You have to stand behind me, though, since you’re a “johnny come lately August 2000” Charter member.
Seriously, though - lots of us are chiming in, saying the same thing. And if long term posters who’ve been paying since it went pay to post, many of us having nearly 10 years here, rarely adding to mod/admin pit pileons are saying ‘um, bad idea dude’, you’d think there’d be some response a tad more comforting than (essentially, paraphrased, hence no quote tag) ‘um, relax, we’ll see how it plays out’.
While I have just registered this account 2 years ago, I have been reading the dope since long before it even HAD an online presence. I have followed the online presence since the AOL days. Sure, I don’t post to the pit much and obviously am not losing much personally out of the deal, and the fact is that I don’t care if you are allowed to swear in the pit since I rarely go there. But management here DOES care, and since I like their product I will support their decision.
These are hardly draconian measures. All they are trying to do is spell out the “don’t be a jerk” rule that has been in effect all along. Ed even said it will affect a very small portion of the posts. If you absolutely positively MUST have the ability to swear and insult to the full degree that the language affords, well there are a lot of other ways you can satisfy that urge. They don’t want it here and I don’t particularly blame them.
Of course, if it were my board I probably wouldn’t make this rule. But then again, it isn’t my board. I also don’t have to deal with the insults getting thrown at me despite the endless hours that I am sure the powers that be spend trying to make this place work.
Also, all you people who want Ed to spell out exactly what is and isn’t allowed down to the punctuation mark are being annoying and pedantic. Follow the spirit of the law, not the letter.
Now this is unfair. I may have pointed out before on these boards that I’m not the sharpest bulb on the tree. If someone can insult me in with “scabrously funny comments” in a way that makes you laugh, I’d basically not be able to respond in kind.
(Hell, I had to go look up scabrously just to find out what you were talking about.)
Like many in this thread, I think rule 2 is a huge mistake.
Even the spirit of the law is confusing. Creative insults are encouraged but abuse isn’t? I have no idea what that means. And every ostensible clarification just clouds things further; to reassure me, I am told that I’ll be alright as long as I show some wit or humor. This is hardly reassuring; this is terrifying. I have no reason to suspect the mods have the same sense of humor as I do, and not nearly enough experience with most to gauge what sense they do have.
To some extent, such issues of interpretation are always around with any rule (cf. “Don’t be a jerk”, which I think is actually a reasonable guideline, the ambiguity notwithstanding). But as far as these particular changes are concerned, especially with respect to an environment and community with the history this one has, the uncertainty is so great as to be, I highly suspect, unmanageable.
Problem of course, is that even in this thread while they were trying to make the line clear, there wasn’t consensus, and what little guideance was proffered, was absurd (“you ass” is ok , “you asshole” is not - or whatever the fuck it was). So how is a poster supposed to reasonably follow a rule that TPTB can’t even define or agree on?
which would be a whole hellava lot easier to do if the spirit was even clear.
Actually, this is interesting. This thread is a case study in the rule itself.
I’m not going to say everyone posting here want to tell Ed to go fuck himself, but I’m going to guess a not-inconsiderable amount of people here do feel that would be an appropriate reply to him.
But they can’t say it.
So they’re going to get more frustrated.
Some may leave. Some may just find more creative ways to do it. (This post, for example, could be considered as such. Isn’t, especially, but I would be lying if I didn’t say I felt inclined towards that direction. I don’t tell people to go fuck themselves much, though. I tend more towards becoming more polite.)
Some will act out, creating posts overful of sweetness and light.
Posts of an inappropriate nature will spread throughout the forums. Ed’s character will be analyzed and assassinated. At length. On multiple boards. It could reach complaints to the Reader or Creative Loafing… not that they’d listen…
And it pretty much won’t blow over. It’ll sit simmering. Keep flaring up for weeks. Possibly months. Because there is nowhere to vent. It’ll even draw other people in. Like Dex or Giraffe.
Ed may ask people to take it to e-mail. And some will do it. But it won’t blow the flames out. This is a forum that demands things be brought to light.
So…
People will grow less happy. And less civil to each other. And less approving of the administrators. Some mods may not like this, but will have agreed to this. And they’ll keep doing their jobs, but less happily. Some will be just fine. And if you think that won’t cause issues? It will.
It’s going to wind up with at least two or three people publically banned at the end. And that’ll start its own simmering resentment.
And that’s why I think this is a bad idea.
I don’t mind the comments on mod actions being moved to ATMB. That seems appropriate to me.
The new pit rules, however, are going to be interesting to see enforced. Maybe instead of a Death Pool, we can have a Ban Pool. I wonder if the mods and admins will have enough time to sock hunt and play kindergarten cop at the same time.
Whatever, I’m not so personally invested in this to really get to foamed up about it, but I think it very pisstwiddly.
I haven’t read all the replies----but enough of them to know that my view is in the minority. In my view, this post is Golden.
For all the comments that I’ve read that hold up The Pit as a wellspring of “well crafted invective” (an actual term that was used) the fact is----in my view—it rarely got there.
For every “ingenious and scabrously funny comment” I’ve ever read in The Pit (and I’ve read a fair amount) I’ve read 500 where someone was calling someone a cnt, or douchebag.
I welcome the change. As I understand the new rules, it is perfectly ok to remove someone’s spleen----as it was before-----but it must be done with a scalpel, and not with a butter knife.
Regarding Frank’s comments, rather than attracting children, we may actually attract more adults. I suspect that more than a few people have been turned off by the utter juvenile nature of the litany of witless comments.
I think The Pit didn’t live up to it’s potential, and I think the new rules give it the chance to do just that. The dimmest bulbs will be rendered speechless, or at least less crude and juvenile. The rest will simply step up their game and stop using the first word that comes to their key board.
Ed, my 200 pesos: This is an over reaction; the over reaction of a forum that had gotten out of control.
"There are all sorts of ingenious and scabrously funny comments you can make that don’t involve saying “fuck you.” "
Seems pretty clear to me. Don’t be a jerk, which now includes some specific examples. The rules have to be somewhat vague because they have to encompass all sorts of behavior (including things they probably haven’t even considered yet) in a short amount of time. When Ed says “wait and see” (I think) he means watch how the rule is enforced before jumping to the conclusion that the pit is turning Care Bear. Seems reasonable to me.
Merely one more paying poster who has stuck along through pay-to-post and other such nonsense. As was said earlier in this thread, I don’t want my silence misconstrued as acceptance.
Thinking about this a bit more, and putting my serious hat on (my previous post in this thread was made with tongue in cheek).
The single worst part of these new rules, to me, is this suggestion: “Creative insults [aimed at posters] on the other hand are welcome as always.”.
With this qualification, rule #2 is either nothing or something. It is being called arbitrary and capricious, and ‘pedantic’ queries of ‘would X be OK or against the Rule’ are being asked, because it is not clear. It can never be clear, and therefore it can never be uniformly enforced.
There are 2 possibilities that would be reasonable alternatives to the mish-mash that is the current Rule #2:
1) Scrap rule #2 and allow Pittings to continue as previously, with the exception (as covered in Rule #1) of Pittings of mods/admins for actions taken with the Mod hat on.
2) Ban ‘Pitting’ of other posters entirely. In other words, attacks on posters would have to be free of insult/abuse altogether to be acceptable. The Pit could still be used for rants about work etc, RO, attacks on politicians/celebrities etc, and so on - so this wouldn’t render the forum redundant.
Except right now I’m angry enough at this passive-aggressive parenting, that I don’t WANT to say too much for fear of resorting to high-school insults…and if I cool down enough to recover my wit, well I won’t NEED something like the Pit anymore. I can post my watered down, pathetic ramblings in MPSIMS. Sorry if we’re not always the most creative of posters, and doubly so if we don’t make you laugh.
I never saw where that was a fucking requirement.
InkBlot
:mad:
Hey’der now. We Minnesoootans can swear with the best of them, don’tcha know.
Fer goodness sakes. Golly gee.
And back to the regularly scheduled pitting:
So I can make the comment “Fuck AT&T for screwing up my phone bill”, but not in the subject line.
I can say I wish that the guy driving the car in front of me would eat shit and die.
But I can’t use harsh words on a fellow poster who writes a post full of idiocy?