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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 Fac

by dimino 11y ago

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.

Nadya 11y ago
This? https://i.imgur.com/nrYiK5M.png 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.
- j_lev 11y ago
  Wow. Am I the only one that sees this as possibly the greatest potential "turnaround" story ever created?
- dimino 11y ago
  I completely and utterly disagree with this opinion, and furthermore find it dangerous for what it suggests - specifically, the idea that a large group of anonymous people can do anything but fall prey to their collective impulse. I would argue that decisions of large bodies of anonymous people are historically and demonstrably inaccurate, misleading, nearsighted, and wholly terrible for not only the decision they're making, but also the good of the body itself. Groups of people, at a sufficient capacity, are simply some of the worst, most base, and utterly abhorrent things to exist on this planet, and claiming that the disapproval displayed by the group calling itself "Reddit" is "telling" would be, to say the least, a misstep.
  - Nadya 11y ago
    I'm confused how having a negative karma on Reddit is not a sign that people on Reddit find you disagreeable. It's a metric designed to showcase one's agreeability or disagreeability. If more people agree with you than disagree with you: karma will largely reflect that. If it's consistently negative, people consistently disagree with you. Having a trend over time allows for a better judgement as karma is a metric that can change drastically over time. A generally disagreeable person can have a huge spike in positive karma but that doesn't mean they're liked overall. So it helps that the chart shows as far back as 2013. A slow overall increase with several downward trends means you're generally agreeable but have a controversial opinion (opposed to the "collective group mentality"). A slow overall decrease with an upward trend now and then means you're generally disagreeable and occasionally say something the community agrees with. Her karma over time tells me that she's generally disagreeable with a few moments that brought her from "negative" to "neutral" and that before the subreddit bans her popularity was spiraling downwards, hit a full catalyst, and the apology was rather well received. If her karma was overall positive and only trended negatively in light of the subreddit ban and the Victoria mishap - it'd be telling of a very different story. The fact that it's been consistently negative is telling of the larger picture.
    - magicalist 11y ago
      > I'm confused how having a negative karma on Reddit is not a sign that people on Reddit find you disagreeable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_bias
    - dimino 11y ago
      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?
      - Nadya 11y ago
        >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.
        dimino 11y ago
        No, it quite simply does not.
  - seanflyon 11y ago
    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.
    - tomjen3 11y ago
      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 group is excluded, where votes are counted fairly and where each person who wishes to do so can vote for whatever he wants) that has since transitioned into anything else. None of this, of course, means that democracy is a good system, merely that it is sticky.
      - dimino 11y ago
        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).
    - Zuider 11y ago
      Democracy works not because it provides a means of putting people into power, but because it provides a bloodless means of removing them. In the past, factions went to war in order to take absolute power. When they achieved it they would destroy all rivals and enforce strict conformity. They would try to avoid the necessity of constant fighting to hold on to their position by employing various means to cement their legitimacy in the minds of the ruled. One of these was the idea of an aristocracy which had an inherent right to rule. Another was harnessing religion to declare that the rulers held power by divine right, making rebellion a sin. Regime change would only come about through violence. In a democracy the competing factions can bide their time in the anticipation that they can get into power again. Because of that, they do not feel compelled to use violence to seize power, and by the same token, violence does not have to be used to suppress them. An interesting side effect of democracy was the relaxation of the need for absolute conformity. This facilitated social mobility, commerce and the flourishing of literature and scientific exploration, all of which would have been seen as subversive and dangerous to the status quo in the older way of doing things, and consequently, rigorously suppressed.
- jellicle 11y ago
  It shows to me that she was dogged by misogynists and MRAs excited by the discrimination lawsuit, from the start of her Reddit tenure through to the end. In a similar fashion, if Barack Obama posted something like "Mom and apple pie are both great.", it would be downvoted by his political foes and upvoted by his political allies. That should not be taken as an indication that "the community" opposes or disagrees with his viewpoints on Mom and apple pie.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - nindalf 11y ago
    I see a lot of comments like yours claiming that the hate was only because she's a minority. I get the feeling such people find it unacceptable to dislike a woman or a black/Asian person regardless of what they did. I disliked her for * Firing Victoria, who took AMAs to the next level. I enjoyed them a ton. * Firing an employee for having leukemia - http://redd.it/3c0idl http://redd.it/3c0idl * Using corporate weasel words instead of having the guts to be honest - "We're banning behaviour, not ideas" * Treating the community with disdain and contempt, while not understanding how reddit works at all. She derided her detractors as being a very tiny minority without realising that the most active people are the ones creating and moderating the content that helps reddit thrive. If these people are unhappy with her and leave, then the passive majority (such as myself) will follow them to wherever they go. But no, I'm probably a misogynist and a racist who hates Ellen Pao because she lost a gender discrimination lawsuit, amirite?
    - KVFinn 11y ago
      >Firing Victoria, who took AMAs to the next level. I enjoyed them a ton. The Victoria specific AMAs tended to be short, done on the phone where she types responses, and oriented around'My new movie is out Friday don't miss it' instead of a conversation. I prefer the raw format myself. >Firing an employee for having leukemia - http://redd.it/3c0idl http://redd.it/3c0idl That this became the battle-flag for everyone to pitchfork is seriously appalling:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9868887 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9868887 >Using corporate weasel words instead of having the guts to be honest - "We're banning behaviour, not ideas" I'm personally only familiar with the banning of /neofags because I know people who were targeted and harassed by that reddit. It was clearly banned for the behavior of the mods in the reddit, and not for content, as evidenced by other reddits with much worse content not being banned at the same time. >She derided her detractors as being a very tiny minority without realising that the most active people are the ones creating and moderating the content that helps reddit thrive. What does this even mean, all her detractors were also the ones creating the content? Most of the reddits complained about wanting more powerful mod tools, not less control: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cuw90/megathread_ellen_degeneres_megathread/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cuw90/megathrea...
- benaiah 11y ago
  Note that this is a chart of per-comment karma, not a trend of her total karma. Thus explaining the sheer cliff between a largely-downvoted comment and a largely-upvoted one.
- Nullabillity 11y ago
  Reddit doesn't flag your admin/modship next to your post unless you explicitly opt in for that post.

by dimino 11y ago

Nadya 11y ago

This? https://i.imgur.com/nrYiK5M.png 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.

j_lev 11y ago
Wow. Am I the only one that sees this as possibly the greatest potential "turnaround" story ever created?
dimino 11y ago
I completely and utterly disagree with this opinion, and furthermore find it dangerous for what it suggests - specifically, the idea that a large group of anonymous people can do anything but fall prey to their collective impulse. I would argue that decisions of large bodies of anonymous people are historically and demonstrably inaccurate, misleading, nearsighted, and wholly terrible for not only the decision they're making, but also the good of the body itself. Groups of people, at a sufficient capacity, are simply some of the worst, most base, and utterly abhorrent things to exist on this planet, and claiming that the disapproval displayed by the group calling itself "Reddit" is "telling" would be, to say the least, a misstep.
- Nadya 11y ago
  I'm confused how having a negative karma on Reddit is not a sign that people on Reddit find you disagreeable. It's a metric designed to showcase one's agreeability or disagreeability. If more people agree with you than disagree with you: karma will largely reflect that. If it's consistently negative, people consistently disagree with you. Having a trend over time allows for a better judgement as karma is a metric that can change drastically over time. A generally disagreeable person can have a huge spike in positive karma but that doesn't mean they're liked overall. So it helps that the chart shows as far back as 2013. A slow overall increase with several downward trends means you're generally agreeable but have a controversial opinion (opposed to the "collective group mentality"). A slow overall decrease with an upward trend now and then means you're generally disagreeable and occasionally say something the community agrees with. Her karma over time tells me that she's generally disagreeable with a few moments that brought her from "negative" to "neutral" and that before the subreddit bans her popularity was spiraling downwards, hit a full catalyst, and the apology was rather well received. If her karma was overall positive and only trended negatively in light of the subreddit ban and the Victoria mishap - it'd be telling of a very different story. The fact that it's been consistently negative is telling of the larger picture.
  - magicalist 11y ago
    > I'm confused how having a negative karma on Reddit is not a sign that people on Reddit find you disagreeable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_bias
  - dimino 11y ago
    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?
    - Nadya 11y ago
      >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.
      - dimino 11y ago
        No, it quite simply does not.
- seanflyon 11y ago
  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.
  - tomjen3 11y ago
    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 group is excluded, where votes are counted fairly and where each person who wishes to do so can vote for whatever he wants) that has since transitioned into anything else. None of this, of course, means that democracy is a good system, merely that it is sticky.
    - dimino 11y ago
      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).
  - Zuider 11y ago
    Democracy works not because it provides a means of putting people into power, but because it provides a bloodless means of removing them. In the past, factions went to war in order to take absolute power. When they achieved it they would destroy all rivals and enforce strict conformity. They would try to avoid the necessity of constant fighting to hold on to their position by employing various means to cement their legitimacy in the minds of the ruled. One of these was the idea of an aristocracy which had an inherent right to rule. Another was harnessing religion to declare that the rulers held power by divine right, making rebellion a sin. Regime change would only come about through violence. In a democracy the competing factions can bide their time in the anticipation that they can get into power again. Because of that, they do not feel compelled to use violence to seize power, and by the same token, violence does not have to be used to suppress them. An interesting side effect of democracy was the relaxation of the need for absolute conformity. This facilitated social mobility, commerce and the flourishing of literature and scientific exploration, all of which would have been seen as subversive and dangerous to the status quo in the older way of doing things, and consequently, rigorously suppressed.
jellicle 11y ago
It shows to me that she was dogged by misogynists and MRAs excited by the discrimination lawsuit, from the start of her Reddit tenure through to the end. In a similar fashion, if Barack Obama posted something like "Mom and apple pie are both great.", it would be downvoted by his political foes and upvoted by his political allies. That should not be taken as an indication that "the community" opposes or disagrees with his viewpoints on Mom and apple pie.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- nindalf 11y ago
  I see a lot of comments like yours claiming that the hate was only because she's a minority. I get the feeling such people find it unacceptable to dislike a woman or a black/Asian person regardless of what they did. I disliked her for * Firing Victoria, who took AMAs to the next level. I enjoyed them a ton. * Firing an employee for having leukemia - http://redd.it/3c0idl http://redd.it/3c0idl * Using corporate weasel words instead of having the guts to be honest - "We're banning behaviour, not ideas" * Treating the community with disdain and contempt, while not understanding how reddit works at all. She derided her detractors as being a very tiny minority without realising that the most active people are the ones creating and moderating the content that helps reddit thrive. If these people are unhappy with her and leave, then the passive majority (such as myself) will follow them to wherever they go. But no, I'm probably a misogynist and a racist who hates Ellen Pao because she lost a gender discrimination lawsuit, amirite?
  - KVFinn 11y ago
    >Firing Victoria, who took AMAs to the next level. I enjoyed them a ton. The Victoria specific AMAs tended to be short, done on the phone where she types responses, and oriented around'My new movie is out Friday don't miss it' instead of a conversation. I prefer the raw format myself. >Firing an employee for having leukemia - http://redd.it/3c0idl http://redd.it/3c0idl That this became the battle-flag for everyone to pitchfork is seriously appalling:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9868887 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9868887 >Using corporate weasel words instead of having the guts to be honest - "We're banning behaviour, not ideas" I'm personally only familiar with the banning of /neofags because I know people who were targeted and harassed by that reddit. It was clearly banned for the behavior of the mods in the reddit, and not for content, as evidenced by other reddits with much worse content not being banned at the same time. >She derided her detractors as being a very tiny minority without realising that the most active people are the ones creating and moderating the content that helps reddit thrive. What does this even mean, all her detractors were also the ones creating the content? Most of the reddits complained about wanting more powerful mod tools, not less control: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cuw90/megathread_ellen_degeneres_megathread/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cuw90/megathrea...
benaiah 11y ago
Note that this is a chart of per-comment karma, not a trend of her total karma. Thus explaining the sheer cliff between a largely-downvoted comment and a largely-upvoted one.
Nullabillity 11y ago
Reddit doesn't flag your admin/modship next to your post unless you explicitly opt in for that post.