I'm sick of Pit Threads that are obvious

The BBQ Pit
1

I maybe in a minority here, but I wish to bitch, piss, whine, and moan about some of the Pit Threads that appear. I’m not talking about any one specific thread; it’s a longtime trend and happens often enough to bug the shit out of me. For all I know, I might have started threads of this ilk myself, back in the day. At any rate, I reached my saturation point and I’m bitching about ALL such threads.

Here’s the scenario:

Poster X finds a shocking news story about somebody doing something heinous. Poster X feels outrage. Poster X rants. Poster X has an even better idea: Let’s get other people outraged, too! So Poster X writes up an angry post and puts it in the Pit. Other posters get all outraged and post to it too, occasionally coming up with new witty ways to punish the bad guys in the story.

Now, I understand that one might be so mightily upset about something that one needs to rant. And that one might be comforted reading the rants of your fellow Dopers. But the world is an outrageous place. We’ve got plenty to be outraged about all the time, right in our own backyards, or on a more global scale. I’m getting tired of pit threads picking out Upsetting News Story Of the Day to get into a lather about.

Maybe I feel pissed because I am angry about the news media for catering to our most prurient and perverse appetite for sick stuff. Like this grandmother poisoning her infant grandchild with salt. That is fucking awful, no argument there. It is not, however, national news. It is a story about one very sick, misguided woman victimizing a poor innocent baby that will probably get turned into a Lifetime Movie (which deserves the same amount of disgust, for the same goddamn reasons–that station is as bad as the National Enquirer sometimes but that is another rant). But this news story doesn’t need to be on everyone’s tongues; it doesn’t need to push other news out of the way. There is not a nationwide epidemic of infanticide by sodium that we all need to be alert to.

The kid being molested in Target also fits this bill, although this story has a few redeeming features: the guy was still at large at the time, and the story reminds us that even 11 year olds might be at risk if you leave them in a store. But still, it’s the same sort of thread. The guy is a sick fuck who needs help (or cruel punishment).

If you are personally pissed because of something that happened to you, I’m all sympathy and gentle coos. Or righteous indignation on your behalf, take your pick. If you are pissed over an event or situation that involves many people, or touches on an issue that matters (or should matter) to some of us, by all means rant away. But please, spare me your writhings over a sensationalist news story you just saw on Fox.

2

That’s some OP you got there.

I’ll buy it for a fiver.

:sucker:

3

Prediction:
Someone will tell you if you don’t like, don’t read it.

But it won’t be me.

4

If you don’t like it, read it anyway. Then you’ll be able to rant about it. Which is fun.

Daniel

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<<If you are pissed over an event or situation that involves many people, or touches on an issue that matters (or should matter) to some of us, by all means rant away. But please, spare me your writhings over a sensationalist news story you just saw on Fox.>>

So tell me, who decides what fits what description??

Or is that obvious, too?

6

What the fuck is up with my thread title? I must have been planning to edit it, and then didn’t.

Don’t you hate Posters whose thread title doesn’t fit their rant. The Nerve!

NoClueBoy, I have no idea what you’re going to think is pitworthy. Since this is my particular gripe, I’m just a-saying I, Cranky, personally hate the pit threads that simply recap news stories that were plucked from obscurity because some editor decided they had great shock value.

7

I agree with the OP, although righteous anger is fun. But yeah, people should be more ambiguous. Post stories of happy fluffy kittens making friends with St Bernards and preface then ‘What New Fresh Hell is This’ and wait for the response. Pit threads in which everyone agrees with the OP are Dull.

8

I saw this one coming.

9

Now, I disagree with the OP. Part of the fun of SDMB is knowing that any truly fucked-up news story is going to be hotly discussed here in the Pit without the tedious pretense of journalistic neutrality. I want to know how people really feel!

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Oh sure, masonite. It’s not as if the server isn’t stressed enough. By all means, let’s not hold anything back; let’s assume that if there’s a new story about it, the issue is Relevant and must be Ranted About. :slight_smile:

I think what Cranky - and really, isn’t her name appropriate today? - means is that it’s almost as if people go looking for things to be upset about. The media feeds us sensationalism in the name of news, but they seek not to inform but to titillate.

11

Yeah–I don’t know. Not all threads can be about Scylla’s blimp, auntie em’s big vagina, or phlosphr’s treehouse, you know.

I just regard threads like the OP is talking about as filler; I’m not greatly enriched by their existence, but I’m not greatly bothered either.

12

Sing it sista. I agree totally.

13

I like it because, here in Canada, we don’t get much news about stupid things Americans have done. Similarly, you lot may miss out on stupid things that Canadians do. And stupid things that people do in other parts of the world … well, if we don’t see it here, just where would we hear about it?

14

Eh, I’m pretty nuetral on the topic. One one hand, it can be nice to discuss outrageous news stories on the boards, as you won’t find a more diverse pool of people in which to gather varying opinions. OTOH, these “newsthreads” seem to have multiplied at a ferocious rate over the past few weeks.

What REALLY bugs me is those “damn you so and so!” threads that are really just giving the poster being “pitted” props for something, be it a good story, a tip or whatever. Put that shit in MPSIMS people, not the Pit.

15

I’m with the OP 100%. The type of thread, and the reaction from the posters, where the object of contempt is the granny who poisons her grandchildren, or the parent who locks the kid in the car in sweltering heat are almost laughable, because crimes are so obviously disgusting.

The thread usually includes something to the effect of – How could that piece of human filth do such a thing? He/she should burn in a special kind of Hell! And of course if the perpetrator is a man, we can only hope he gets a cellmate named Bubba who thinks he’s real purdy.

The OP, and the posters that follow rage on as if they were the only ones who think these crimes are heinous. Outrage is one thing, but identifying as that would make more sense. Acting as if the rest of us need to be told that the crime is horrendous, and the only punishment is going mid-evil on the person who committed the crime is kind of arrogant.

16

I completely agree! That’s a good point. A lot of people seem to forget that MPSIMS is for mild rants (or at least so sayeth a mod or two once upon a time).

17

Except that it would be totally impossible to read, I want the above on a t-shirt. I never watch TV news any more, because I invariably sit there thinking, “This isn’t news… This isn’t news either… Why are you talking about this?.. Nope, still not news… I don’t know why you think I need to know this…” Eventually I just get pissed and switch away even before the weather comes on.

It’s become much easier to filter out the tripe and the celebrity-gossip bullshit now that I get all of my news from NPR and the Web. Oh, and Jon Stewart, 'cause he so funny. :wink:

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The thread mentioned in the OP involved a murderer who is on the loose.

Yes, it’s not comforting to read the horrific news every day, but I learn from posters such as Zenster that we have to watch out for our children.

What’s wrong with being informed? Yes, there are horrible things occuring each day - and sharing our feelings of horror and anger on the SDMB in some small way convinces me that there are good folks left in the world.

If you take away the “omigod! horrible event just happened” threads, we’ll be left with nothing but 1) post: something bad just happened to me - I broke my fingernail!; or 2) post: I would like to bury a Doper under a tree in my back yard, and I have the threads to back that up!

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This, you needed Zenster to tell you?

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I agree with Cranky 100% as well. There’s the “well then, don’t read it!” argument - well, emphatic suggestion - but there’s no way to tell by the thread titles. “This is horrible!” “I can’t believe people do this!” “The sickness is off the scale!” You have to open them to see what they’re ABOUT. More often than not, you open it and the OP is: eh hem

The link to the rest of the awful story.

Sentence describing shock and horror at something which anyone who posts on here - more than likely - would agree is shocking and horrible, including dead or tormented children, dead or tormented animals, or lots of people dying in a colossally stupid way.
I close them as soon as I see that they are nothing with which I want to waste my time. I can’t just stop opening the threads with these generic titles, though, because every so often one is actually about something that actually happened to the OP or someone s/he knows, and sometimes they’re either truly angry-making or utterly hilarious.

I know it’s only 20 seconds (when the servers are humming along) of my life to open and close these threads. I just wish there weren’t so many of them so I could get on the with business of enjoying the actual Pit.