My explanation has nothing to do with Ed’s new rule. . . at all.
But I did want to explain why I posted as I did. Silver Tyger Girl was trying to tell us that if we didn’t have a Pit, there wouldn’t be anywhere to place invective-filled rants. That’s not true.
But more than that, I said it because many new people come into the Pit thinking that any rants that have any swear words in them automatically go into the Pit. Let’s take STG’s rant about the printers. If someone can get that upset about printers that they have to fill them with hyperbolic invective, unless the hyperbolic invective is very creative, the OP is an easy target for the thread to turn on them. The same goes for people who post personal things they’re personally upset about with a couple swear words in it. It doesn’t happen all the time, but sometimes the majority of posters will turn on them and the OP author will be shocked, upset and threaten to leave the board. That’s why it’s unfair to leave the impression, especially with the new folks, that any rants filled with swear words goes in the Pit. They’re better off in MPSIMS.
No, no… I know and I apologize if I wasn’t explicit enough on that particular point. It was more of a tangent. I had just been perusing the “Dicks and Assholes” thread and it was on my mind. I shouldn’t have included that line because it was irrelevant to the thread.
My apologies for attributing that reasoning to you.
I really can’t disagree with anything you’ve said here. Especially about new posters. One thing I would hate to see are new posters ran off because of misunderstanding’s about expectations.
Understand, please, that I’m not necessarily trying to take a side in this drama that has enveloped the board in the last coupe of weeks. I guess all I’m trying to say is that changing people’s expectation, (that is long time members), is going to be difficult. And it’s not as easy as instituting a new rule. I know it sounds like I’m stating the hopelessly obvious, but we’ve had the old rules governing the Pit and other sub-forums forever, (cursing in the Pit is not mandatory, rants can be placed elsewhere if they’re not targeting another poster, etc…) and no one really seemed to pay them any mind. The day that the new rules for the Pit were posted there were something like 5 or 6 threads posted in there that all got locked in short order because discussion about board policy didn’t belong in there anymore. Did the OPs not read the notice? Did they not understand it? Of course not, I’m sure it was a combination of protest and old habits.
Will these new rules, backed up by stringent enforcement thereof, be enough to get people to change their posting habits? (All the locked threads seemed to encourage people to come here to air grievances, which seems a good sign). I can only say that I certainly hope so. This place is worth more than a few banned vulgarities.
Upon further reflection, while I was initially resistant to the idea, I think furt’s idea regarding abolishing the Pit may not be entirely without merit. Get rid of the problem entirely.