I do. I think censorship is the enemy of fighting ignorance. The freer the discourse, the greater ease with which information spreads. Not to mention that prudishness, from which these changes seem to be borne, is a willful desire to remain unexposed to words and ideas of others that one finds objectionable.
You obviously have the right to make such changes, to enforce your ideas of what is objectionable and what isn’t on others. But that doesn’t mean I can’t draw a parallel to religious fundamentalists in the United States who would like nothing better than to see their morals made the law of the land. Who would like to see evolution ignored in favor of the teaching of intelligent design. I’m not saying restricting the use of dirty language is exactly equivalent to banning the teaching of evolution, but there’s some common ground there.
I get what you’re trying to do. And I appreciate the clarification that actually makes the new status quo enforceable. And truth be told, I’m not much of a potty-mouth to begin with. But I firmly believe it is antithetical to the Straight Dope mission statement. Obviously, my opinion doesn’t count for as much as yours when it comes down to it, but you asked the question.
That other admins and staff were called cunts and told to fuck off and they didn’t like it one bit. It is really not that hard to understand, no matter how you feel about it. They told Ed to stop it (with or without an “or else”) and he is trying to comply (no matter whether we think he is going well about it).
I don’t think Ed will be in any rush to admit to this much, but that is also understandable since unpopular decisions made to protect a very small minority is not the kind of thing that goes well in these circles.
Actually it might even be the case that Ed himself hasn’t internalized that position. Maybe at some point the level of admin-whine tipped his internal balance and he hasn’t had the time to go through the process of internal discernment that it takes to come to terms with a gut reaction.
In either case, it is very unlikely that Ed will come forward and say it in so many words. So take this for a tentative answer if you are genuinely seeking clarification or stop holding your breath if you are just hoping to lure him out in a confession.
This is very sad to me. This was my first board, and my only board for the last 3 years. I would have loved to see it survive and thrive. I still would. The posters on here are extraordinary overall, and it’s a shame to see that they are leaving.
This is false. Speaking as another poster, although one who is included in the group you’re discussing, I’d appreciate if you wouldn’t make up stuff like this.
Given that the number of new registrations dropped about the time you went free again, I’d think it likely that a fair few of those new registrations between 2006 - 2008 were people socking up to avoid the subscription fee.
Seeing as you mentioned fixing up the home page to link to the boards, a semi-related suggestion: Consider putting Digg this, Facebook, Reddit, etc, buttons at the bottom of every Cecil column (someone suggested the Facebook thing a few weeks back. Ah, here you go). A Cecil column hitting the frontpage of Digg would give you traffic coming out the wazoo.
Interesting. I note that at the bottom of the Alexa page, it shows a breakdown for the boards vs. the portal and columns. But it doesn’t make that distinction above. So the apparent drops in users, traffic, and views may or may not have anything to do with the boards.
You’ll excuse me if I find this kind of thing exasperating. These questions have been asked and answered several times already. People just don’t like the answers, and think if they keep asking, the answers will change. I wanted to eliminate certain extreme forms of expression in the Pit. Why? Because I didn’t like them, and they were inconsistent with the type of business I wanted to run. Rules changes historically have had no impact on the site’s profitability or lack thereof, which is the main thing my bosses are interested in. So I implemented the changes, made some adjustments based on feedback from users, and now things seem to be working OK. People have either made the adjustment (if they noticed any change at all) or they’ve moved on. I suggest you do the same - and I don’t mean that snidely. If you want to continue participating here, that’s great. If you find some other venue more congenial, that’s OK too. I hope you have an enjoyable experience wherever you wind up.
We use Google Analytics, which is based on embedded tagging, and so is more reliable than Alexa and other such sources. Alexa evidently conflates SDMB and TSD column archive traffic; these have completely different usage characteristics. When I say “record high,” incidentally, I mean on average; traffic is subject to spikes and seasonal variations. We’re concerned about the decline in new registrations stemming from the TSD home page redesign last fall; the fix appears to be straightforward, and we hope to have it in place soon.
Don’t be silly. We have no rule requiring that users keep me unexasperated. However, I think your question has been answered, and would prefer to talk about something else.
Not even close. You have chosen to answer certain questions very clearly and with great detail. The ones I listed you have only answered vaguely and in very general terms. What is exasperating is that you are trying to change the tone of this place without being able to articulate what you want. What is the end state you are looking for? How is that accomplished by removing certain words and not others? How can you raise the tone or whatever term you are using when those words can be used freely in most pit threads? What makes those terms so bad when others aren’t? None of these questions have been answered clearly. “Raise the tone of the board” is vague and meaningless. “Because I don’t like it” shows that you are unable to articulate your own feelings and position. It is disappointing reading this from someone who makes a living with words and answering the great questions of the universe (and does it quite well). If you answered questions like that in GD as a poster you would get your ass handed to you (in a non sexual way). And enough with the don’t let the door hit you in the ass stuff. I told you I don’t plan on leaving at this time. I have been a loyal customer since the mid 80s. I don’t think I will run into any problem with the mods under any set of rules. It’s just not my style. I still think it is going to make this a worse site rather than better.
My apologies if I misrepresented you but that was just my guess. Since there is no actual answer, guesses are all we have. And I don’t think you were in the group of the called cunts and told to fuck off (and most definitely not in the group of those offended by it, I would venture)
The question was what was it that made Ed have a change of heart about something that had been going on for 10 years. I see that Ed thinks of it as an answered question but I am not finding an answer to it. A pointer would be appreciated.
Apologies if this has already been adressed in this thread or elsewhere (and I don’t see how it couldn’t have by now), but what I continue to just not get is the fact that certain words are not being banned, but how we may use them is being curtailed, in order to elevate the demeanor of the board or something.
You can’t call someone a “cunt,” but you can refer to your girlfriend’s vagina as a “cunt” all you like.
You can’t say “fuck you” to someone, but you can proclaimed anything you like to be “fucked up like nothing has ever been fucked up in the history of fucking up.”
You can’t refer to another poster as a “motherfucker”, but you can describe actually fucking your own mother (if that’s your kinky inclination) complete with money shot.
I just don’t see what it solves to ban the use of words in one area but leave them as fair game in other areas. I mean if it’s about sparing the delicate readers … what is being spared?
It would almost make more sense to censor the words off the board altogether – not that I would welcome that, but it least it would make things clear.
FWIW, TSD hits the reddit front page periodically and it is always a big hit there. Anything to make it easier to submit TSD articles would make a big difference.
After all these years, what changed?:dubious: Seriously, what changed?
Perhaps you can see the reverse is true as well. It is apparent that you cannot see that the reason for all the criticism is that your new “rules” are not rules at all, just an assertion of the right to ban away, or not, depending solely on how bitchy you feel on a particular day.
Oh now come on. That’s as unhelpful a misrepresentation as **Ed **saying “You guys just want to call each other nasty names.” He has been pretty clear at least this far:
[ul]
[li]The new rules are an attempt to fix what he perceives as a rare but persistent problem with the Pit – not an enlargement of his powers, nor notice that he’s feeling capricious.[/li][li]He’s asserting the right for all mods to *warn *away, not *ban *away. (Which I think they already had, but whatever.) Nobody’s getting banned for first offenses.[/li][/ul]
That’s actually one thing that i think is reasonably clear.
What changed is that Ed actually began to take a direct interest in a board that he had previously seen as not especially relevant or interesting. And, rather than accept that the Board had a life of its own, independent of the Straight Dope columns, he came in and decided that, because it bore the label, it was just as much his little fiefdom as the other stuff.
Of course, in terms of his power to make decisions, he was actually correct. In terms of the actual community of people who make up the board, he was woefully misguided, because he’s never actually been a part of that community, and still really isn’t.