Christ, people, it's a fucking message board! (lame, mild)

The BBQ Pit
#1

Quit taking it so seriously!

Certain trends are starting to get on my nerves, so I hereby pit them.
I think we can do without the following:

  1. Uber-serious discussions that drag on for days and weeks about past posters who were banned.
  2. More discussions, either on the SDMB, or on any other message board, as to who may or may not be a sock for previously banned posters. How many times must I be forced to read about Andrew-whats-his-fuck?
  3. Outrage pit threads. Oh noes! Someone killed a pet mongoose and then sodomized it in front of kindergarten students while singing “It’s A Small World After All”. Quick, let’s get right on that and start a pit thread about it so we can all reassure ourselves with righteous indignation what a despicable human being the perp in question is. Because God knows, if we DON’T then we will somehow be condoning this horrible behavior.
  4. Usage of the word “pit” as a verb. It’s right up there with “democratize”. Yes, I know I used it in this post. Sue me.
  5. I think we should debate God and Global Warming some more in GD. NOT. The answers are: It Doesn’t Exist, and It Does Exist. Respectively.
  6. Plethora of “woe is me” relationship threads. Most of us have written our share, but can we please keep their number down to like… maybe…less than HALF of the 1st page of MPSIMS? If five people are whining about how hard it is to get a girlfriend, please wait for those threads to fall off the first page before we collectively try to take on YOUR problems.
  7. If you have to ask “Does she like me in that way?”, then the answer is NO. If she really did like you in that way, she would either fuck you or tell you. In that order.
  8. Why do old people have to drive so fucking slow? Ok, I know this has nothing to do with the SDMB, but it pissed me off today, so I’m ranting about it. I’m not talking about Gran-dad who drives 45 in a 55. I can live with that. I’m not usually in that much of a hurry that I will get too bent out of shape over it. But today I saw a woman who was approximately 163 years old driving… I shit you not… 5 miles per hour (I checked) in a 25mph zone. If you are causing traffic to back up for 4 city blocks then you are no longer “being careful”, you are a fucking menace and you have no business behind the wheel of that massive fucking car.
  9. (for good measure). People who let their dogs shit in the middle of the paved, much used jogging/bike path. And then don’t clean it up. What the fuck is the matter with you people? This isn’t the middle ages. Clean up after your fucking hound, or I’m going to rub YOUR nose in it.
#2

And airline food - what’s up with that?

#3

I hate how every single new member has to make it clear, in each of their first thousand posts, exactly how many years and how often they lurked. As if we’re some exclusive club and we’re only going to let you in if you convince us that you’re really an old chum on a technicality. Just admit you just found the place, because the other likely alternative is that you’re a sock. Nobody lurks for 5 years and then signs up to post about the new flavor of Mountain Dew.

#4

Yep that wraps that one up. That should do the trick. Won’t be seeing that one debated anymore now. Good one. :slight_smile:

#5

Both of those are examples of widely-accepted methods of making new English verbs. I suspect you’re judging them by their context, rather than on their own merits.

#6

While I realize that I’m nitpicking, and technically the way people use pit as a verb here probably is incorrect…

pit can be used as a verb in a variety of ways.

Oh, and I’d disagree with:
1.) Your assertion about GD. While it is annoying to see the same topics done over and over, the God discussions aren’t always believer vs. atheist arguments. Many of them are discussions about specific religious concepts, and one of my biggest pet peeves is when people feel the need to intrude on these discussions to assert their atheism. It’s obnoxious and irrelevant.
2.) Cisco’s assertion about lurkers. I had an account on the old AOL boards, but didn’t open one here for some time. I also didn’t really post here except for the rare abortive attempt at starting a discussion until the past year. I’d bet it’s actually pretty common for people to lurk, especially now that the board is pay-to-post. It’s still unnecessary for people to assert their lurker history, but it probably isn’t BS either.

#7

1-2: Well, gosh, CG, you don’t want huge splashy threads about who has been banned, you don’t want pages of discussion about who should be banned, and you think it’s pointless to talk about who might be banned. If you get your way, where am I going to sell all my semi-official SDMB “I’m with the banned” T-shirts?

3: As far as the outrage goes, I’m pretty much with you there, at least unless the OP has some personal or civic connection to the atrocity that provides some useful insight, and then only so long as they refrain from indulging the sort of gruesomely violent ideation that demonstrates a stronger identification with the abuser than with the victim. I still probably won’t read them, but I won’t feel they’re quite as destructive as the current craze for grievance shopping at the Media Mall of Horrors.

4: “Pit” is a verb, actually. It’s just usually applied to cherries, lunar surfaces, and NASCAR heroes. In this context, what’s funny is that “barbecue” is the verb and it’s ignored in favor of its partner. Isn’t that just as well, though? Wouldn’t you grit your teeth even more at the inevitable BBQ-related wordplay that would result otherwise (I won’t even bother to invent examples)?

5: Nope. It’s a shame the debates get so repetitive, but you just don’t get the same discussion in the town square, with people coming and going, getting bored, yelling inflammatory or inane stuff for the sheer joy of it, repeating things said many times before, that you get in the think tank or the seminary. Once in a while, though, that difference redounds to the credit of the town square. If you can’t enjoy the debates anymore, try to think of them as labs of rhetoric in which new arguments and persuasions are tested on the obdurate and the intransigent.

6-7: They’re cringe-inducing (at least many of the titles are), and I suspect most of them are eventually regretted. I wish the membership could come up with some sort of volunteer fire department which would rush to these things, hose them down with innocuous comforting platitudes, and bring them to a rapid close.

8-9: Posters who start Pit threads about old people and dogs should be – oh, you’re not asking for my opinion on that.

#8

It’s obviously not BS 100% of time time. Every goddamn new poster that signs up, though? Give me a break.

By the way, thanks for showing me the indent code. I will be using that often.

#9

How can it be incorrect? We all know what it means, right? Taking a noun and using it as a verb is common practice in modern English, as is the reverse. Affixing (as in “democratize”) is another perfectly fine way to make a verb out of a noun. “Walnutlessness” probably isn’t in the dictionary, but it has a specific meaning that’s understood by any English speaker the first time they hear it, so it’s a perfectly proper word. “Democratize” is the same deal, and “pit” also has a specific meaning whose intended audience (Dopers) can figure out in one guess. In English (and most other Germanic languages), that’s good enough to call it correct.

#10

It’s a synonym for castration, right?

#11

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Or where you deliberately being Ironic?

#12

That’s sort of what I did. Not for five years, maybe more like…one? Not sure, but it was a while. And my very first post was in a thread about cat treats. :slight_smile:

#13

10: and if some dopers quit taking it so seriously we could stop having posters angstfully demanding apologies and apologies by proxy. GOIA!

#14

And then there’s me, who signed up (when it was free), and completely forgot about the place…and then started posting and was razzed by a few for “pretending” to be new, when I’d been signed up for two years… :rolleyes:

Apparently, this one cannot be won.

As to the rest of the OP–yeah! (especially the old people–what I wouldn’t give for a tranquilizer dart gun sometimes).
I would add to the OP, when something embarassing (mildly) happens, like someone trips in the office, why does it have to be this big laugh fest or cause for extended discussion? I don’t mean they fell, just tripped or something. Silly example, but that really bothers me. So you answered the phone wrong or tripped or added Equal instead of sugar to your coffee? Why does this engender laughter and much talk? I don’t understand it…Just knock it off.

#15

Jebus, CG. What the fuck do you think a message board is for? Besides, you are totally wrong on at least half of your list? What half? Doesn’t matter. The fact that you are wrong is enough. :smiley:

#16

True, I started reading the website in 1999, found the message board in 2000 and joined in 2002. It took me that long to find a question that I knew the answer to that hadn’t yet been answered by smarter people.

#17

Sometimes I feel like complaining about this same stuff… but then, wouldn’t I be one of those poor fools getting too worked up about a message board? :smiley:

Besides, I may be evil for saying this, but I get some kind of morbid voyeuristic thrill from all of the train-wreck dysfunctional-relationship threads. Keep 'em coming!

#18

What silenas said. I’m confused about how the things you think are worth pitting or discussing are OK and others are not. You do realize this a triva message board, don’t you?

And yes I did lurk for a few years.

#19

Adding to the “if your posting here you must be doing the same thing you bitch about” observation, I still think the couple that have my ire up the most are 1) lack of question marks dammit! / reading comprehension / asking a question of someone, getting a reply and then not responding (yeah, that all fits under one category :slight_smile: ) and 2) the current trend (or has this always been so and I just missed it?) of purposely going into a thread you hate to only say that you hate and take issues with everyone else posting that wanted to be there. So, I’m NOT so outraged at the recreational outrage (or whatever it’s constantly being labeled in a derogatory sense – and no, I’m not talking about the recent one that has to do with “mother fucking entrails” because I think that’s a whole 'nother kettle of fish indeed). :frowning:

#20

Well, having read the OP, I feel the need to ask: What SHOULD we talk about then?

It IS a message board. If you’re spending a fair amount of time being concerned about what goes on here, that’s a pretty good sign that it’s YOU who’s taking it too seriously. If there’s a thread or topic that doesn’t interest you, don’t read it, and don’t respond to it, and everyone will know you’re not interested. If you do (horrors!) accidentally read it and discover that it doesn’t interest you, well, sorry you wasted three minutes of your life finding that out. Wasting three minutes more of your (and everyone else’s) time posting that you’re not interested seems kinda stupid.