How should the Pit be changed, if at all?

[Delayed_Reflex]

@John_DiFool

I went back to the start of the current Troll R US thread, and did a tally for the 1st 500 posts (from last summer). Note in some cases the R US post failed to link to the thread/post and/or didn’t specify the exact handle-was forced to throw those out (1 fit that description). In some cases their failure to come up on search indicated that they were cornfielded.

:Long-term posters who are still active: 8 [Ashtura, Whack-A-Mole, Velocity, Octopus, jtur88, JohnT, Omar Little, Kearsen1]

Bannees: 23 [incl. 11 who were cornfielded]

No longer active: 8. But almost all of these were long-term Dopers, around for at least a year before they got called out, most of which didn’t bail on the board soon after their Pitting. I’ll list them in case anyone wants to examine them more closely:

jim23
YWTF
Pavelb1 [the only newbie when he got pitted then bailed soon after, BUT someone recognized the secondary name in his profile as that of a long-term Doper from when we ran vBulletin)
duffer
putnam6
SayTwo
agzem
Harrington

You can also examine why they were being called out, if you like: seemed to me like in almost all cases the pitting was warranted-only jim23 seemed like an unfair case, just a brief accusation of being a sock, then no more attention whatsoever.

BUT: the kicker is that I could find no newbies who were Pitted there, then shaped up (as in were not pitted anymore from then on) and became a frequent and useful contributors to the board. The 8 in category one were typically repeat offenders, with many people in the R US thread calling them out numerous times over the lifespan of the thread.

If anyone wants to continue from post #501 knock yourself out.

Thanks for doing this. I’m guessing different people have drawn different conclusions from this, but here are my thoughts:

1. The Trolls R Us thread has successfully identified some trolls. 23/39 banned suggests that the mods agreed that these 23 people were rule-breakers in some way (whether trolling or having broken other board rules). What this does not demonstrate is whether these people would have been banned anyway in the absence of that thread - I don’t know if this can be proved unless a mod states that they would not have banned someone unless they were pitted. Nevertheless, I’d say one benefit of the Pit is that it probably accelerates the identification of trolls.

2. You say that for the 16/39 people who were not banned, “the pitting was warranted”. I’m not quite sure what you mean by that - when I look at the list of names that you listed, I don’t consider any of them trolls, and given that the mods haven’t banned them it seems like that agree. So I agree with @filmore that a lot of people use troll to mean “someone who I strongly disagree with or dislike”. If a pitting is warranted because you don’t like what someone posted - yes, obviously every pitting is justified, by that metric.

3. The kicker seems pretty key, to me. There is clearly no rehabilitative effect to being pitted, if as you say it is mostly repeat offenders. I know @BigT said that one benefit of the Pit is that people can use “real talk” to hash out their differences and come to a better shared understanding. That seems to happen on rare occasions, but most of the time it’s just a place for people to complain about other posters without having to hold back.

So to me, there seems to be some minor benefit of identifying trolls faster, and a major negative of making everyone angrier. From what I’ve seen, studies show that ranting/venting make people angrier in the long run, not less angry (1,2, I’m sure there are many more), so I don’t buy that having a place to vent somehow makes people more civil in the other forums. I think being able to express anger at other posters freely reinforces that anger, not reduces it, which I think leads to higher hostility and an overall more negative tone for the board. Do most pro-Pit people feel like the board is better when people hate other posters a lot, instead of hating each other a little bit?

@ShadowFacts

It seems to me, in the spirit of this message board, that an experiment (or two) could be in order. People are saying “the Pit serves this function” or “that function” or “destroys the universe.” Let’s test it, I say! Pick an adjustment and try it out for, say, 3 months. For example, we could:

1. Close the Pit for 3 months. No other changes. See what happens. Or…
2. Close the Pit for 3 months, but allow complaints about other posters (e.g. for lying or trolling) in ATMB, under those existing forum rules. See what happens. Or…
3. Leave the Pit open, but disallow attacks on other posters for 3 months. See what happens.

I’m sure there are other variations possible. I mean, if we know it’s a time-limited adjustment that will then be evaluated, what’s the harm? It’s science, baby!

I like this idea. Then we can see if the rest of the board really suffers if the Pit is restricted, like many here are suggesting would happen.

@filmore

I’ve said multiple times that I feel the personal attacks in the Pit are pretty much like cyberbullying. We wouldn’t tolerate similar behavior in schools, workplaces, neighborhoods, bars, etc. Even if the derogatory speech serves some purpose, so what? There are other ways to solve whatever problems it supposedly addresses that don’t involve ranting about other posters.

Totally agree. I absolutely think that if people are being offensive, they should be called out on it. Why that requires people to be called mentally disabled, a troll or a hateful racist fucktard is beyond me though. The piling on in that thread just seems totally disproportionate to the perceived offenses by the posters in question, in my opinion. I would like to hear from some of the posters in that thread (eg. @Left_Hand_of_Dorkness and @Babale) what, exactly, you see is the positive result from such pit threads? Is it solely about catharsis? Do you get some entertainment value from posting in that thread? Is the goal to make this forum so unpleasant for them that they no longer post? If you say that their posts are so nauseating that they make you not want to post here, why not just add them to your ignore list?

Ultimately, I accept that the majority of the people on this board like the Pit and want to keep it. To me, though, it is like the smoking section in a restaurant - it should come as no surprise if you were to poll people in a restaurant that has a smoking section that they are mostly indifferent or like having the smoking section. Smokers will also say all sorts of things to justify why they get benefit from smoking, that the smoke is totally confined to that section, just stay out of there if you don’t like it, etc. Obviously, if people had a really big problem with the Pit philosophically, they wouldn’t post here, much like people who can’t tolerate smoking wouldn’t go to a restaurant that had a smoking section.