Ok, I made it through the whole thing. At a fifth of a post per day over the last two years, I don’t exactly speak up much, but I do love this place - I’m here nearly every day. I read the pit as something of a board barometer - what’s getting people’s hackles up today? What’s happening in GD, where I don’t venture for fear that I might have to open up a pit thread for every other post I read? What’s happening in the world today that someone cares enough about to rant about - and that other people care enough about to correct the initial poster, or agree with him/her, or provide evidence that she/he is a retard? I love the pit. I don’t think that new rules are needed, but I agree with the general consensus that if there are going to be new rules, it would be good to have rules that were understood. **Raindog’**s posts in this thread are a perfect example; since rule #2 is a fuzzy line that mods will call as they see it, we would have a vastly different decision on a post, depending on whether Raindog or, say, DocCathode was making the call. It puts the posters in an untenable position.
I also just thought it was interesting that, in the Cervaisetelemarketer thread from 2000 linked on page 2 of this thread, there are a couple of posters who were generally approving of the OP, but made a comment along the lines of “there was a little too much cunt for my taste”, and then Lynn posted defending the use of the word cunt (and in an amusing tone quite in keeping with the OP, as well).
I seem to recall reading somewhere about a certain admin who ordered everyone to stop using profanity because she was interviewing for a new job, and this place was on her résumé.
At least that time, the PTB had a specific reason (as retarded as it may have been) and a specific goal (no swearing). This…vague reasons, unclear goals…can’t end well.
“Give it a chance, wait and see” --> “Well, we can’t change it now, it’s been in place for (XX interval of time)”
After I stopped paying to post here, I still came back to check in on the Pit. Although there was the occasional dip into vulgarism and nastiness, even those dips were a step up from the crassness of many other boards on the net, and that’s what kept me coming back. Everything else? I can (and have) found other fora that’s just as intelligent, interesting and witty as the rest of the SDMB, but the pit was unique.
Looks like Tuba showed a lot of class in that thread. Seems a shame to let drop that nearly a decade ago a mod did something as stupid as try to enforce board rules according to her job search without pointing out that the mod actually apologized with a sincere apology and real class.
Someone asked for a link, so i did a search and provided one. If you want to clarify the situation, feel free. Or, the person who asked is also free to read the thread in question.
What the fuck ever is right, since I only quoted you to reference the link. My response was aimed at RobuSensei. I think it’s a shame he mentioned that she fucked up, but didn’t mention that she redeemed herself. And, surprisingly enough, I do indeed feel perfectly free to clarify when people get pulled into some shit out of the clear blue and have to look up blinking and wondering what the fuck did they have to do with anything. That shit is annoying. She was a classy broad in that thread, and I felt free to point that out.
The Straight Dope Message Board is not uncommonly referred to on other message boards, even excluding the so-called “SDMB-snark” boards.
In my experience, what is the primary topic of interest concerning the SDMB on these (non-snark) boards? The BBQ Pit, and how great it would be if the posters on these other boards had access to the same kind of anger-releasing free-speech zone! Yes, The Pit is the envy of who knows how many other boards whose posters are prohibited from speaking their minds and venting even angry and indignant criticisms about other posters, their motivations, their knowledge, their intellectual honesty, conflicts of interest and so forth.
What happens on boards which do not provide such a free-speech zone? The unavoidable anger that arises when debating vital but polarizing issues has nowhere else to go, so the debate thread itself becomes useless as it degrades into open warfare. The benefits of Internet debate are thus often lost because those debate boards provide no alternative outlet for the anger that erupts inevitably from time to time out of basic human nature.
At one such message board, frequented by philosophy professors and respected scientists, a highly respected poster wrote in defense of myself and of the pugilistic nature of the debates there (for which I, shamefully, was predominantly to blame): “We put up with the other shit because it’s worth it; I didn’t come to this message board to have a cup of tea”.
I was never banned (though arguably I should have been), but I left it anyway and came here, where I would have an outlet for my anger, justified or otherwise. With Pit Rule 2 in place, this entire board will be…
I am a 65 years old woman and once again some man is trying to tell me that I can’t say “fuck off.” I don’t make a habit out of cursing a lot even in the Pit. But nobody is going to be making those decisions for me at this stage in my life. So if I get banned, I will see you all at that “great gig in the sky.”
And, Ed. Do kids in high school drive cars and eat cheeseburgers? Does that mean that it’s juvenile to drive cars and eat cheeseburgers? Then don’t try to pull that kind of stupid logic on us about cursing.
You may think that it’s civil to ignore the wishes of almost all other posters to indulge your own standards, but you showed your true colors by letting us know that you really don’t care whether we leave or not. And to me that is the real obscenity.
Nine pages in and what, five posts by admins? Save you fingers people. They aren’t listening. They aren’t answering questions. This thread is so we can bitch and get it out of our systems. Eventually when you get hungry enough you’ll shut up and eat your vegatables.
This is just baffling. In what world is a upheaval of existing policies and a capricious and unspecified new guideline a better solution than simply addressing those “fairly rare” outbreaks on a case by case basis? That’s asinine. You essentially nuked the thing from orbit to eliminate a couple cockroaches.
Why wouldn’t a more prudent and tempered approach to have left things be and allowed the moderators the latitude that already existed to put an end to those rare threads that exceeded your threshold?
You really couldn’t see that these changes create far more problems than they solve?
