Not to worry; not claiming it. Didn’t in the other thread, either.
Perhaps this is where one ought insert one of those famous ‘well if yew can’t undahstahand what you read, pitiful little thing’ type remarks that people here seem so fond of tossing about. To clarify yet again, I said nothing of the kind.
Why did you even start this thread. Now you have a bunch of Dopers playing in here. Start some shit or it will be closed for lack of Pitworthy bullshit. Jesus Fucking Christ.
Quite right. You’ve got it in a nutshell.
First, let me say you guys ROCK. At the end of the other thread, Liberal and EddyTeddyFreddy called a truce and a bunch of you considered doing more of ‘write it, don’t send it’, and, well, you were generally being awesome there.
So let’s continue in that vein.
There seems to be some semantic problems around what ‘personal attacks’ means.
Hentor has slammed me every which way thus:
I called nobody that. I did not single anyone out, nor was I thinking of a particular person. All those words were in one single post and, when taken together, don’t represent an ‘attack’ on any person but rather a set of remarks about behaviour I observed:
If I post something like that, it’s an ‘if the shoe fits’ post. I honestly couldn’t tell you any name of any user that I noted, because I wasn’t noting users; just some completely innocuous posts that got piled on mercilessly. And I was interested in the post and the answer and had to wade through an awful lot of hate-filled stuff to get to it and wondered why it was necessary.
Now, every other board I’ve ever seen, and I thought this one as well, would call ‘Hey, genericusername, you are the slimiest piece of vileness that ever slithered out of the rotting pile of manure that Satan shat’ a ‘personal attack’ since it is directed at a particular individual and is a direct hit on that person’s character. It is an insult meant for a person and is written about a person. I don’t do that. Got used to boards where it was verboten, you see. Specifically to avoid any perception of making an attack against a particluar individual, I use (and have been snarked at for) ‘you (vous)’. I write in generalities because I’m writing about behaviours by groups.
Most importantly, at least to me, is the concept of ‘sin’ being different from that of ‘sinner’. To me, saying ‘that was a mean thing to say’ is vastly different from saying ‘you are mean’. The first refers to an instance of behaviour; the second characterizes a whole human.
I’ve seen where other people seem not to make that distinction and I’m not sure why; it’s very possible for even the nicest person to say or do a mean thing - which would not warrant them being considered mean. I suppose if someone behaved in a nasty manner to every single person on the board, that might earn a rep of being a mean person, but even then there might be something causing them to act mean without really being mean.
So in sum, Hentor, and the others who asked, to me the remarks I made were not ‘personal’ because I was not referring to specific persons, and I was not referring to the characters of people but rather the behaviour I observed by many people. I don’t know about you, but to me ‘you did a bad thing’ is worlds different from ‘you are a bad person’. The former is talking about the ‘sin’; the latter is about the ‘sinner’. The former is about action, the latter about individual. So first - not ‘personal’, second is.
I’m not saying I don’t criticize actions and I’m not saying people can’t; as others summed up at the end of the other thread, and as Liberal noted, all I meant was must people be so cruel to each other personally when they do it?
And to Contrapuntal, my answer, for the umpty-eleventh time is IT WAS AN ANALOGY. A liking. An example. An illustration. A remark upon the meaning of the word ‘miniscule’ and nothing more. Capisce yet? Same goes, WhatExit. You gents have got to let things go at some point. Really.
Is there a rule against group mud-wrestling in the Pit? Sounds like the perfect spot to me 
Don’t think for a minute you have civilized the Pit young lady! That won’t happen.
Seriously though, you are still going to get shit here.
You’re still a fucking liar. 1) You called it HYPOTHETICAL, in great big fucking letters, not ANALOGY. 2) It had nothing to do with miniscule, as I showed several times. 3) (And this is the big one) THAT WAS NOT THE QUESTION I ASKED, WHICH YOU NEVER ANSWERED.
Here is the question. Hypothetically speaking, if we should treat your example (nine out of one hundred million) as if it were fact, should we treat other, similar likelihoods as if they were fact? If not, why not? Note that the first part has either yes or no as an answer, and the second part needs an answer only if the first answer is “no.”
To recap: Answer yes or no, and explain why, if no. I am not sure how much more simple I can make it, but trying to answer a different question is no answer at all, regardless of how many times you insist that it is.
I suppose I could let it go, but when you state that courtesy compels you to respond to questions, it is appropriate to point out just how full of shit you are. You respond to the ones you find convenient, or respond to questions no one has asked, or simply don’t respond at all. And when you open a Pit thread inviting posters to re-ask their questions, telling them to just let it go is pathetic.
I think I found the disconnect. This board, including myself, dislikes general broad attacks. We do not actually mind direct attacks. When you started with a verbal broadside that effectively called posters criticizing Lib vultures, you launched a broad-brush insult that could easily be interpreted as meaning everyone in the thread that was critical of Lib. On a personnel note, I assumed I was one of your vultures as you were seriously disagreeing with me over the prior two threads.
My advice is you might want to be more careful with ‘insulting words and phrases’. Additionally your answers in the other thread while fairly polite were rather haughty in the fact that you had a constant tone of talking down to us. Even Sarafeena, who tried to provide some polite advice herself. Your response to her looked like a blind attack. Maybe you noticed OlivesMarch just took in the information provided and politely explained that she thought we should all get along. I believe that quite often, it is all in the delivery and your delivery in that thread was irritating, apparently to many.
Thank you for the reply,
Jim
Them? Snooty bastards, I knew them when they hadn’t a pit to hiss in.
Btw, I can’t believe no-one’s mentioned this yet, but it’s bated breath. But I won’t hold my breath 'til everyone gets it. :rolleyes:
Pure grade A post-hoc excuse bullshit. You attacked specific people, even though you did not name them. Specific people you entitled vultures who attack Liberal, and specific people you consider to be all-those-awful-words athiests. I would presume that your post referred specifically to the people who had already posted earlier in that thread regarding Liberal, since it must have been them that you were responding to. Nevertheless, it makes no sense to say “I was attacking people in general, general people who attack Liberal.” I can see, however, why it took so long to think that up, along with a little prodding from Measure for Measure.
This line of argument has already been tried, and I have to say, “Joseph Wilson’s wife” means the same thing as “Valerie Plame.”
Geez what kind of vulture are you following me around harassing me as I have fish breath. It’s a medical problem, Scope[sup]TM[/sup] just does not do the job. What a cheap shot, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Seriously check Google, I might not be in good company, but it is a common mistake and at least I asked about. 
Jim
Right. You never say what you say and you never mean what you mean and everyone else is just so mean and heartless and attack poor widdle Liberal and your wide-eyed dewy self.
Lame. Not real vitriol, and no comedy value. Even with the inclusion of a fuckwit, this one fails to score a single point. 0/10.
OK, so what we’re saying is…
Liberal got angry with Pseudotriton ruber ruber. Then…
look, is there a Cliffs Notes version of this somewhere?
Oh, and: you’re all fucknuggets.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone try so hard to create a board meme. It’s embarrassing.
Cribnotes, no not really. This thread is an offshoot of the ongoing chain of threads, but QG made this part of it her own and not directly related to the other mess.
Roughly speaking **BadChad ** stalked Poly, **BadChad ** blasted all people with any religious beliefs, **TomnDebb ** finally smacked **BC ** down for going too far. **PRR ** became **BC’s ** champion and then started several extreme in your face Atheist threads. This apparently annoyed Lib to no end. Along the way, I became a partial defender of **PRR ** but never took up the Atheist postings as I am not an atheist. Finally in a thread **PRR ** started that was or was not confrontational, people jumped on **PRR ** for pre-disposed reasons and then **Lib ** made his now famous offer that worked out to paying **PRR ** $500 to leave. Some debate over the reasons behind it, lets gloss over that for now. I opened a pit thread pit **Lib ** and the mods that let it happen. In this thread and a followup not directly related thread, **QG ** became **Lib’s ** defender and lookeddown upon us lowly dwellers of th pit for being so mean to Liberal. 
Just for some confusion, the **PRR ** thread included commenting on I Pit the Pampered Chef Party I went to., proof that pit threads can have good and happy answers. The **BC ** and **Poly ** stuff I leave to someone else to trace out. It was also ugly.
Jim
Is it so bad? He is not the first to do it. He is just the most persistant. I know I have seen the ratings from before Oakminster joined. He just seems to have adopted it for his own. They are occasionally humorous. In this case, it appeared to be a self-effacing reply to **MrDibble ** only.
Jim
No venom or comedy. Lack of a single fuckwit. Plus, you’re from Ohio. -72/10.
So being from Ohio is worth a 72 point deduction? That a pretty big penalty. You, you … pathetic non-Buckeye, you.
Hey look at his location; he lives in a fantasy world. Give him a break. At least I only live near a fantasy town.
Jim
Beat that dead one trick pony! Beat it! Oooh, yeah!