If I say “take it to the Pit” (which I do often say), what I mean is that your behavior is not acceptable in the forum that you are in, and if you want to engage in that type of behavior, do so in the Pit. If I do not issue a warning along with it, then I feel that a mod note is sufficient.
It’s not a cop-out. In almost every case, the mod note ends up being sufficient and the Pit-like behavior stops.
It’s usually not “gentle and polite push-back”. It’s usually two (sometimes more) people getting heated in a conversation and they start going over the line and attacking each other. In the most recent case when I told you to take it to the Pit, you were latched onto JohnT and were intentionally needling and provoking him. That is not anything even close to polite push-back.
Then don’t. The problem here is that you did.
Take a look at your posts:
In both cases you were just needling JohnT and continuing the thread hijack. You weren’t having anything close to a polite discourse with JohnT. You were goading him into a response and escalating the disagreement. If you want to engage in those sorts of behaviors, you are free to do so in the Pit. But not in MPSIMS. That’s the point of the mod note. You can’t do that in MPSIMS, so stop it.