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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> what's the alternative

Contact your state's labour commissioner. If you received stock or stock options, contact your state securities commissioner. Otherwise, suing is tried and true.

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Suing is a surefire pathway to being made a pariah, case in point Ellen Pao. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pao_v._Kleiner_Perkins

That article doesn't support anything about her being a pariah.

Anecdotally, I can confirm that most mentions of her on Reddit that I've seen are very pejorative toward her.

Not sure if your anecdote applies here: as Reddit CEO, she made a number of decisions that were unpopular with mods and users alike - entirely not related to her court action.

At which point people decided to use her court action as part of their "proof" that she's a "SJW" and therefore to be hated.

And you are a case in point; spez (Steve Huffman, CEO) actually made those decisions and used Pao as a fall-woman.

> And you are a case in point

I wasn't aware that spez was co-CEO with ekjp... I thought he only became CEO afterwards. Even if the board/spez forced her to make all of the unpopular decisions (there were many), the buck still stopped with her as the CEO[1], fall-woman or not. Also, why did spez want Victoria gone? He made Ellen Pao fire her too, right?

1. https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3cbo4m/we_ap...

Actually kn0thing/co-founder Alexis Ohanian fired Victoria, but Ellen Pao ended up taking the blame for that too.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3d2hv3/kn0t...

Note, I'm not affiliated with Pao, I just thought her treatment by the reddit community was extremely disappointing.

I thought that was because the closed the subreddits focused on harassment. e.g. r/FatPeopleHate. Talking shit about her law suit was just a wedge issue to get under her skin by people predisposed to abusing others.

Yeah I can't find it either. All I can find is this bit that says she sued her employer, alleging gender discrimination, but the jury found in favour of her employer (10-2 and 9-3). I suppose people might be a bit wary of her after that...

> ...pa<>...

I understand that English has absorbed that word and its meaning in the current sense. But please don't use that word. That is like the n-word in south india. It is specifically used to refer to people in a derogatory way.

"Pariah" might be "like the n-word in south India" because in India the relevant castes and ethnic groups are still there and applying the term to an Indian is an actual insult, but for everyone else it's a purely metaphorical reference to a specific and remote historical instance of people treating other people with extreme contempt or worse.

I didn't intend it to be offensive, just to illustrate her persona non grata status after suing for discrimination. My dictionary says the offensive racial use is historical, not current.

Pariah is a perfectly valid and non-offensive word.

Don't think you are right on this...

PS : putting this here for those who may be misinformed

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