I agree with this, especially your last point contesting the idea that the nastiness and hostility from the pit somehow remains confined to the pit. People saying “if you don’t like the pit, don’t read it” - do you feel the same way about people in real life? There’s no harm denigrating and insulting your classmates or co-workers to their peers in real life as long as they don’t hear it, right? IMO allowing the pit to exist in its current form is saying that this is acceptable, or even desirable behaviour.
I’ve lurked for many years and post on occasion, and there are definitely many posts and posters which have caused me all sorts of frustration, but I’ve never felt that the appropriate response was to open a pit thread and hurl insults at them. It disappoints me that so many people do feel that this is somehow a healthy thing. Having an outlet for frustration is probably a good thing, but I don’t know why that outlet has to be a public flogging and circlejerk of negativity. I think seeing a bunch of people agreeing how much they hate such-and-such person only causes those feelings of hatred to increase since that viewpoint is being reinforced by others. I’m not sure why people think this is a desirable culture to foster on this board.
If the Pit remains though, I would advocate for pitting of other members to be eliminated. It honestly amazes me that people could possibly think that the Pit is somehow necessary - most other forums that I frequent don’t have an equivalent and none of them have ever had problems with keeping trolls in line.
I suspect it’s for two reasons. One, we have very, very few mods despite the effort taken to grab them, get them sparkly jackboots and give them support. It’s thankless. And while we don’t apparently have the population we want to, we generate a solid number of posts nevertheless. Considering the number of times I’ve seen mod notes saying something like ‘there have been a ton of flags on this thread, I’m reminding you because you disagree with a poster doesn’t mean they are trolling,’ that they’re already overworked on existing accusations of trolling, and the PIT may serve to alleviate such notes.
Please note, I’m not saying it does, not do I say the mods want to ignore such possibilities, but we have a lot of comments in the thread that “we can just have the mods mod more” and I don’t think that’s fair to ask when it’s all unpaid (and often unthanked) work for them.
Second, and tied to the first, IMHO the mods are very, very slow to censure, suspend, and ban posters (the ones that don’t set off troll/sock/trock alarms that is) because they have to try to be very evenhanded and respectful. Thinking on the thread that spawned this one and those related, there was very limited moderation considering how heated the language and accusations got, especially for ATMB. My assumption was it was for this very reason. That likely contributes to the dominance of the pit - the mods are likely never going to be as aggressive as we want for both reasons above - and since people can’t chew out the mods (except here, and they do, frequently) they chew out the posters they hate in the PIT.
Not that I’m saying this makes the Pit any less of a weapon, and often misused, but I don’t think that ‘more aggressive modding’ is a practical fix to the problem.
But are you sure what you call a troll is not just someone you disagree with? Real trolls are very rare. Sure, some posters are just plain disagreeable and argumentative. I can be that way, mea culpa.
You don’t have to read a single post there. I’ve been pitted and trashed in the pit, and it’s all good – if you don’t like it, just don’t read that shit.
I suspect that some posters - like Bricker - felt ganged up on, and that’s unfortunate. But we’re a polarized society. Polarization is everywhere these days. It’s not an SDMB or BBQ pit thing.
When I was a mod, one thing that was impressed upon me is the sheer number of socks who troll the Straight Dope. It defies imagination. There are people who troll the Dope like it’s their full - time job. However you feel about the Trolls R Us thread, it catches a lot of trolling socks and leads to their swift banning by moderators who wouldn’t otherwise have them on their radar.
I have mixed feelings about that thread, but trolls are like weeds and those folks are master gardeners.
Better idea: people need thicker skin and realize that strangers on the internet don’t know the real you; they know what you post online on one board, which doesn’t define you.
Don’t get defensive. It’s even possible that you might end up agreeing with some of your critics from time to time.
– in general, I don’t see what your post has to do with what I just said. Maybe I just need to get some sleep and it’ll make more sense in the morning.
As I said earlier, I have pitted one person on this board. I didn’t really want to, but there were some things that needed hashing out that couldn’t be discussed elsewhere, and it wasn’t just me that was feeling annoyed with how that poster was behaving leading up to the pitting.
It came to a reasonable conclusion, and we both, and some other posters as well, got a better understanding of where we were each coming from.
Were it not for the pit, there would not have been a way to diffuse some anger and frustrations.
Of course, lots of tools. I have been a Mod, and I am a expert in Bank fraud and money laundering. I know a few tricks myself.
I did catch one sock here because he was linking to the same sites that he always linked to before. Did I Pit him? Nope, I reported him, and the sock was banned.
Do you catch them by someone saying nasty things about them in the BBQ Pit, or with tools or reports?
So. “that #@! is just a %#@! sock and $#@! troll”- that alerts you to sockness? That is the magic tool? Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it.
I think it would be enough to say that you just don’t start pit threads against other posters. But you CAN pit their stupid argument. Just don’t start pit threads to personally attack other posters.
But inside a thread? Between participants? Grab the popcorn.
Actually, what would be great would be the ability to tag an OP so we could fine-tune the thread. You might say profanity allowed, but no personal attacks. Or anything goes.
First of all I appreciate people reading what I wrote and responding. I’m not going to respond to all of you, I said my bit and if you agree or disagree with me either is cool. I will reply to this though, in part because a similar sentiment was echoed by others.
My objection to this is that you’re proposing that the Pit is a solution to a problem that it is obviously not a solution to. People are trolls, or jerks or whatever, and you think the moderators aren’t fast enough on the trigger, so people can take it to the Pit. I think I’m summing you up, and others, pretty fairly.
The problem is that taking it to the Pit doesn’t address the problem. The original thread is still trolled. The jerk is still a jerk. Jerks will remain jerks; being Pitted will almost never change that. There is nothing accomplished, at all, in Pitting the jerk except a brief shot of serotonin. In no way is the original problem solved, and now you have the added problem of more hostility overall.
There is this constant, underlying assumption that somehow the Pit allows you to fight back against jerks. It simply doesn’t; in no way does it change jerks. It just makes the person using the Pit a tiny bit more of a jerk. And If I can put on my adult voice for a bit… I mean, does it really make you feel any better, guys? Would you do this in real life? Does it accomplish anything in real life to respond to an asshole with shrieks and profanity and the waving of arms and bulging of eyeballs? Or is it the bigger man/woman that just sticks to facts and, when the other person is just an incorrigible jerk, shrugs, says “Alright, well, good day, sir” and walks away? I know which person impresses me.
Now, the other thing coming up again and again is complaining about moderating, and as a mod I’m not going to address the complaints in particular because that would be inappropriate, and I’d rather speak here mostly as a longtime member. By all means, start other ATMB threads with your proposed solutions or rules changes.
I will say, though, to speak about the concept of moderation in general, that calibrating moderation is hard. What I mean by that is that anyone can enforce rules; having a number of people enforce rules in a consistent manner that is also consistent with written policy is quite tough. There is no clear algorithm for defining one poster as a troll and another as not a troll. I like to think I know 'em when I see 'em, but my definition is different from Miller’s or Hari Seldon’s or whomever, and decisions often require a group discussion. When you throw in the fact that the members flagging posts all have THIER own interpretations - and I am not going to lie to you, it’s a mix of no-brainer complaints, spurious and vexatious ones, and all manner in between - well, it might merit some sort of calibration effort. I think an open, friendly discussion about the Board’s rules and how they should be changed, if at all, and how trolls should be dealt with would be helpful.
I think that the problem is that that is all you have chosen to see.
It does give a chance for other posters to discuss their feelings about another poster. Maybe they overreacted, and will be talked down, fairly often a pit backfires on the OP. Maybe others will also see that the pittee in question is out of line, and stop assuming that that person is acting in good faith and stop feeding the troll in question.
Sometimes the pittee will realize that they were out of line, and change their behavior to be more reasonable and amenable.
The things said about a poster will still be said, it would just be said entirely in PMs or on another board. The pit at least gives the person a chance to explain themselves, or to apologize for their behavior and try to make amends.
To characterize what goes on in the pit as solely shrieks and profanity and waving arms and bulging eyeballs is an extremely poor observation on your part, and if you truly believe that that is all that happens, then your opinion is already skewed enough to have very little value in this conversation.
That’s an interesting and illustrative conclusion to your post. I’m not sure why this level of hostility was necessary here, but I appreciate you taking the time to read my points.
