During the upheaval, there were some rule changes in the pit. Fine.
Apparently, I misunderstood a rule and outed someone who was on my ignore list. Turns out that you CAN out someone on your ignore list, but only in the Pit. At the time, I thought, “no big deal… I broke a rule (not maliciously, mind you, but a rule is a rule)” and I didn’t really question the warning.
Now, I’m wondering the about the logic on this one.
First, why is it taboo to discuss your ignore list at all? This isn’t exactly the biggest deal in the world, and if it is, why is it permitted in the Pit, where the discussion would probably be less civil than here in ATMB.
My WAG (as a non-moderator, and as someone who has never had anyone on his ignore list) is that it’s a specific example of “Don’t be a jerk.” Why would you say you are ignoring someone, except to insult them in some way? And, of course, you can insult other posters in the Pit.
Ignore lists are intended, AFAIK, as tools of personal convenience. Don’t like someone? Put them on your ignore list and you won’t have to read their garbage. It’s not meant as a tool of social ostracism. Discussing the matter of whom you’re ignoring is seen as pretty much the same as laughing and pointing when someone knocks over a glass of wine at a polite dinner.
It’s okay in Teh Pit because almost anything goes in Teh Pit. That’s the whole point to the place.
So, in GD, you don’t post: “I’d respond to whatever Jerkamous is posting, but he’s on my do not see list, so it’s irrelevant.”
In the Pit, you post: “That wanker Jerkamous is probably saying something incredibly stupid and moronic, but I can’t see it because I can’t be bothered to waste the electrons to have it shown on my screen, which saves me the trouble of shovelling aside the crap of his posts in order to find out if there is a misshapen pony under there.”
Of course, the rule can lead to difficulties. But if you are truly ignorning someone, you don’t really need to mention that fact, unless someone else is trying to get you to respond to the ignored third party, and then there are artful ways of getting the point across that you don’t intend to respond.
Except for name calling. Well. Name calling and Pitting mod actions. Okay. Name calling, Pitting mod actions and telling people ‘fuck you.’ Yes, alRIGHT. Name calling, Pitting mod actions, telling people ‘fuck you’ and changing someone’s signature or inviting them to perform oral sex. Other than that, yes, anything goes in the Pit.
Is there a reason you call it Teh Pit instead of The Pit? Just curious… perhaps I’m missing an inside joke.
When the whole flap over what was allowed/not allowed in the pit occurred, there were things that were moved into ATMB, like mod complaints. I remember reading that we were permitted to state who was on our ignore lists. At that time, I didn’t even know we had an “ignore” list, so imagine my delight!
There was even a thread in the Pit about who was on your ignore list. So for a while, it was all out there. How that is different than a posting in ATMB is not exactly clear to me, but as I said, I didn’t really complain about the warning. I simply don’t get it, especially it is used in the context of a conversation. If I had said “don’t bother replying because I won’t read it.”, that would have been fine, since I didn’t state the poster was on my ignore list. But I said something like “don’t bother replying because I can’t see your posts anyway”, correctly implies that person is on my ignore list.
But what’s the problem? I don’t see it as a “Don’t be a jerk”, since the Pit permits its publication. I also don’t see it as public ostracism, since if I didn’t use my “ignore” list and just ignored the poster, the result is the same. I don’t respond to a post, even if it’s directed toward me.
I think Gukumatz summed it up correctly. It’s not prohibited in the Pit because insulting people and doing a bunch of other things isn’t prohibited there either; when the rule came up for discussion most of us didn’t see a need to bar it in the Pit.
In other forums, people who don’t specifically say “you’re on my ignore list” but still communicate that they are ignoring another poster as a way of needling them sometimes get admonished or warned.
I’m not sure where this idea that you can’t say Snarkpit, Domebo, Giraffe board or anything else came from. There’s no rule against it.
No off-board grudges were mentioned in Seven’s thread. NONE. I posted there and read it until it was disappeared. The gist of the thread was “Say a snarkpit meme”. So you had people saying “No U” or “FPB” etc. To the best of my knowledge, not a single poster here or there was mentioned by name…other than “Nonny”–and since that’s, well. everyone, it should pass.
This makes no sense. According to your reading, you can mention the other sites exist, but if you admit that you post there, you get warned/banned? What about admitting you read there? What about posting memes from other sites?
Yes, we regarded an attempt to draw attention to the snark board, and to do snarking on this board, as a separate matter from the snarkpit coming up in conversation. This thread didn’t go anywhere or draw any warnings.
Off board issues go off board, Fenris. If you want to do snarkboard memes, there’s a snark board for it.
Or do you really want me to compile a huge list of threads about “Hey, they said THIS over on the FreeRepublic” or “Something Awful was talking about such-and-such” or “Slashdot did this…”, etc?
The rule has always been “off board drama/conflicts usually stay off-board”, and even then, I have an e-mail from Ed that I’d be happy to reproduce saying specifically that it’s not against any rules to make fun of (or presumably talk about) other sites as long as organized campaigns aren’t started against them.
Quoting a meme (“No U!”, “TLDR”, “I am the thread collapzor”) is certainly not “off-board drama/conflicts” You guys freaked out at the word “Snackpit”, overreacted and rather than just say “Oops”, you’re trying to make up retroactive rules.
*The term “Bullshit” is appropriate in ATMB per Tomndebb.
I could be missing it, but I can’t find any official mention of the exception. It’s not in either of the Pit stickies. And it’s not mentioned in the FAQ where the prohibition of disclosing who’s on your list is stated, either, where you’d expect it.
It used to be in the Pit Forum Rules sticky, and was generally understood to also apply board-wide. I vaguely remember discussion of retracting it in the Pit when the rules were changed, but I think that only led to its removal from the Pit Rules sticky but not its addition anywhere else.
Someone really needs to sit down and write up a single, clear list of the board rules that can be easily referred to. I know no one wants a complete legal code for any and all actions that may draw a warning, but you already have an unwritten list of things that will consistently draw a warning, which really needs to be written down. Of course there will always be jerkish actions that will draw warnings which aren’t in the rules, but if you know you don’t want people doing specific actions (e.g. listing their ignore list in MPSIMS, posting PMs without the sender’s permission, linking to certain sites) it would be good for everybody to make those clear, IMO.