I have been here a couple of years, and I have heard the phrase "pie fights" referenced several times. Since it was before my time or I just missed it, I simply came to understand the term in its most general sense. Well during the recent troll wars, someone asked me what a pie fight was. I gave them a short and general definition. This made me curious, so I decided to Wiki the phrase. Wikipedia's explanation is below the fold.
A pie fight is a type of discourse specific to bulletin boards, blogs and other types of Internet forums. Pie fights are characterized by heated, emotional argumentation about a marginal issue that has little or nothing to do with the regular subject matter of the forum in question, but comes to be so vehement that it overshadows any other topic of dialogue. Pie fights are typically of short duration, but can have a devastating effect on an online community. Pie fights can be started by Internet trolls who use baiting techniques to enrage Internet forum users so much that they post inappropriate and/or offensive messages. Unfortunately, this often results in disruption of the forum more than anything else.
The second half is specific to dkos. Apparently, we are the pie fight.
The term "pie fight" is derived from a June, 2005 event on Daily Kos, a liberal and progressive issues web site, in which site administrators accepted an advertisement that showed two scantily-clad women throwing pies and smearing each other with whipped cream and pie filling. This advertisement was for the TBS reality series The Real Gilligan's Island.
Despite the fact that the advertisement was only marginally related to the regular subject matter discussed on Daily Kos, it dominated the user diary entries and blog comments for several days. The animosity generated by the acceptance of this advertisement caused some established members of the Daily Kos community to cease participation in the forum that it provides.
I also found the picture. I'm not recommending the blog or the diary it is in, I'm just sharing the picture with you.
So, I hope this better explains "pie fight" and serves as one more example of what is and isn't important to our goals and the goals of this site.