I disagree. It’s perfectly simple to post whatever you want in that thread, and really not that hard for other posters to skim along and only read posts from people they expect to agree with.
Maybe we read threads differently. I don’t skip posts from people I don’t agree with. I would like to skip posts that have nothing to do with the conversation, but you kind of have to read a bit of the post to know if it’s on topic.
We have rules for hijacking outside the Pit precisely because of the disruption to the thread. You can argue that hijacks in the Pit are fine (and I won’t disagree), but you can’t argue that hijacks are nondisruptive.
Hijacks are incredibly disruptive when they distract other posters. As a mod , i don’t feel i should let the system “ignore” anyone for me, but I’ll admit there’s are a couple of posters whose posts i usually don’t bother to read when i come across them.
Are her posts a little disruptive to people who want to talk about what they feel she’s doing wrong? Sure. Do they make that conversation impossible? Not at all.
I think our standards for conversation should be better than “at least it’s not impossible!”
She is defending herself in her own Pit thread. The reason it upsets people is that they feel it makes it harder to attack her. But that’s her right as how the Pit works. You can attack her, but she can fight back.
The fact that her way of fighting back pisses you off is no different than anyone else when they fight back instead of being nice and deferential.
Now, personally, if I were her, I’d just block the thread and move on. I think what she’s doing takes way too much energy and just makes people more ready to attack later. I found that the only peace I got was not letting those who were being unfair get to me, and to resolve stuff for the legitimate complaints.
I think it is a valid tactic, I just hope it doesn’t become a popular tactic. My personal opinion is that allowing it will do more harm than good in the long run. But hey, rules can always be changed if it turns out to be a bad decision.
No, she is not defending herself. She did that previously, and didn’t get pushback for that approach. Now, she is just drowning other people out. It’s the difference between me giving you an explanation here versus putting my fingers in my ears and yelling “la la la!” at you. One of those is a mature response, one is not.
Agreed. I don’t think it should be against the rules, but I wish people didn’t do it. It’s against the spirit of conversation on the board.
The SDMB doesn’t really have much of anything in the way of bright line rules, and I think that Pit thread is a good example of why.
People complain that she’s hijacking the thread with off-topic, lengthy posts. Which normally would be really bad. But keep in mind that she is hijacking a thread that exists purely to attack her. It seems weird to say, oh no, you can’t disrupt a thread that’s bashing you. The way she is doing it, too, seems to be harmless enough.
I think that allowing it in a circumstance like this is wholly appropriate, and going forward, whether or not the tactic is allowed again should also be situational. There should be no worry of a slippery slope, of cracking the door open to more problems, to “behavior here deteriorating” as one poster has put it. Because this isn’t setting a precedent, and it isn’t representing a change in rules. This isn’t a court case. The moderators can use their judgement and common sense to determine when behavior isn’t going to be a problem in a particular situation, and aren’t forced to make the same decision in a different incident.
I’m on my phone and since I so rarely read on this device I can’t figure out how to quote you. But the “only way to do something about it would be a massive PITA for mods” is an argument I can support. I moderated a very contentious board for many years and as a matter of principle think policies shouldn’t make life any harder for them than necessary.
Speaking of which, to further respond to the ire @wolfpup expressed , a la “why the hell do you care?” I am perhaps more interested than most in the rationale and justifications people offer up for message board rules and behaviors. Being a mod was sometimes frustrating, but it was never dull, and it was fun to tear apart and reassemble ethical arguments on such a micro, understandable level.
This is pretty much where I come down as well. I find it a deeply annoying “debate” tactic and not even a little amusing. But I wasn’t at all surprised that in context it was ruled fair game. I’ll just try and manually ignore it for now and hope it doesn’t become a board meme.
The vast majority of Pit threads are directed at the world, not other SDMB posters. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bong water.
The thread certainly still exists, but it no longer is available for the purpose of pitting, so long as the pittee continues to insert quantities of comments unrelated to any actual pitting.
Oh no, insults and hurt feelings. What ever can one do if someone insults one and hurts one’s feelings? Oh, sorry, I left of the ever-important Initial Caps. And you forgot to mention Being Mean.
…I mean, it’s the pit.
Arguably everything in the pit, especially in regard to other posters, isn’t a “mature response”. I thought that was the point. If you had mature reasoned critique that isn’t an attack on the poster, you can do that in many existing forums. But if you want to call them a poopyhead, you do that in the pit. And if someone is calling you a poopyhead and you want to stick your fingers in your ears and yell " “la la la!” in response, I’m not seeing the problem. Is it not mature? Sure. But so is calling them a poopyhead.
Calling people poopyheads is very much against the spirit of conversation anywhere, let alone these boards. But do you want to ban that from the pit?
That kind of bugged me a bit. The last time the thread was used, it was to call her out for being hypocritically rude to a newbie. That’s not “insulting” her, any more than it’s “insulting” when a mod calls someone out.
Then the thread went dormant, until chela revivified it, not realizing it was dormant. Mostly, people were responding to chela, who couldn’t understand that the thread was only active because chela revivified it.
More like passively-aggressively attacking, not defending, in proud southern fashion. Goading people and laughing with Gato when people repeatedly take the bait.
I recommend people just put her on ignore. If you need to figure out what people are responding to in a thread, you can just click on a hidden post. Saves hours of scrolling.
It’s only brought back if she pulls a whopper, as with any pit thread aimed at a poster. (Or if chela accidentally revivifies it.) She had gotten called out very briefly a few weeks back on being rude to a noob, and it was over. Before that, it had been dead for half a year.
I don’t think any poster is immune from getting called out on rude behavior.
Does this, arguably, apply to all of your Pit posts?
Let me get this straight.
It is o.k. to be an asshole in the pit.
But it is also o.k. to call that person an asshole in the pit.
Therefore to say that it is o.k. to do the former, but not o.k. to do the latter, makes one a hypocrite… which is just a kind of asshole.
Does that pretty much cover all bases?
I’m sure some would concur with that, but here’s a question for you: if there are no limits to the type of assholery permitted in the Pit, what exactly is Miller’s job as a Pit mod? To make sure all of us achieve at least a minimum score on the asshole scale?
Seriously, if nothing is off-limits in the Pit, why have a mod?
We all know there are indeed limits. Off the top of my head, I know that you can’t threaten personal harm or use certain language. Really, the only question is which side of the line certain behaviors fall on.
Nothing hypocritical about that.
Just guessing, but I’d say that his job is to make sure the Mods aren’t pitted in this forum, that things don’t get legally nasty, that anything that attracts the attention of lawyers (ours or anyone else’s) is stomped on and cornfielded, and that steam is released in a way that protects the other forums. While this last is questionable by a few people, I have been around since before the turn of the century and a lot of other forums that didn’t have such a safety valve have gone the way of the dodo, fax machines and Betamax.
I’m not sure I get this…
Ignore a poster, presumably because you don’t care for their bullshit, so it makes it easier for you to follow the slagging of the poster you ignored by other people?
Hatred by Proxy? Seems just like a Penis Move to me.
You can pit all you want. The pitee can respond as the pitee wishes. You aren’t entitled to an audience. I’m actually perplexed by such a complaint.