I wonder about the Pit from time to time. I don’t have much time to go trolling around here, mainly stay in MPSIMS due to time restraints (but some of the threads I’ve seen in most other forums intrigue me), but I wisely stay out of the Pit most of the time. So, like anything else that is completely foreign to me because I don’t pay attention to it and am not involved in it (Masonry, Mormonism, and Sarah Palin among them) it is shrouded in mystery and suppositions based on snippets of what I do know.
For example, I know if someone can’t stand another person based on what they post, they are called out to the Pit to “have at it, gloves off” as it were. But I’ve never seen anyone specifically say along the lines of “I’ve had enough of this conversation, I’ve created a Pit thread with your name on it [complete with link], let’s continue discussion there)” but there seems to be endless Pit threads from what I see on the main page of the construct “[username] is a [noun]”.
While I like to think of myself as well-liked around here, I can still remember high school from 20 years ago, when everyone would make fun of me and call me names behind my back, and I’d never know they were doing it, and sometimes wonder if sometimes, someone started a “dhkendall is a [noun]” pit thread.
So, long post short, is the pit-ee often notified that they are now the subject of taunts and ridicule (and is supposed to defend themselves against said slings and arrows), or is it just high school all over again here?
If you were specifically Pitted, it a near certainty that someone will let you know. If you were part of a group of people who were generally Pitted, you easily could miss it.
It used to be a cultural norm around here to post a link to the Pitting in the thread that inspired it. “Give your glasses to a friend and meet me outside,” type of thing. Didn’t always happen–it wasn’t a rule or anything–but it frequently did, and it does seem to be getting less common.
Which leads to a Pit thread that consists of readers who have no clue what was going on in the 16-page thread in some other forum, and demand, “Cite?” while no readers of said thread know the Pit thread exists.
My apologies, I was under the impression this thread was in the pit, perhaps due to misreading the list of “New posts”. It is out of line and I have reported it.
The place you have to worry about people saying things about you behind your back are offboard. That is, if you really care about the opinions of people who like to talk behind people’s backs.
The one time that I can recall starting a Pit thread about someone, I gave them a link. One Pit thread about me I stumbled on to, because it didn’t even mention me in the title; the other I was linked to.
So, IMO and IME, people *should *link to Pit threads that are spinoffs from others in the original, but they don’t always do so.
Personally, I think it would look kind of cool to totally ignore a Pit thread about yourself. But I guess people wouldn’t know whether you’re ignoring it or ignorant of it.
Well, you could start another Pit thread, saying something like, “I’ve been told that there’s a pit thread about me, but it’s beneath my dignity to go looking for it.”
