I didn’t read the transgender thread so I can’t comment on its move to the Pit, but it seemed to me that the Boy Scouts thread was a decent debate with substantive points being made. If your main argument is that there weren’t any cites, it’s a pretty weak argument – there are no cites at all in the silly thread on free will (beyond links to previous discussions and some quibbles about definitions). It simply begins with a link to a disreputable British tabloid and then rages for 155 posts (at last count) over nearly a week, and does nothing but reprise previous discussions, yet it’s still there in GD.
No, the Scouts speech thread was a debate, IMHO, which opinion is worth exactly as much as you paid to receive it, but my opinion nevertheless. It was a lopsided debate, to be sure, so maybe you should have jumped in to defend the minority position, which I didn’t see you do. It was also a debate that was getting unruly, and that’s probably why it was moved, but those posters were told to dial it back and I would have thought that should be sufficient to let the discussion proceed in GD.
And since the only poster that I recall supporting Trump on this seems disinclined to follow the thread into the Pit, I think it’s fair to say that it was a debate, but now no longer is.
That was a joke, of course, but since only a tiny fraction of GD threads get moved to The Pit, I think that problem is not one we need to worry about. Also, some folks just don’t like The Pit. The poster you are thinking of has only posted 8 times in The Pit in the last 2 years.
I thought andy’s thread was a Pit thread because the OP contains the word ‘‘infuriated,’’ so I just sort of went with it. Sorry if I contributed to the move.
So? No one said that was an issue.
Perhaps I should have moved them to IMHO rather than The BBQ Pit, but I expected them to generate a lot of heat and thought that they would fit more comfortably in the Pit.
Compare iiandyiii’s OP with the OP of the thread John Mace opened in response to having the topic moved out of GD. iiandyiii did not address the claims that Trump made; he expressed the view that Trump’s action was pointless and harmful without explaining how or why it was harmful.
I did not think it was a bad post and the word “infuriating” was not a shibboleth that doomed it to the Pit, but i did not see a call for discussion or a challenge to Trump’s (lack of) logic.
Czarcasm’s OP did not address any of the actual issues that people have raised regarding Trump’s tone deaf, narcissistic, tradition ignoring (trampling) behavior. He simply pointed out that Trump was being Trump. Dropping the fig leaf of “What say you?” on the end of a post does not turn such a post into a debate invitation.
Perhaps I should have placed it in IMHO, but, again, I thought it would fit more comfortably in The Pit.
I’m still puzzled why the threads needed to be moved at all. If the quality of the OP is the issue, in that they fell short of what is expected to properly frame a debate, why is boffking allowed to post any new threads in GD at all? He just posts two lines about a controversy, says “what’s up with that?” and then never returns.
I figured the desire for debate in my post was implicit – I was angry, but it wasn’t a rant, and I welcomed (even if I pushed back hard) any contrary opinions. When there was a contrary opinion, I pushed back with reasoned debate (IMO, anyway) and not flaming rants.
If you move such a thread to IMHO, then it might solidify into Great Debate and be moved back, or go downhill if people ignore Mod instructions and the Mod decides to move the thread to The Pit instead of trying to clear it up. Both of these has happened in the past.
On the other hand if you decide to directly move it to the Pit you are practically inviting people to respond in a Pit-like manner, and I can count on the fingers of one foot the number of times a Pit Mod has declared “This thread is too serious and fact-filled to be here, so I’m moving it the Great Debates.”
Best to make the debate explicit, and to avoid saying things like “This is infuriating to me” in a GD OP. With all due respect, your OP reads like it was written by someone who was pissed off, not someone who wanted to understand what was going on.
Now, you might argue that it’s fairly common for GD OPs to read like that. And if you did argue that, I would probably agree with you.