Two of the contributors at #14 and #17 made what I consider valid arguments (whether you agree with the points doesn’t really matter in this thread). However, they were more or less told to pull their heads in and go to the pit.
And this is where I think the guidelines stink. As was pointed out the instructions state “The BBQ Pit: If you gotta flame, do it here. This is the place for all complaints and other discussion regarding administration of the SDMB.”
“Complaints *and other discussion * regarding administration of the board”?
That one sentence requires anything- even complimentary - pertaining to the administration to be put in the Pit. It gives administration the excuse to close any thread which mentions administration if it is posted on another board.
Well, frankly, if we disallowed only negative discussion in ATMB, we’d get a lot of flack for it. It’s fairer to apply it to everyone, and doesn’t give the appearance that we want to suppress dissent.
For real discussion, the Pit is the appropriate venue. This way, the several someones who wish to denounce anything positive about this board can do so.
These of course were the comments that merited the instruction to take it to the Pit and got the thread locked. If Ellis Dee had attacked another poster in a similar way in some other forum, of course he would have been instructed the same way.
The administration most emphatically doesn’t want such threads. From my link :
Almost all of the time when a thread is closed, and it was not a sock or a spammer, a reason is given by the mod who closes it. You can always e-mail a moderator and ask why. Or start a thread in the BBQ Pit.
