what do my hands have to do with anything?
They’re what led me here, so I have a special place in my heart. What can I say? 
ok, jus’ so you have a reason 
Harmonious, you don’t seem to understand. The Pit is NOT your personal therapy session. In fact, it’s the worst place on the SDMB to be expecting such a response. If you truly desire support and validation from us, you should post a message in MPSIMS with a link to the news story, and why it has affected you so much.
Self-loathing never helped me either, FWIW.
I don’t like the threads either, at least the ones that include large helpings of “here’s-what-I’d-do-to-the-so-and-so,” for reasons that don’t have much to do with whether I read them or not.
These local sad stories, to which few if any of us have any personal or civic connection (but around which we can all cluster to affirm our humanity by wailing over the victims and howling for the blood of the monsters), have all the therapeutic and community-building value of a lynch mob. I don’t like these gatherings, because it seems that in most if not all cases the participants are being warmed not by the reassurance of a shared compassion but by the warm prurient glow of misery, graphic and gothic, trotted out for purposes of public consumption: the virtuous pornography of the sins of others.
The usual rapid progress from horrified sympathy to horrific violent revenge fantasy also makes me worry about which actor in these tragedies, victim or villain, is the one with whom many posters identify, and causes me to doubt that any worthy mental-health goals are being achieved. It’s a shame, but not everything that makes you feel good is good for you.
The word “catharsis” has been brought up a couple of times, but I think it’s important to remember a few things. First, there’s significant doubt as to whether the concept is even valid at all (sometimes, it seems, the expression of rage is conducive mainly to the cultivation of more rage). Second, the ideal cathartic response, for those who believe in it, is the resolution of repressed trauma or frustrated emotion through an acceptable means of expression – exercise, say, or art. I don’t know that it has anything to do with seeking out new external reasons to become sad for or angry with people you don’t know, so you can rend your garment and weep and/or paw the ground and issue gruesome but idle threats. That’s third: the mob is impotent. The frenzy of emotion generated creates its own impenetrable wall of frustration, because none of the threats can be visited upon their target. That’s not catharsis, that’s more unresolved anger with marshmallow, hot fudge, violent ideation and a cherry on top.
I think that’s dangerous to and destructive of both individuals and communities, whether I read the thread or not, and that’s why I don’t like them.
I’m happy to hear that.
And I don’t think that people here are saying that you have a mental illness based solely on what you post here. However, it does seem evident that you’re having some trouble processing a big life event in your life. It sounds like it was a very traumatic experience in your life. When people are saying to get help, they mean to go somewhere where you can feel heard about this issue and find some healing from those who understand. Again, IANAD, but generally, a professional (psychologist, psychiatrist, therapist) is good for that. In the meantime, you might want to check out these websites to see if they can help in any way.
GROWW–Grief Recovery Online for All Bereaved
They both have message forums and chat rooms. I’ve never been to either of them so can’t vouch for whether they have nice people there, but you might want to check it out.
Good luck and I hope you find some peace from this.
This is exactly why I hate these “RO” parties, and what makes them so revolting. Even worse is the subliminal smugness asserted by people thinking that their type of bloodlust is morally justified. Heck, sometimes I think the real murderers and child molesters deserve more respect – at least they don’t pretend to be anything more than they are.
It ain’t about whether or not you like NASCAR. It’s a disturbing trend that’s becoming more and more prevalent, especially on the Internet. It’s downright sociopathic.
Funny thing is, your post prompted me to review your previous statement about this sort of thing. And I see now that I misread you before. My thinking was that you did not want posts that are likely to have only responses that are sympathetic with the OP, and of course the child and elderly abuse threads would qualify in that regard. But looking at it again, I can see that your statement was more nuanced than that.
I’m done with it now so anybody else that wanted an explaination is out off luck.
Youv’e been a dear roo.
Given the near unanimity of the SDMB in speaking out against one particular annoying poster and his persistent presence on the boards, this sounds a lot like suggesting three almost equally regrettable options [ul][li]Please Feed the Troll, or []Please Stalk the Troll, or []Feel free to pop into any outrage thread and post “I don’t care about this, and it annoys me that you posted it”.[/ul][/li][quote=Giraffe]
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.
[/quote]
Do Bush-bashing threads count as RO?
Regards,
Shodan
Can’t we just make a rule that RO thread go into the “Mindless Pointless Stuff I Must Share”
Seems to fit, IMHO.
[QUOTE=Shodan]
Given the near unanimity of the SDMB in speaking out against one particular annoying poster and his persistent presence on the boards, this sounds a lot like suggesting three almost equally regrettable options [ul][li]Please Feed the Troll, or []Please Stalk the Troll, or []Feel free to pop into any outrage thread and post “I don’t care about this, and it annoys me that you posted it”.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
If you read the sentences on either side of the one you quoted, you’d probably see that I was suggesting none of these things. My post was not a general edict on how all message board problems should be solved, but my opinion on how this type of message board problem might best be solved. It had nothing to do with trolling and/or posters with unpopular opinions, who have never been dealt with on the basis of popularity (or the lack thereof).
I’m not even sure what your third item means – of course people can post that they think an OP is stupid. They do it all the time. If someone makes a habit of it to the point of being really annoying, we might tell them to knock it off. Or, even better, someone might start a Pit thread about them and you can all tell them to knock it off.
[QUOTE=Shodan]
[ul][li]Feel free to pop into any outrage thread and post “I don’t care about this, and it annoys me that you posted it”.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
I think Shodan is refering to the habit of people dropping into a pit thread and saying something along the lines of “This is a lame pitting. It’s not worth complaining about. Why are you wasting my time and yours with such a minor problem in the world” IMHO.
I agree with Shodan. If you don’t care to discuss the subject, clear off and let people who want to talk about it do so. General conduct rules for any message board I’d say. [/hijack]
That’s not a hijack.
Oh for heaven’s sake. You are suggesting that the board as a whole make more of an effort of telling people not to post annoying stuff. But if we tell people not to post annoying stuff too often, we get warned. How much junior modding would you like, and how much is too much? :rolleyes:
Regards,
Shodan
I’m often amazed at the ability of posters like yourself to take a perfectly reasonable statement and extrapolate it to some crazy extreme. I’ve always assumed you were just doing it to be combative, but since there’s a chance you’re actually a dullard, I’ll try again:
In my opinion, when one group of posters is doing something that sort of annoys another group of posters, it is often more effective for group #2 to speak up about it to group #1 and discuss the issue, rather than petitioning the mods to make a rule to squash the behavior. While it is hoped that the groups will reach a common ground, this is not a guarantee that either group will get the exact outcome they desire, nor does it confer any authority whatsoever on any poster to enforce the rules themselves. Also, while any poster is welcome to express their opinion in a Pit thread, a poster who expresses their opinion (on any topic) in a frequency or matter that is viewed as disruptive may be asked/told by the mods to cease such behavior. Or they may not. My suggestion that people speak up about things that annoy them is not a conferral of carte blanche to shit up every thread on the board. My lack of conferral of thread-shitting carte blanche is not an implication that there is a maximum number of threads one can post their opinion in. Neither of these statements will have any impact on people who aren’t complete doorknobs, because they’re simply common sense.
Cliff notes: more communication is better than more rules in most cases, but as always one shouldn’t be a total dick.
Oh, lordy, do I ever feel your pain. Sort of. I removed your “like yourself” phrase so I could agree with the overall sentiment, because I don’t think the ability applies to Shodan. In my experience, he takes me at face value, and doesn’t whine about my being “cryptic” (which, as far as I can tell, means the person doesn’t speak English.) The attribute that so amazes you is one that I’ve been exposed to from a couple of sources for years. But I’m not complaining about it, just noting the coincidence. So nowadays, when I say that government should suppress coercion, and RT represents that as a call to eliminate government, I’m no longer amazed. Just amused.
Agreed. In the time I’ve been here, I’ve found that the people on this board do an admirable job of self-regulation, and I see no reason to complicate the process. As **Giraffe ** said,
Absolutely god-damn right!
You have the right to believe that RO posts are annoying. You have the right to say so. You have the right to take these posters to task for it (though why you would want to waste your time doing so is beyond me when it is so much easier to just move on). But to even suggest that the Mods or administrators get involved because you don’t like it is “nanny-state”-ism of the worst kind!
“The mouse-over doesn’t give me enough information!” Oh, NOES! You mean you might have to actually open the thread to find out what it’s about? And when you do, you find out it’s another RO thread–so what can you do? You can:
a) Say, “Oh shit, another RO thread!”, close it, and move on to another one, or
b) Say, “Oh shit, another RO thread! I’m so tired of these, I think I’ll petition the Mods to pass a rule banning them so no one ever has to go through this again!”
The problem with b) is that you don’t take into account that there might be people on this board who actually read and reply to these threads. You feel that everyone should have the same sense of moral and/or intellectual outrage as you. Well, I have news for you people–there are moral, intelligent people who read and respond to some of these threads–myself included. Intelligence and “recreational outrage” are not mutually exclusive.
Have you seen some of the other message boards out there? Are you afraid that someday we will sink to that level? Then you have no faith whatsoever in the Teeming Millions. Yes, the occasional “troll” will pop up, bad grammar, run-on sentences, lack of punctuation and all–but they never last long.
Bottom line–sometimes you see something in the news that outrages you, and you need to vent about it. This is the place for that. You all know that–why suddenly all these wounded sensibilities? This is The Pit–you pays your money, you takes your chance.
Deal with it, move on, get over it!
bullfucking shit. If the fucker had entitled the thread so that it was clear that it was another RO thread, I’d not have bothered opening it. The mouseover doesn’t IME, always accomplish the same thing, besides, the OP is responsible for the thread title as well as the OP itself.
If they’ve wasted my time because of their lame ass thread title didn’t let me know already it was “another” one of those threads, they deserve all the scorn I can post.
edited : spellink
Do Not Read This Post