LOL
I knew that once the rebellion got the upper hand I’d be savagely beaten and dismembered.
I can still act tough at this point because I’m hiding behind Ed and the boys.
I agree that the poll is pointless. It’s also highly biased – the only people who are going to go to the trouble to make a snugglepup follow-up post are people who feel fairly strongly about the issue.
I disagree with Veb on the end game, though. In the short term, the content of the Pit will degrade into almost entirely bloggish venting, e.g. “I Pit my cell phone for getting lost, again!”. In the longer term, it won’t get enforced except for a specific set of insults (i.e. you can’t call anyone a cunt, tell them to fuck themselves or tell them to eat shit). But it’ll be on the books as a weapon against a poster a mod/some mods think should be banned. Whether it is actually used as such will depend on the mods themselves. I’m guessing there will be a couple of such cases (and each will yield a hilariously random insult that is suddenly verboten) but they will be the rare exceptions.
This isn’t a slam on the mods – I know better than anybody how hard they work as a group to try to make this a fun, fair board. However, when someone is working your last nerve it is human nature to want to lash out, and I worry this rule will provide too easy a temptation in the heat of the moment as ammunition against someone who seems intent on pissing you off. This goes doubly so for staff who don’t participate much or at all as regular posters and thus may not get why someone needs to hash out every detail of a rule or ruling and view them only as a trouble-making pest.
The problem with these rules has nothing to do with posters’ ability to call people cunts and everything to do with the relationship between the posters and the staff. It will be up to the staff to convince people that just because capricious rules are on the books doesn’t mean they will be applied capriciously. I don’t envy them the task.
Okay, I guess I’ll take a turn at asking this question now. Ed, I’m a paying customer–how will this policy change improve my experience with the SDMB? If it will not improve my experience with the SDMB, which customers’ experience will it improve? If it would help, please assume that I am fucking retarded and provide some examples.
And a couple related questions:
-What metrics did you use to determine that the rule changes were necessary?
-What metrics will you use to determine whether the rule changes are beneficial? (If your boss says “Prove to me that the change was for the better”, how will you do so?)
-Rule 1 states “All comments and complaints about SDMB administration must now go in the About This Message Board forum.” However, your FAQ entry under the heading “Can I argue with a mod in the Pit?” states “If you simply want to clarify a misunderstanding in a reasonable manner, no problem. However, any protracted discussion of a mod action should be taken to ATMB.” This seems to imply that some discussion is acceptable in the Pit. Can you clarify what is appropriate for the Pit and what is not?
True, true. I guess not even letting my subscription lapse and using Ad Block isn’t going to affect the finances of this board, but I’m still going to deny Ed his $214.95 out of principle.
When they came for the sNuGglypuPpiES, I didn’t speak up, for I was not a sNuGglypuPpY. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak up for me.
I already voted, but that seemed too good to waste.
So what might happen if I start a thread asking the question (repeated three times at this point) about Cervaise’s telemarketer rant? Will it be locked or disappeared? Seriously.
Well said, Sir. If I ever meet you, and you keep that prehensile tongue away from me, I shall buy you a beverage of your choosing.
Can I add two? Which is abusive?
‘You’re a fucking retard.’
‘You’re acting fucking retarded.’
I don’t think I’ve ever pitted another poster, but I enjoy reading the pittings of the fucking morons that need to be called fucking morons, who are usually too dense to recognize criticism unless it’s in terms they understand.
sNugglypUPpy
I would like to apologize for slandering Cisco. I cannot track down the thread I thought I had read in which Cervaise upbraided someone for becoming known as a knee-jerk mod basher. I had thought it was Cisco, but it appears I was wrong.
It seems to me that the jist of the post was “I don’t have anything against you, but please understand you are garnerning a reputation” or some such. In reviewing Pit threads with both Cisco and Cervaise, it appears I have inadvertantly mistaken him for somebody that Cervaise likes.
I didn’t expect to post to this thread, but sNUGglYPuppY.
There are a lot of reasons why I think Rule 2 is bad, most of them have already been said and ignored or misunderstood.
Don’t blame me, I voted for sNugglypuPPY!
For the record, I agree with many others that a toothless Pit is no Pit at all.
Thank you for the apology.
Huh? 
Why was this necessary? And how many times are you going to speak for Cervaise in this thread?
Damned if I know. You could try posting it as a separate query in ATMB but my guess is that it would be locked. That’s just a guess though. The tactic in force seems to be 'give ‘em one limited place to vent until they give up.’
Actually I agree with you on all points. The new quasi-rules are so foggy posters will slowly edge their way back to the way things were. Sometime or other a poster will get warned for something. Unless the infraction is a genuine no-brainer, an entirely predictable shitstorm will ensue, complete with posters madly searching out–and finding–comparable instances that passed without official comment.
Of course all of that feedback will occur here in ATMB, greeted with either more obsfucation or deafening silence. Enough times around that dance floor and Eddie and The Puritans will either clamp down harder or craft some rules that actually make sense.
The painful part is that most of this clustefuck was entirely preventable. Wanna cut out the actually very lame fuck-this-that-and-the-other Pit thread titles? Easily done, and easily defended. Just sticky a thread, allowing responses, to the effect that stupid titles make surfing at work awkward. Sure, a few of the self-appointed board critics would have bitched but the vast majority of sensible posters would have overridden them.
They used a sledgehammer when a pen knife would have handled the task nicely.
I mention his name in the hopes that he, or another with a good memory, might recall that particular post and, with any luck, prove I’m not losing my mind. I didn’t imagine that post, I swear. Caper, gibber, my old man’s a mushroom, etc.
Very well put. You may want to consider putting this in a thread of its own, in case Ed doesn’t notice it here.
In other words, you’re determined to pick shots at me for some reason, and have no intention of letting this go. Good to know.
deleted
SnUGglYpUPPY , since I want to vote.
Might as well give my opinion while I’m here. The new rule sucks. Everyone that doesn’t like a cruder pit can just stay out. Is there really a bunch of posters that want to insult each other, but get put off when someone tells them to “fuck off?”
How about we just make certain posts use the Marquess of Queensberry rules. If any pit poster doesn’t like the cruder Pit stuff then they can just put MoQ rules in their thread tittle.
Or better yet, make two Pit forums. One for MoQ type post and the other for anything goes. I don’t see the point of upsetting so many people.
If mild rants and minor disputes of the “hey, I’d like to have a word with you”-type were allowed in MPSIMS or IMHO, it would be even more of a reason for people who don’t want to deal with strong language to go in the BBQ Pit. But I started a very mild discussion in IMHO a few weeks ago and it got moved to the pit without any explanation, even after I asked for one.
No, I want to know who it was in that thread, since it’s clear it wasn’t you. But if you insist upon taking everything personally, that’s up to you.
Stop taking shots at me and making comments about how other members of this board feel about me, then.