I have much the same opinion. If the Pit isn’t going to be a place for flaming, then it doesn’t make sense to even have one. Under the current rules, anything I have that I’d normally post in the Pit will end up so edited that I’d have to put it in another forum anyway.
If I’m to disagree and argue with another poster without personal insults, it might as well be a Great Debate.
If I want to talk about something bad in my life, it might as well be something Mundane and Pointless.
A movie I don’t like? If I can’t describe it like I have Tourette’s, might as well be in Cafe Society.
If the new Pit rules are here to stay, then the Pit should just be closed down. A forum for flaming where you can’t properly flame is only going to confuse people and lead to bannings.
This has been my feeling since I first saw the proposed new rules. At best, you could turn it into MPSIMS for stuff that makes you :(, and then keep the original MPSIMS only for stuff that makes you :).
That being said though, I would be very interested in reading the FAQ when it comes out.
I always thought the Pit was a bit of a release valve which kept the rest of the board civil. If it does become “Solar-Powered Electric Smoker,” then that leaves the nonny boards as a place to vent, which I would imagine would be even more disruptive to the boards as a whole.
Right. We’re not allowed to use vulgarities in thread titles (which is reasonable, really), flame other posters, complain about the mods, or use the pit as our “personal diary,” which to me says that under the strictest interpretation, rants about personal problems would be verboten. What’s left?
I posted this in another thread, but I like the sound of my own voice so much that I’ll repeat it here. I for one am perfectly able to disagree with people without calling them assholes or telling them to eat shit. I have no problem with the new Pit rules. It’s the rules I live with in my day-to-day interactions with people all day: at work, at school, at church, at my non-profit group meetings, in public, etc.
I would recommend that the first line of this be removed - it more or less contradicts the rest of it, since it is too general.
If Ed is interested in feed back on how this sounds to me.
I can see the point of banning obscenities in thread titles, and I think most of us see a difference between “you fucking son of a bitch” and “please tell your mother to stop barking so loud when you attempt sexual congress with her - it disturbs the neighbors”.
People like Shodan and me need a place where we can tell each other to “Go fuck yourself” or call each other goat-felching morons. As others have suggested, if this stuff is removed from the Pit, you might as well close the thing altogether.
I’ve been here for over 7 years and over 13,000 posts. I really enjoy this message board. And i recognize that the other forums will probably remain as interesting and as fun as ever. And through all the Board’s previous ructions and tumults, i’ve never once given serious consideration to leaving. But if these new rules about civility in the Pit remain, i think i might just call it a day, on principle.
Arnold, I think people’s problem is this: I agree with you that I wouldn’t call people assholes, and say ‘fuck you’ to them in my day to day interactions with people. But I would be pretty concerned if the government suddenly told me that I was not allowed to do so.
Wouldn’t you?
The whole ‘I don’t do it, so I have no problem with the rules’ attitude of the masses has historically led to some pretty regrettable situations
This may be the last day that this could be meaningfully asked, but I’d like to know how many of the Pit threads on the first page would fall foul of the new rules. It would be interesting to see the degree to which the Pit would be decimated.
If the government told me that, sure. But the SDMB is not the government. Most of my waking hours are spent at work. At work we have a rule that I can’t tell one of my colleagues “I hope you get sodomized with a rusty chainsaw.” You know what, I’ve never felt oppressed at work (at least for that reason - I have plenty of other reasons for felling oppressed at work! )
That seems like what has happened by default, but it just happened in a more confusing way.
Now all the people with a martyr complex who think that the world is so awful, can post an OP in the Pit and no one can point out to them that they have a martyr complex because that would be abuse of another poster.
So really, it’s just MPSIMS but with the culture of the Pit as history, allowing those people who used to post in the Pit the potential to get banned without understanding why.
But see, Arnold, one of the reasons people come here is precisely because it’s not work, or school, or church. It’s not like the whole SDMB is rife with personal insults; they were confined specifically to the Pit, and i tend to agree with those who have argued that having this release valve was an important reason that the rest of the forums generally remained so civil and on-topic.
Furthermore, while i might not always succeed in this, i generally try to restrict my more colorful personal insults to people who i know are willing and happy to return the favor. I’m really not that interested in abusing someone who is going to slink away all offended and never return. As in real life, if i want to butt heads with someone, i try to choose people who are willing to butt back. If you don’t want to join in with that shit, no problem; you can ignore the Pit, or at very least leave the hotter, more vitriolic threads, to those of us who want them.
The BBQ Pit - We took our balls and went home
The BBQ Pit - Indoor safety flaming (ages 8 and under)
The BBQ Pit - Walk the invisible banning tightrope if you dare
The Vegetarian BBQ Pit - All-new all-Quorn menu
Glad to see we get to wait until there’s an FAQ before we can call this stupid, mind you; in fact if little enough information is given to us then it would quite simply never become reasonable to complain, and who could argue with that? Well, I suppose a single rule that needs an entire FAQ to explain it might be considered intrinsically stupid, but that’s by-the-by. Frankly, though, there’s only one FAQ I can see that would make this make sense:
Q: Is this all a joke? A: Yes.
This isn’t just a stupid move for those who like to say “fuck”, mind you; it’s going to create a neverending mound of work for the Pit mods. Can you imagine the number of threads we’re going to have asking for clarification on why the latest new warning doesn’t line up precisely with one of the FAQ sections? Talk about making a rod for your own back. And for what? What is the problem that this rule solves? None that I can see.
That’s at work, though. However, I’ve always been able to come HERE and do that. And now, all of a sudden, we’re told we can’t, we no input from us, when we pay to post here? You can’t blame us for being pissed off.
All I can say is that I HOPE someone is thinking of starting an alternative message board-because I don’t see this place lasting very long. The Pit has always been my favorite forum. It’s definitely the most entertaining, that’s for damned sure.
:mad:
ETA: WHY, did Ed decide that the Pit needed to be well, done away with, pretty much, like this? Because honestly, things were running pretty well-why did it all of a sudden have to change? What was the point?
Unless the whole point was to drive away PAYING customers?
So you want to turn the Dope into work? I like not having to act like I’m at work here. The Pit was designed as a pressure valve. It works really well. The rules as written make it meaningless. How many “I really hate Mondays” threads do we need?
I am very pissed off now. For the record, this is coming from someone who started reading the Dope on AOL, has been reading Cecil’s columns since the 80s and who almost never insults another poster even in the Pit. I am seriously considering if I want to remain here at all.
)
but with the culture of the Pit as history, allowing those people who used to post in the Pit the potential to get banned without understanding why.