That’s why I see the Pit as a necessary evil unless the rules are relaxed in the other forums.
On the other hand, if the site subscription offered a $1 add-on to block a problematic poster from posting for a day, the SDMB will be fully funded until the Internet burns out.
Oh! Oh! I’ll take twenty, please!
I would guess that specifically the most heated Pit threads seem to be where poster A is accusing Poster B of lying about what poster A said. Usually these devolve into arguments about whether poster B’s statement was a fair paraphrase of what poster A actually said.
I think the Pit is a good solution for this; it’s very likely that one or both participants are going to lose their temper in such a discussion, which, if it has to stay in the original thread, is only going to lead to the thread getting hijacked and possibly people getting Warned.
For less emotionally charged situations, where someone is perceived to be lying about something not related to the personal integrity of another board member, I think it would be a good idea to tighten the moderation a bit. People who repeatedly post objectively false claims, and refuse to address the evidence presented that they are wrong, should IMO be moderated, at least in GD and P&E.
The thing with the Pit is that one poster can claim the other poster is lying/disingenuous/trolling (all forms of dishonesty), but then that can be checked by other posters. Trying to do with rules alone doesn’t seem to work. Trolling is already against the rules, and being disingenuous is often seen as trolling, yet we still have accusations of both.
Also, I actually would assume that, in more recent times, accusations of bigotry would be second place. That, however, does actually seems to be being improved on at the moderation level.
Glancing briefly at the Pit’s threads (not an actual in-depth analysis, I know, but just glancing,) it appears that the most common reason for a Doper being Pitted is actually about some claim of that Doper exhibiting bigotry, sexism, racism, or so forth. Lying seems to be a relatively seldom reason for pitting someone.
I think a very common scenario is for people to be simultaneously accused of being a bigot of some sort AND of lying about being a bigot or about having made bigoted statements.
Perhaps, but in most cases what keeps a thread going is that people simply cannot just move on. I find it rather pathetic when posters are “Look what poster X said now” in a multiple hundred post thread, instead of just blocking the person they clearly don’t like and moving on.
I think we also have to consider cases where the Pittee is confronted with things other than dishonesty, and those things cannot be addressed elsewhere. For example - racism. We can say that a statement appears racist, but we cannot tell a poster that they appear racist. Other examples might be treatment of other posters, or fixation on something that other posters are tired of hearing about or want to address more forthrightly than they can do elsewhere.
Without a big revision of policies, I don’t see a good way around allowing Pitting of posters. Frankly, if we do revise policies to allow forthright discussions in all forums, wouldn’t all forums become the Pit?
I’m mostly in the same boat. That’s why I suggested the change to the Pit in the OP, in that I felt it kept the release valve function of the pit, while perhaps restraining the ‘dogpile’ issue that seem to be the biggest complaint in the referenced thread. Although right now I’m leaning towards @Thing.Fish 's suggestion -
Sure, we have a number of people who can’t/won’t agree on what is “objectively false” these days, but that’s why they give Mods the hickory stick, and why if they seem to overstep we call them out in ATMB. Honestly, these are the two forums (QZ to a slightly lesser extent) that tend to generate the most complaints. Sure, it may make more work for the mods, but doesn’t just about anything to improve the board?
This seems to be a common theme in the thread. Why is it not enough to argue that the post is racist (which is an intellectual dodge in and of itself, but that’s a side issue) such that you feel the need to personally attack some random person on the internet who you don’t even know? I mean, you (the general you) just have to tell that motherfucker that he is racist! Just must! It cannot be left unsaid!
The anger from some people is astounding. If there is a poster that I find I don’t like, then I just scroll past. It’s good for the blood pressure and you’ll live longer.
I think that oversimplifies the issue. If someone is racist, and demonstrates that across several threads, then I would argue that we need a place to confront that person as a community.
Exactly. No one here knows that a poster is racist. You can see that a post is racist sometimes.
And what good does that do? “Never wrestle with a pig…”
The alternative is what? Just ignore behavior that the community finds abhorrent? How does this help anyone? How does this help the Board?
Because sometimes, there are people who genuinely think they’re getting away with something, if they’re not confronted.
Besides, no one is forced to participate in a discussion or a particular forum, as has been stated ad nauseum.
Again, the reason this thread exists in large part is the conversation about how to attract new members to the board and how many posters feel that they’d see pit threads and recoil. That being the case, wouldn’t they also recoil at repeated, uncontested falsehoods and other dishonest behavior? That’s why many people find themselves emotionally committed to challenging said repeated dishonesty, racism and bigotry.
Me, I’ll normally make a good faith effort to correct, and if dismissed, I’ll move on or use the ignore feature for particularly gratuitous posters. Because as you say it’s better for my blood pressure, but it does have consequences, and it reflects poorly on the board if no one challenges the behavior mentioned.
Feeding trolls is always a bad idea.
Which can be done with facts, not name calling.
In the immortal words of an old commercial:
But where’s the fun in that?
It’s easy to ignore the Pit. I did for years; I didn’t read or contribute to it at all. I didn’t understand it and certainly had no interest in it for a long time.
But when someone is being racist, or a misogynist, or transphobic, or or spreading wild conspiracy theories or other garbage, that can happen anywhere in any thread. That’s a lot harder to avoid, if it’s allowed to be thrown around casually.
If that were true, then it wouldn’t continue happening. If you could beat bigotry with facts and argument, it would no longer exist.