[tptacek]

No. Long before Yishan's post, Ohanian posted on Reddit saying he both owned the reorg of AMAs and flubbed the transition with Victoria Taylor. It's not speculation. Consider also that by Ohanian's own direct words, the chairman of Reddit had an operational role over one of the most visible parts of the site. Pao was in a situation that would have been difficult to manage even if things had been going smoothly.

[jazzyk]

When Victoria was fired, the _perception_ was (possibly incorrect, as we know now) that it was Pao's decision. Not unreasonably, since most personnel decisions below the CEO are made by the CEO. So the original premise still stands.

[tptacek]

Pao's most vocal detractors "perceived" all sorts of crazy things, from malicious edits (ranging from comments about Pao's husband to moderation of stories about the Trans Pacific Partnership) to a holy crusade against just the kinds of hate speech Pao didn't like, so no, I don't think I'm required to accept the argument that in this case, perception is nearly as important as reality.

No, I do not believe you have established with evidence or reason that the original premise of this subthread still stands.

[jazzyk]

1. A well-liked/respected employee is abruptly fired. 2. In most businesses, the CEO does all the firings (or is responsible). 3. I liked the fired employee, I thought she did a great job, therefore I am angry at the CEO.

Are you saying you need to be a crazy/malicious person to follow the above logic? Are all the 250K people who signed the petition crazy or malicious?

[tptacek]

No, (2) is true of virtually no businesses of any meaningful size! Certainly in most companies of Reddit's size --- over 60 employees --- managers reporting to the CEO have hire/fire.

I wasn't the CEO of Matasano, and I fired people. And Matasano was not a big company.

Finally: people keep talking about Victoria Taylor as if she was somehow a key employee of Reddit. She probably was, but not by design. It was probably mismanagement of the AMAs that resulted in a single project manager becoming one of the most visible people in the most visible part of the site. At any rate: who was responsible for the operational organization of AMAs? Alexis Ohanian.

[pvg]

She probably was, but not by design. It was probably mismanagement of the AMAs that resulted in a single project manager becoming one of the most visible people in the most visible part of the site.

I interpret most of what happened very similarly to you but this part I think can't be right. Her original title was 'Director of Communications', it wasn't someone who started in the copy room and, by grit and luck, quietly ended up running one of the most popular subreddits. If the board is pestering you about growth, the chairman is back and has new plans for AMA, the AMA-person is about to be no-notice insta-fired on a Tuesday by said chairman, you probably know who that person is and what they do. If 'reddit didn't know who they were firing' is plausible then much of the stuff the crazies are saying would be plausible too.

[eco]

Have a link handy? I can't find it. My memory was he's said a lot of things like "we messed up" and "we could have handled it better". Nothing that says he personally is responsible.

[maxerickson]

The post that the comment you linked to is part of has a link to the clearest statement he made about it:

https://reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3cucye/an_old_te...

(It's also linked in the top reply to the parent post of your linked comment, but it is not visible in the context= view)

[tptacek]

I'm looking at the text I was talking about right now. You can find it, or take my word that I'm not making it up, but if you're going to debate this particular issue with me, I'm going to ask you to do your own homework. :)

[eco]

You made the claim. I provided a link with my own claim because it's the polite thing to do and furthers the conversation.

[tptacek]

It's just a pattern (not with you, but with message board arguments):

1. Person X stridently argues a position contradicted directly by the record, which they haven't taken the time to read.

2. Person Y rebuts X.

3. X demands a source from Y.

4. Y sources their rebuttal.

5. X recapitulates argument based on dubious, nitpicky reading of source, pretending they'd known the source was flawed all along.

The problem isn't that providing sources makes it harder to win arguments with lazy people, it's that it tends to introduce a second argument, over the interpretation of the source, as a smokescreen for instability of the first argument. It gets tedious.

I'm not saying that's what you did, just that I've been conditioned by message board nerdery to expect that to happen.

In this case, you can if you'd like just take my word for it that Ohanian took responsibility both for the reorg of AMAs and for the handling of the Taylor transition, not in a tea-leaf-reading way, but directly and overtly, prior to Yishan Wong's post, and in a public Reddit comment.

[eco]

One of the joys of the web is being able to easily cite and read sources (it was the whole point of hypertext). Sure, we could all just discuss and debate by shooting from the hip with our opinions and recollections like we are at a wine-fueled dinner party but that's not why I come to Hacker News.

I wasn't trying to win or even have an argument with you. I was just trying to better my own understanding of the situation. I hadn't seen Alexis write that and couldn't find it despite spending way more time than I should be reading about reddit drama.

I don't know who you are or why I should take your word for it. I don't know why you'd expect me to take your word for it. That's something you do for people you know in person and trust, not strangers on the internet. That'd be a terrifying prospect if that's how we all did things online.

I, too, have noticed a pattern:

1. Person A writes something about a topic.

2. Person B writes about how bad something is which is related but orthogonal to the actual topic.

3. Persons C...Y have a heated debate of the orthogonal topic.

4. Person Z writes thoughtful comments about the topic but nobody reads it because the meta debate has drown out the actual topic.

A good name for it might be The Hacker News Comments Pattern. I'm not saying that's what you were doing.

[tptacek]

I'm not following. What's the orthogonal (B) point?

(I seriously wasn't saying you were trying to bait me into giving you more ammunition for a stupid argument, but I'm pretty sure you really are implying that I introduced a bogus topic.)

[jasonlotito]

> No. Long before Yishan's post, Ohanian posted on Reddit saying he both owned the reorg of AMAs and flubbed the transition with Victoria Taylor. It's not speculation.

That doesn't dispute the fact that Ellen was CEO and Ohanian's boss. He might have been responsible for the reorg, but as CEO, Ellen was ultimately responsible. Unless you think the CEO had no power.

[tptacek]

No, you have this backwards. Ohanian was Pao's boss.

That's why it's so weird he took an operational role in the company.

[jasonlotito]

> No, you have this backwards. Ohanian was Pao's boss.

You based this on what specific information? The only insider information I read about this suggested that Pao was Ohanian's boss. Regardless, I still assert as CEO, Pao is the one responsible, and she had options to not put herself in that position.

[tptacek]

Ohanian is Reddit's chairman.