5 ms·

> but at least she tried to stand up against some of the worst of Reddit. I'm baffled at how people misunderstand Ellen's actions in shutting down a few subred

by lingben 11y ago

> but at least she tried to stand up against some of the worst of Reddit. I'm baffled at how people misunderstand Ellen's actions in shutting down a few subreddits randomly. She did not 'clean' reddit of the worst of reddit nor 'hate' subreddits. In fact, there are still dozens and dozens of really disgusting stuff on reddit like /r/gasthekikes and /r/coontown Let's please stop this false narrative that she was a champion of some kind who came in and tried to 'clean up' reddit. Not only are there plenty of reprehensible stuff on reddit still, Ellen's claim that she targeted behavior and not speech rang hollow for the majority on reddit because communities like SRS were and are getting away with the same or worse behavior.

slg 11y ago
Just because she didn't completely clean Reddit doesn't mean she didn't attempt to clean some of it or make the decision to do so a bad move. The existence of some bad communities also shouldn't be used as an excuse to keep other bad communities.
MBCook 11y ago
Let's make three categories of things on Reddit. One is innocuous (or relatively so) like /r/knitting or even /r/politics or /r/atheism. Perhaps there are big arguments but in the grand scheme of things it's not bad. Type two is /r/coontown or other hate subs. They're clearly offensive. I wouldn't let them on my site if I ran it, but they exist. The key here is they stay mostly to themselves. I wasn't aware of them before all this. Type 3 are problem subs. Things like /r/FPH. There often offensive, but on top of that they branch out to act in the real world or in other subs. They don't stay confined to their one little corner but actually make things worse for everyone. Never if your topic isn't flat out offensive doxing or causing actual harm fits here. What they did was a small hit against some of category three. It wasn't much, but it's the most I've seen in a long time on Reddit. Given the amount of stuff I've seen in the last year against various people in the games industry in other places, some of that organized on Reddit, I'm happy to see something done. There are still tons of subs in category three that they haven't done anything too. The vast majority of them. And I really don't care about category two things, I'd be fine if I didn't wanted to ban those too. By no means did she clear up Reddit. But at least I saw she tried to do something, dipping her toe into the battle. And I'm worried I'll be back sliding on that.
- pavs 11y ago
  There were a lot more banned subreddits and users way before Pao was anywhere in the reddit picture. Its nothing new. The reddit anger towards her was mostly accumulation of cultural change that has been going in reddit management every since Yishan left (also ~30 employees were fired/let go in a very short period) and firing of Victoria just the tipping point. It also helps that Victoria was very well liked. I honestly dont know who is to be blamed for reddit going the shithole but at the end of the day CEO needs to take responsibility.
  - tsotha 11y ago
    >I honestly dont know who is to be blamed for reddit going the shithole but at the end of the day CEO needs to take responsibility. That's what it boils down to. The buck stops at the CEO's desk, even if the CEO wasn't directly involved with the problem. This is really not much different than the CEO of Target losing his job after someone hacked its customer data.
- ori_b 11y ago
  > By no means did she clear up Reddit. But at least I saw she tried to do something, dipping her toe into the battle. And I'm worried I'll be back sliding on that. The main problem I think most people had with it wasn't that there was action taken. It's that it was arbitrary, there were no guidelines given, and there was no consistency. If there had been a set of community guidelines published, a week given for moderators to rein in their members, and then the ban hammer had come down, I doubt anyone would have cared. It was probably incompetence rather than malice -- same as firing Victoria -- but the fact is that there were arbitrary actions taken with no explanation, warning, or chance for people to prepare.
  - vehementi 11y ago
    > The main problem I think most people had with it wasn't that there was action taken. It's that it was arbitrary, there were no guidelines given, and there was no consistency. There were all of these things. There just wasn't completeness - i.e. they didn't (yet?) ban every sub that was in "category 3" harassing people IRL. It was not arbitrary: those ones were actively harassing people. There were guidelines: they existed before, and she posted them in response. There was no inconsistency: subreddits failing to meet these criteria were not banned under this policy. 100% of people upset on these grounds are in the wrong.

by lingben 11y ago

slg 11y ago

Just because she didn't completely clean Reddit doesn't mean she didn't attempt to clean some of it or make the decision to do so a bad move. The existence of some bad communities also shouldn't be used as an excuse to keep other bad communities.

MBCook 11y ago

Let's make three categories of things on Reddit. One is innocuous (or relatively so) like /r/knitting or even /r/politics or /r/atheism. Perhaps there are big arguments but in the grand scheme of things it's not bad. Type two is /r/coontown or other hate subs. They're clearly offensive. I wouldn't let them on my site if I ran it, but they exist. The key here is they stay mostly to themselves. I wasn't aware of them before all this. Type 3 are problem subs. Things like /r/FPH. There often offensive, but on top of that they branch out to act in the real world or in other subs. They don't stay confined to their one little corner but actually make things worse for everyone. Never if your topic isn't flat out offensive doxing or causing actual harm fits here. What they did was a small hit against some of category three. It wasn't much, but it's the most I've seen in a long time on Reddit. Given the amount of stuff I've seen in the last year against various people in the games industry in other places, some of that organized on Reddit, I'm happy to see something done. There are still tons of subs in category three that they haven't done anything too. The vast majority of them. And I really don't care about category two things, I'd be fine if I didn't wanted to ban those too. By no means did she clear up Reddit. But at least I saw she tried to do something, dipping her toe into the battle. And I'm worried I'll be back sliding on that.

pavs 11y ago
There were a lot more banned subreddits and users way before Pao was anywhere in the reddit picture. Its nothing new. The reddit anger towards her was mostly accumulation of cultural change that has been going in reddit management every since Yishan left (also ~30 employees were fired/let go in a very short period) and firing of Victoria just the tipping point. It also helps that Victoria was very well liked. I honestly dont know who is to be blamed for reddit going the shithole but at the end of the day CEO needs to take responsibility.
- tsotha 11y ago
  >I honestly dont know who is to be blamed for reddit going the shithole but at the end of the day CEO needs to take responsibility. That's what it boils down to. The buck stops at the CEO's desk, even if the CEO wasn't directly involved with the problem. This is really not much different than the CEO of Target losing his job after someone hacked its customer data.
ori_b 11y ago
> By no means did she clear up Reddit. But at least I saw she tried to do something, dipping her toe into the battle. And I'm worried I'll be back sliding on that. The main problem I think most people had with it wasn't that there was action taken. It's that it was arbitrary, there were no guidelines given, and there was no consistency. If there had been a set of community guidelines published, a week given for moderators to rein in their members, and then the ban hammer had come down, I doubt anyone would have cared. It was probably incompetence rather than malice -- same as firing Victoria -- but the fact is that there were arbitrary actions taken with no explanation, warning, or chance for people to prepare.
- vehementi 11y ago
  > The main problem I think most people had with it wasn't that there was action taken. It's that it was arbitrary, there were no guidelines given, and there was no consistency. There were all of these things. There just wasn't completeness - i.e. they didn't (yet?) ban every sub that was in "category 3" harassing people IRL. It was not arbitrary: those ones were actively harassing people. There were guidelines: they existed before, and she posted them in response. There was no inconsistency: subreddits failing to meet these criteria were not banned under this policy. 100% of people upset on these grounds are in the wrong.