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The BBC are reporting that troubled community website Reddit has lost another female member of its senior team with the resignation of chief engineer Bethanye Blount, only days after the resignation of Ellen Pao. The BBC report continues:
Ms Blount told website Recode she believed Ms Pao had been put on a "glass cliff" - or set up to fail. Victoria Taylor, who oversaw a popular question-and-answer section of the site, was sacked last month.
"Victoria wasn't on a glass cliff. But it's hard for me to see it any other way than Ellen was," Bethanye Blount said in an interview.
But Ms Blount, a former Facebook employee, added that her own decision to leave Reddit just two months after joining, had not been based on gender issues. And new chief executive, Steve Huffman, said he was "confident" that the site could recruit female executives.
The phrase "glass cliff" is used to describe women placed in leadership roles during times of crisis, when positive change is hard to achieve.
[...]
Despite the ongoing turmoil, Reddit is in good financial shape, according to Mr Huffman, also one of its co-founders.
"Reddit has a lot of cash," he said, in an Ask Me Anything session on the site.. "Monetisation isn't a short-term concern of ours."
The site currently attracts 164 million monthly users.
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday July 15 2015, @10:05PM
Yep, it was in earnest, but got modded to oblivion.
if you only accept certain speech (based on some more or less subjective criteria), what you are left with is only "tolerated speach" (as in speech that is only allowed because someone approved it) instead of "free speach" (as in you can say whatever the fuck you want, not matter who approves).
This was my question. What subjective criteria? Yes, anyone should be able to say whatever they want, unless it harms someone else (this is your basis liberalism, as much freedom as is compatible with like freedom for all) like yelling "theatre" in crowded fire, or slander and hate speech. (Oh, the word is "speech".) But my point is that saying whatever you like is limited by actually saying something.
I recently read coverage of Southern American white people parading the Confederate flag through various towns and getting a negative reaction. They could not understand how people could assault them with racial slurs! One comment was that it is funny how most "white supremecists" are self-refuting. And this was my point with racism: if some one says racist things, we may just think that they are just saying that they are a racist, which might be a good thing to know. But if we then turn around and say, you're a racist! they should just say "yeah". But what they are saying is not just that they are a racist, they are saying that racism is true, correct, and that we should all be racist! But of course, we can't all be, since some have to be the non-racist inferior class of the SJWs. So really, they are not saying anything, beyond that they are a racist.
So, freedom to say whatever you want, yes. But that includes my freedom to say jpafjlfnl;ganlvnrr hgoairug'p arjg'fgna'lghnl!!!1!! So there! Take that! See? That random mashing of keys (no, seriously, not encrypted, as far as I know) deserves just as much respect and attention as the ravings of a racist. And if you don't agree, well, that is because you are trying to suppress my freedom of speech just because you don't like it. So yes, free speech. My point is that some speech is not even speech, because it is not saying anything.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday July 16 2015, @02:17AM
This was my question. What subjective criteria?
The criteria where you're arbitrarily determining that others aren't actually saying anything, when they, in fact, are.
So really, they are not saying anything, beyond that they are a racist.
Whether their speech is logically invalid/incomprehensible or not has nothing to do with whether or not they're saying something.
But that includes my freedom to say jpafjlfnl;ganlvnrr hgoairug'p arjg'fgna'lghnl!!!1!! So there! Take that! See? That random mashing of keys (no, seriously, not encrypted, as far as I know) deserves just as much respect and attention as the ravings of a racist.
Correct.
My point is that some speech is not even speech, because it is not saying anything.
Racists are saying something, and whether it is understandable or not, the pseudo-random letters you typed out were also a communication.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday July 16 2015, @02:51AM
So really, they are not saying anything, beyond that they are a racist.
Whether their speech is logically invalid/incomprehensible or not has nothing to do with whether or not they're saying some
Whether I find it incomprehensible may have nothing to do with whether they are saying something (though I like to think I am rather good at spotting nonsense), but if it is logically self-contradictory, then they are not saying something, or anything at all. They may be trying to say something, but we have no way of knowing what that may be.
My point is that some speech is not even speech, because it is not saying anything.
Racists are saying something, and whether it is understandable or not, the pseudo-random letters you typed out were also a communication.
Hmmm, I seem to have committed an unintentional Sokal! (Sokal tried to mimic Post-modernist jargon that he was quite sure was jibberish, and got a paper accepted to a prestigious PoMo journal, an episode known as the "Sokal Affair"). But just because you think it is jibberish does not mean it necessarily is, granted. So since "jpafjlfnl;ganlvnrr hgoairug'p arjg'fgna'lghnl" is meaningful, in spite of my intention for it not to be, could you please tell me what it was that I was saying? Thank for for respecting my right to say it, but it would be helpful to know what is means, because I might want to stop saying it. This brings up that whole "subjective" thing: If you think I said something that I did not mean to say, then it was not what I said, only your interpretation of what I said. In this case, I would correct you by restating what I was trying to say, but since I was trying to say nothing, I can't!! Well played, Anal!
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday July 16 2015, @04:11AM
Whether I find it incomprehensible may have nothing to do with whether they are saying something (though I like to think I am rather good at spotting nonsense), but if it is logically self-contradictory, then they are not saying something, or anything at all.
Well, as long as they are speaking, then they are saying something; it just might be nonsensical.
But just because you think it is jibberish does not mean it necessarily is, granted. So since "jpafjlfnl;ganlvnrr hgoairug'p arjg'fgna'lghnl" is meaningful, in spite of my intention for it not to be, could you please tell me what it was that I was saying?
I don't know what it means myself, but that does not mean no one does or will never know. Anyone could make up a meaning for it if they wanted.
If you think I said something that I did not mean to say, then it was not what I said, only your interpretation of what I said.
That's how language generally works: Other people interpret what you say. We have little chance to know what long dead authors or artists intended to mean when they made their works, and yet people come up with their own interpretations anyway. Similarly, and whether you like it or not, people come up with their own interpretations of your communications. You may or may not try to correct them, but those interpretations do not cease to exist.
And I would say the fact that you send data is itself proof that you were trying to say or convey something. Maybe to try to demonstrate some sort of point.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday July 16 2015, @09:40AM
And I would say the fact that you send data is itself proof that you were trying to say or convey something. Maybe to try to demonstrate some sort of point.
And what exactly makes you think it was data? It is static, noise, random keypresses, not even pseudo! So for you to think it means something just shows you have "A Beautiful Mind". If I cannot make you understand what it is that I am communicating (and evidently this is the case), then whatever you get out of the exchange is not communication. I am done talking to you, since you refuse to discuss nonsense in a serious manner, and you have failed to disrespect my attempts at gibberish. I am sorely hurt, wounded to the core, and I have no recourse other than to express to you that I cannot understand how you possibly could understand what I intended to make no sense. Unless, of course, you are getting my point! So I just want to say, "I am not a racist, but . . .. " Wink, Wink, Nudge, Nudge; say no more! say no more!
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday July 16 2015, @09:56AM
And what exactly makes you think it was data?
Everything that I've said about interpretations and the potential for language to evolve, even if it evolves only in certain contexts or to certain individuals.
If I cannot make you understand what it is that I am communicating (and evidently this is the case), then whatever you get out of the exchange is not communication.
It's not about either of us as individuals.