I’m not going to link to a thread because the thread is stupid. It’s in the Pit, and it’s about Carol Stream if you care to hunt it down.
Two observations:
One, it is unseemly to the extreme to bash posters who cannot respond because of a suspension or ban. I know that Giraffe relaxed this guideline somewhat, but before him, it was upheld consistently by Tuba and Lynn. Whatever other faults they might have had, they got this one right. And so does Gfactor. He closed the thread. Good.
Two, what the hell is wrong with you people? Pitizens in particular, who seem to believe that anyone who disagrees with them is a troll or should be banned. It is not a character flaw to hold conservative views — even ones that you find to be abhorrent. Carol Stream is as entitled to his/her opinion as any one of you.
Spare me the argument that Stream’s opinions are expressed somehow the wrong way. That he/she is “trolling” or deliberately upsetting people. You expect a thining person to give credence to opinions about deliberately upsetting people when you are hosting a bash-party which is design deliberately to upset the poster? I think not.
You get in your digs, and it’s wrong. Wrong. Just plain wrong. I don’t care if it’s against Polycarp or Der Trihs. You (y’all) should be ashamed to have the mentality that tells you it’s okay to tie a person’s hands behind his back and then smack and spit on him. You’re like the guards at Abu Ghraib. The only difference is that, thankfully, you’re limited to words. God only knows what you might do with whips and broomsticks and cameras.
I vote that this tradition be encoded as a rule. Enough rules you say? No. Not enough. Not if bashing of this type is allowed to go on for days at a time. It is one of the most jerkish behaviors imaginable. It’s bullying, pure and simple. It is a trolling of its own kind, seving no purpose but to push the buttons of the person you’re bashing.
As if Carol Stream just came here yesterday and nobody knows what he/she is up to…please. It’s not the conservatism; it’s just obvious to all but the purposefully passive aggressively obtuse that it’s trolling, pure and simple. Unseemly bashing? Please; this is somebody’s Id sock, I guarantee it.
This? Is a psychotic analogy. “Stick and stones will break my bones”, remember? I’m thrilled that in your particular moral code that you see no difference between tying someone up and giving them a brutal physical beating vs calling someone a naughty word (that they don’t even have to choose to read), but I suspect it’s out of touch with the vast majority of people out there.
I vote that it not be. For whatever votes matter here.
We’ve got enough rules, and rules to force everyone to conform to your specific and odd morality (beatings=name-calling?) are even worse.
I don’t care about the feelings of banned posters all that much and as for the anti-pile-on stuff, a pile-on is no more than lots of posters agreeing. The “bashing” goes on for days at a time? How many posters are you going to allow to disagree with someone before you cut off discussion?
The pit has been wimped out and pussified enough without worrying about the feelings of someone who’s not even posting here .
Is there any kind of announcement about the pit suspension? Usually when there’s a poster suspended there’s a locked post in ATMB about it, but I can’t see one about Carol.
Is she suspended? In this post Gfactor only barred her from posting in the Pit for a couple of weeks (first time I’ve seen that sort of sanction) although he did say her posting privileges were under review.
You’re quite right, of course. I had hoped against hope that we could have a civil discussion of the issue in the OP without threadshitters dropping by to hurl insults and misrepresent the views of others.
This is the area in which moderation is needed — keeping the tone (and the posts) civil, especially in this forum. Had I wanted to open a Pit thread, I would have done so.
I would add that the suggestion that some “morality” issue is involved here misses the point. It is an issue of ethics: how man treats his fellow man, not what is between a man and his conscience or God. How can it be that someone believes bashing defenseless people is okely dokely?
Well, I do actually agree with you on that point. Not fair to bash someone where they can’t defend themselves, no matter what you or any number of people think of them. That’s why I posted my possibly ridiculous premise here.
So TPTB haven’t found the actual smoking gun (yet). But it will happen, eventually.
Because the “defenseless” person doesn’t have to read it, which is why your idiotic “beatings” argument is so…well…stupid. What you’re missing is that the so-called “defenseless” person (could your posts be any more drama-queeny?) has a 100% effective defense. They don’t have to read the posts. Poof. No harm. None. Not even bruised feelings. Not so much the case with violent beatings.
And the funny part? All these years of you going on and on in your “I’m A Libertarian! I care about personal freedom!” and how the only legitimate reason to restrain peaceful* honest people from going about their business freely is to prevent force and/or fraud…? It’s hysterical that the moment you get a bug up your ass, your posts start sounding like a Fred Phelps style statist trying to prevent people from doing something you don’t want to participate in.
ETA: Heh–no it’s not surprising. I just recalled this thread where you tried to get any mention of Andrew Jackson that didn’t meet your particular threshold of white-hot rage banished to the pit because it would have personally offended you. And all rules should be centered around you and you alone.
*and no matter how you twist the word, saying nasty things where someone doesn’t have to listen/read is still “peaceful”, if not nice
False. It is quite a character flaw to hold some conservative views. The popularity of these views in certain circles does not make them any more acceptable morally or ethically.
Keeping posts, especially in this forum, civil…you mean like slapping down comparisons between posters at this message board and abusive prison guards?
Only if you insist on the usual dishonest but simple syllogism:[ul][li]Posting with intent to annoy is trolling.[]Conservatives are annoying.[]Ergo, conservatism is trolling.[/ul][/li]
There is nothing more to it than that.
Lib, although I do admire your sense of fair play, I think you simply might be more sensitive than average about this. Frankly, I’m not sure having people calling my internet pseudonym names in a forum designed for that kind of thing, while not being able to respond, would really bother me all that much. And as others have mentioned, if it did I could simply not not read it.
Your concern is coming from a good place, of that I have no doubt. But maybe you should consider that most folks simply don’t see it as awful as you seem to.
To imply that people who call each names anonymously on a message board forum called “The BBQ Pit” means they might also physically torture people tied to chairs is really, really out of proportion.
:: Pittings Per Year ::
Liberal - 22/10 = 2.2 PPY
Carol - 3/3 = 1.0 PPY
The method used to conduct this survey was to search the title of Pit Threads for the users names, excluding those threads which were not pittings of that specific user. That number is then divided by the number of years that the member has been registered with the site.
Carol Stream intentionally ticks people off. He/She threadshits all the flipping time. When you make the community mad, you get what you get.
Your feelings are misplaced–the poster in question dishes out exactly what they get. The second you do this, you lose the moral ground to ask that people be civil.
Have you noticed that you haven’t been pitted in ages? Who changed, us or you? If Carol Stream wants people to treat him/her nicely, he/she’s gonna have to do the same thing you did, and start behaving like a nicer person.
It may not be ideal, but that’s the way it works in the real world.
