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Yeah, exactly. Also, firing someone without some kind of plan for redistributing her duties is a Management 101 no-no. Ellen Pao failed as CEO of Reddit. Tha

Yeah, exactly. Also, firing someone without some kind of plan for redistributing her duties is a Management 101 no-no. Ellen Pao failed as CEO of Reddit. That has nothing to do with the 1% or whatever of Reddit users who are racists and/or misogynists. That's just the real world; you have to get past the obnoxious idiots and focus on what matters. The reason Ms. Pao was fired (let's be honest) is that she failed to make Reddit more profitable, attractive to users, and generally awesome. Not because she's a woman, not because there are people out there who don't want to see women succeed. Make money and all is forgiven. Pissing off large, meaningful chunks of your user base is not conducive to making money.

vehementi 11y ago
Nevermind misogyny etc., you're pointing to two incidents of unknown magnitude (because you lack the data internal to the company) among an unknown number of other things she's handled and you claim she's failed as a CEO? That is ridiculously uninformed.
- brazzledazzle 11y ago
  Is disputing her failure a serious position? Regardless of whether or not they are the community reddit wants the company angered its moderators enough to trigger something that ended up being in the news and very visible even to those that use reddit without ever viewing comments.
- albinofrenchy 11y ago
  Just because you don't have internal proprietary data doesn't mean you cant have a rational opinion on the matter. That is a ridiculous standard. The Victoria thing was a monumental cluster fuck in one of the most outward facing facets of the company.
  - vehementi 11y ago
    Okay, and how many wins did Pao have? In your "wins and fuckups" columns that you surely made prior to the post, "fuckups" includes the Victoria thing and whatever else. What is in your "wins" column (internal company initiatives, key hires, process changes, etc.) that were appropriately weighed in order to come to your rational opinion that she has overall failed as a CEO?
    - craigyk 11y ago
      If you know anything about the drama surrounding her, you know she's at least an accessory to some extremely shady business dealings. Any defense of her character falls into the same defense strategies as for W Bush. Either she is of (very) questionable moral character, or she is a somewhat decent, but hopelessly ill-fortuned dupe. In either case, hardly good qualifications for being a CEO.
    - albinofrenchy 11y ago
      Unless your assertion is that all of her wins were kept secret, and the public record shouldn't be trusted, they are very few. Some hires and the chilling effects thing are maybe the biggest unambiguous positive developments. The subreddit banning and the salary negotiations thing were received with mixed opinion, but even if you agree with what was banned, the handling of it was questionable and seemed very rushed. And then there was last week, which derailed the site over a weekend and made national news outlets for the whole week. A lot of details about internal dealings came to light, and none of them particularly painted reddit in a good light. There is no plausible way the amount of good shes done in the last 10-12 months outweighed the massive damage that was inflicted. It is also worth noting that the people who do have access to a lot of internal information about the inner workings of reddit 'mutually' agreed that she shouldn't be the CEO. Undoubtedly the backlash -- some of it misguided -- played into this, but frankly a large part of being the CEO of a community-based site is PR.
      - vehementi 11y ago
        Yes, most of her wins were surely kept internal because most company things are not made public as a matter of course. No plausible way the day to day internal changes / hirings / firings that you are not privy to have had a balancing effect on this? What was your methodology in assessing the damage that the blackout caused to reddit that you used to measure against the good she could have plausibly caused in order to form your rational opinion? A cursory look at https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/about/traffic https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/about/traffic does not seem to indicate any lasting impact. It is not worth noting that random employees (actually, not random: ones who' have enough of an axe to grind that they'll risk their job to break NDA) think a CEO is bad. That is the case at almost every company, small and large. Find me one where you can't find 2 employees that agree there should be a different CEO etc. Sorry but we are looking at it from a necessarily uninformed outsider's perspective so we can't possibly have a meaningful opinion on whether she was an effective CEO.
  - thelamest 11y ago
    > The Victoria thing was a monumental cluster fuck in one of the most outward facing facets of the company. The main issue (no one to coordinate AMAs) was dealt with in a matter of hours without serious consequences. The "monumental cluster fuck" image is due to hundreds of people with an axe to grind who piled up on top it, mostly with unrelated "anti-SJW" complaints.
- mistermann 11y ago
  The so-called misogynists (I'm of the opinion that much of the brutal words written about her were a large part tongue-in-cheek, deliberate over the top absurdity, not that that excuses it) are a part of reddit. You can't just say "I shouldn't have to deal with this". Besides, these people have always been there and haven't caused any large scale problems, and they didn't when Ellen was appointed (which is when they should have started protesting, assuming you buy the misogyny charge). It was when some quite heavy handed restrictions started to be laid down with regards to freedom of speech that the uprising began to grow. Personally, I'm glad she's gone, I much prefer reddit to be an extremely politically incorrect place. Take fatpeoplehate for instance - is it hurtful to fat people? Sure. But that subreddit can be easily blocked from your feed. Should someone have to do that? I think yes, they should, because if the new policy is to not hurt anyone's feelings, a whole bunch of content has to disappear. Now that's just my opinion of how I want reddit to be - it is up to the owners of reddit to decide how they want it to be. Was turning the front page of /r/all into a cesspool of hate the right way to protest her decisions? Maybe not, but honestly, what alternative is there that would have actually had any effect?
  - vehementi 11y ago
    I didn't mean to take a position on the misogyny part. I just meant leaving that question aside completely, the point was woefully incomplete. You seem to have a basic misunderstanding of why FPH was banned - it wasn't because of offensive/hateful content like /r/coontown; it was because of active off-site harassment & brigading that the mods couldn't control.
    - mistermann 11y ago
      > You seem to have a basic misunderstanding of why FPH was banned - it wasn't because of offensive/hateful content like /r/coontown; it was because of active off-site harassment & brigading that the mods couldn't control. One of us has a misunderstanding on that and I'm not so sure it's me. I'm aware of the brigading claim, but not of any widespread evidence. And even if so, then how do you defend the inconsistent enforcement of that rule amongst other subreddits like /r/srs? If you're going to use a rule to close a sub, then by god enforce that rule consistently if you want people to take you seriously. https://encyclopediadramatica.se/Shit_Reddit_Says https://encyclopediadramatica.se/Shit_Reddit_Says

vehementi 11y ago

Nevermind misogyny etc., you're pointing to two incidents of unknown magnitude (because you lack the data internal to the company) among an unknown number of other things she's handled and you claim she's failed as a CEO? That is ridiculously uninformed.

brazzledazzle 11y ago
Is disputing her failure a serious position? Regardless of whether or not they are the community reddit wants the company angered its moderators enough to trigger something that ended up being in the news and very visible even to those that use reddit without ever viewing comments.
albinofrenchy 11y ago
Just because you don't have internal proprietary data doesn't mean you cant have a rational opinion on the matter. That is a ridiculous standard. The Victoria thing was a monumental cluster fuck in one of the most outward facing facets of the company.
- vehementi 11y ago
  Okay, and how many wins did Pao have? In your "wins and fuckups" columns that you surely made prior to the post, "fuckups" includes the Victoria thing and whatever else. What is in your "wins" column (internal company initiatives, key hires, process changes, etc.) that were appropriately weighed in order to come to your rational opinion that she has overall failed as a CEO?
  - craigyk 11y ago
    If you know anything about the drama surrounding her, you know she's at least an accessory to some extremely shady business dealings. Any defense of her character falls into the same defense strategies as for W Bush. Either she is of (very) questionable moral character, or she is a somewhat decent, but hopelessly ill-fortuned dupe. In either case, hardly good qualifications for being a CEO.
  - albinofrenchy 11y ago
    Unless your assertion is that all of her wins were kept secret, and the public record shouldn't be trusted, they are very few. Some hires and the chilling effects thing are maybe the biggest unambiguous positive developments. The subreddit banning and the salary negotiations thing were received with mixed opinion, but even if you agree with what was banned, the handling of it was questionable and seemed very rushed. And then there was last week, which derailed the site over a weekend and made national news outlets for the whole week. A lot of details about internal dealings came to light, and none of them particularly painted reddit in a good light. There is no plausible way the amount of good shes done in the last 10-12 months outweighed the massive damage that was inflicted. It is also worth noting that the people who do have access to a lot of internal information about the inner workings of reddit 'mutually' agreed that she shouldn't be the CEO. Undoubtedly the backlash -- some of it misguided -- played into this, but frankly a large part of being the CEO of a community-based site is PR.
    - vehementi 11y ago
      Yes, most of her wins were surely kept internal because most company things are not made public as a matter of course. No plausible way the day to day internal changes / hirings / firings that you are not privy to have had a balancing effect on this? What was your methodology in assessing the damage that the blackout caused to reddit that you used to measure against the good she could have plausibly caused in order to form your rational opinion? A cursory look at https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/about/traffic https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/about/traffic does not seem to indicate any lasting impact. It is not worth noting that random employees (actually, not random: ones who' have enough of an axe to grind that they'll risk their job to break NDA) think a CEO is bad. That is the case at almost every company, small and large. Find me one where you can't find 2 employees that agree there should be a different CEO etc. Sorry but we are looking at it from a necessarily uninformed outsider's perspective so we can't possibly have a meaningful opinion on whether she was an effective CEO.
- thelamest 11y ago
  > The Victoria thing was a monumental cluster fuck in one of the most outward facing facets of the company. The main issue (no one to coordinate AMAs) was dealt with in a matter of hours without serious consequences. The "monumental cluster fuck" image is due to hundreds of people with an axe to grind who piled up on top it, mostly with unrelated "anti-SJW" complaints.
mistermann 11y ago
The so-called misogynists (I'm of the opinion that much of the brutal words written about her were a large part tongue-in-cheek, deliberate over the top absurdity, not that that excuses it) are a part of reddit. You can't just say "I shouldn't have to deal with this". Besides, these people have always been there and haven't caused any large scale problems, and they didn't when Ellen was appointed (which is when they should have started protesting, assuming you buy the misogyny charge). It was when some quite heavy handed restrictions started to be laid down with regards to freedom of speech that the uprising began to grow. Personally, I'm glad she's gone, I much prefer reddit to be an extremely politically incorrect place. Take fatpeoplehate for instance - is it hurtful to fat people? Sure. But that subreddit can be easily blocked from your feed. Should someone have to do that? I think yes, they should, because if the new policy is to not hurt anyone's feelings, a whole bunch of content has to disappear. Now that's just my opinion of how I want reddit to be - it is up to the owners of reddit to decide how they want it to be. Was turning the front page of /r/all into a cesspool of hate the right way to protest her decisions? Maybe not, but honestly, what alternative is there that would have actually had any effect?
- vehementi 11y ago
  I didn't mean to take a position on the misogyny part. I just meant leaving that question aside completely, the point was woefully incomplete. You seem to have a basic misunderstanding of why FPH was banned - it wasn't because of offensive/hateful content like /r/coontown; it was because of active off-site harassment & brigading that the mods couldn't control.
  - mistermann 11y ago
    > You seem to have a basic misunderstanding of why FPH was banned - it wasn't because of offensive/hateful content like /r/coontown; it was because of active off-site harassment & brigading that the mods couldn't control. One of us has a misunderstanding on that and I'm not so sure it's me. I'm aware of the brigading claim, but not of any widespread evidence. And even if so, then how do you defend the inconsistent enforcement of that rule amongst other subreddits like /r/srs? If you're going to use a rule to close a sub, then by god enforce that rule consistently if you want people to take you seriously. https://encyclopediadramatica.se/Shit_Reddit_Says https://encyclopediadramatica.se/Shit_Reddit_Says