Nobody was telling you there’s a rule you have to start a new thread. People were telling you that you made a jerkish post, and jayjay expressed his opinion that you should start your own thread. Any response you get to your question here is going to be purely opinion-based and vary widely. It’s like asking an etiquette question in IMHO. There’s no one right answer to what the definition of rude is, but there is probably going to be a general consensus. Not all of us like to make broad generalizations about when behavior is and is not rude. I believe you are setting up a false dichotomy.
For me, it’s all about context. In this context, you were rude. Part of the rudeness came from your complete lack of empathy. Another part of the rudeness came from your poor choice of language. It would have been less rude to start your own Pit Thread. That doesn’t mean it’s always less rude to start a new Pit Thread when you disagree with the OP, just that in this one case, it would have been less rude. Or, alternatively, you could have expressed your opinion in a more coherent, rational way within that same thread. The option you chose was probably the rudest of all of them, but you are in no way obligated to take away any broad generalizations about how you should or should not act in the Pit. Like jayjay, I am just one person with one opinion, and that is all any of us can be.
Of course, since it is in the Pit, you can be flamed for it (or for any reason, actually, including people just not liking you for reasons entirely their own).
If this strikes you an unjust or unfair, stay out of the Pit.
No, for the love of Pete, you don’t have to start a new thread to flame the OP of another Pit thread. Jesus fucking Christ on a pogo stick man! I think **jayjay **suggested you start you’re own pit thread to whine about your own fucking problems, not about HD.
HD: Dog ate ham so I didn’t get much, not much money, I’m bummed.
EE: Oh so you got to eat ham and you have some money? Boohoofucking you!
JJ: Dude, start your own thread to whine about your problems.
That’s the jist of what I took from it anyway.
So again, in case you missed it, you shouldn’t have to start another Pit thread to flame someone about a Pit thread. Clear?
Just because something is in the pit doesn’t mean that all behavior is viewed equally here. Just like, you know, real conversations in real life. You seem hung up on finding a hard-and-fast etiquette guideline (or at least in using the ambiguity to stand justified in your behavior), but it’s just that in this case your response to the OP was on the asshole-ish side of things, and you got called on it.
Not all pit threads require one to jump in with both barrels shooting, which is what you did. Social faux pas. No biggie. But there’s no rule about how to not be an asshole. You just have to learn from your mistakes.
I’m sorry, but in the case of Ensign here, I do honestly believe it would be better if he started his own Pit thread to flame other Pit thread posts (or posters, be that as it may). Because I swear to Og, it seems like every single time I read a thread with him in it, he does this pedantic, lawyer-ing type thing with every response he makes and it ends up derailing the whole discussion. And if we’re lucky and it’s the one time he doesn’t knock the damn thing off the tracks, you still have to wade through several (read: too freaking many) back and forth thick-headed arguments between himself and those roped into the fray.
It’s unbelievably annoying, counter-productive and inevitable that it happens again the next time he ventures his opinion.
So yeah, I vote you start your own thread. Then at least people know what to expect if they choose to read and post there.
Sir! This sort of crude jape may be all very well for the coarse environment of a faculty luncheon of a Mensa meeting, but here at the SDMB, we strive to a higher standard.
What warnings have you garnered? What rules have you broken? None that I know of. You did threadshit, you were (and are) acting like an ass, but that’s not against the rules.
I know you’re all butthurt about getting told what a moron you are, but short of nailing you to a cross, what better answer can you get? Do you want a mod to come in here and hold your sweaty-palmed, pasty white hand to help you through the big bad pit? The rules haven’t changed, jayjay expressed an opinion, and you are an enourmous whinging crybaby screaming for attention.
That’ll be the day. EE is obviously less interested in learning how not to be an asshole than he is in formulating a vague “rule” that he can get others to agree with. See, once he’s hammered out the legalese and others have agreed to it, he gets to use it as a tool to prove once and for all that he is objectively not an asshole.
What he doesn’t realize is that this approach is more likely to result in people that just get tired of arguing and say, “yeah, whatever. You’re officially not an asshole. Asshole.”
This sort of “humor” may be all very well for the coarse environment of a faculty luncheon or a Mensa meeting, but here at the SDMB we strive for higher standards!
