Mention, sure. Highlight, sure. But this is the top article on a CEO's departure and it doesn't even mention the trigger incident until the 5th paragraph, below the second picture. It says nothing about /r/fatpeoplehate, even though that would support its argument that the internet is 'cruel' (though not that it's sexist).

It solely tries make Ellen Pao into a martyr for anti-sexism in SV.

And don't get me wrong, the nasty behavior on reddit probably warrants an article. I'd argue that the prescription shouldn't be to hide people's behavior through censorship but to change it, whether by convincing them to self-censor or better changing people's minds, which I think sama did well in his announcement. But as a summary overview of why Reddit has a new CEO, this article failed miserably.

Further, it might be burying the trigger precisely because the trigger itself (firing of Victoria) runs against the tone of the (new) article. The whole reason reddit went into lockdown mode was because one of their most beloved employees (who happens to be a woman) was fired. The uproar didn't happen because people were generically upset with Ms. Pao, but because they were passionately upset with how she handled the dismissal a person reddit loved.

Almost no company will say why they fire someone. reddit is not unique in that regard. Personnel retention is a private concern, regardless of how it makes the community feel.

It's not just that they didn't mention why they fired her, it's that they didn't seem to have any plan in place to handle the work that she did, or indeed enough clue about her job to understand that they even needed one. If I remember correctly, one celebrity literally flew out to New York to do an AMA with her assistance and found when he got there that she'd been fired and it wasn't going ahead, and the admins didn't handle the other future AMAs that were relying on her any better.

I am trying to figure out what's happened here and having a lot of trouble. This is the first I heard about the shutdown of some hate subreddits. But how did that play into this? What I know:

1) victoria (and reddit management) shuts down 5 subreddits. 2) victoria is fired (maybe because she refused to move to sf and was otherwise insubordinate). 3) reddit erupts with support for victoria and hate for ellen. 4) ellen resigns.

what's the connection of 1 to 2-4? what else is missing?

(assuming you're serious?)

1) Victoria, the admin who interfaces celebrities and /r/IAmA, was abruptly dismissed. No cause given, which grew a lot of conspiracy theories, but that's obviously standard practice when you fire an employee.

2) /r/IAmA mods find out when a PR rep reaches out to them after showing up at reddit offices and finding out their appointment with Victoria was canceled. Mods don't know how to get in contact with other people who are supposed to appear that day. They take the subreddit private, with a short message about having to figure the situation out.

3) Reddit uproar starts. /r/OutOfTheLoop post asks why /r/IAmA is closed, an /r/IAmA mod explains, people get upset about Victoria leaving. Separately (in my opinion) — or centrally (in tptacek's)— the hate subreddits from prior incidents like /r/FatPeopleHate deletion and GamerGate kick into high gear.

4) Other subreddits start going private in solidarity. This spreads until over 100 have shut down, pledging a 24 hour blackout. I think the petition starts around this time. /r/all is basically just this drama.

5) General shenanigans. Flaming, offensive content, etc. /u/kn0thing (Alexis Ohanian) posts a flippant comment in the heat of the moment, starts getting flamed too. Mostly though, he says "Not going to talk about Victoria. Chill, we're gonna get this /r/IAmA stuff figured out," on behalf of the admins (reddit staff).

6) /r/IAmA comes back up, says they're independent from the admins and are going to run things themselves. Ellen Pao talks to news media, posts eventually but gets downvoted to 0 - all her comments were thousands negative and had lots of angry/offensive replies. (Later we learn many positive things were said to her too.)

7) A week passes, mostly dying down. Petition gets more signatures, ultimately reaching >100k I think. Eventually they post an apology, to mixed reactions.

8) Sam Altman posts that Pao resigned, but includes a reproach of the behavior exhibited in the prior week. Seems to get positive reactions from both sides – people welcomed a return to civility and also Ellen's departure. People suddenly start realizing that the horrible things she's been doing to reddit might be because of reason and/or outside pressure, not because she hates freedom and happiness.

9) People start using this incident to complain about internet behavior more generally.

> Other subreddits start going private in solidarity. This spreads until over 100 have shut down, pledging a 24 hour blackout. I think the petition starts around this time.

Just a small correction. The petition was made in response to the shut down of fatpeoplehate and others.

Gotcha, more of a resurfacing then. I'll change it to this, which I sort of left out:

Lots of pure speculation that Victoria was fired because Jesse Jackson's AMA the previous day went poorly, or maybe because the reddit administration wanted to ruin IAmA somehow. No hard facts.

9) People were using this incident to complain about various things during the entire run of it.

It is merely still going on and might receive slightly more attention now that the shit show is winding down.

yes i'm totally serious and i am still looking for the answer to my question connecting 1 to the rest of the events which you have outlined in greater detail.

To be clear, it didn't happen in the order you specified. It was more like 2-3-1-4 — Victoria fired, protest, subreddits shut down in protest, Ellen resigns (1 week later) — and it was moderators who took down the subreddits, not reddit admins (Victoria was pretty much uninvolved besides getting fired.)

that doesn't sound right. here's the announcement of 1, over a month ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/39bpam/remov...

Ah, you meant those subreddits. I thought you meant the ones on strike - I think of the /r/fatpeoplehate thing as a separate, prior incident. That's also not really at all Victoria's department; my understanding is that she really only did AMAs. It was just a recent time the community got pissed off at the reddit administration (and therefore Ellen personally, because CEO), so obviously it fed the flames some more once the Victoria trigger happened.

Victoria wasn't involved in those subreddits being shut down by the admins at all, as far as I'm aware.