I’ve been here a year now, I’ve made a few hundred posts and have a question about the pit.
Is the pit a place to be horrible and not have it tarnish your reputation?
Think of it this way.
If you batter someone on the street, people would be right in calling you a dangerous violent asshole. But if you do it in a boxing/MMA ring you’re a sportsman and an athlete.
Where does our pit stand on this continuum?
It’s a place to vent. But if you post shit there it will certainly tarnish your rep, depending on what shit you post. If you are a racist (just an example), and you post racist shit in the pit, you are going to be branded and thought of as a racist, in or out of the pit. Just that you’ll only be called a racist in the pit (unless the person doing so wants a warning or to have the mod jack boots come down on their neck).
Civility may be dropped; decency may not.
Opinions vary on this. Plenty argue, “It’s the pit!!”
I opine, “Sorry but no. It’s not a separate reality.” It was constructed as a safety valve to prevent things from becoming personal in other forums. You can attack the argument in other forums; direct attacks on posters are only permitted inside the pit.
Is it ok to call someone an asshole IRL? It’s not encouraged, but there are times when insults such as that are considered acceptable. Think of the pit as a rough bar in need of cleaning up, or better yet a soapbox situated in a public park where ideologues, lunatics, and drunks can mouth off while a rancorous mob points and laughs. Or maybe a reform school for troubled pre-teens. Or maybe an island where a group of kids have crash landed and are doing their best to survive, or maybe not some of them are picking on this kid they call Piggy…
It’s a floor wax and a dessert topping.
I don’t pay much attention to what forum a post is in and generally make the same type replies in all forums.
I appreciate the quick answer, almost all charter members to boot.
It looks like a landslide to me. Behavior accepted (not modded) but not excused.
Thank you.
Search for the Paterno Pit thread, and get your answer.
You can use words that hurt your fingers to type.
The BBQ Pit was originally envisioned as a place where folks could go to flame someone (hence the forum name) without repercussions from the moderation staff. When you have forums that don’t have anything like a Pit, when people get angry and don’t have an outlet for it, that anger tends to build until they can’t contain it any more. Then you end up with a mess in your forum from someone blowing a gasket.
The idea of the Pit is that you can flame someone to your heart’s content. That gets it out of your system and keeps that anger out of the regular forums.
The Pit quickly expanded to flaming pretty much anything that was bothering you, instead of just being limited to flaming someone here or something that they did. The rules-free environment also has a certain appeal to some, so the Pit has definitely grown from its original intention.
The key here is that it is generally rule-free. That means you don’t have to worry about picking up a warning for what you post there (mostly - there are a few rules).
There is no protection against your reputation, though. Anything you post in the Pit is there forever, for anyone to read. A lot of folks here don’t read the Pit, but many do, and they can always link to your Pit thread even in non-Pit posts.
You can be an asshole in the Pit and not get moderated for it, but that won’t prevent others on the SDMB from thinking that you’re an asshole.
I actually think these guys are overstating it a bit. It is generally accepted that posters can be a bit more rough and tumble in the Pit, though you don’t have to be. It takes more to be considered an asshole in the Pit than other forums, which makes sense as a place to vent. How it is perceived largely depends on whether people think your reaction is reasonable or not, as well as whether you seem to regularly make a habit of trying to piss people off, rather than just vent sometimes.
Still, if you are considered an asshole there, it definitely carries over. For example, I can’t think of anyone who is completely hated in the Pit who isn’t hated elsewhere.
The only thing is that there are some posters who don’t much care for the Pit, and so don’t care about what goes on there. But that’s a small group of posters. And the worst posters in the Pit tend to also be the worst posters outside the Pit, so even the people who don’t care for the Pit will think they are assholes.
The Pit is a way of containing the chaos. As a wise man once noted
Dalton: People who really want to have a good time won’t come to a slaughterhouse. And we’ve got entirely too many troublemakers here. Too many 40-year-old adolescents, felons, power drinkers and trustees of modern chemistry.
I like The Pit. Agreed, it seems to be a place to vent and that is good IMHO. I peruse mostly for mostly entertainment value, and while there seems to be valid gripes, some go over the top into juvenile territory. I just move on to a different post/thread.
I prefer to think of the Pit as rules-light, rather than rules-free. Regardless, we can’t pass a rule regulating what other people think about you. If you come across as an asshole in a Pit thread, posters are liable to think of you as an asshole outside of the Pit.
Pfft! What would *you *know about it? 
Which is why I recommend the “new guy in prison” approach: find an innocent bystander— the nicest, friendliest poster in the Pit— and be a complete prick to him or her for no reason. Establish your rep on the first day, so there’s nothing to lose.
Now, who’s up for a round of pruno?
Thanks man, but I’m not asking for me.
I’ve been seeing alot of crap around the whole board lately, and I’m just trying to work out how I feel about it all. I didn’t want to misjudge. So I asked, in case I was mistaken.
There are things being said that I don’t take lightly, so I really appreciate getting a whole load of answers from so many.
It’s just another forum on the board with different rules. It’s not a big fucking deal. Want to know more about it? I would advise hanging out there and checking the place out. It’s not a mystery or anything.
But stay away from “that group.” They’ll cut you, man.
Here’s what I like about the Pit: it’s the only place on the Board where if a poster says something ridiculous, they can be told it’s ridiculous. No parsing the answer about how the post was silly, but the poster wasn’t. Flat out, you can say what you think. You think someone was racist. You can say that, and it’s the only place. Some threads are definitely all about the flame, but many times I find that the discussion is more open. There is great discussion to be had in the Pit, without miles of carnage. As Miller says, rules light, not rules free.