Pit rules have been revised

[Ed_Zotti]

@That_Guy

Like other posters have said, we can complain on and on and on, but we’re talking to the clown’s face in the drive-thru, and the headset is sitting on the floor while the cashier is taking a nap in dry storage.

Again, like others have said, the only way to make a difference with any business is to hit them in their bottom line. I can not more strongly suggest everyone use Firefox with Adblock Plus. Once ad revenue starts dropping like a rock, TPTB might actually wake up and realize we have valid complaints.

Folks, listen. I need to explain the economics of this. The amount of money you can make on run-of-the-Internet advertising - so-called remnants ads - has dropped precipitously over the past year or so, due partly to the economy but also to the proliferation of user-generated content. When we started off you could make maybe a buck per thousand impressions (CPM). Now it’s down to 8 cents for the ads we get through Google. I have the ad spreadsheet for a recent week - we sold 2,386,000 impressions to Google at 8 cents per, which netted us $206.47. You can choose to believe this proves we’re dopes and that if you were running the site you could make millions of dollars. Whatever. All I can tell you is that our experience is pretty typical of the industry. Believe me, I wish it were otherwise. But as a practical matter, if I have a few or even a lot less ad impressions, it doesn’t amount to much.

Does this mean I don’t care about what people think? No, but it puts things in perspective. Basically all I’m trying to establish right now is that you can’t call another user a cunt. What I’m hearing so far are comments along these lines:

1. This rule is too vague, unenforceable, etc. It doesn’t seem all that vague or unenforceable to me, but if there’s clearer way to state it that accomplishes the same result, I’m open to suggestions.

2. *This rule will kill the Pit. * Nonsense. We’ve already had people posting long lists of Pit threads that were unobjectionable. Precisely my point. The kind of behavior I’m trying to eliminate isn’t common; I just don’t like it when it happens. Fears that some massive clampdown looms are overblown. Most people will notice no change.

3. I want to be able to call other users cunts when I feel like it. Well, my friend, I’m sorry. You’re out of luck.

If you fall into categories 1 or 2 above, relax, we’ll work something out. (And if you think saying “relax” is condescending, I don’t mean it to be. If you’re determined to take it that way, there’s not much I can do about that.) If you fall into category 3, you need to understand: the days when that kind of behavior was acceptable are over, and we’re not going back. So either you get used to the new way, or you go somewhere else.

So that’s what all this comes down to. Vote with your keyboard. If you honest to God think the entire attraction of the Straight Dope Message Board is the ability to call other users cunts, this isn’t the place for you. Find a new MB. If the next ad report shows I kissed off 2 million impressions because of this insane new policy, then I’m out the $200, and I’ll have to answer to my bosses for that.

But I doubt we’ll see a huge difference. I think most users after they think about it for a bit will realize how minor a change we’re talking about here, and how little it will affect their experience of the SDMB. Life will go on as before. Am I delusional about this? Maybe. I guess we’ll see.