# Pit Manners **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 1, 2007, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-manners/398271 "2007-04-01T06:09:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![LifeOnWry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@LifeOnWry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeOnWry)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-manners/398271/121 "2007-04-05T04:26:10Z")
Just because someone else said something was irony does not make it so. The reason I am not pointing you to individual posts that annoy me is several-fold. First, this doesn’t seem that difficult to understand; to wit, so far everyone who has posted in this thread seems to get it, except for you. Second, I’ve already outlined the TYPE of post I mean, and I have specifically said that posts that follow a natural conversational flow (such as the cell phones in school thread you linked) are not what I mean. Third, **Oakminster** may very well be the only poster who has EVER posted an OP rating - I have said I don’t keep track of who posts what unless I’ve engaged with a poster. I noticed a lot of ratings in the first couple posts to threads, not that it was only one person doing it. Fourth, there were several examples of the type of post I mean in ONE thread, the cell phone thread I linked to back on page one. I am not “purporting” to speak for anyone but myself. Some people have posted to this thread that this bothers them too. They do not seem to have any difficulty speaking for themselves. There is no “group.” And finally, where or how often I post?? What does that have to do with anything? I’ve “been in” three other threads? I think I’ve started something like nine or ten Pit threads since 2001; I’ve participated in many more, and ignored a whole lot more than that. If you have a question there, ask it, otherwise I don’t think your observation means anything. ---
**Author:** ![Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heffalump_and_roo/32/7691_2.png) [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-manners/398271/122 "2007-04-05T04:59:54Z")
[QUOTE=LifeOnWry] Just because someone else said something was irony does not make it so. [/quote] And just because you’re saying there are contentless posts doesn’t make it so, especially if you’re unwilling to define it better or point them out. > [@LifeOnWry](#): > > The reason I am not pointing you to individual posts that annoy me is several-fold. First, this doesn’t seem that difficult to understand; to wit, so far everyone who has posted in this thread seems to get it, except for you. You’ve already said this. Here was my response. > [@Heffalump and Roo](#): > > I suspect that the people who have agreed with you are just having ideas in their own head of what you mean. . . that’s the beauty of being vague. . . and just saying that they don’t like that either. And you can’t really know if anyone got anything in this thread. As I noted, it’s too vague to know. If you want to be more specific, then we can determine on that basis. But without more, you don’t know if they got what you’re saying or they’re agreeing with some vague notion of what they think you’re saying. Why not be more specific and find out? > [@LifeOnWry](#): > > Second, I’ve already outlined the TYPE of post I mean, and I have specifically said that posts that follow a natural conversational flow (such as the cell phones in school thread you linked) are not what I mean. If the hypothetical examples in my cell phone example aren’t example of contentless threads, then I’ll just have to reiterate my answer to when you posted this in your last post. > [@Heffalump and Roo](#): > > So you’re talking about a non-existent group by your definition. > [@LifeOnWry](#): > > Third, **Oakminster** may very well be the only poster who has EVER posted an OP rating - I have said I don’t keep track of who posts what unless I’ve engaged with a poster. I noticed a lot of ratings in the first couple posts to threads, not that it was only one person doing it. Hmm, perhaps your recollection was faulty or I wasn’t looking at the same threads. Or maybe I’m remembering it differently. But since we don’t know which threads you’re talking about, it’s hard to know. > [@LifeOnWry](#): > > Fourth, there were several examples of the type of post I mean in ONE thread, the cell phone thread I linked to back on page one. That was an example of one thing. . . complaint about form. And specifically that the form was too long. If that’s all you’re talking about, I guess that’s easy enough to remedy. . .just don’t talk about length of post. But how about all caps, bad spelling and grammar, change of tone, lack of logic, leet speak. . . can we comment on those? > [@LifeOnWry](#): > > I am not “purporting” to speak for anyone but myself. Some people have posted to this thread that this bothers them too. They do not seem to have any difficulty speaking for themselves. There is no “group.” I’m glad to hear that. And since I can’t determine what you’re defining and therefore don’t know what everyone else is agreeing with and you’re unwilling to make it clearer, I guess I can breathe easier that none of this applies to me. Whew! > [@LifeOnWry](#): > > And finally, where or how often I post?? What does that have to do with anything? I’ve “been in” three other threads? I think I’ve started something like nine or ten Pit threads since 2001; I’ve participated in many more, and ignored a whole lot more than that. If you have a question there, ask it, otherwise I don’t think your observation means anything. I was just noting that perhaps participating in threads is different than sitting and watching and noticing “trends”. Since you haven’t been participating in too many Pit threads but noticing these trends lately, it may be that when you’re participating in a thread, what you notice is different. So perhaps you and I are noticing different things. ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-manners/398271/123 "2007-04-05T05:13:50Z")
How about this, **heff** : my personal idea of “contentless” posts would be posts that are really about the specific poster making them, and his/her own ego/need for attention, rather than the actual content of the OP (though they usually try to masquerade as being relevant to the discussion). I think **Oakminster** ’s lame pit ratings definitely fall into this category, and I trust it’s at least somewhat obvious why one would draw that conclusion. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-manners/398271/124 "2007-04-05T16:58:35Z")
I think you’re asking a lot here, **Heffalump**. I don’t think anyone is trying to deliberately not tell you things; I think it’s more a case of you post here for a couple of years, you get a feeling for the rhythms, boundaries, heck, even morals of this place. We can’t tell you exactly what is and what isn’t something; there is a degree of “I know it when I see it” when talking about what you feel is happening here. What you’re asking is almost like telling you how to have a conversation - what to say for each response you make. Nobody tells you how to have conversations in real life, and I don’t think you can really expect people to tell you how to participate here. You seem to be stuck on the phrase “contentless posts.” That is an unintentionally inaccurate term - no posts are truly “contentless.” They would be blank posts, naturally. Imagine having a conversation with a group of people, and somebody in the group instead of talking about the subjects at hand is making armpit noises - those are the kinds of posts we are talking about when we call them “contentless.” ---
**Author:** ![Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heffalump_and_roo/32/7691_2.png) [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-manners/398271/125 "2007-04-05T22:45:44Z")
[QUOTE=woodstockbirdybird] How about this, **heff** : my personal idea of “contentless” posts would be posts that are really about the specific poster making them, and his/her own ego/need for attention, rather than the actual content of the OP (though they usually try to masquerade as being relevant to the discussion). I think **Oakminster** ’s lame pit ratings definitely fall into this category, and I trust it’s at least somewhat obvious why one would draw that conclusion. [/QUOTE] While that may be _your_ definition of a contentless post, it is definitely not the OP’s. She makes it very clear that you can post something very specific to a poster as long as it’s entertaining. [ > [@LifeOnWry](#): > > ]([http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8419308&postcount=50](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8419308&postcount=50))OR! EVEN! > > Say you just generally hate the person who started the thread, for whatever reason, and you just can’t let any of their posts goes by without commenting. You could then say, “You know what? You’re a goddamned asshole who thinks the whole fucking world revolves around you. I hope your stupid cell phone burns a hole in your jeans and that it gets short-circuited and will only ever allow you to make calls to Singapore and will turn every text message you send into Dutch. You DESERVE bad cell phone service because you didn’t object to someone killing puppies. AND your rant is weak!” > > Yanno, at least expend a little effort and/or creativity. You did say that this was your personal idea of a contentless post, but thank you for confirming that the definition is not so easily definable that everyone gets it except me as the OP author claims. And I claim that _may_ be true of everyone else in this thread. As to your claim that this would apply to **Oakminster** ’s ratings, while I can’t speak for him, I doubt very much that he knew anything at all or a very limited amount about **LifeOnWry** before he made his rating in this thread. I sure wouldn’t need to know anything about a specific OP author to rate their thread. And I also don’t agree that the Pit ratings were rating a specific posters’ need for attention. They simply might have reflected the amount of effort or lack of proficiency of the OP author. Of course, this is all speculation since we’re just guessing as to why **Oakminster** did a rating. ---
**Author:** ![Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heffalump_and_roo/32/7691_2.png) [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-manners/398271/126 "2007-04-05T23:27:15Z")
[QUOTE=featherlou] I think you’re asking a lot here, **Heffalump**. [/quote] That’s odd; according to **LifeOnWry** , it’s so simple that _everyone_ gets it except me. Now I’m asking a lot to have it defined and explained. > [@featherlou](#): > > I don’t think anyone is trying to deliberately not tell you things; I think it’s more a case of you post here for a couple of years, you get a feeling for the rhythms, boundaries, heck, even morals of this place. We can’t tell you exactly what is and what isn’t something; there is a degree of “I know it when I see it” when talking about what you feel is happening here. You’re reminding me of how _some_ Christians speak here. If I ask them about morality, they say that after a few years of being a Christian, they just get to know what morality is and they know it when they see it. As we know, Christians aren’t the most moral people on the planet (or the arbiters of morality) nor are atheists immoral. Does it really take a couple years to figure out how this place works? On this message board, who is the arbiter of “I know it when I see it”. Generally that’s been used for things like pornography and a jury in the community or a judge decides. In this setting, who decides? And why is their vote more important than anyone else’s? And if you’re saying the majority of the community here, how did you determine who that was? Even a majority of people posting in a thread doesn’t convey the whole sentiment of the message board community on any given subject. > [@featherlou](#): > > What you’re asking is almost like telling you how to have a conversation - what to say for each response you make. Nobody tells you how to have conversations in real life, and I don’t think you can really expect people to tell you how to participate here. If what you’re saying is true, we all know how to have conversations. Why should it take a couple years to figure out how to participate here effectively? [ > [@featherlou](#): > > ]([http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8382943&postcount=141](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8382943&postcount=141))There are no “hidden rules” that I’ve run into yet, in over six years posting here regularly. If you think there are “hidden rules,” I’m guessing you’re conducting your business here differently than I am. If there are no hidden rules here, what is it that take a couple years to figure out? I’d say that if people think there are no hidden rules here, they must be the ones making them up, especially if they can’t define them for the rest of us. If you got fined by the police for things that only they knew about, wouldn’t you consider those rules “hidden”? > [@featherlou](#): > > You seem to be stuck on the phrase “contentless posts.” That is an unintentionally inaccurate term - no posts are truly “contentless.” They would be blank posts, naturally. Or it could be an intentionally inaccurate term to mean that I saw your post and thought it was so worthless that it held no content for me. And _me_ is the operative word in that sentence, since it only holds any meaning for _me_. Blank posts. . . you mean like those posts that are typed in white? > [@featherlou](#): > > Imagine having a conversation with a group of people, and somebody in the group instead of talking about the subjects at hand is making armpit noises - those are the kinds of posts we are talking about when we call them “contentless.” You mean like [yum yum moo moo](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8378582&postcount=71)? I’d hardly call that a trend. ---
**Author:** ![LifeOnWry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@LifeOnWry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeOnWry)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-manners/398271/127 "2007-04-06T02:44:30Z")
_sigh_ Or there’s always option C, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heffalump_and_roo/32/7691_2.png) [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-manners/398271/128 "2007-04-06T03:47:05Z")
[QUOTE=LifeOnWry] _sigh_ Or there’s always option C, I suppose. [/QUOTE] Is this what you’re referring to? [ > [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > ]([http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8430362&postcount=40](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8430362&postcount=40))Option A: Put up > Option B: Shut up > Option C: Demonstrate yourself to be an unmitigated asshat. Since you’re the one making the claim and haven’t yet demonstrated any evidence for your claim, are you saying that _you’re_ choosing Option C for yourself? Interesting choice. Or was your post a yum yum moo moo post because other than my search that found this, that’s all I could find. A contentless post perhaps? ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-manners/398271/129 "2007-04-06T06:11:53Z")
[QUOTE=Heffalump and Roo] \If what you’re saying is true, we all know how to have conversations. Why should it take a couple years to figure out how to participate here effectively?\ [/QUOTE] Why do you keep asking for such involved directions on how to participate here? Why can’t you just do it and learn along the way like everyone else does? ---
**Author:** ![LifeOnWry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@LifeOnWry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeOnWry)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-manners/398271/130 "2007-04-06T06:51:07Z")
Option A: Explain this clearly and make peace. Option B: Explain this clearly and still anger someone. Option C: Realize I’m dealing with an idiot, and give up. ---
**Author:** ![Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heffalump_and_roo/32/7691_2.png) [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-manners/398271/131 "2007-04-07T04:27:24Z")
[QUOTE=featherlou] Why do you keep asking for such involved directions on how to participate here? Why can’t you just do it and learn along the way like everyone else does? [/QUOTE] I’m not asking for involved directions on how to participate. This is a hypothetical analogy. Say there’s a group of people in my community talking and one of the women says, “I can’t stand the level of sexual immorality here lately. It’s just so disgusting the way people act. Why can’t they stop?” And a few people in the group nodded their heads. Now if I was new to the community and I didn’t know if this woman was known to the community as a crazy old biddie, I would stop to ask exactly what she meant by sexual immorality. I might even ask a few people that nodded to describe it as well to see if they meant the same thing. I’m pretty sure that unless she describes it very narrowly or she really is a biddie, then she has violated the standards herself. And I’m also pretty sure that the people nodding aren’t all nodding about the same thing. What I wouldn’t do is slink back to my house wondering if I’m violating some strange standard that someone is talking about there and continue about my business. That would be cowing to peer pressure and/or supposed authority. Fighting ignorance, if only my own up to that point, requires no less than asking some pointed questions. After the woman and the others tell me what they mean, then I can decide whether I agree with their standard or whether I tell them in no uncertain terms that I will not be subscribing to her standard and no one else should either. And then if I choose to fight their ignorance as to why I think they’re wrong, I can do that at this point. What I wouldn’t accept as explanation for her claim is “I know sexual immorality when I see it” or “I’ve lived in this community long enough to know that there’s a lot of it, believe me.” I would expect a straight-forward and explicit explanation of her definition of sexual immorality. (And if you’re sure you already know what it means, I’m already sure we disagree.) Back to this thread, so far we’ve got the woman proclaiming and a few people nodding, but so far no one telling me what they each mean. ---
**Author:** ![Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heffalump_and_roo/32/7691_2.png) [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-manners/398271/132 "2007-04-07T04:36:50Z")
[QUOTE=LifeOnWry] Option A: Explain this clearly and make peace. Option B: Explain this clearly and still anger someone. Option C: Realize I’m dealing with an idiot, and give up. [/QUOTE] Interesting strategy. I haven’t noticed you ever employing option A. That option would have been appreciated by me. Since you’ve already called me a fuckwit and the only person in this thread who doesn’t understand you, I’m pretty sure you’re not worried about angering me. So you must not be employing option B. If you started with option C from your second post to me, it’s interesting that you took so many volleys and called that giving up. This is how I see your argumentation technique. A. You made a claim. B. You refuse to define or provide evidence for your claim since you insist the evidence is obvious and everyone else understands. C. You insult me when I ask for more evidence of your claim. It’s a very familiar technique. One of the Dopers I’ve argued with recently employs this tactic regularly. Perhaps you’re of the same school of argumentation? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-manners/398271.md?page=6)