I’ve been here a long time, and I truly miss the old-style Pit, when the majority of posts were about (1) personal horror stories, (2) weighty topics too vitrolic for GD or MPSIMS, or (3) knock-down drag-out fights between longstanding members (and the occasional moderator.) Indeed, I’ve spent much less time reading this forum ever since the “recreational outrage” postings started to dominate.
I don’t need to be reminded that we live in a fucked-up world, with some truly fucked-up people. At the same time, I believe it’s absolutely pointless to rant and rave about the latest heinous crime ripped from CNN’s headlines, because (as I said before) that’s exactly how the media wants you to react. Such outrage solves nothing, provides no valuable debate, and frankly it drags down the intelligence quotient of this entire forum.
Some people suggest that we merely ignore such postings – well, that’s kinda like saying you should ignore the graffiti & trash at your local park or school playground, if you don’t like it. We shouldn’t have to ignore it. Frankly, if you are so compelled to scour the headlines for TEENAGE MOTHER FEEDS NEWBORN BABY TO CANNIBALISTIC SEX OFFENDER!!! then you should, as suggested, get a blog.
I would fully support a lockdown on all such “outrage” posts involving heinous crimes, at least on a temporary basis. Someone said that this board is self-correcting – well, sometimes the correction only comes about from moderator-imposed boundaries. (Like wishing death on someone…)
Hmm…perhaps a moderator wants to sound off on this issue?
I view MPSIMS as a forum for posting things that don’t really evoke strong feelings of anger, revulsion, etc. Things that do make a poster angry and want to rant, rave, use strong language seem fine in The BBQ Pit. I don’t see any reason that one should have to justify “closeness” (geographic? emotional? psychological?) to an event or “debateability” (is there high enough of a precentage of Dopers to disagree with me?) to justify starting a thread in The Pit
I guess my favorite solution - with no idea if this would be something feasible - would be a separate forum. We already face criticism as mods for closing threads and enforcing rules; having a rule against a certain type of thread just because of popular opinion really opens that up more.
While I do think the Pit would be better off if people only started threads that were likely to turn into interactive exchanges rather than echo chambers, I don’t think a moderator-enforced solution is the best way to accomplish that. I think the community should take a more active role in speaking out against annoying behavior. This thread is a good start.
When I first started posting, one of the things I liked about the Pit was the fact that if you posted something stupid, someone would call you on it and possibly mock you in an entertaining fashion. Lately, it seems more and more people want to use the rules and the mods to counter posts and posters they don’t like, rather than good old-fashioned debate and verbal abuse. I think this is a mistake. You guys make the forum what it is, not us.
I do think that we (the mods) need to be more vigilant about closing low-content OPs, of which recreational outrage threads are the biggest but certainly not the only culprits. I don’t think we should simply dump all such threads in MPSIMS. If the forum ever becomes swamped with nothing but outrage threads, I’d say moderator intervention would probably be a good idea, but I think we’re far from that point right now.
You see, that’s where I’d disagree with you. The best thing about the SDMB (and a huge part of what makes it worth $14.95/yr) is that anything can be debated, from such weighty issues like global warming or the war in Iraq, to mundane topics like the proper way to mount a roll of toilet paper. I don’t even mind people venting, if they’re truly wound up about something. The problem is, a lot of these “royal outrage” threads seem like the OP is actively seeking out topics that outrage him or her, merely for the sake of being outraged. As if they’re too chickenshit to come up with a topic that’s actually debatable, or something that actually does strike close to home. Or, as others suggested, they’re seeking an easy way to have others validate them, whether they’re conscious of it or not. This type of mentality sickens me, and it’s pandemic across the Internet. I’d rather they go someplace else to indulge in their psychiatric weaknesses. That’s the long and short of it, really.
Hmm…that’s a hell of a good point. Maybe becoming more proactive in these types of threads is indeed the answer.
Not sure if it’s possible in real life, but for some reason, the movie Léolo springs to mind…
I despise the RO threads but I’m still against an outright ban. On the other hand I would enjoy the use of [RO] tags. It would be like a class for special needs posters.
And I’ll donate a pint of blood* if the mods give an instant ban to anyone who posts just a link and a frowney face. May they also lose their jobs and be cursed with a lifetime of bad sex. Just set your watch to warn you every ten seconds that something bad is happening somewhere in the world to a baby and how you’re so superior to baby rapers and murderers to get that satisfying kick out of it.
If one finds a thread with so called “RO”, or is blatently vauge with a link and a frown emotion, why can’t you close the thread and move on to the next? If not, and you stick around to bitch within the thread that it’s “RO”, you’re not helping anything and you’re simply being a troll and hijacking the thread.
For example, I’m not fond of Nascar. If I see a Nascar thread, I avoid it and don’t comment within it, or about it in another thread. IT IS THAT EASY. If you can’t bother to avoid it and bitch about it in this thread, you’re then the equivlent of the type of person who doesn’t like the speeder in the left lane and drives slow on purpose to block said person from speeding, because you think you’re the highway authority police and want to regulate what you cannot really control. If you just move the side and mind your own business, life is magically easier for you.
So shouldn’t this behavior be disallowed under that rule?
OtakuLoki, I’m sorry you’re going through that. I don’t read the paper to avoid the possibility of that happening to me. And it’s kind of a bummer that I come here after I’ve avoided all news only to find the news popping up in my face when I open an innocuous sounding thread title.
Might I suggest that you discontinue reading the newspaper or news websites for a while. If something really important is happening, you’ll find out about it soon enough. If you find yourself feeling like you really have to read the news, then you have an addiction or compulsion. Please get help.
Heffalump and Roo, for those three Pit threads (not six, sorry Carnick the figure was six threads recently started, three of which were ROs in the Pit.) my definition of recent was over the past several months. Looking at my CP for threads started, I have been averaging one RO thread in the Pit every month.
It’s perhaps more than I ought to be starting in an ideal world. It is not, I believe, flooding the forum, which is what further reading implies that rule you’d quoted seems directed against.
I’m not always as good as I might have been about avoiding misleading or vague titles, but I try to give some kind of warning about what is in the threads I start, too.
You know, I wondered about that. If that’s what that meant, I apologize for taking the piece I quoted out of context. But I honestly don’t understand how the first sentence had anything to do with the second, so I thought they were related only in the sense of the diary part, not the group therapy part. I thought the group therapy part stood on its own.
I can’t tell you how strongly I agree. I mentioned it in one of those threads, and man did those folks get their panties in a bunch when I brought it up. “Waaaah! Who are you to tell us what we can and can’t discuss.” “If you don’t like it then don’t read it.” etc.
I don’t get it at all, but there seems to be a small contingent here who really get their rocks off from scouring the news for whatever sensationalist horror-stories they can find. And they really, really get defensive about it if you say anything. My theory is it’s just a way for people to try to feel like they’re morally superior or something.
What kind of sick, perverted, twisted fuck would rape a puppy with a strap-on cheese-grater on Christmas, while pouring gasoline on his own grandmother and lighting her on fire? Why, my outraged ire is so iresome and outrageous that I can scarecely type these words. Up until today, I thought that the universe was perfect and that evil did not exist. Normally I’m against the death penalty…(oh wait, wrong thread)
I weed those out with the mouse-over preview box. Is this kind of original-thought free OP really much of a problem for a significant number of people?
