4212 upvotes, 43 direct replies (showing 25)
View submission: An old team at reddit
To be completely honest it really seems like Ellen took the high road here, at least compared to a lot of Redditors.
Comment by ModelDenizen at 10/07/2015 at 21:22 UTC
4120 upvotes, 26 direct replies
To be completely honest it really seems like Ellen took the high road here, at least compared to a lot of Redditors.
That doesn't take much considering how many Redditors handled this.
Comment by spez at 10/07/2015 at 21:58 UTC
1369 upvotes, 7 direct replies
She really did. She's been very helpful to me so far, for which I am extremely grateful.
Comment by LiirFlies at 10/07/2015 at 21:24 UTC
472 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Well comparing her to a lot of Redditors is a low standard. But you're not wrong.
Comment by [deleted] at 10/07/2015 at 21:32 UTC
59 upvotes, 2 direct replies
I'm kinda nervous that Ellen's departure is going to validate the shitty behavior a lot of folks have been using lately.
Comment by blastcat4 at 10/07/2015 at 21:26 UTC
62 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Death threats, racist taunts, and some of the most mean-spirited shit I've seen on this site. Even when she tried to respond, all the haters downvoted her into oblivion to make sure no one would see her comments. I guess mob rule is actually effective.
Comment by jstrydor at 10/07/2015 at 21:31 UTC
81 upvotes, 3 direct replies
In her apology thread, one of the first people to respond to her comment wished cervical cancer on her...
Comment by [deleted] at 10/07/2015 at 21:26 UTC
38 upvotes, 1 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by delicious_grownups at 10/07/2015 at 21:35 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
As usual, this place's users have disgusted and ashamed me. Not that what Pao did was all that great, but I'm not entirely certain she deserved the level of vitriol being spit from the mouths of angry users here
Comment by [deleted] at 10/07/2015 at 21:30 UTC*
11 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Some people don't have enough empathy and decency to realise there's another human being on the other end of the keyboard.
ellen did nothing wrong (edit: with reddit, I know fuck all about her personal life and I don't care), but I can see how she'd want to leave considering the things that were being said about her/to her daily. Nobody deserved that kind of abuse at their place of work and it's a horrible and toxic environment to work at, and she'll be better off now. The spoiled children of reddit will find something new to rage about in no time though, I'm sure.
Comment by ANiceOakTree at 10/07/2015 at 21:57 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It was disgusting that one day when r/all was filled with "Ellen Pao is a cunt/nazi/whore" posts. What is wrong with people.
Comment by Fellows23 at 10/07/2015 at 21:38 UTC
10 upvotes, 0 direct replies
What did you just say?! DID YOU DEFEND HER??
^^^^^^/s
Comment by AnEmptyKarst at 10/07/2015 at 21:25 UTC
52 upvotes, 1 direct replies
That's not a high bar you set there
Comment by andsoitgoes42 at 10/07/2015 at 22:03 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The problem is that humans don't pay attention to level headed issues and complaints.
Level headed posts that have information tend to skew boring and gain no reaction/traction.
Memes, however offensive, are more enticing and get kicked to the top.
Were the threats idiotic much of the time? Yes. But would anything else have gotten such a response? Highly unlikely.
I don't think she's a nazi, equivalent to Mao or on par with North Korea, but I also see many issues in her professional life and decisions made during her tenure as interim CEO that were absolutely terrible choices, it's hard to deny that.
I'm sure there is a lot happening behind the scenes, but at the same time much of the handling and timing of things was suspect, I don't think *anyone* could honestly say she did even a passing job as Reddit CEO and certainly not prior to this based on details issued.
The bigger question is why Reddit hired someone like this who had no experience in this type of position *and* had massive political baggage coming along with her. It only makes sense in the theory that she was hired as a bucket to kick all the terrible things Reddit wanted done into. When looked at in that respect, it makes much more sense.
Comment by simjanes2k at 10/07/2015 at 22:11 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
As a devils advocate (which judging by voting trends is going to be extremely unpopular this time)...
The amount of people who said truly unfair things was extremely small compared to Reddit. I think a lot of the talk here is counter-jerk for the sake of itself, because nearly everyone agreed that Pao was bad for Reddit. You know how Reddit trends go, and like clockwork, about two days after the meltdown, the popular opinion was "Who cares? More memes!"
We may be overdoing it with the cycle, here. There was a tremendous amount of legitimate criticism and concern about Reddit's direction, and a large part of that is due to its CEO. The "be nice" idea that admins have, honestly, has no place in business, which is what they do. If you do a bad job, what is fair is criticism and questions, not some idealist's dream of kindness and trust. That's just now how it works, with good reason.
All that said, it will be nice to not see actual hatred or ill-wishing on the front page for a little bit.
Comment by arghabargh at 10/07/2015 at 21:27 UTC
16 upvotes, 0 direct replies
For real. I think the bad part is the pricks will celebrate this a victory.
Comment by TheLostKardashian at 10/07/2015 at 21:54 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
She actually did in the end.
OK she made some bad decisions, but some people on here got downright disgusting at times.
Comment by [deleted] at 10/07/2015 at 21:25 UTC*
425 upvotes, 11 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by Diplomjodler at 10/07/2015 at 22:02 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
You must be very naive if you think for one second she went voluntarily.
Comment by fluffstravels at 10/07/2015 at 21:27 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
You don't think she was pressured out? You honestly think she went "wow, I clearly upset a lot of people and realize that I should leave to repair the trust they have in this site." I highly doubt that is what happened but we're all making assumptions I guess.
Comment by RambleMan at 10/07/2015 at 21:49 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Just like most drama on reddit (mass media 'outing' sub-reddits that I didn't even know existed), I seem to have missed all the vitriol against Ellen. I was seeing the calls for her to step down/be fired, but I saw none of the threats that have been referenced.
Something I like about reddit is that there are so many concurrent discussions and rooms (some private), that me staggering around banging into the things I choose to see on my front page, I seem to miss most of the chaos.
Comment by ar-pharazon at 10/07/2015 at 22:57 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
that's the idea. she stepped in while unpopular changes were made, took the hit, and now that she's leaving, she (the face of those negative changes) is playing the victim.
aw, come on guys, don't you think we were a bit hard on her? maybe we were in the wrong. maybe that stuff that happened while she was here wasn't so bad.
people definitely directed too much hate at her personally, but we shouldn't allow those changes to be swept under the rug in the wake of her departure.
Comment by starfirex at 10/07/2015 at 22:24 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Honestly, a lot of her changes to the site appeared to be intended to make it a better place, but were poorly communicated to the people it affected. She just really failed to communicate. I remain convinced that there was a good reason for them letting Victoria go, whether they couldn't afford her, wanted to expand /r/IAmA in a different direction, etc. but it was incredibly poorly communicated. Turned out to be a tragic flaw.
Comment by NibblyPig at 10/07/2015 at 22:01 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Sitting in your ivory tower shitting on the masses but saying nothing does not count as 'the high road'.
And if the peasants below throw stones at your tower because they are upset and you won't come out to talk to them, it doesn't make them bad people, scum, or folks taking the low road, and doesn't automatically make you better than them.
Comment by [deleted] at 10/07/2015 at 22:54 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
When a large group of people are upset with something, there'll be variety in the way each individual in the group responds to it.
Some leave to voat, some sign a petition, and some will post pictures of her with a Nazi hat sucking a dick. You can't generalize all of them and call them immature any more than you can call them all mature.
Comment by Geofferic at 10/07/2015 at 21:41 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Until she threw out the red herring about death threats and whatnot.
She just wants to sound like she's taking the high road, but she's really just shitting on Reddit some more by pretending that there was some significant number of people making death threats and garbage of that sort.
She's scum.