What is the point of the AIBU section?

[Flighttattendant]

It's been around for a while now and anyone can see it's become really gladiatorial.

It's frankly an absolute pit...it's dreadful.

I have had it hidden for months now which makes my personal MN a lovely place to be, but as soon as I venture into that topic I find myself wanting to leave the whole site.

There must be some way to offload it surely...why not have it as a spin off site, separate from MN? The thing is, many people who come here will see all the nonsense of it in active convos and likely be put off completely if they have any sensitivity whatsoever.

I think it's a disgrace and brings us all into disrepute. In fact I used to recommend MN to all and sundry, but now I am ashamed to because of AIBU being such an apparently popular and sizeable part of the site.

I don't know what to do about that. The rest of the place is pretty balanced. But it's like Jeremy Kyle Corner.

pmsl at Jeremy Kyle corner.

Yes, a lot of it is a bit scary, isn't it?

It has gone a bit bonkers. I used to find it quite entertaining and there was the odd decent debate, but much of it is reactionary sutff now.

Not sure what the answer is, but I agree it is dominating the non-hidden active convos.

LOL at Jeremy Kyle corner - how very apt! Yes, it's hideous at times.

Oh thank God Nicky.

I thought it might just be me. I don't even have it in A/C to tell what proportion of it's aibu, but can see how it dominates the most active and all that on the right.

I like AIBU. It gives me a warm glow to see all of that PMT rage being channelled in to the one board. I think if you got rid of it, then random unhinged bile would just spill out on to other threads. At least it's more or less contained.

I wondered about that. But I think it should be separated out from active.

It's just so rubbish. It's like putting the bins right in your porch. Big smelly bins and flies and stuff, could they not build a kind of pretentious wooden slatted bin-hide or something for it?

First impressions and all that. You can probably get one in the back of the radio times.

In principle I agree, Chickens, and that was pat of the justification for creating it in the first place, but I'm not convinced it has actually worked like that in practice. I certainly think that since AIBU was created MN has become more generally adversarial and snippy, and while correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation I notice myself being more confrontational on other non-AIBU threads if I've been posting on AIBU first, and I suspect I'm not the only one.

It's really good for the containment of trolls!

This is it Prof. I am the same, I'm out and out rude when I go in there and then it carries over.

I said this ages ago but MNHQ weren't interested.

They need to do something

I agree with dueling

It is like leaving a turd far down at the end og your garden. Something for the flies to play with and keep them away from your barbeque.

The only problem is if they alight on the turd and then bring essence of turd back to your table...

I didn't really think that through.

OK . It provides a home for the bile spitting types and hopefully stops them rampaging all overthe site

It ain't though is it Paggy. Using your analogy there is turd all over active conversations.

This is my whole point.

By all means let people have their little patch of horror to play on but keep it somewhere far, far away from the rest of us, and any vulnerable newbies rocking up.

It might even make the ones who use it feel more exclusive. Win-win

I said I hadn't really thought it through...

FWIW I agree with you. I think that it attracts people who are only here to be combative. And it is noticable that you see names on there who are clearly intent on working a particular issue , picking on a vulnerable group often, who you never come across in any other context.
I would rather they had their own
'I am a bigot and up for an unintelligent fight' corner.

If it wasn't there , do you think people would post on the other sections more ?
wouldn't another section get nasty ?

Yes sorry Pag I understand your post now, my fault.

I hope they will it least consider making it more separate.

I just don't think it does us any good. I really don't.

Some folk only ever post on that bit.

Isn't what happens there natural ? women together. there was nasty stuff and dominant posters before AIBU.

Ob, I think it should probably stay as there is such a high demand for it, but it needs segregating.

I reckon it would thrive as a spin off site. Amibeingunreasonable.com/

I hid it as I personally found even reading the titles a bit stressful. Then I'd end up wishing I never looked at the threads. MN is a lot more relaxing for me now.Think Oblomov has a point though.

Well if you've hidden it then why do you think it needs a new board? And if you've hidden it why did you unhide it
it seems obvious to me, if it upsets you don't read it

further to the 'women together' aspect you could look at it as a bit exploitative actually.

This is what I mean by gladiatorial.

It's like a pay per view fight club.

meanwhile MNHQ are getting huge traffic to it because people apparently love to watch conflict and women attacking each other.

I'm getting more and more worried about the ethical dimension to this.

I haven't unhid it BC I just clicked on one thread.

People new to the site are not going to know about hiding topics. They will get the brunt of it as soon as they open talk.

yes there was nastiness but it was not explicitly licensed.

How do you hide it?

Loads of threads in there contain a comment along the lines of 'this is aibu, what did you expect'
'I thought it was OK to post that in here, it's aibu after all'

that kind of thing

It's wrong.

I don't like it, and I don't like the "well, what did you expect, you posted in AIBU" posts which crop up all the time.

People hide behind the AIBU banner, and use it as an excuse to post abrasively.

Asking AIBU? is not asking to be flamed, or hit with a barrage of chippy, combative opinions.

Customise, Sirius. list of topics and move it to the dark side.

It's become a euphemism for that though hasn't it silverfrog.

It's such a shame.

yes, it has.

and it is full of posters wanting to point out, often quite nastily, exactly why the OP is being unreasonable (often when tha tisn't actualy the case)

also full of ill-informed opinions on lots of issues - SN, disability, bf/ff, oh the list is endless, being masqueraded as an AIBU so that the OP can reasonably (hah!) claim not trolling, but canvassing opinions, etc.

whole thing is nasty, imo.