I started hanging out in the Pit because Great Debates was getting too vicious.
I almost never hang out in GD, and as for the Pit… I’ll want to wait a bit on that one.
F_X
I spend as much time there as anywhere else. Many of the topics of interest to me show up both there and in GD, and it’s much harder to say 'yes, you are an ignorant [insult]" in GD. In the pit, however…
My lurk-time is a lot higher than my post-time, but I still spend a bit of the former in yon Pit. If you follow along over a long enough period, it lets you know where the fault lines of ugliness are–in the other fora, they’re generally only hinted at, sometimes in baffling ways. The Pit throws it out there in all their naked unglory.
After a hard day at the Roller Derby and working as a lobbyist for the new hybrid of the NRA and PETA(People Shooting Tasty Animals), I find the Pit a lovely holiday from all the hatred and vitriol in the world.
I mostly post in the pit. And I’m a sweetheart of a man. Gentle as a dove.
I do swear a bit, but I’m generally very polite.
Unless you consider swearing to impolite.
I don’t mind the Pit for the most part - I like the fact that people can think up falmboyant insults regarding other posters’ parentage, sexual proclivities with farm animals, etc., all based on disagreements over points of view. It’s vitriolic, but usually in a creative and amusing way. Particular fave: Gary Kumquat who manages to hit just the right tone, guaranteed to drive the object of his disdain to apoplexy (I’ve been on the receiving end and I found it an infuriating but somehow amusing experience).
What I don’t like is the real-life shit that’s been going down in the Pit recently. Got a problem with a genuine friend or acquaintance from the boards? Take it to email, or a phone conversation, or meet in a bar. Don’t splash it on a public message board. That really sucks.
I don’t find the Pit half as worrying as the prospect of anal scurvey . . . I suppose our violets shrink at different prospects.
Hmm…it’s weird, because even though this post is in MPSIMS, so I’m obviously reading the forum, I don’t usually read it because MPSIMS scares me. It seems like a lot of the posts here are of the “You won’t believe what my cat did today!” variety…people I don’t know telling me stuff I don’t care about.
At least in the Pit, there’s outrage. And every once in a while, you see a board feud or a meltdown, and those are always fun.
I’m really glad we have the pit! A very small percentage of the threads I’ve started have been started in the pit, although I do post there on occasion. The reason I think the pit’s a good thing is that it helps keep everyone civilized in the other forums. This way, productive stuff can get discussed without people getting too nasty with one another, etc.
I think, for the most part, this is what dopers are. The pit allows these smart, together, funny people to let off steam in a relatively safe way, so they don’t blow a gasket somewhere where it would be inappropriate.
“I once read (not my own words, I swear) that arguing online is like running in the Special Olympics. Even if you win, you’re still retarded.”
Javamaven1, thanks so much…Man I needed that this morning!
Gods felicitous and infelicitous, I adore the Pit. Some of the best writing on this board shows up there. A good rant can be a thing of beauty.
I don’t generally enjoy the personal pittings, or the train wrecks. Generally. Although I do think they can serve an important function. But when a poster takes something bad that happened to them, and uses their creativity to turn it into a carefully composed Pit OP, full of stirring prose and stinging invective, I’m there! I think that’s not quite the same thing as histrionics–it’s taking lemons and making super-sour, pucker til you’re blind atomic lemon drops. Or something.