If what you mean is “don’t use obscenities or vulgarities directed at another poster”, then say that. Don’t say “you cannot be abusive, but you can be insulting” because that contradicts itself.
I guess I understand - advertisers are put off when they see “Fuck” in a thread title on the front page of one of the fora in which they might want to advertise. So fine - if you want to outlaw “Fuck” in thread titles, that is fine.
But don’t post contradictory rules and then tell us to “Relax, this won’t affect you.” Especially don’t do this when you first say that various examples are fine, and then immediately tell us you were only joking.
Here is a huge and sweeping change in the rules. I won’t discuss it in detail, and I won’t give any examples. But trust me, it will all be fine.
Ed, since you seem to be in the mood to show what is going on behind the scenes (at least a little bit), how many potential sponsors do you estimate you are “missing out on” by having strong/adult language in the BBQ Pit?
Also, if such a sponsor would object to me calling another poster a bad word, wouldn’t that sponsor also object to me calling a non poster the same word (and which is not prohibited- as far as I can tell- in your #2 rule)?
Example: You singled out the word “cunt”. I can’t call another poster (or staff) a “cunt”, but I could call (just to pick a favorite political punching bag around here) Ann Coulter a “cunt”…
If i understood it right, Ed’s most recent post about ad impressions was precisely to make the point that this rule change is NOT about revenue or sponsors.
His post basically said, “Hey, we make very little money from ads anyway, even when we get over 2 million impressions a month. This rule is being changed because i don’t like the obscenity stuff, so i’m going to stop it.”
Ed, just conceed that the only one who knows what the difference is between abusive language and insults is you, and set down some clear rules. Frankly, and 100% honestly, I don’t have the faintest clue. An insult is, by definition, abusive in some way. Perhaps this makes me an idiot, but, I, at least, need it spelled out to me.
The Pit will survive if you clarify, one way or another. But under the current (new) system, I (probably at least some other people) will be too scared to post in there.
Hmm. That’s not how I read him. He distinctly points out how ad revenue has fallen off precipitously over the last year (from a dollar per thousand google ads to 8 cents/thousand google ads). It sounds like he is trying to make changes in order to attract more potential sponsors.
The quoted statement seems to imply that he does have ad revenue in mind. To me, anyway.
I’m a little slow. What is he referring to? “Youtube” is killing the market?
So, if, according to Ed, the rule change isn’t about money, the only thing it possibly can be is that it offends Ed’s delicate sensiblities. Heaven forbid he have to read a curse word lest he get the vapors and faint.
Ed, if you don’t want any cursing, just come out and say it. Granted, most, if not all users will still disagree with it, but I’d doubt you’d hear the volume of complaints and anger you are right now. At least the rule would be clear and wouldn’t be subject to some nebulous interpretation that the administration doesn’t really want to address or possibly doesn’t even know how express.
Well, you could certainly be right about wanting to attract more sponsors.
But if that’s the case, then i really don’t know what purpose the new rule serves. Advertisers on the internet have, for the most part, made quite clear that the bottom line for them is just that, the bottom line. If an advertiser thought that he was going to get a lot of traffic and business from a site where people are allowed to call each other “cunts,” he’d advertise there in a second. And if he thought he wasn’t going to get any traffic or business from a particular site, he wouldn’t advertise there no matter how refined or polite the language was.
I guess Ed’s reasoning might be that removing the insults will attract more members, and that this will in turn attract more, and more lucrative, advertising. But i’m also dubious about that. There are message boards with far larger memberships than this one that also have many more members than this one; there are also boards with much stricter rules about politeness that have far fewer members.
As i said, you could be right. I’m just not sure i see any logical connection between the desire for more ad revenue and the rule change.
Not just YouTube, but the massive expansion in the number of blogs, as well as social networking sites like MySpace, FaceBook, and Twitter. All of that stuff spreads readers far more thinly over the internet, matering down the potential for ad revenue. Ad prices on the internet were already far below the level charged for print ads in “old” media like newspapers and magazines, and the continued dilution of the audience brings them down further still.
It’s rather interesting, though, that “user-generated content” is apparently the problem, according to Ed, given that the SDMB is virtually nothing but user-generated content.
I hesitate to enter this discussion, because I can’t say that this issue is very important to me, except that it seems to have caused a stir around here.
Speaking for myself, I do read some threads in the Pit simply because they are there and the pique my curiosity. And I occasionally contribute to a Pit thread for the same reason. However, the Pit not why I come here and I think I would hardly miss it if gone.
So in the spirit of trying to understand the uproar here, I wonder whether if I could perhaps ask posters who are upset about this ruling if they could set out what exactly their investment in the Pit is. So far as I am concerned, the SDMB could rule “You may never directly insult another poster,” and I wouldn’t think that should affect the quality of the SDMB at all. This ruling seems to be “You may not use abusive language while directly insulting another poster.” It seems to me that we live almost our whole social lives learning how to live with rules like that. How am I wrong about that?
I see this as a valid question, and would like to read some responses to it as well. It may be better served starting a new thread for it though. At 11 pages already, it may not get the attention it deserves.
Just chiming in for headcount of those, who are against rule #2.
As I read it now - based on Ed comments in this thread - it simply says “whatever seems abusive at the moment for Ed is forbidden”.
Now, if it was about finance after all, can’t we, I dunno, hold fundraising lottery or something? With such number of members we could easily raise more than double what board gets from advertisers.
If you really want to understand it, why don’t you go back and read the thread. Your question has been addressed in a multitude of ways by various posters over the last 10 pages.
Don’t worry, everyone won’t leave. Even if all the Pit posters left (and I doubt we’ll lose more than a handful, if even that) the vast majority of posters participate in the other forums and they’ll still be here.
Insofar as it goes, he has said it. He’s said both in the Pit stickie and here that he doesn’t want posters cursing at each other but that other cursing is okay.
Well, most of us don’t go around insulting each other in RL like we do here, nor do we come in for the rude and insulting behavior that we get here.
Still, I think your interpretation of what Ed wants is correct. He doesn’t want us to stop insulting each other, he just doesn’t want cursing to be part of those insults.
