I’ve recently noticed the (apparently routine) locking of a joke-pit thread, as well as a thread was deemed insufficiently angry – a mere “pity party.”
I understand why all hate-filled rantings must go in the pit, but must that be all that’s allowed there? Is the sancitity of a Pitter’s outrage somehow threatened by the joke-pitting next to it? I think there are some amusing threads out there that can never see the light of day because of this restriction, and I see no benefit at all to the enforcement of said restriction.
I found the locking of that thread odd as well. 99% of Pit threads are pity parties when you get right down to it. How is “I Pit My (Boss, Wife, Boyfriend, Neighbor, etc.) Because They Make My Life a Living Hell” not a pity party?
. . . and one Pit is one too many?
I do. I don’t see how the pit fits with Cecil at all. What is it doing on this site. Looks like an idea that’s time has passed.
I’m sure that an expert on VBulletin will be along shortly to give you more specific advice but I believe that all you have to do is not read the posts there.
Well, the only forums that are even theoretically for fighting ignorance are GQ and GD. The others–not so much. Besides, the Pit is valuable. You know, when you are in the middle of a heated debate in GD and you get to the point where you want to call your debate opponent a hamster-cramming goat felcher (as we all want to do at some point in the debate), it gives you a nice outlet for that sort of thing. You know, kind of a pressure release valve. Helps keep it clean in the other forums.
I don’t. And neither do the vast majority, as some of the few pit threads I’ve read mentioned. It’s a dying forum for a reason. It’s time has passed. Flame wars went out of style.
How, in your short stay here so far, do you have any clue what the vast majority do? If you don’t read it, why do you even care? You’re new here. I hope that you stick around. Maybe you should spend a little more time before you tell us how we should do things that we’ve been doing for several years. How about a cite that it’s a dying forum?
Well, to answer you in kind (answering a question with a question):
If newbies are so stupid you don’t care about their input, then why not just not read their posts, and if you do by accident then just ignore them? Personally, I never saw your name before in my lurkage (to coin a clumsy term), so why should I care about enlightening you now with a cite after you’ve insulted me?
That’s what I’ve been itching to post. **haj ** gets sarcastic, **Bea ** gets mad, and before you know it, they’re telling each other to fellate syphillitic farm animals and get sodomized with porcupine carcasses. That’s what the Pit is all about.
I vote a mod moves this to the Pit. It would be at the same time totally appropriate and utterly ironic.
We started the Pit because we wanted to allow people an outlet for insulting each other, while maintaining some degree of civility in the other forums. While flame wars are less common, that need for outlet is still there, we think. As to why a particular thread is closed or not: if there’s no explanation offered by moderators, you might try emailing them if you’re sufficiently interested. There are times (many times) that we don’t want to make something a public spectacle or bring attention to it.
Personally, I have no interest in reading most Pit threads, and even less in participating in them… Which is why I’m very glad that the forum exists. With all of those threads sequestered off in their own forum, it’s very easy for me to avoid them. If that forum didn’t exist, then flaming threads would be all over the rest of the board.
All I know is that every forum I have seen around, on whatever crazy topic or area of interest there is, has a BBQ Pit area for people to rant and rave about each other and RO.
When this board started, was that the sole purpose of the Pit? Was it strictly a forum where discussions that started in other forums, but got heated, could continue unrestricted? Plus grievances with the mods/admins? Or has it always been a place where one could vent about anything IRL as well?
Because it seems that for the past few years, hostility has been creeping up. Now it’s at the point where opening a Pit thread sets the OP up as a secondary target. “I Pit the cretins who stole my car.” “Oh, that’s terrible.” “Here’s what you can do legally.” “Hey, it was an SUV! Serves you right!” [half a page later] “Well, he opened a Pit thread! I don’t have to be nice in the Pit! Everyone’s fair game, even if their planet-ruining vehicle was stolen!”
And don’t say that’s not happening. It is happening, a lot. So is it happening because the original purpose of the Pit has been subverted? Should anyone with a non-SDMB-related grievance keep it in MPSIMS (or perhaps IMHO), on the grounds that a forum devoted to flaming and accusation is not to place to admit any vulnerability?
The only thing I don’t get is why, if they’re fine for MPSIMS, they aren’t just moved there, rather than closed. Takes just as much moderator time/effort to move a thread as close it.