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Comment by devindotcom | Hacker News Reader

Maybe I missed it, but was there ever any information on why Victoria was fired, or whether Pao actually had anything (or everything) to do with it?

From where I was sitting, it seemed like no one actually learned the full story, which might be confidential or take time to contextualize/safely explain, and everyone immediately threw it on Pao's lap and downvoted any holding maneuvers she and the rest of the staff tried to attempt. It was poorly handled, sure, but it seems like there was a lot of finger pointing before anyone knew what was actually happening. For that matter, do we even know now?

If I'm wrong, though, happy to correct my ideas here. (grammar edit)

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It was not made public why Victoria was fired. Neither of the parties are talking about it, so generally it's unknown.

The /r/iama mods were not upset that she was fired. They were upset that there was no transition plan in place.

> it seems like there was a lot of finger pointing before anyone knew what was actually happening

There was finger pointing because nobody knew what was happening. Functions that Victoria was performing fell through and — according to the /r/iama mods — jeopardized the functioning of the AMAs that week.

Yeah, no question there. Things would have gone a lot smoother, explanation or no, if they'd had a plan to carry on without her.

This is what many/most have overlooked. Victoria was the straw that broke the camel's back. Her firing was indicative of the lack of appreciation / recognition given to the moderator's, and was just another example of the disconnect and (perceived) exploitation of moderator time/effort without the proper support and tools.

> Her firing was indicative of the lack of appreciation / recognition given to the moderator's, and was just another example of the disconnect and (perceived) exploitation of moderator time/effort without the proper support and tools

Which long predated Pao at reddit. But even giving her the responsibility for this, nowhere is the apparent gross incompetence apparently seen by those calling so vociferously for Pao to be fired.

I'm not sure how that squares with: "We mods truly feel that she is irreplaceable" or the many other similar statements from the mods.

It might be more that trust is broken and she can't be replaced now.

> The /r/iama mods were not upset that she was fired. They were upset that there was no transition plan in place.

From what I saw it was both. They shut down over the latter because it left them unable to manage things to their satisfaction, but they seemed to genuinely like her and wanted her to keep her position.

This (deleted) Quora post is the best explanation I've seen thus far: http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--N83GXLMb...

Interesting, thanks for sharing.

Which was explicitly denied by reddit and is no different than any other piece of baseless speculation.

But it does seem to fit the corporate 'need to monetize' narrative quite well.

The bulk of that 'narrative' is speculative tinfoilhattery as well so of course it fits. See all the handwringing about potential monetization of AMA without anyone ever suggesting any kind of remotely plausible revenue model for it. And again, this is something reddit have addressed directly.

Pao specifically denied this screenshot.

And the US government denied Area 51 existed until 2013. Fire is hot, water is wet, PR is slimy.

There's no way to know whether it's correct or not, use your best judgement. Pao denying anything brings nothing to the table.

> whether Pao actually had anything (or everything) to do with it?

Reddit only has around 70 employees, I would find it extremely unlikely a CEO at a company of that size wouldn't have been aware or involved in the decision (if only to rubber stamp it).

For better or worse, this is life for top executives. Example: the president of the US's popularity is correlated with the economy in spite of the fact that they have very little control over it. It's not uncommon for one executive to do something totally reasonable under hard circumstances only to get ousted anyway while the next person gets the credit for their actions.

"It happened on her watch."

All I know is I'm glad I never had hundreds of thousands of people demand to know the gory details of why I left my job. Unless Victoria wants to share it, it really isn't any of our business.

There isn't any beyond rumour; and those reasons aren't likely to be disclosed for a long time (probably never).

Yes, the whole thing stunk like gamergate imo. I honestly don't care about whatever minor offense pao did, I wanted her to stay just so that the vitriol and misogyny on the front page attacking her would not "win".

It's very much like GamerGate. There is an attempt to deflect an overwhelming amount of legitimate criticism by pointing to a few trolls and characterizing all of it as "racist and misogynist".

Exactly. They seem to forget that she's part of a ponzi scheme, slept with married men to get ahead, etc.

Even if it was a bunch of racist/misogynist people, you have to consider that despite the messenger, the message might be valid. That's what being open-minded means.

I don't even think people care about that stuff. The interesting accounting is on her husband's plate. The KP stuff only affected things at Reddit when Reddit started to do funny things to stories about it.

Really, her Rampart-level impedance mismatch with the community was enough.

>Exactly. They seem to forget that she's part of a ponzi scheme, slept with married men to get ahead, etc.

For god's sakes, stop it. This blatant sexism and double standards is disgusting. If Ellen were a man, never in a million years would they be expected to bear responsibility for their spouses' misdeeds or attacked for who they slept with (indeed, they'd be getting high-fived for being a "womanizer" or "stud").

There's a difference between a double standard and no standard whatsoever.

And just like GamerGate the first reply to this is attacking a woman about her sex life.

Well, gamers are gamers - in games everything is permitted as long as it brings victory. Some of that attitude spills over IRL. We always try to find glitches, exploits, cheats and cheese, imbas and so on. We do so in debates and everywhere else.

Ideologist will act like ideologists, they don't care about the facts, they care about their narrative. If the original narrative isn't strong enough they just fabricate one to legitimize their hate.

So caving in to those groups prevents nothing, it just makes things more toxic. As a tactical move, bringing in Steve Huffman might not have been the worst decision though.

On the reddit podcast Alexis said it was about wanting celebrities to be a part of the community.

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