What is Pit-worthy?

Fear Itself said:
I disagree with several of your picks on political content, but the point is, so what if half are politics? Why is half too much?
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That. Plus, a discussion about pot is political only tangentially, since it involves legislation to resolve. So, but still it's like you say. So what. People are posting what they want to post. And if those posts weren't there, there would just be zombie threads on page one. People are posting some good rants. I think what Fenris et al would like is for more people to post good rants about something besides politics. But Fen, you're sort of approaching trying to make it into some kind of rule or something. And if that happens, then Pit posting will drop off considerably. I mean, it's not like a hundred people are just waiting on their chance to post. They're just not posting right now. And I don't buy into the "it's because they think they won't get responses" argument. There are always lots of responses to good Pit rants. You would respond, for one. (After all, having the OPs post is no good if you're not going to respond.) I'll probably respond. And you know that elucidator and Bryan Ekers will be there. And EddyTeddyFreddy. And who knows. Maybe even lekatt or Giraffe.

ETA: I show 50 threads to a page, I think. Maybe Fen just needs to adjust his CP setting.
 
Fear Itself said:
I disagree with several of your picks on political content, but the point is, so what if half are politics? Why is half too much?
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Because there's too much political stuff on the boards as it is and we don't need over 50% of two separate forums devoted to politics?

This is really, really simple: Since so many people like politics, then putting all the political threads into a "Politics" forum should be popular, right? All the pundits can argue with each other to their hearts content, people that want a break or don't care about it don't have to scroll through pages of threads to find something to discuss. Everyone wins.

The problem is that the politcal nature of GD and the Pit has been going on for so long now I think most people on the boards regarding them as "Argue over what bloggers say about politicians" and "Say Angry, Mean Things About Politicians (and other posters, time permitting)". It's going to take some work to change that, but, like Fenris, I honestly believe that taking politics out of the Pit will allow other threads to flourish.

I really can't see the Pit becoming an abandoned Ghost Forum just because there's no more politics in there. And, as I've said before, if we can manage special forums for Ed Zotti's Book and all things Chicago, we can manage a politics forum. And I bet the politics forum would be more popular than the Barn House and Chicago forums combined, too.
 
Martini Enfield said:
Because there's too much political stuff on the boards as it is and we don't need over 50% of two separate forums devoted to politics?

This is really, really simple: Since so many people like politics, then putting all the political threads into a "Politics" forum should be popular, right? All the pundits can argue with each other to their hearts content, people that want a break or don't care about it don't have to scroll through pages of threads to find something to discuss. Everyone wins.

The problem is that the politcal nature of GD and the Pit has been going on for so long now I think most people on the boards regarding them as "Argue over what bloggers say about politicians" and "Say Angry, Mean Things About Politicians (and other posters, time permitting)". It's going to take some work to change that, but, like Fenris, I honestly believe that taking politics out of the Pit will allow other threads to flourish.

I really can't see the Pit becoming an abandoned Ghost Forum just because there's no more politics in there. And, as I've said before, if we can manage special forums for Ed Zotti's Book and all things Chicago, we can manage a politics forum. And I bet the politics forum would be more popular than the Barn House and Chicago forums combined, too.
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Even giving you the dubious statistic of 50%
 
I know that I can make no difference as an individual on a national level. However, I was visited today by the local engineer who maintains state roads in this county. As a result of a plea by me, and his seeing the problem first-hand, the county is going to repaint the yellow lines on the road the deadends in front of our house. (The guy already painted temporary white dashes for the road crew to paint over.) The result will be the elimination of narrow turns by trucks that leave tire divets at the edge of our yard (which belongs to the state anyway.)

I have also sicced both state and local agencies on WalMart's ass for selling spoiled meat. The asshole manager wouldn't give me his last name when I had called to complain. So I read him the riot act and told him that he'd remember MY last name when his meat department was swarming with people wearing hazmat suits. The jackass. I'm going all the way to the FDA on this one.

One person sometimes can make a difference.
 
Liberal said:
One person sometimes can make a difference.
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Oh man, dude, we've now agreed twice in one week. A sure sign of the Apocalypse.

Indeed, one person can make a difference. I served on the County Civil Grand Jury and I started several rather "fruitful" investigations into waste, fraud & mismanagement in local gov't.

I have also served on several local advisory Commissions and whatnot. One of my suggestions changed how they would do parking at the new City Hall, making it much more public-freindly.


But one person can only make a difference if you try.
 
Liberal said:
I know that I can make no difference as an individual on a national level. However, I was visited today by the local engineer who maintains state roads in this county. As a result of a plea by me, and his seeing the problem first-hand, the county is going to repaint the yellow lines on the road the deadends in front of our house. (The guy already painted temporary white dashes for the road crew to paint over.) The result will be the elimination of narrow turns by trucks that leave tire divets at the edge of our yard (which belongs to the state anyway.)
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You know what would happen if you called your local council here in Australia to complain about tyre divots in your berm? You'd be politely told to fuck off and stop wasting everyone's time. Now, it's good that where you are they've obviously got lots of spare time and money to fix that sort of thing, but really, it's hardly a major political issue, is it? I don't expect there will be Questions In Parliament about the tyre divots in people's lawns.

That doesn't mean you're not entitled to ask your local council to do something about it, but really, the issue doesn't affect anybody except for maybe three houses at the end of your street.

I have also sicced both state and local agencies on WalMart's ass for selling spoiled meat. The asshole manager wouldn't give me his last name when I had called to complain. So I read him the riot act and told him that he'd remember MY last name when his meat department was swarming with people wearing hazmat suits. The jackass. I'm going all the way to the FDA on this one.
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That's slightly different, being a Health & Safety Issue, but still not really what we're talking about.

One person sometimes can make a difference.
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But generally they can't, at least in regards to anything political. That's my point. You can ring your local council and get them to fix potholes, or dob in a dodgy business that's selling meat that's gone off, and reasonably expect something to be done about it. But if you go to see your local Member For Parliament about an issue, you can reasonably expect to be politely listened to then disregarded as soon as you leave the office, unless you're agreeing with the MP- at least in my experience, anyway.

And as DrDeth notes, that "one person" who does manage to make a difference is almost never just a random member of the public.
 
Posting kitty pics in the Pit should be a bannable offense. And I'm (almost) not kidding, either. There's already MPSIMS for that. As I understand it, the Pit was created so that Pit-like posts don't disrupt the other fora. By the same token, MPSIMS-like posts don't belong in the Pit.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11457755&postcount=34
 
DrDeth said:
Oh man, dude, we've now agreed twice in one week. A sure sign of the Apocalypse.
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Y'know honestly, it's really not all that surprising, since your modern American style of liberalism does indeed take its roots from my more classical European style. We're friends on far more levels than we are enemies — most of which involve the economic side of things. And even then, if you thought about it deeper, you'd see more similarities than you might think.
 
Since this thread is still open, I'll point out another example of what is NOT Pitworthy--college students whining. Well, that, and whining in general.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=529348
 
Carol Stream said:
Since this thread is still open, I'll point out another example of what is NOT Pitworthy--college students whining. Well, that, and whining in general.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=529348
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Most of the posters in that thread, including the OP, are faculty, not students. I'm sure that makes not a whit of difference to you, but it does make you look like a an old fogey with a head of steam for whippersnappers, and there are none.
 
Fear Itself said:
Most of the posters in that thread, including the OP, are faculty, not students. I'm sure that makes not a whit of difference to you, but it does make you look like a an old fogey with a head of steam for whippersnappers, and there are none.
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I'll have to get up at 7 am to get to class on time Tuesday and Thursday. Then I'll have my usual fall job corn sorting starting at 6 am on the weekends. Have a Thursday night class that goes to 9:30 PM.

I'm not a morning person.
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I'm debating between driving a metal spike through my head or going to my calc two class, I got a boring teacher. It's his first time teaching Calc II, I'm sure he knows what he's talking about but... ugh, today was my first day of that class and the one and a half hours felt like 6 years. He doesn't even ask the class to participate he just drones. On. Endlessly. Maybe he's just getting his bearings.
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So it isn't like it's a free easy ride, even if you consider homework easy*. They have to work to pay that back.



*big if, English Composition about killed me. >.<
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Anyway, back to whining. Tonight is my first night class of the year.

I was up until 3:30 last night attempting to hit a deadline on a project at work. No time for a nap today, so I'm off to class on 3 hours of sleep. Yawn. At least this time I'm taking the class, not teaching it. No big deal if I drift off a little in the back row. I hope the prof doesn't take it personally, though.
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That's enough whine for a Papal mass.
 
Carol Stream said:
I submit that each and every one of these posts are MUNDANE AND POINTLESS. Not a one was even vaguely close to "entertaining", by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, a few of them had only an extra word or three beyond my summation above, i.e. "X is annoying". That's just whining.

If you won't move Mini-Rants to MPSIMS, will you at least edit the title?

"August Whiners Club" is about right.
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Would you shut the fuck up about this already? You've been on this kick for years. Many people like the mini-rants thread in the pit. I think MMP is silly, but I don't try to get it shut down.


Something else:

I think moving the vegetarian thread to GD was a bad idea. Much of the debate was about who was a bigger asshole, and now we can't talk about that since it's in GD. As I said on the last page:

I come here for the debates. They are generally better than in GD. Please don't remove the best debates from here. I think people's assumptions are really challenged here. Often people post rants and really don't expect it when post #2 disagrees with their entire premise (They don't agree that my Sow-Worker is a jerky-jerk? Really? Maybe I'm the jerky-jerk? Well, I never!). I like this aspect of the Pit.
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Some of the best debates are rude.
 
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