I’ve not read this entire (very long) thread, so I apologize in advance if this suggestion has already been made, but I’ve an idea which may help improve the Pit.
It’s an unrealistic suggestion. No doubt about that. And I don’t think it’ll be all that popular - at least, not at first. But it might be interesting to try it out, just to see what happens.
For the record, I have mixed feelings about The Pit. I like the rants, and I agree that it’s good to have a place where posters can talk about controversial and/or widely disliked figures without having to watch their language. I can also see the sense in having a place where posters can air their grievances sans gloves.
On the other hand, there’s no denying that this board skews strongly to the left. I’m not saying that’s good or bad, just calling it how I see it. This means that when a conservative poster gets Pitted, the thread is more or less guaranteed to turn into a pile-on. There are, as I see it, two reasons for this. The first is that, obviously, this being a liberal board, it’s likely that more people will agree with the liberal doing the Pitting than with the conservative being Pitted, and will want to say as much.
The second (and this is true of all boards with any strong political leaning, not just this one) is that political partisanship tends to encourage a schoolyard mentality. Posters use Pittings of conservatives to assert their place in the community by sniping from the sidelines.
The end result is that Pittings of conservatives turn into 100 to 1 pile-ons. Also, while I don’t offhand recall seeing any conservatives opening pit threads about liberals, I’d imagine that such threads quickly become equally lop-sided, with posters rushing to defend the target of the thread and castigate the conservative who started it.
Now, if you’re fine with all this then you probably won’t like my suggestion. However if, like me, you think this is all a little distasteful, then how about this?
If any poster is Pitted, the only people allowed to post in the thread are the OP and the poster being Pitted
For me, this has several benefits:
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It ensures a fair fight.
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Posters might be less likely to pit other posters if they can’t count on community support.
2a) If posters know in advance that they’re going into battle alone, they may work harder to ensure their criticisms are substantive. -
If the poster being Pitted isn’t having their energy drained by incessant sniping from the sidelines, they’ll be more likely to continue talking to the OP. Eventually, this may lead to a rapprochement between them. Unlikely, I know, but I’m an optimist.
Of course, this suggestion is rather restrictive. If an unpopular poster is Pitted, other posters might think “No fair! I was just about to Pit this guy. Now I have to sit it out? Ooh, I’m going to start one hell of a Pit thread about this!” But I think there are ways this suggestion could be made to work.
One idea could be to have a rule (perhaps an unwritten rule) which says that Pit threads should be between the OP and the target for the first 20/50/100 posts, or for the first 24/48/72 hours (or whatever). Then, after that, everyone can join in. The OP and the target would most likely have tuckered themselves out by then anyway, and the target would hopefully feel less honor-bound to defend themselves from other posters who join in later.
Like I said at the beginning, probably not a great idea but I reckon it might be something worth trying. If nothing else, one-on-one flame-wars are just more fun to read than tedious pile-ons. I say give it a go. What’s the worst that can happen?