Coulda fooled me!
Well, I’m not Filmore, but here are some that I think resemble what they are talking about:
Sam Stone pitted for gullibility re: Trump, expanded into a general pitting of everything Stoney
This thread about MordecaiB began with a pitting about board wars, but shortly morphed into an omnibus pitting, including someone urging everyone to “heap more scorn” on MordecaiB
This thread pitting octopus for…something , I don’t know, quickly turned into an omnibus bashing thread
I’d like to make it clear that I am not defending these pitted posters or arguing that their pittings were not “justified,” whatever that means. I strongly disagree with all three of them on just about everything. However, when I read filmore’s description of pittings “becoming a Festivus pole for airing of all grievances against the person,” I knew I had seen this happen many, many times. I can’t believe that anyone who spends regular time in the Pit would suggest it doesn’t happen. If I had the time, I’m sure I could link to many more.
There’s really no way to prove this to someone who doesn’t see it. For instance, if someone were sitting in a hate group, there would be no way of proving to them that certain instances of what the group is doing is wrong. Every example would be waved away as a joke or not really significant.
If that person doesn’t value the feelings of the person the group is targeting, there’s no way to give examples to convince them any differently.
I read through those, and they don’t really make the point that you say that they do.
Sam’s thread would have been pretty short if he hadn’t come in guns blazing and insulting everyone who agreed that Sam was being naive in giving any credence to Trump’s tweets.
MordecaiB’s thread was all about how he was trying to stir up shit, and seemed pretty well deserved.
Octupus’s thread was a bunch of jokes, barely even referencing the subject of the thread, until octopus himself came in and dropped a turd, which people responded to.
So, it’s not really an airing all grievances, it is engaging them and the things that they are saying in that thread.
You can’t even give an example? I’ll put aside that you have asserted that this board is simply a hate group, and we’ll pretend that you said something slightly more based in reality.
Let’s say that someone is sitting in a meeting, and they say that things said in that meeting made them feel uncomfortable. Would they be given a pass to leave it at that, and make everyone wonder if it was the discussion about whether to have salad for lunch, or whether it was about the parking discussion, or what was it in that meeting that upset them?
Or would it be more reasonable for them to say, “When Doug said, ‘x’, I felt that that was inappropriate.”?
Then there can be a discussion about whether x was inappropriate, but if x hasn’t even been defined, then all anyone can do is to walk on eggshells and hope that they haven’t done anything that has given offense.
You are making a number of faulty assumptions in order to achieve your conclusion that you don’t need to back up your claims.
As I’ve said before, being passive aggressive isn’t an argument, it isn’t a valid debate tactic, it’s just asinine, and the only tactic it falls under is that of trying to annoy your opponent until they give up in disgust.
That does work sometimes, lets someone “win the thread”, but in this instance, since it is you that seems to be wanting changes, then it is actually on you to make your case, not just huff and puff as you slam doors.
Let’s take the fights against racism and misogyny on this board. Posters who were offended by racial and mysogenistic posts were very specific in the posts, very specific in why they were inappropriate, and very specific as to how they felt they should be moderated. If they had just whined that there was racism and misogyny, and that they refused to give examples because it would be waved away, then they would have had a pretty weak argument, and they would have been taken as seriously as those who whine that people are allowed to say mean things in the pit.
Most of the people who get pitted are people who objectively do not value the feelings of other members of the board. They troll, they lie, they upset other people’s feelings in a myriad of ways. It’s quite possible to be extremely harmful to others while staying within the rules of other forums. So, yeah, when people take them to task, their feelings may not be the highest priority. I’m not sure that you have made a good case that they should be.
Posters are not pitted because their breath smells, or because they are ugly, they are pitted specifically because of their actions on this board. They are pitted because other posters find them to be disingenuous, to advocate odious positions, or both. What you call a pile on is simply doing what you and the movement you are advocating for here refuse to do, and give examples of that behavior, and explanations as to why that behavior is harmful to other posters and the board.
And as far as that goes, your last paragraph, passive aggressive as it is meant to be on your part, is also sometimes true, in that usually the pittee doesn’t value the feelings of those they upset with their trolling, and no matter how many examples they are given, they will not be convinced to behave any differently.
So, nearly five days later, and still no examples provided. Rather than trying to evade the question by deflecting it to someone else’s lengthy post, I’d like to see you cite even one example and explain in your own words how it illustrates that “this board … has become so politically skewed that even many moderate views are considered unacceptable, let alone conservative ones”. While you’re at it, maybe you can define exactly what “considered unacceptable” is supposed to mean. It’s a vague term with a vaguely ominous meaning. What exactly do you mean by it?
Well, it’s more filmore’s point than mine, but I think they quite clearly and obviously support the point that some pittings become “a Festivus pole for airing of all grievances against the person.”
I don’t see how this refutes the point above. That thread went on (is goin on) for a year to discuss Sam’s posts about “cultural grievance,” Pete Buttigieg, the AZ recount, economic theory, etc. etc. I disagree vehemently with Sam on all of those issues - he’s wrong, wrong, wrong - but they have nothing to do with the original pitting, and clearly demonstrates the kind of pile-on that filmore was talking about. To suggest that the thread would have died without Sam defending himself is silly.
I specifically said that I’m not arguing that the threads were not justified. I quoted that thread as an example of what filmore was talking about re: Festivus threads (I’m now calling them that from now on).
Yes, and which then went on and on and on about lots of different problems with octopus, exactly as filmore described.
I think it is a reasonable argument to look at threads like that and say “So what? Who cares?” But this strange notion that such Festivus threads don’t exist seems ludicrously counterfactual to me. They obviously exist and they happen all the time.
And one more time with feeling: I am in no way defending Sam Stone, octopus, or MordecaiB on anything they were pitted about (or anything else). These threads are providing examples that were asked for.
Filmore started by claiming that people were pitted for trivial things such as personality quirks. I have not seen that happen.
Yes, when someone gets pitted, it can turn into an airing of grievances. I’m not disputing that. But people generally aren’t getting pitted for little annoyances, and the threads that eventually devolve into petty insults usually get that way because the pittee joined in.
The one example that filmore raised about typos turned out to be the opposite of his original claim - the pittee was someone who regularly pointed out posters’ typos (which is being kind of jerky) and was pitted for it.
Sorry for the delay in getting back to this. I was traveling.
I’m not really fullly versed in all the Pitting threads. My impression of Pitting threads come mostly from viewing the board through the “Latest Posts” listing, seeing Pitting threads intermixed, and clicking on them occasionally. For the most part, I feel like Pitting threads are people getting worked up and expressing built up frustration over relatively normal stuff. It’s not fighting for social justice causes. It’s pitting someone the pitter doesn’t like. The Bricker pittings are a good example of that. There are 20+ pit threads for him for a variety of things. Some threads are relatively sane side discussions of tangents from other threads, but others are really just unleashing pent up frustration using relatively minor stuff as pretense.
One example is Jesus Bricker, you just can’t stop, can you?, where Bricker is pitted for giving a wrong answer in GQ. I’m pretty sure lots of other posters have committed that same transgression, yet they don’t get a rant-filled Pit thread complaining about it. Some of the complaints in the other Pitting threads seem to be about him not responding quickly enough in other threads. Again, lots of people do this and don’t get pitted for it. But for these relatively minor transgressions, people get to talk like this about him::
The impression I get is that Bricker is pitted more because he’s conservative rather than because he’s committing terrible transgressions. The transgression he’s committing is not agreeing with liberal positions. The actual issue in the OP is stuff that is common on the SDMB and is part of the texture that makes the place interesting.
I don’t necessarily think that threads in the Pit about stuff Bricker does is necessarily problematic. It can be good to have separate threads for tangent discussions that tend to derail the main threads. But the allowance to unleash a torrent of hate and insult filled rants while discussing relatively benign stuff is off-putting to me. I have no doubt that the people saying that stuff enjoy it and don’t see a problem with it, but it seems wrong to me be to be that directly disrespectful to someone who just has a different perspective.
Bricker is pitted more because he’s tiresome, pedantic conservative.
FTFY
I am aware that conservative posters often trot out the “you’re just criticizing me because I don’t agree with the liberal orthodoxy” line. I am also aware that this is often used to divert any accountability for one’s actions. Indeed, it appears to be surprisingly useful to be able to say anything one likes, no matter how objectionable, and then claim any negative reactions are purely partisan.
In Bricker’s case, while he was sometimes Pitted for partisan reasons he was also often Pitted for more specific behaviors.
As already noted above, the words “a different perspective” may have to do a lot of heavy lifting depending on context. “Biden is a bad president” is a different perspective, but so is “Transgendered people are mentally ill deviants” or “The Holocaust was a hoax”. Not all “different perspectives” are created equal.
Can we add to that, not exactly quoting, ‘Women that have had abortions have no right to expect pharmacists to even sell them Tylenol.’?
For one thing, you’re citing a thread from fourteen years ago. For another, you’re being very selective in your characterization of that thread.
You’re talking about it as though it were an unmitigated anticonservative pileon, and completely omitting to mention the many posts from both liberal and conservative posters that dissent from and criticize the OP.
You also neglected to mention that within three days after opening the thread, the OP requested it to be locked because the subject of the Pitting had acknowledged and apologized for the erroneous statement he was being Pitted about.
So again, I think what we’re seeing here is a fair bit of rather biased and selective whining about overall “persecution” of conservatives that isn’t borne out by the full available evidence.
What percentage of pittings are against liberals? I would guess most are against conservatives. I wasn’t trying to defend conservatives. I picked Bricker because his pittings are ones I remember popping up a lot and checking some of them out. I remember thinking that most of them were over relatively small things. Here’s a more recent thread from '17: # Bricker is a Pile of Shit Sculpted into Human Shape which was because of this:
That thread was a bit of a mess and drifted around a lot, but the title was a snappy insult and the thread floated around the “Latest Posts” for almost 7 months. The change to the title naming at least keeps that stuff in the thread.
My point about the conservatives was that the conservatives are pitted because of pent up rage about them rather than because of whatever they did in the OP of the pit thread. Eventually someone’s rage boils over and they start a pit thread about some minor thing just so they can get their anger out. If you don’t know who the pittees are or their background and just look at whatever is in the OP, it doesn’t really seem all that bad whatever they’ve done. It’s not like Bricker was trying to bring back slavery or anything. They mostly seem like NC-17 ad hominem attacks rather than trying to clear up an actual issue. But I guess that’s the point, so everything is working as it should.
I have not gone through and done any research but I don’t think this is accurate. Not because the community is even-handed about such things, but because there just aren’t that many conservatives.
I’m sure that conservatives are disproportionally given Pit threads, certainly. But there are lots of people who are left-leaning or apolitical who get roasted there. Generally people aren’t Pitted because of their political views, they are Pitted because they say things that others find objectionable.
I can think of two reasons why conservatives are Pitted more frequently and neither is directly because of bias. One is because if you are conservative, your viewpoint is going to clash with a majority of people who participate here, and that will bring you into conflict. The way you handle that conflict is often what leads to being Pitted. If you have opinions that aren’t controversial then you avoid that situation.
Another reason is that some conservatives are on the board to antagonize others. Not necessarily trolling (although that is debatable on a case-by-case basis) but they aren’t shy about getting into heated arguments. So while some conservatives are drawn into conflicts due to their opinions, others seek it out. And that can lead to a person being Pitted.
We do have the occasional “so-and-so is an idiot for supporting Trump, let’s point and laugh” sort of Pit threads. Those are clearly coming from an anti-conservative bias. But most aren’t like that. Generally it’s along the lines of, “Person X defended this Republican viewpoint, they were ridiculed, and then responded with homophobic language against their detractors.”
(Please keep in mind I’m trying to be really vague with my examples; they aren’t intended to be representative of any specific conflicts because I don’t want to bring any actual disputes from the Pit into ATMB, and so they aren’t going to correctly mirror the actual content of such Pit threads, but I’m trying to convey the general spirit of what goes on there.)
“That thread was a bit of a mess and drifted around a lot, but the title was a snappy insult and the thread floated around the “Latest Posts” for almost 7 months.”
… Thanks?
If a significant part of the proper use of the Pit is to point out patterns of behavior, then of course threads are going to be started because of a pattern of behavior that wouldn’t have been started over just one item.
And it doesn’t seem to me that this only happens with people who are conservatives.
Yeah, is DrDeth or damuri_ajashi or Wesley_Clark someone who would be generally considered “conservative”? That’s not the impression I get of them, but nonetheless various aggravated PitterPatters have been jumping on them more than somewhat.
And I’d also point out that in this very thread we’ve got probably one of the most “orthodox” liberal posters on the board, namely me, siding with one of the most, um, criticized conservative posters on the board, namely ZosterSandstorm, against a specific complaint by another reliably liberal poster, Saintly_Loser. And I’m getting firmly disagreed with on that by another stalwart liberal, Left_Hand_of_Dorkness.
And this happens all the everloving time on these boards, even in Pit threads. Most posters here will very happily take up arms against one of their habitual allies, even alongside someone they generally disagree with or don’t respect very much as a poster, on a specific issue where they feel the habitual antagonist happens to be right and the habitual ally happens to be wrong.
But because this board happens to skew much more liberal than conservative, and because the short-lived trolls and socks wandering in to post stupidly inflammatory nonsense skew much more conservative than liberal, Doper conservatives perceive a disproportionately high level of conservative-pounding and start to think that it must be due to unfair victimization.
Damn, it’s like no one remembers the nearly bi-weekly Pitting of Der_Trihs . . . I feel old now.
And the departed Diogenes_The_Cynic and BrainGlutton came in for their fair share of exasperated vilification too.
If the disproportionate pitting of conservative posters is caused by the board’s bias against conservatives…
does this mean the disproportionate number of Republican coronavirus patients is caused by the coronavirus bias against Republicans?
Or is it caused by some sort of disproportionate behavior?