Before implementing a “bland titles” idea, I do think we need to consider the downside: that thread titles will be less descriptive of their contents.
It seems the current proposal is to say "A pit thread for ". I see three potential downsides here: (1) not all Pit threads go after a specific poster, but more a trend of posts. (2) We can’t have duplicate titles, so you’d wind up with numbers or at least “Yet another Pit thread for __” or similar. (3) it wouldn’t be clear from the title what they are being pitted for, or whether or not it was worth your time to check in on.
I’m not saying these are showstoppers (though, to me, number 1 seems hard to resolve). But I do think they need to be discussed, along with any other potential issues.
My personal opinion is that having a polite title wouldn’t change much in how having that link below my post would feel. The main information being given is that I have been pitted for this post. (Well, unless they’re quoting my post for another reason, which you could hopefully tell by the title of the thread.)
Finally, I actually like the links for multi-poster threads like the trolling one, because it links me directly to the post that talks about that person, rather than having to read through the whole troll thread to see if someone said anything about that post. Well, in theory–in practice we often don’t directly link a troll post, so as not to notify them, lest they come in and start trolling the troll thread.
I wonder if that may be the better solution: don’t link the thread. Just include the URL without a link. Just put it on its own line, with ​ in front of it, like so:
I can think of at least one pit thread where someone was called out for specific behavior they were doing rather than “he disagrees with me, thus he is an asshole”.
Give there’s a new rule in the Pit fixing many of these problems, I’m going to report this post and ask that this thread is close. Thank you everyone for participating!
Please don’t yet. It was implemented before discussing the downsides. It would make sense to leave it up to point out any issues that may come up.
Right now, the rare Pit thread I actually made has now been mislabeled to be about two specific posters rather than the general topic of disingenuous racism. I picked that title for a reason, so that I could throw in other posters, which I have since then.
And, again, do we really want numbered Pit threads? That will be an obvious insult if someone has #5 by the name of the thread. It seemed like @SCAdian missed the point of my post.
You can always ask Miller to change the title to something else.
Hopefully they’ll soon ban omnibus threads about other posters, and it will no longer be an issue. After seeing how other people had been treated in the Pit, I Ignored the thread you started immediately, and the little I’ve seen of it since was every bit as stupid and pointless as I expected. RickJay is exactly right about the place.
I don’t know which mod is handling it, but was wondering if it is possible to bring closed Pit posts in line with the new ruling. I suspect they’re busy fixing all the ‘open’ ones first, but we still have a number of recent ones that haven’t updated, probably (again) due to being closed/locked. Good work to however-many mods are wearing their fingers down to nubs renaming.
I hope not, at least if all the posters in question are banned. I have a thread naming two banned posters and an off board figure as “three racist peas in a racist pod” and I’m rather proud of that title and don’t want to see it gone
I was thinking of the recent one regarding SmartAleq - which as of right now still shows the expletive - and while the thread that spawned it is already closed as well, that particular thread may be referred to for some time to come.
Many things, including rants, beefs, etc, and yes one if personal insults. Many of us want that last part changed, due to declining membership. We are scaring off new members. Other boards do not allow that.