out/ http://www.siliconbeat.com/2014/11/14/yishan-wong-leaves-red...
  - amyjess 11y ago
    Officially, he left because the board shot down his plans for a new office. Like, right after the board told him no, he said "well, I quit then". Unofficially, he was burned out, and he used that as his excuse to quit. (the new office was probably why he wanted everyone to relocate to SF, so everyone could come work at this huge new office he wanted for the team)
- Flammy 11y ago
  Really? Didn't know that. I'm pretty sure Victoria at least was still in New York when she was fired... 3 years after that decision.
  - amyjess 11y ago
    Victoria was given a special exception because she lived where half the celebrities were.
makomk 11y ago
The harassment thing was not at all dubious: https://archive.is/wP0uB https://archive.is/wP0uB FPH was a nasty cesspit that had been leaking into the rest of Reddit for a while, going into other communities and targeting women who dared to post photos of themselves without meeting their standard of beauty.
- sb057 11y ago
  What you linked to is indeed completely dubious: 1) not targeting nor contacting anybody; not harassment. 2) discussion of another reddit post is not harassment. there was a single comment made on the post which could be considered harassing. 3) victim willingly made comment. in addition, said victim is against the banning of subreddits. 4) I have no idea how this could be considered harassment. 5) see #2 6) you can not harass a dead person 7) see #1 8) see #6 9) see #1 10) AN ACTUAL INSTANCE OF HARASSMENT! A single instance of harassing behavior does not define an entire community. 11) The entire incident was a fabrication by a troll.
  - jellicle 11y ago
    That's quite a defense of harassing fat women that you've written.
    - sb057 11y ago
      No, it is a defense of hating fat women (and men). Quite a difference. Not that I personally approve of such behavior, of course.
  - glenstein 11y ago
    I think this is more of a rorschach test for how forgiving a person you are toward harassment in general than it is a refutation of the presented examples. It is tedious to look at all the links, but allow me to illustrate with my interpretations of those same comments: 1) It is targeted toward the reader in second person narrative, frankly informing them that they are surrounded by people that hate them in everyday life. The tone is not sarcastic or satirical. It has literally no other purpose than directing genuinely intended emotional abuse at real people. 2) It's discussion of pictures of a specific person on reddit, who was easily found and connected to the picture. And as a rule it's easy to find the source of crossposted pics which causes them to be often, if not always, facilitate contact between hopeful harassers and their victims. 3) You seem to be claiming that posting in a thread tacitly constitutes permission for abuse and transforms harassing comments into non-harassing comments. To put it lightly, that theory stands in need of elaboration. 4) It just means you're working with a very forgiving, permissive view toward harassment. 5) See #2 and #4 6,7,8 and 9 are more or less covered by the above. You're not disputing 10. 11) from what I can see there is a commenter asserting it was a fabrication by a troll, providing links to pages that are no longer accessible. Given the context of many willing accusers and willing apologists on all sides, that doesn't seem like much of a debunking to me. And just as a big picture gloss, no one posting comments in those threads is mincing over those fine distinctions like we're trying to do here. They're just posting a lot of vile comments and leaving it to everybody else to debate whether it can be proven to be harassment to a degree that holds up under the most granular, forgiving analysis possible. In the cases where it's not harassment, it isn't due to anything approaching principled restraint on the part of the participants. Crossposted pics, for example, may lead to direct harassment or they may not, depending on how people respond to them. The possibility of facilitating harassment clearly isn't stopping people from going ahead and posting them, as the examples above illustrate. Just to make sure we don't miss the forest for the trees here, that lack of restraint in and of itself is an indictment of their behavior, and should be cause for unequivocal condemnation of how community management was handled on reddit long before we even get to the point of arguing whether specific instances technically count as harassment according to this or that preferred definition.

by Flammy 11y ago

amyjess 11y ago

> Removal of several employees, likely because they wouldn't/didn't relocate to SF. Let's be perfectly honest here: that was Yishan's thing. He announced that change and set it into motion before he resigned.

mmanfrin 11y ago
? I thought Yishan left because he wasn't a fan of moving to SF. e: half correct, they were in SF, moving to a new SF office but he wanted instead for the new office to be in Daly City: "Then, when it came time to relocate from one San Francisco office to another, Wong put his foot down, Reddit sources say, and said he wanted to move the company to Daly City. “I felt that locating an office in San Francisco proper is an incredibly difficult thing given the strains the city is facing and the high rents it imposes on employees who wish to live close to the office,” Wong said" http://www.siliconbeat.com/2014/11/14/yishan-wong-leaves-reddit-because-hes-completely-worn-out/ http://www.siliconbeat.com/2014/11/14/yishan-wong-leaves-red...
- amyjess 11y ago
  Officially, he left because the board shot down his plans for a new office. Like, right after the board told him no, he said "well, I quit then". Unofficially, he was burned out, and he used that as his excuse to quit. (the new office was probably why he wanted everyone to relocate to SF, so everyone could come work at this huge new office he wanted for the team)
Flammy 11y ago
Really? Didn't know that. I'm pretty sure Victoria at least was still in New York when she was fired... 3 years after that decision.
- amyjess 11y ago
  Victoria was given a special exception because she lived where half the celebrities were.

makomk 11y ago

The harassment thing was not at all dubious: https://archive.is/wP0uB https://archive.is/wP0uB FPH was a nasty cesspit that had been leaking into the rest of Reddit for a while, going into other communities and targeting women who dared to post photos of themselves without meeting their standard of beauty.

sb057 11y ago
What you linked to is indeed completely dubious: 1) not targeting nor contacting anybody; not harassment. 2) discussion of another reddit post is not harassment. there was a single comment made on the post which could be considered harassing. 3) victim willingly made comment. in addition, said victim is against the banning of subreddits. 4) I have no idea how this could be considered harassment. 5) see #2 6) you can not harass a dead person 7) see #1 8) see #6 9) see #1 10) AN ACTUAL INSTANCE OF HARASSMENT! A single instance of harassing behavior does not define an entire community. 11) The entire incident was a fabrication by a troll.
- jellicle 11y ago
  That's quite a defense of harassing fat women that you've written.
  - sb057 11y ago
    No, it is a defense of hating fat women (and men). Quite a difference. Not that I personally approve of such behavior, of course.
- glenstein 11y ago
  I think this is more of a rorschach test for how forgiving a person you are toward harassment in general than it is a refutation of the presented examples. It is tedious to look at all the links, but allow me to illustrate with my interpretations of those same comments: 1) It is targeted toward the reader in second person narrative, frankly informing them that they are surrounded by people that hate them in everyday life. The tone is not sarcastic or satirical. It has literally no other purpose than directing genuinely intended emotional abuse at real people. 2) It's discussion of pictures of a specific person on reddit, who was easily found and connected to the picture. And as a rule it's easy to find the source of crossposted pics which causes them to be often, if not always, facilitate contact between hopeful harassers and their victims. 3) You seem to be claiming that posting in a thread tacitly constitutes permission for abuse and transforms harassing comments into non-harassing comments. To put it lightly, that theory stands in need of elaboration. 4) It just means you're working with a very forgiving, permissive view toward harassment. 5) See #2 and #4 6,7,8 and 9 are more or less covered by the above. You're not disputing 10. 11) from what I can see there is a commenter asserting it was a fabrication by a troll, providing links to pages that are no longer accessible. Given the context of many willing accusers and willing apologists on all sides, that doesn't seem like much of a debunking to me. And just as a big picture gloss, no one posting comments in those threads is mincing over those fine distinctions like we're trying to do here. They're just posting a lot of vile comments and leaving it to everybody else to debate whether it can be proven to be harassment to a degree that holds up under the most granular, forgiving analysis possible. In the cases where it's not harassment, it isn't due to anything approaching principled restraint on the part of the participants. Crossposted pics, for example, may lead to direct harassment or they may not, depending on how people respond to them. The possibility of facilitating harassment clearly isn't stopping people from going ahead and posting them, as the examples above illustrate. Just to make sure we don't miss the forest for the trees here, that lack of restraint in and of itself is an indictment of their behavior, and should be cause for unequivocal condemnation of how community management was handled on reddit long before we even get to the point of arguing whether specific instances technically count as harassment according to this or that preferred definition.