While I very rarely participate in The Pit, and have no comment on most of the changes to the board in general, I must say I am extremely distressed by the reasons.
Why do you not just come right out and say that you do not want paying members? You want guests, who see the ads, and the advertisers money. You don’t want ours, because those of us who pay to post circumvent your business plan.
I’m all in favor of profit, but I’ve never been a fan of BS. You’re peeing on our shoes, telling us is raining, and are offended because not everyone is happy about it.
Honesty would have a side effect of reducing those tiresome pay-to-posters who spend most of their time shrieking about being “a paying customer.”
This really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I mean why not just make a new forum “Alternative Pit” with the new rules? Then just leave the old one alone. Is the message board gonna explode if you add one more forum? Also this would be a way to prove your point without taking such an iron fisted approach. If people actually agree with you then they’d start using the new one and the old pit would eventually die.
I will take you at your word that you did not intend it that way. However, I’m hard pressed to understand how you could not have anticipated that it would be. It’s the very model of a condescending attitude. Lesson hopefully learned, though.
As for the second - the issue that we’re (mostly) taking umbrage with, is the rule number 2. The rule moving all issues about moderation to ATMB wasn’t generally complained about. (or, what mhendo said.
Amazing - your apology about condescending comments is itself condescending.
Don’t worry though. You’re safe from reprisals. The pit’s been neutered and sedated.
But I didn’t come here to squabble with Dex. Many times I appreciated his guidance and input.
What I did come to ask is that somebody with a good video camera please get a good shot of the Pit clearing the shark tank and put it on Youtube. My camera sucks. (can I say sucks?)
Bingo! This is the nub of it: obviously Ed welcomes with open arms a goodly number of Pit fans going “Oh, fuck this noise, I’m gone,” and letting their subscriptions lapse. He’s all but told us “Hey, if you don’t like it, go. Now. Please. We don’t need your ass in here, thanks for all the good times, buh-bye, now.” If we continue to hang around, it will be as guests, not members or charter members or anyone else playing a nickel to post here.
**Ed ** is not a stupid man. Insensitive, and condescending, and erratic, and incompetent at managing a meat market, and several other undesirable qualities I could list (but won’t on account of I don’t want to insult the man, and get my own ass banned today) but he is not stupid. So let’s assume he wants to turn us all into non-subscribing viewers of ads. This will be hard, frankly, because someone decided years ago to promise us Charter Members a lifetime subscription for literally pennies per week (around 15 cents, I think) and now maybe someone has smacked his forehead and gone “Oh, no! Colossal brainfart!! How can I make these freeloading, non-ad viewers voluntarily revoke their own lifetime $0.15/week subscriptions? I know. I’ll institute some really REALLY stupid rules, and they’ll quit the SD, and everybody wins!! Yay, me! Brilliance triumphs yet again!!!”
Because no one will post in Aunty Ed’s Gay Tea Time: Le Pitte as long as they can post/read the old Pit with Giraffe, and these changes aren’t about what the readership wants.
I agree with matt. And I’m not one to criticize the boards–on the contrary, I’ve defended board policy even when folks were being repulsively nasty in their insults to me for doing so.
This change is an overreaction, guys. Prohibit insulting mods and admins, fine. But limiting “fuck you”? Sometimes when someone is being an asshole in Great Debates, there’s nothing more than needs to be said.
I very rarely pit someone, but when I do, I want to have the tools at my disposal.
Eliminate nasty personal jibes, sure. Eliminate death threats or e-weener waving, no problem. But eliminating “fuck you”? You gotta be kidding.
Please reconsider. Please at least indicate taht you’re taking this response from board users seriously.
Good. I want to point out that I never overreact. My reactions are exact, perfectly calibrated, and precisely calculated. They are positively Newtonian in their equalness to the initial action. I react promptly, properly, powerfully, and punctiliously. My reactions stop on a dime and give nine cents change. I do not overact, nor do I emote, hyberbolize, exaggerate, ham it up, or blow it out of proportion. I refuse to overstate, overemphasize, overstress, overstep, or overdo. I am always part of the solution, never part of the problem or the precipitate. When you bang on the knee of my reaction, my foot does not fly up and hit the doctor in the face. I achieve the intended orbit. I do get me my satisfaction/I do get my girl reaction/'cause i try and i try and i try and i try.
Is that sufficiently creative for you?
I see very few if any people complaining about the inability to abuse mods. This is a strawman. The complaints are that creative insults are bound to become indistinguishable from abuse, and that such a rule is impossible to define or enforce. That’s the issue you need to address.
Hard to say. In comparison to what? The proposed rules don’t make sense, they cannot be defined in any meaningful way, and a rule without definition is merely a pretense for arbitrary enforcement.
The invitation for posters to be creative in their abuse favors the articulate needlessly. There are several posters here who are intelligent and perceptive but can’t write for sour apples, this rule therefore needlessly favors the “English major” mindset.
Oh, bv the way, “there are rules for war”? How’s that working out? Best as I can tell, its only offered a pretext for hanging the losers.