Blasphemy!
There is no God but Cecil, Ed is but Cecil’s prophet!
Our Uncle, who art in ChiTown
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy column comes.
Thy will be done
On earth as it in Slug’s illustrations.
Sheesh, go away on vacation for a day and look what happens?! Just getting in a bit late to add my tiny widow’s mite of “this is the most retarded thing I’ve ever seen that doesn’t actually wear a helmet on the short bus to school.” Thanks there, Ed, you’re a peach. Bless your little heart.
No one AFAICT has commented on the rescinding of the “no mentioning who is on your ignore list” rule.
If the idea of the new rules is to reduce the amount of juvenile behavior in the Pit, this seems kind of counter-productive. I thought the motive behind the rule was to prevent “nah nah I can’t hear you”.
Mods, any comment? Bueller? Anyone?
Regards,
Shodan
Yes, yes, ha, ha, “I don’t see your post”. Your wit transcends all human experience. We’re all laughing fit to bust. Take it as given.
Brings a tear to my eye – damn, that’s good.
Can I still say “Go suck a donkey’s cock!” in The Pit, if it is clearly deserved, or would "May a chihuahua fuck you in the ear whilst you sleep!"be preferred ?
Did you notice that Giraffe, to the best of my knowledge was never Pitted? And that Fluiddruid was pitted, what, twice? In something like 6 years of Pit Moderation between them?
Notice that when mods are doing their jobs correctly, not treating posters as children, not shrieking at posters for violating made up that didn’t exist before the offense (What happened to the “No misleading thread titles” insta-rule that didn’t exist before or since that started this?) mods DON’T get ugly threads directed at them? I can’t get the search function to work, but I honestly don’t think Giraffe or Fluiddruid were pitted a half dozen times. Why do you think that is?
The “interaction between posters and (SOME) staff” is not a “poster-only” problem. None of your rules deal with capricious moderating (Lynn just closed a thread in the Pit that does not violate any of the rules you posted–and a “Well, that rule has always been there, you shoulda known” doesn’t cut it, not when you’re spelling the rules out), mods posting as posters and then putting on their mod-hat when they get butthurt or mods just being snarky and condescending to the posters. Some mods like making up rules on the fly, some mods like playing “Now I’m a poster…oops! Now I’m a mod. Nope–poster again” and some mods have skin so thin that it’s transparent. How 'bout addressing that as well?
Make a “Mod hat” mandatory for all mod actions.
Make a rule that if the rule isn’t in print, a poster can’t be warned.
That mods MUST behave with civility at all times.
Most of the mods do a great job at a thankless task. But to address ugly interaction between posters and moderators as a poster only problem will not fix the situation and help bring us all together to sing Kumbya.
Fenris, are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting? That **Ed **could solve his problems with the Pit by hiring a competent, thick-skinned Mod or three? Whom he already had in place and who just jetted out of here? Too radical a move by half.
I think this says more about the new pit rules than anything us lowly posters can say. Giraffe was a fair and even handed mod. He was consistent and kept the pit as it should have been kept, IMHO. Other than the occasional tendency toward pedophelia (you legal yet, HBT? 
) he was a great moderator. And chose to step down rather than enforce rules to which he didn’t agree. I would think that would be a clue - at least to rational human beings.
This probably counts for nothing (I’m quite aware of being essentially wallpaper here), but I see this in a slightly different way.
I doubt highly that the Pit has changed in tone etc for the worse–I was here the night Bush stole the election and here again the night Kerry lost it. Tempers and feelings were high then and the last 4 years did little to assuage that. Politics is just one area where heated discussions occurred, as we all know.
What my take on this is is this: it’s not that the Pit has gotten suddenly unacceptable for civilized folk, it’s that Ed is no longer tolerant of the “ambiance” there. IOW, (IMO) he isn’t enjoying this any more, if he ever did. Ed, I’m sure you’re a nice guy and you’ve been helpful to me in the past in a thread or two, but perhaps it’s time for you to do something else? Fighting ignorance gets old and stale after a bit and when one is burned out, negativity and problems can seem to become overwhelming. These rules will not change the nature of the Pit–that nature cannot be significantly altered being that it is human nature when all is said and done, but they have already created resentment, frustration and dismay among the Loyal Teeming Millions.
I am not being snarky or snide when I say this: perhaps it’s time for you to find something different to do. Life at The Reader is probably not all fun and games right now. The desire to implement change in the small hope of making things “better” is completely understandable, but this dog won’t hunt.
I say this as a middle aged white suburban soccer mom who wants a place where she can shriek FUCK OFF [to various persons] and not be put away/shut down/socially ostracized for stepping out of my Stepford box. It was too good to last. 
If anybody feels that venting hurtful, abusive and cruel invective is an essential part of being on this board, I’m afraid I don’t understand that at all. I don’t change my posting style for the BBQ Pit, so I fail to see the need for it expressed by other posters.
I always read these “OMG the board is dying” threads about the latest rule change with a certain bemusement. It’s always the same posters complaining that they are being censored and oppressed by The Man. If the board were comprised of lesser intellects they would be whining about their First Amendment rights, but as it is, we get well-crafted, thoughtful posts about how essential it is to torment other people with words and flex our four-letter vocabularies. Yawn.
That said: rule #2 is going to be problematic to enforce. I understand and applaud the intent, but I doubt this is the proper means to that end.
Face it, when we have to advise new posters “lurk for a while to get the hang of it, stay out of the Pit, don’t be a jerk” then we aren’t exactly friendly to new eyes. I suspect most new posters run screaming when they see our … ahem, barbecue-pit erudition. We want the SDMB to grow, and sensibly; it is counterproductive to Ed’s and our goals to frighten away new visitors with our “OMG you posted the -gry question, you fucko” responses.
As someone else suggested, I’d love to know more about what threads prompted all of this. I may not keep up with every single Pit thread, but this really seemed to come out of nowhere. If the outbreaks you describe happen “fairly rarely”, it seems like they would be easier to deal with piecemeal than to make a new, blanket, wildly unpopular rule.
One of the things attracted me to the SDMB way back when was the fine line between civility and anarchy straddled by the Pit–it allowed for rough-and-tumble arguments and invective without the harsh tone and infantile scratchings you get in a completely unmoderated forum. The “free-for-all” weekend gave me a new appreciation for that line; I know some posters preferred it that way, but I thought it reduced the signal-to-noise ratio significantly.
The trick to maintaining that line, IMO, is that it has mostly been allowed to find itself, based on what the community wants. If modding gets too harsh, too lax, or too capricious, the community speaks up, and balance is restored. This is only possible when you have good moderators and loose rules. Now you’re tightening up the rules, and in the process you’ve run off some very good moderators. Should we be surprised that this will result in something other than what the community wants?
And worse yet, we don’t really even know what the impetus was behind it.
I’m not going to say I’ll stop posting here; I’ll be a member here as long as it’s around. I know boards evolve over time. And I don’t think it’s the death knell that others seem to think it is. But it’s a push in a direction that the Board doesn’t want to go, and I don’t think it will end up being good for it.
This is blatantly false. The only one of the usual board whiners to have posted in here is DudleyGarret, and he’s only done so three or four times. The most prolific posters in this thread are folks like Cervaise, mhendo, Giraffe (!), Guinastasia, and myself - people who seldom-to-never complain about the moderation of the boards. Hell, the bulk of my interactions with DudleyGarret on the subject of board moderation would get me banned under the new rules.
This thread isn’t just the usual gang of malcontents. There’s a substantial majority of the regular user base that’s upset over this rule change.
I find this insulting.
I’m sure this change is less popular than others, but it would be silly say to that “the only one” of the usual board whiners is here. I point out Cisco, who has begun to garner for himself a reputation for same, as pointed out by Cervaise in the last such thread.
But not obscene. Or wait, this isn’t the Pit.
Is stating that you are a regular complainer an insult? We need another ruling from the judges.
So do I - he didn’t mention me at all.
Regards,
Shodan
I guess that means **Ed **finds that funny, otherwise it would get a warning, right?
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:
-
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.
-
*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.
-
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.
Huh? I what now? Link, please.