deleted double post, tho the first one wasn’t great
Who gives a shit? It ain’t your health and well-being we’re concerned with! It’s the possible psychological consequences to the victims of the over-the-top verbal lynch-mob mentality that springs into life around here sometimes that is the focus of our concern.
And, Ruby, after having undergone careful and thoughtful reflection and pondering the proper course of action regarding your obviously obfuscatorily-motivated cite demands, I must respectfully (well, maybe not so much) decline. The reasons are as follows:
A. First, and in this case probably most important, it would serve mostly to open and keep reopening the wounds for MizGrand who very politely and passionately asked that we stop discussing her, and while none of us is obligated to honor that request, I for one have chosen to do so. (Oh noes!!! He’s self-aggrandizing like a motherfuck!!!)
B. You know as well as I do that it would be pointless to discuss individual comments when talking about what is essentially mob behavior. My comments were aimed at the quilty parties in toto. If you aren’t one of them, then don’t get your panties in a bunch. If you were, then tough, sort it out yourself becuase I’m not gonna do it for you.
C. IMHO, you aren’t really interested in anything more than obtaining fodder for verbal hair-splitting and obfuscation by attempting to derail the point from being the atrocious behavior some of this board’s posters exhibit in some of these trainwreck threads to subjectively arguing over the finer points of this or that particular poster’s particular comments. I don’t think there’s much doubt in the mind of any reasonable reader of those threads that the overall tone was vicious and deliberately hurtful, and it is the overall tone of those threads which I’ve condemned.
D. It is also possible, in threads such as those, for posters’ mere hostile presense to add to the feeling of being ganged upon and reviled. Sort of like when a kid on the schoolyard finds himself confronted with a bully and his gang of syncophants. The bully may be doing the bulk of the threatening, but the laughter, snide remarks and encouragement of his hangers-on still add to the threat and the discomfort or fear that the incident is causing its victim even though a cold, dispassionate recital of their actual words may not be particularly egregious in and of themselves. It’s somewhat akin to the difference in words’ meaning when sung passionately in a song vs. a cold recital of them as spoken word.
But of course you already know that I’m sure.
And Quiddity, I hate to say this but I’m afraid you’re just going to have to adopt the attitude of “fuck the fuckin’ fuckers” and let your language follow suit. To attempt to take the high road around here is largely an exercise in futility. Sometimes you just have to get down in the gutter with them to get 'em to take you seriously.
Yep. Defend someone who is calling for foreign objects to be thrust into an arse, but flack off when asked for specifics.
And that is one of the most cowardly statements yet. Pony up or shut the fuck up.
And an OP which calls for raping people is “nice”?
There is a list of people willing to take up the offer to of discussing this in a more serious mattern than just a fucking mindless OP blanketly condeming a list of Dopers, but refusing to say why.
As others have repeately called for, if there is a real issue, then fucking give specifics and we can discuss them.
QG gives a shit! She’s worried for our health. She’s told us so in other threads–that our vile hateful out-pourings, allowing people to bother us, and getting our ire up is bad for us, the posters doing posting these things. I have to take her at her word that she is concerned that we will die earlier from our chosen lifestyle of being a big meanie. It’s another of her schticks.
You appear to pick your battles based on the oddest of reasons. You side with people who you think will be your friends, suck up to people that you want to like you for whatever reason, and are quick to paint with a broad brush. I wouldn’t know what to do if you were on my side in a thread because I just don’t get you at all. Guess I’d have to re-examine my behavior and wonder where I went wrong.
Let me offer my two cents here. I see both sides of this. Pit threads fall into two basic categories: 1) debate-like discussions where people don’t have to hold to the protocol of GD and 2) an outlet for vitriol about an incident or person. I think they’re both fair game. They are what the Pit is for. Of course, there is no hard line between the two, buit there is a line. Some excellent deabtes have been had in The Pit. I find it unfortunate that sometimes the negative behavior described in this thread extends into those debates, derailing the discussion. I’ve been the target of this more than once. The piliing on and tag-teaming with the actual points of the debate is difficult enough, but that is the nature of the boards. But when the attacks in those threads toggle back and forth between attacks on the positions and attacks on the person, it is cheap.
I come here to debate, and to sometimes let off some steam. I am really not interested in personally insulting people I don’t know. Many people I do know—and like immensely—disagree with many of my positions, so, for me, disagreement does not equal asshat. Almost all of my vitriol—and there has been plenty—has been directed at people who have first attacked me. Usually in an attempt to get back to the discussion.
So, I think the Pit is the place for both personal attacks and heated debates on issues. But, ideally, not at the same time.
My posts have virtually nothing to do with the OP itself. They reference activity in the threads that spawned it.
You might want to start with your inability to correctly analyze the motives and behavior of other people.
Starving Artist, will you listen to yourself? You think I want cites and examples to OBFUSCATE a point? No, usually cite and examples CLARIFY a point. I want you to show me examples of behavior YOU called immoral. The onus is on you to back up an accusation that serious when you make it. If people are behaving immorally and all the jackals are getting away with it, that’s bad. I personally don’t see it, because when someone says something beyond the pale, they get called on it, and they have. SHOW ME where this immoral behavior has happened and was condoned or allowed. Otherwise, shut up.
During the Liberal/PRR debacle, she avidly defended Liberal, saying why was everyone piling on him and being sooooooooo meeeeeeeeeean, due to not liking him from past posting? And the Pit is so bad, and so is attacking people personally, basically her whole crusade against the Pit starts with that clusterfuck. I linked to that thread earlier in this one. She’s also doing it here.I pointed out that, in fact, Liberal was waaaaaaay over the top in his treatment of PRR thread that led to PRR’s $500 exit from the board, and that this happened in a thread that started rather innocuously because Liberal didn’t like PRR due to past posting. Thus, her sweetie Liberal was guilty of the very same things she was defending him from. It would have been fine, but then she admitted that she hadn’t read any of the threads in question but PRR bugged her, so therefore he was not entitled to her humanitarian aid, nor did she go back and the read the threads in question to see if her defense of Liberal was wrong-headed. Thus, accusations of being arbitrary in her dislike of bullying in the Pit, her willingness to defend bullies she likes, and an inconsistent application of these moral standards she claims to hold dear. She also illustratres in the thread “A note on the (now closed) thread” that she doesn’t even know the purpose of the Pit. Really, a study in idiocy.
No, I think you should be consistent. If you’re going to call people on bad behavior and defend others, you should defend people who are actual victims, not just people who you think will enhance your standing here or your image as saint. I think you should know how the SDMB works, and let people use it the way it was intended. But really, I think you should let it go. Let the Pit be the Pit. It’s not going to change, and most of us don’t think it should. If you do, if people are displaying inhumanity against their fellow man, if there are ravening hordes of jackals roaming the Dope unrestrained, CITE EXAMPLES of where, why and how. Gvie constructive ways on how it should change. Or you’re just full of shit as usual. Your “you can’t always get what you want” response to the request for cites shows amply that YOU DON’T HAVE ANY. This is the Dope. If you can’t support your claim, you’ve lost the argument.
I’ll say it again. My OP was not directed at anyone in particular, ever. After digesting all the hate in the original 2-3 threads, I got really sick of what I saw as unneccesarily vituperative band-wagon hopping. I agree completely she deserved to be lambasted, but after the first couple of pages it became clear to me anyway that many people were just there for the free fun of being superior to her and posting so.
If I went back and re-read the thread, I could indeed find examples of what provoked my OP, but unfortunately that thread is off-limits from this thread, per mod instructions. If a mod chimes in and says I can start citing shit from it, then I’ll throw down the gauntlet with pleasure. I have no beef with you TokyoPlayer, but I cant let your coward comments stand.
My OP was way over the top, and for that I’m sorry. For the record, I’ve admitted that several times b4 in this thread. As you know, I get carried away sometimes :smack:
Again, I am many negative things, but a coward is not one. If you really think that, then fuck off.
Oh, I should also repeat that I have no desire to censor the Pit or make it a place for chocolate smiles and fuzzy bunnies. I dont think anyone broke any rules, I just got fed up with the behavior that I thought I saw.
Yikes. I would encourage friend and foe alike to amend the above to read “guilty” and “sycophants”. The above were posted hurriedly as I was headed out the door and now the wonderfully lucid points I was making have likely been thrown off track by the “huh?” factor these odd misspellings create. Drat!
:: walks off humming, "with the syncopated rhythm, with the rat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat on the drums… ::
Giraffe said in post #219 :
So feel free to offer cites without dragging MizGrand back into it.
No
and…
No
Yes, but how to do that without throwing more poop onto the original shitstorm? Orz. Well, I guess I’ll give it a shot. Who knows… maybe I wont be able to find anything and thus have no choice but to end of imploding in it and admit defeat :smack:
We’ve already had the cute kitties. Don’t press yer luck with the fuzzy bunnies.
I give my opinions freely, as I’ve stated. I’ve seen your posts and evaluate you on that. I also think you aren’t one to be calling anyone a sycophant.
Don’t agree with me? That’s okay. We rarely agree and I’m quite fine with that.
OK, you have no cites, then you have no argument. You have nothing to back up your moralistic and judgmental stance. I’m so glad we got that cleared up, not that I at any time had any doubt that you and Quiddity would ever do anything but cluck and crow and fling accusations without support.
Well, at least you’re thinking. Perhaps one day you’ll actually develop that activity into something that allows you to arrive at accurate conclusions.
If you think defending someone in a thread equals sycophancy, I suggest you research the meaning of the word. But be that as it may, you’re not going to get anywhere with that approach anyway. I defended Liberal in a thread once and got tagged as sucking up to him and kissing his ass and I roundly debunked the accusation. If you’d like to be a little more specific about just whose ass I’m kissing here and why you think I’d want to, I’d be happy to debunk yours as well.
I’m more than happy to let those threads stand as their own condemnation; they need no help from me. And your ‘neener-neener’ taunts aimed at trying either to goad me into acquiesense or to admit defeat aren’t going to get you anywhere either. To say I have no argument is ridiculous. Of course I have an argument; and most people, I’m confident, can see its validity. You may not, or you may simply be playing obfuscatory word games, but if you expect me to capitulate simply because I decline to be drawn into a game of dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin over what this post or that really means, I’m afraid you are going to be quite disappointed. Better men than you have tried and failed to get me to play along with that game. 
?!?!?! 
WTF?!?!?
Rubystreak isn’t trying to get you to admit defeat, she’s asking you which posts, specifically, you and QG find so troubling. Why is that hard?
Is my post questioning the believablility of MizGrand’s statements too harsh? Was a post calling her a douch-bag too harsh? Was a post suggesting that she fellate a goat too harsh?
Why is this a tough question? If you’re trying to make an arguement, the very least you can do is tell us what the hell you’re aruging about. Shit - some of us may agree with you. But dancing around the issue and saying “Some of them were WAY too mean.” but not saying which ones is as annoying as supporting a claim with a “mysterious group of e-mails that I’ve received from dopers that don’t want to be named”, or dropping a “If you don’t know what’s wrong, then I’m certainly not going to tell you!” missive in the middle of an arugement. That is to say, really frikin’ annoying.
It’s obnoxious and passive agressive. For the love of Pete, which frikin’ posts were horrible enough to generate this OP, and you an QG’s support in it?
A lot of people disagree with you, as evidenced by this thread. Many folks see most of that thread as people trying to advise, cajole, or harshly imprecate MizGrand into doing the right thing. There were some over the top posts, and those have been duly noted, chastised, and several of the people who did it have apologized.
What else do you want?!? What are you gaining by continuing to point to this non-specific moral failing you claim exists in the Dope? You assume that the MizGrand thread stands as its own monument to cruelty. I’m saying, no it doesn’t. I think most people were trying to help her in their own way. You’re condemning people for behaving badly. I’m saying, most of them didn’t. I’d like you to show me where all this evil is. If you see that as hair-splitting then you are being deliberately obtuse so as not to have to back up an accusation.