I don't understand Non Pit Rules Apply - Non Pit Rules Apply

The BBQ Pit
61

Pretty much what **SA **and **featherlou **just speculated I meant. I think you’re getting some help here from posters pointing out improvements in policies and implementations, and to your credit, you seem to be acknowledging that some of this help makes sense. (It’s also very much to your credit that you’ve acknowledged that Lynn has some critical responsibility for mishandling last week’s situation.) Of course, you invented all the rules that we’re now discussing. Did I ever dispute that? That’s a given, and I’m a bit puzzled that you feel the need to point that out to me in a tone I can only assumed was intended to be withering.

We’re on your side, and we’re rooting for you to make sound rational decisions that make this place understandable and fairly consistent, and end up making subscribers (us) happy and attract new subscribers, but some of your decisions about how to implelment the rules (or to make up some new rules where none are needed) seems a little rash. If I could sum up what I’m trying to say simply it would be: aim first, shoot second. You seem to be doing it the other way around sometimes, causing some unnecessary injuries to your reputation as a very smart, thoughtful, savvy administator.

You want Mods and Admins to be treated with more decorum by posters? Well, we’ve enjoy Pitting them vigorously (me, personally, not so much) for years, but it makes a certain amount of sense for you and they to want some restrictions on the tone and circumstances of some Mod pittings. It’s only human, in fact. So, as I accept your interest in making part of the rules for Pittings apply to everyone but Mods (as I accept Congress’s making themselves exempt from certain restrictions that they feel the rest of U.S. citizenry must live by), I also think that enduring the rough-and-tumble of harsh Pittings wins some respect from most posters, especially when a Mod, accepting that posters need to vent sometimes, takes pride in accumulating Jackboot points. **Giraffe **, for example, never gives an indication that the harshest Pittings ever muss up his hair, and I think a lot of posters admire that toughness.

But you want this new special exemption? Fine. Personally I wish you’d extend the new decorousness to me (just change “all future Pittings of Mods and admins must…” to “All future Pittings of Mods and admins and PRR must…”), because my feelings get all bruised too whenever I get savagely attacked in the Pit, but if you want the new rules in place for mods and admins, as I say, that’s fine. Your new NPR “system,” however, is an improvised mess, IMO, and you’d be better off just to put all Mod-and-Admin Pittings into ATMB, and be subject to ATMB rules and not Pit Rules. (Though I still feel you’d be better just to do things they 've been done here for years, and to thank your Mods for continuing to take the Pittings in such good humor, but you don’t seem to cotton to that suggestion.)

The current rules–which YOU DEVISED AND IMPLEMENTED IN THE FIRST PLACE–seem to work fairly well, overall, and if they need revision, certainly don’t require immediate revision. You could have tossed out for our consideration and feedback the kinds of changes you’re thinking about, and then read posters’ questions and suggestions, and after hearing from us, make your decision. I think what upsets people, in part, here is the way you seem to have cut yourself off from our input, issued some New Rules (about Non-Pit-Rules Pit threads, for example) that seemed poorly thought out, and punitive, and only then opened yourself up to some criticism. What’s the rush? Did it really matter if the changes were made in early December, as opposed to late December, or March, for that matter? This is our place too, we’ve got a lot invested here and we’d like the SD to thrive.

62

I think confining mod complaints to ATMB would probably solve the problem at hand, however, the ability to pit mods (not that I’d ever do it) is kind of a cool tradition at the SD.

63

I’m sorry, I didn’t express myself clearly. You’re right that we tolerate a certain amount of invective aimed at off-board parties in all forums. We don’t allow unlimited invective, though; exactly how much varies with the forum and the moderator(s). I think it’s fair to say, for example, that we wouldn’t allow a both-barrels rant entitled “Blago can lick my hairy nutsack” in GD, whereas this kind of thing is routine in the Pit. My understanding was that RTFirefly was proposing to add “Non-Pit rules apply” to the title of a Pit rant, so that the OP could flame the off-board target but participants in the thread would not be allowed to flame each other. His apparent assumption was that some opinions are beyond debate and that Dopers are unanimous in their low view of certain off-board parties. I think this assumption (if in fact I understand it correctly) is questionable, and in any case what he proposes seems at odds with what the Pit is all about, so I don’t think it’s a good idea. Am I being clearer now?

64

Here’s a silly strawman. Is anyone claiming that you do?

Of course not–that title and content would simply get shifted out of GD into the Pit in twelve seconds. Again, who’s claiming that it wouldn’t be? What people ARE claiming is that in the course of a reasoned debate (say, on the question “Is Blago in any way mentally disabled?”) if someone wanted to offer those words (“If he thinks he can remain in office after impeachment proceedings have ruled he must vacate that office, then Blago can lick my hairy nutsack or be manhandled by burly state troopers, whichever is easier for him,” say) it seems very likely to me that won’t even get a Mod’s attention, much less moved into the Pit.

65

There have certainly been some instances of ready-fire-aim on my part; I don’t think this was one of them. I said, for example, that NPRA was an experimental procedure. It’s evident already that some people find it confusing, or want to use it for purposes it wasn’t intended for. I’m not giving up on it yet, but I’m not going to insist on using it if it causes more problems than it solves.

I wasn’t proposing to disallow Pittings of mods and we have no such rule now. I merely note that the idea comes up a lot, and I’m starting to think there are points in its favor. You can see that other posters have varying opinions about it. If I put the question to the staff, I’m sure they’d virtually all say they don’t mind being Pitted - no one wants to admit their tender feelings have been bruised. As manager of the site, however, I have to deal with the problem of staff burnout. It’s all very well to be a tough guy and laugh off a Pitting, but having to put up with abuse over a long period of time can be wearing. Some of the staff genuinely doesn’t mind, but I can’t run the site on the assumption that the entire group feels that way.

Let me be clear - I would never want to run a site in which criticism of board administration wasn’t permitted. The kind of discussion we’re having now is very useful to me - but it’s been useful in large part because it’s been civil. The utility of a mudfest is less obvious, and there’s a definite downside: some people get the idea there are no rules in the Pit at all. That’s what this has all been about.

My goal has been to set some boundaries in the Pit. I hope we’ve now done that. We’ll see how it goes. I’ll say again: most of what I read in the Pit is fine. A lot of it is hilarious. My problem has been with a few posts by a few users in a few threads. If that problem goes away or is held to manageable levels, mission accomplished and no more changes. If not, or if there’s mass confusion, we’ll have to give this some more thought. Rather than debate this ad nauseam now, let’s let things run for a while and see what happens.

66

prr, no offense, but you’re not really adding much to the discussion here. Starving Artist had a question; I’m trying to explain what I meant. I don’t want to get into a side argument with you.

67

Well, I won’t expand on my point then, or explain it. I’ll just thank you for a courteous and thoughtful reply to my previous post, and invite you to continue this discussion whenever you’re willing to.

68

Yes, thank you for the clarification.

69

Moving serious complaint threads to ATMB does not mean ending the ability to pit mods, nor of mods to flame back. It just makes it clear from the outset what type of conversation the complainer wants to have.

It creates the possibility for someone to offer a sensible critique of the mods without having third parties jump in to offer up “yeah, the mods are all assholes” type comments. This is an ability the SDMB has never had.

70

You’re right, and that’s what we’re attempting to sort out. If you want a serious discussion of board administration, post it in ATMB. If you just want to rant, post it in the Pit. If a mod admonishes you in the Pit, cooperate. If we want to cool down a Pit thread and have a serious discussion of an issue that has been raised, we may declare “non-Pit rules apply” in that thread.

I’ll put all this in the permanent Pit rules post when I get a minute.

71

Ed, if I read you correctly, posters deciding where to post an OP shouldn’t make any assumption about whether or not there’s an actual debate - that if it’s about politics or religion, and they don’t feel like using obscenities, they should post it in GD.

So when posters say, “so exactly what’s the debate here?” after some GD OP where nobody can see the debate, I can cite you.

If that is correct, that is a suitable resolution. Thanks.

72

I was using GD for purposes of illustration. I wasn’t making any sweeping statements about where political commentary ought to go. I expect you would use common sense in framing a question so that it fit the expected format for a forum. In other words, if you wanted to post a comment about Blago in GD, you should put it in terms that would invite a debate, e.g., “Is Blago the most corrupt politician in Illinois history?” Then you could expound at length on his perfidy. This would have the added benefit of flushing out any pro-Blago sentiment. He’s got an approval rating of what, 8%? So maybe 1 in 12 posters would say he’s OK, or isn’t as bad as Paul Powell, or whatever. Voila, debate.

73

How about a GD OP that says, “Blago is one of the scummiest pols ever,” enumerates some of his scummiest actions, then invites subsequent posters to disagree if they’re so inclined.

Is that GD-suitable? Sounds like you’re saying it is, but the reason I bring this up is that this is the sort of thing that’s traditionally gone in the Pit, not because of the desire to use Pit-level invective, but because of little expectation of serious debate.

I apologize if this seems nitpicky, but you seem to be offering a solution to something that’s bugged me for most of my years on this board, and I want to make sure that I’m not mistaking you.

74

Part of this problem is that two entirely separate standards are being applied to the qualities that make a post Pit-worthy: language and substance, which only occasionally overlap.

Assuming you’ve got clear binary distinctions, that gives us at least four separate categories:
Pit language, non-Pit substance
non-Pit language, Pit substance
Pit language, Pit substance
non-Pit language, non-Pit substance

The last two are pretty clear, but the first two are always going to be something of a judgment call.

The principle on which this place has been run is to favor subsance over language. A thread about foul and abusive terms used in movies, with copious examples, is always going to go in CS, not the Pit, and a hateful, bitter rant against a poster cannot be phrased decorously enough to stay out of the Pit. But **Ed **is proposing (and seconding, and voting for by a majority of 1 to 0) a new, somewhat nebulous system in which arguing with mods specifically is going to be prohibited, sometimes, under certain conditions which cannot be spelled out clearly in advance and which are always subject to the perceptions of TPTB, which in turn creates an atmosphere of uncertainty around here that is new and, to me, somewhat distasteful.

75

I’ve asked Gaudere, who mods GD, and she has replied as follows:

Seems reasonable enough to me.

76

Again, why wouldn’t a “this sucks” thread where you’re expecting “I agree!” be in MPSIMS?

77

That’s a borderline call and up to the posters and mods and the actual content of the thread. If it’s heated or going to get heated, put it in the Pit; if not, MPSIMS is fine. It’s the difference between “FUCK THOSE BASTARDS WHO BROKE INTO MY WIFE’S CAR” (Pit) and “Someone broke into my car yesterday” (MPSIMS). It’s not like anyone is going to NOT say “I agree that sucks” about the car breakin in the Pit, but the tone of the threads is different.

78

Which illuminates the point I’ve been trying to make here.

You aren’t required to use invective in the Pit, but here you’ve got a class of threads that you’re saying belong in the Invective Zone even if you have no desire to use invective, and would prefer for the thread to be invective-free.

It’s like if the penalty for jaywalking was having to stand still while a bunch of pigshit was dropped on you - sure, don’t do the crime unless you can do the pigshit, but why should you get a bunch of pigshit dropped on you because you jaywalked? The connection makes no sense.

And I’m still trying to sort out whether you guys are determined to preserve it. If my OP is strictly laying into a political figure but in an invective-free manner, and I’m not expecting there to be a debate, but I’m certainly willing to defend my OP with debate, is it OK for GD? I still can’t tell. I’d guess no, but there’s room to interpret it either way.

79

I don’t usually get involved in these board debates, because I really don’t care, but one thing strikes me:

The last time there was a big scrum over board issues, anyone who posted about mods in ATMB was told to “take it to the Pit”, because the board admin didn’t want to “hear it anymore”. In fact, for a few days, almost every topic was opened it the Pit to avoid violating an unknown rule and risking suspension and/or banning.

Now, if I understand, criticisms of the mods are only to me done with ATMB? With non-Pit rules applying? So, if someone wants to start a Pit thread about my mother being a 50 cent whore, then that is legit, but no more pitting of a mod will be allowed?

What if a mod wants to Pit me? Am I allowed to respond in kind within the mod’s thread? Or will I be issued a warning and told to start an ATMB thread?

I am confused about these rules as well. I thought the Pit basically had two rules: no racism; no death threats. The whole purpose of the Pit is to be able to call someone a dickless lunatic, no?

80

Good call to consult Gaudere, Ed. Kudos to you for that.