If you look up, those who espouse the pit as a part of the “fighting ignorance” tradition are always doing it in semiliterate terms.
I won’t miss it when it’s gone.
Without getting into the issue of what great contributions you’ve made to the cause of fighting ignorance…
Where did you get the impression that the Pit is going away from? Because last I checked, there wasn’t even the hint of support for the idea among the administrators.
I agree with the OP. The Pit should fall by the wayside.
Passible for its time; past its prime.
Point #1. Are you reading the same pit threads as I am? Have you read Diane or Alph or Unc Beer or Satan in that forum? Who says you can’t be profane and eloquent?
Point #2. Are you not reading this thread? The pit will not be gone any time soon.
I believe the semiliterate people refered to were the ones in this thread. That’s what “look up” usually means.
(Yes, I know, pit posters always think of it as meaning “search for dirt on”)
But in this case, since elelle posted before TGIF, you might try reading that one. And the other pit fans above are similar. None exactly waxes eloquent.
Also, since you don’t seem to get it, this entire thread is to promote the idea that the pit doesn’t belong at the SDMB.
We do wish it would go away, and soon is as good a time as any.
You know, the newbie thing is thrown around a lot. But I think this is an environment where it has a valid application.
A lot of the posters who are against the Pit are people who are relatively new to the Board. They don’t see the need for a Pit because they’ve never been to a SDMB without one.
Doug Bowe and Tubadiva, on the other hand, go back as far as the AOL SDMB. They’ve seen the havok wreaked by leaving tempers without an outlet.
Also, notice, that the antiPit posters are becoming slightly abusive to their opponents. Living proof…
–John
Well, it’s not. Look at the post counts of the Pit supporters, and then at the post counts of its detractors. Post count means squat about anything important, but it does show who the regulars are. And the administration isn’t going to alienate the regulars for the sake of a few people that don’t post here anyways.
By the way, I don’t see where you get off criticising elelle’s post as being ineloquent. While it’s not exactly Shakespeare, it is far from semiliterate. Now please show me where you have posted anything half as intelligent. Where exactly are these bons mots that all the Pit detractors are peppering across the board?
For someone so quick to deride others posts, you’d think it would be advisable to not have the crux of your argument rest on an unsupported assertion. The rest of your post includes a baseless generalization about “pit posters”, and the claim that this entire thread is promoting the idea that the Pit doesn’t belong here, when in fact fewer than a quarter of the posts herein have expressed that view.
Thank you, but I’ll take ineloquent (by whatever bizarre standards you are using) over the combination of logical flaws and incorect statements that comprise your post.
Whoops, sorry John, didn’t mean to provide a counterexample to the trend you noticed. I suppose, given the number of arguments I get involved in here in ATMB, one might say that I don’t “take it to the Pit” often enough. I think I’ve figured out how to argue with a certain measure of civility, though.
BTW, post more. I remember, we were both at 400 on the same day. And don’t use that “I was in China” excuse, you’ve been back long enough to catch up more than that. 
Is this still an issue in here? Sheesh.
I can see it now, drive-by shootings in Great Debates and MPSIMS, the occasional homocidal knife stabbing in General Questions not to mention a tar and feathering in one of the “Comments” forums.
Yeah, great idea, let us close The Pit to open up all other forums and potentially subject otherwise calm folks to the ravages of those whom are pissed off. No thank you. We need a “safe” place in here to let it all loose, lose all sense of reason when it strikes…I have learned this.
It’s very simple really. If those of you that don’t want to see The Pit simply side step it we all would get along. Or if The Pit pisses you off then by all means go in The Pit and flame away, you might feel better. But until hell freezes over, leave The Pit alone and go into the forums you enjoy.
So there.
If we lacked a pit, where would I complain about a loud, smelly fat man next to me? Where would I list (annotated ;)) everything that I hate, in 4 parts? Where would I complain about my ISP? Where, I say, where?
Tim’s Law: The amount of complaining a poster does about board policies, or the existance or nonexistance of a forum is inversely proportional to the amount of posts said complainer has.
This can be explained in simple terms. The people who bitch, don’t stay, hence the low counts. The people who like it, stay, hence the high counts.
Which one are you?
–Tim
Homer, you know better than that, I hope.
It boils down to saying “If we ignore people with suggestions, they will either go away or stay and stop making suggestions.”
Sure, that’s a truism, but truisms never help anyone.
And a low post count doesn’t mean you won’t stay. Everyone had a low count once. And everyone has large gaps in attendance. Take Duck Duck Goose. Off for a trip to Washington, and now away for 6 weeks. The gaps don’t mean you don’t care, and that your suggestions aren’t valid.
I’m sure most people had something they noticed right away that would improve the board. Many were suggested here in this forum.
Personally, I find the pit fun. My P.Q. just registered at 1:12, so I spend some reasonable time in the pit.
But I still think suggestions are what produced all the changes so far, and they have improved the board.
Each of the forums was added because someone outside of the newspaper suggested it. And all of the bug fixes.
Poirot, I’m not sure people are actually making suggetsions per se; they appear to me more in the nature of criticisms.
What makes you think this? And your comment about the bugs is, of course, true. The bugs were obviously fixed by the people who wrote the software over at vBulletin. vBulletin has nothing to do with the Chicago Reader.
I’m a living (or so I say, of course I could be just a piece of software) counter-example. I’ve already stated my arguments here so I won’t bother repeating them. But I still have the same opinions as those I posted in the previous thread.
There are two ways to interpret TGIF’s comments. One is to think that he was making a general statement about pit responses, the other is that he would be silly enough to insult someone while arguing against The Pit. I chose the latter.
Also, since you don’t seem to get it, the pit is not going anywhere. I was just making that point.
Well, sure, Arnold, there are plenty of nonnewbie antiPit posters. But I have yet to see one person who was around before there was a Pit say they wished we didn’t have it anymore.
From the old thread you linked, we find a post by Melin:
I think that sums it up.
–John
Here’s the hard truth. Rants, insults, and flame wars will happen. With or without a Pit. It’s human nature.
With a Pit, we can keep them localized until the flames die out, which happnes quite often.
Without a Pit, we would have flame wars erupting and continuing in what would be normally very construtcive threads.
Rants about posters, social issues or day-to-day minutae would not disappear if the Pit did, they’d just show up in GQ or MPSIMS or GD.
In reality, relatively few Pit threads are attacks of specific posters. On my front page list of this pit, I count two such threads. That’s out of thirtysomething. Most are about people’s jobs, hotmail accounts, the religious right, PETA, etc. These rants often point out the fallacies and hypocricies in the world around us and the people in it. And that’s part of fighting ignorance. And if you “occasionally visit the pit” you’d see that. If you choose to focus on the uglier threads, you won’t get an accurate picture. Just like if I chose to look only at idiots like Parrot or JohnJohn, I’d think the SDMB community was annoying.
And every now and then the Pit is where we ship the brainless trolls just to rip them to shreds. And that’s not threatening at all. Unless you’re a troll.
The Melin quote is a little bit misleading out of context, because the Pit has existed on this message board since day one. Melin was actually referring to the old message board on AOL. And I don’t see how this shows that the Pit has helped any. As far as I know George and Bob never even posted on this board. Also, Melin was eventually banned from this board, and so was Cyb.
I still think the Pit forum is an embarrassment. My opinion is that if people can’t control their temper tantrums, then ban them and good riddance. But that’s just me. I know that in one of the earlier discussions about the Pit, Ed Zotti himself endorsed the forum, and said he liked it. So, until Cecil gets a new editor, I don’t think its going anywhere.
Whitetho, I don’t think I was being misleading, since Doug Bowe and I were first to mention the AOL Board. That’s the entire reason I used that quote:
Very few people who were on the Straight Dope when it was on AOL, and hence before there was a BBQ Pit, have come forward to say that they think the Pit is a bad idea.
I’ve never been to a SDMB sans Pit. But if people who have say we’re better off now, I’m going to believe them.
–John
Well I think if the Pit goes, MPSIMS should go with it. [the crowd gasps in unison]
I mean if we really were interested in streamlining this MB into a pure lean mean ignorance fighting machine, no more, no less, then a forum where people want sympathy about their nappy-ass poodle dying or want to be congratulated on their oh-so-special engagements or revel in their post counts should be out the door along with the rants.
But my view is that the SDMB is a community. A community that has its roots in slapping idiocy, ignorance and intellectual sloth upside the head, but a community nonetheless. When you put 10,000 people with a common interest in one place, a community will form.
As a result, we cater to the communal aspect by providing a nice little meeting hall so people can knit quilts, exchange recipes, and show photos of their ugly grandkids (MPSIMS). And we have a back alley so when arguments erupt or if people just want to rail at the world at large, they have a place to do it without jamming up the wheels of progress (the BBQ Pit).
Does MPSIMS or the Pit squash ignorance in the ground with every step? No. But they provide a place for the Paladins of Truth to take off their greaves and relax or throw down their gauntlets and spar a bit. Deal with it.
Semiliterate enough for ya?
I sometimes post there, but not in rabid terms. Swearing and namecalling are for schoolyards. But I’d prefer it if all the actual topic threads were in the main forums, where the rageheads wouldn’t be filling them with angry blather.
Not only is the pit an embarrassment, it encourages the people “who can’t control their tempers” to post that way in other forums, not discourage them.
As to Ed being a big part of the problem, that probably because he posts there all the time under another name (see http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=794262#post794262).