[calcol]

To be frank, I'd argue that this isn't really a petition and more of someone throwing a temper tantrum. I mean, when I read, "After Pao lost her gender discrimination case against venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins she was appointed CEO of Reddit Inc and Reddit entered into a new age of censorship. A vast majority of the Reddit community believes that Pao, "a manipulative individual who will sue her way to the top", has overstepped her boundaries and fears that she will run Reddit into the ground. Alternative sites to Reddit.com have sprung up and have received vast amounts of traffic within the recent months," I wouldn't ever take it seriously, especially as Ellen Pao and the board.

Like, I understand that these people are upset, and I've said stupid shit when I've been angry, but really, this is a petition to try to change something. Use a little bit more eloquence, and back up your arguments with data. Like, if they're talking about voat.co, are they really trying to insinuate that Voat gets nearly as many views as Reddit? And, wasn't Ellen Pao already interim CEO before the trial concluded?

[studentrob]

I think this petition was written by one person and is simply the one that got momentum behind a general idea. If it'd been better written it probably would've gotten more signatures.

100,000 + signatures should still count for something, and I imagine anyone with a vested interest could do a little investigative work to understand what's really going on.

[calcol]

Yeah I think that there's a lot of people pissed at the situation, but I think it would be better if they had at least proof read or had multiple less invested people read over it to make sure it didn't sound so childish. If it wasn't such a direct attack I'd consider signing it.

[eridius]

Given that this is Reddit we're talking about, and given the behavior of a lot of the people who are vocal about this on Reddit, it's probably fair to assume that a very significant chunk of those signatures are fake.

[studentrob]

So what? No online voting system is perfect, and double-voting isn't unique to reddit.

The sheer amount of natural language written about the topic on reddit and elsewhere should tell you how many people are interested in the subject of reddit's management.

The petition was started some three weeks ago, but the number of signees hovered around 10,000 until the last few days. Also, over the last few days the number has risen at a consistent pace.

I assume change.org has some filter in place to attempt to achieve uniqueness. Regardless, the problem you're describing is a function of voting on the internet, not any particular community. Given interest and opportunity, there are individuals in any community that would try to rig the system. For example, competitions shared on Facebook, or even whole countries.

[eridius]

That's true, but my general point was that the very communities within Reddit that are most vocal about this and most critical of Pao are likely to have a lot of overlap with the subset of subredditors who are both willing and capable to try and rig something like this. Yes, internet voting in general is problematic, but there are a lot of groups on Reddit that explicitly set out to figure out how to rig stuff like this and encourage each other to do so (as opposed to isolated individuals, who are unlikely to have a big impact).

[studentrob]

Like I said, there's enough natural language around this issue to convince me a lot of those signatures are real, mine included. It sounds like you don't trust some of the heaviest users of reddit. If that is your sentiment then I would not recommend investing in it. I personally would, given a leader who understood technology and the value of free speech, and who could communicate effectively. But I doubt they will IPO under Pao. The balance sheet may be looking better, but they are tanking hard on relations and she needs help. Perhaps she need not be the figure head and could instead fall back to other roles.

[benihana]

That's reddit for you. Over the past five years, the zeitgeist of the site has become increasingly petulant and entitled. A lot of people on the site seem to genuinely believe the entire internet gets their content from reddit and only reddit.

Remember when the genius sleuths of reddit wrongly accused an innocent man of the Boston Marathon bombing? Or all the ridiculously borderline illegal subreddits (jailbait, creepshots) Hell, there's an entire wikipedia article devoted to redditor drama: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communiti...