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Post by sgtyayap on Dec 5, 2009 8:34:59 GMT -5
They've removed their discussion board. At first, when I noticed last night I thought it was just a server error, but now, it seems to be legitimately taken down. Probably due to the latest topic that focused on Randall.
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DinoGirl
Randall's Head Servant (300-799)
Aladar sure has one sparkling eye!
Posts: 512
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Post by DinoGirl on Dec 5, 2009 18:20:42 GMT -5
Are they viewing Randall as a taboo? I can't remember if I've looked on their properly, but I've just checked the page and a discussion tab isn't there . They shouldn't be anyway... viewing Randall as a taboo I mean. I know this has been mentioned before, but what ever happened to listening to the fans? Has that just been slung out of the window when questions becoming judgmental against the whole classic escapade of good and evil arise? Same with the saying about having no villains too...
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Post by sgtyayap on Dec 5, 2009 18:42:17 GMT -5
It's not necessarily because of Randall being mentioned. It could be because the debate over him started to focus on the iffy topic of religion.
Though, I will admit, I don't see the rationale to take down the whole forum over one thread.
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Post by mistica0christina on Dec 5, 2009 23:53:49 GMT -5
Well, when it comes to iffy topics or even the craziness that they cause, sometimes those who moderate those threads have choices to make and go with their better judgement. On Mezco's forums, sometimes the mods really don't like when topics go down an iffy direction and they will delete entire threads instead of just certain posts in order to keep the hysteria down. While it doesn't make sense to take down an entire link, they did what they had to do.
I did see those posts since their facebook page is public, at least those who were involved in the dispute should be grateful that they didn't take more drastic measures...like getting banned from the page or even Facebook entirely. That could have been the result instead of what Disney/Pixar chose to do. After all, those who moderate have the authority to do what they feel they need to when it comes to users...while some websites have some pretty good mods, other sites, well, it's scary when some of those kind of mods have that kind of power.
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DinoGirl
Randall's Head Servant (300-799)
Aladar sure has one sparkling eye!
Posts: 512
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Post by DinoGirl on Dec 7, 2009 17:15:02 GMT -5
Oh... religion, well that is a different matter. Since I didn't get a proper look I didn't see what aspect of religion, so, on that sense, maybe it was best the mods took it down. Religion is one of those iffy subjects, I totally agree on that. It's basically confronting one another beliefs and well, since of course their are a lot of different religions, that can of course lead to very nasty confrontations. As an example (and I hate his guts) Nick Griffin against the Islamic culture... although it is kind of a different situation, there is alot of confrontation... I regret even mentioning his name, but I was reminded as fliers came through our doors today for supporting the BNP. Straight to the bin with the fliers I say.
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Post by mentalguru on Dec 8, 2009 13:31:00 GMT -5
I still disagree with that, even if it WAS to do with religion.
Internet trolls do have a point when they yell 'freedom of speech!' actually, even if they don't seem to understand the conotations- freedom of speech means freedom of speech to EVERYONE regardless of opinion, venemous or not.
Of course the trolls fail to realise that 'freedom of speech' does not mean ' automatically agreeing with me!' (which they seem to think it does.). People have a right to express an opinion, and people have a right to tell them if they disagree- or that their stance is flawed. They have a right to tell someone that. We all do.
It's just better to be polite when possible. Of course it depends on the topic sometimes on how that will work out. Plus, as long as it abides by certain forum guidelines if for instance the board as under-age members or viewers (regarding pornography and other things I suposse).
What opinions CAN'T dispute against are FACTS. Facts are not the same as opinions. Try to argue against a fact and you'll come up looking rediculous. Or try to argue that your opinion is an automatic fact is sometimes just as bad. Disputes should only come from interpretations. It is a fact for instance that evolution has been observed, if someone says 'in their opinion' it has not and has never been- well they're wrong obviously and I will try and point them in the direction of Google. And people once again, have the right to tell us these things (though hopefully in a polite way- but that's more common courtesy than anything, and rudeness shouldn't be BANNED).
So I say LET the BNP promote themselves- as the nasty little fascists they are, but they'd better be prepared to come up against other people who stand against them and hear their voices as well. If they refuse to listen, they will continue to yell, sob and moan and people will see them as the pathetic little whingers they are.
I think it's a good idea to let them go into debates (either written or face to face) with more sane and rational people- and watch them crash and burn as they struggle when their idiocy is exposed.
I wrote an essay when I was FIFTEEN against prejudice, and it was still better written and more logical then what they write half the time. In order to 'prepare my brain' however, and prevent my brain going into a fit from anger and disbelief when I read their material- I try to 'fool myself' into thinking it's just a parody. Honestly, considering the clap trap they write, it's not really hard to do so.
Know your enemy after all.
I'd say to read them Dinogirl- try and pretend they are parody- making fun of racist little creeps. This means you'll be more able to counter their (many) flawed arguments.
The BNP demonstrates a shocking ability called 'Did Not Do the Research', not only are they morally flawed, but even LOGICALLY they are horrifically flawed. Which can be quite amusing. Then you remember they aren't really a parody, and your disbelief and nausua returns. (Woops).
Freedom of Speech: the right to say an opinion, but also the right of someone to tell you your own opinion is flawed or does not stand up to discernable fact or analysis. It is also their right to state THEIR opinion and you to do the same with reagrds their opinion if you do not agree with it.
Freedom of speech is not always pleasent but it's better than the alternative.
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Post by mentalguru on Dec 9, 2009 1:55:59 GMT -5
Your tone is incredibly insulting Mistica.
Did I state they had NO right to take it down? No. But it was indeed unfair. Not to mention, IMO pretty rediculous to do if it was just on one topic.
It was likely unnecessary and a tad extreme in my opinion. If it involved pornography or anything generally unsuitable for kids- then yes I could see their reasoning... in taking down the specific TOPIC. And perhaps the whole BOARD if it became a regular problem. But one talk about religious discussion or things related to that are not unsuitable for children at all. Unless you are an overprotective parents with a complex of course for keeping young kids minds 'pure'. (Ie. Just like your own viewpoint).
Of course for THAT to happen they'd have to homeschool them in a cellar with no communication with the outdoor world at all to completely succeed in that.
Granted facebook isn't that good generally surrounding upkeeping standards either way.
I don't like it if people remove their discussion boards for reasons such as this. If they don't want it 'spammed up', stick the particular viewpoints in a particular section/topic in the rules.
For instance in a forum I sometimes go to 'preachers' are an annoyance to the board, but they have a particular SECTION (three actually) they can go and preach or debate with people. As long as they stick to that and don't let the discussions run, they are free to discuss their opinion.
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Post by mentalguru on Dec 9, 2009 15:21:21 GMT -5
I guess I should also explain here:
The fact is, there are several boards including this one that I sometimes look at or participate in, and they have FAR better ways of dealing with problems before they'd even consider taking down the site/discussion boards.
Granted I am unaware of how you moderate Facebook discussion boards. And perhaps this was more than one occurence. I've never been that much into Facebook. Bores the hell out of me in fact.
The fact is though, there are MANY better ways and options to go through before the removal of the entire thing should happen: There is the issue of warnings for one, at first. Telling posters to maintain a level of civility.
If this doesn't stop well: A Harry Potter Board for instance I occasionally drop into for instance, well once I saw an argument/debate getting out of control. It was related to the idea of whether an author's interviews could be considered canon (My opinion- no way. But I wasn't involved.). It grew quite heated in fact. It wasn't the arguments which were getting out of control, but the TONE and flamig was potnetially about to happen. Eventually a MODERATOR posted saying she was preventing postings from being put upon that particular topic for 24 hours. This was done, and the posters returned calmer, and some even apologised. Eventually the topic became more civil then it seemed to be descending into.
Then there is the option of deleting the TOPIC (not the whole board) after this, if it gets too much.
Then there is 'blocking' people. But I don't like this much either- unless it's some troll who is just being an idiot to delibrately get a rise out of people.
(Disagreeing with someone doesn't = troll either though folks).
Deleting the whole hog should be a last resort. They have the right to, no denying, but it's still pretty stupid of them if this was the result of a one-off occurrence.
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Post by mistica0christina on Dec 9, 2009 16:36:20 GMT -5
Judging from your third post, it seems you have calmed down...gonna be honest, you scared the sh*t out of me with what you said which resulted in me deleting my second post on this thread...I don't like confrontation and prefer to avoid it as best as possible...live life easy, you know, makes things less complicated for me. I feel that maybe I should explain about what happened in the thread before it was taken down since I had been checking it day after day during the time before this topic was posted. The original thread in Disney/Pixar's discussion was labeled "Sequels and why should they happen" or something along that line. The thread was simply about why a movie should and should not have a sequel. One member explained how she felt that if any movie needed a sequel then maybe it could be MI and explained that this could allow Randall a chance to be redeemed in it if that were the case. Another user disagreed with her explaining her opinion that she felt that due to Randall's choices in the film, she felt that he wasn't deserving of a redemption. The next post then went from the first user questioning what she said then the second user brought in religion and quoted stuff from the bible and even said that she would pray for the first user. A third person then told her that he thought it was irresponsible for her to bring religion into this discussion. That's basically it, that's how the thread more or less went down from what I remember. Now, whether this discussion was even considered heated enough for anyone to get in trouble over or for it to be taken down, I don't know, I'm not a member of Facebook so I don't know what rules they have about discussions. I guess if it were me and some girl went telling me that she would pray for me, I'd be like "Sure, you do that, have a nice day." I really could care less but that's just me. While everyone has the right to their opinion, I'm slowly having to accept the fact that there are things you just can't discuss and for me, I never talk about religion or politics among a list of other things that I keep in the back of my mind. It's like my brother says, on the internet it's like your opinion doesn't matter because nobody wants to hear it...unfortunately, the few fights I have been in are because of this, I have my opinion, I say what I have to say and some random person will then tell me off because somehow my opinion is considered wrong. This has mainly happened to me on Youtube but let's face facts, Youtube doesn't seem to monitor anything unless it infringes copyright. I guess when I honestly think back to how this thread was compared to others I have seen on other sites, if this sort of thing happened on other sites, the few number of posts (it was about six, I think) probably would not have resulted in anything happening, at the least, probably a warning but a thread being taken down, probably not. This is coming from a girl that on Mezco, we deal with too many crazies and it probably drives the mods on that site insane beyond belief. Heck, on Mezco we got hit with a Russian spammer once and we could tell he was spamming cause he posted the same topic in all ten threads in a language that definitely wasn't English but it wasn't about anything relating to Mezco because this user's website had random phone numbers on it. Overall, in my opinion, I don't think that what happened would have resulted in the whole Discussion section being taken down, let alone a thread, it didn't turn into a spam fest or anything like that so technically it didn't make sense for the whole section to be removed. My best guess as to why, chances are whoever is in charge of Disney/Pixar's facebook didn't want to wait to see if the discussion actually did turn ugly and thought better safe than sorry, at least, that's what I think anyway.
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Bampot
Randall's Friend (800-1999)
<3
Posts: 1,204
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Post by Bampot on Jan 29, 2010 18:08:44 GMT -5
I must have missed all this hubbub when it happened and I don't have Pixar on my friends list since I've noticed larger companies like that post so often that I miss my real friends post and updates.
Personally, I don't think they should of deleted the forum, even though the discussion got heated. It's one of those "internet srs bsns" things. They could of easily delete the more offensive post that boarder on trolling and told everyone to calm down. It's just something that is unfair to other members. Offensive things get said on the internet every day, every second. I know because I'm saying probably 1/3 of them.
I can't really contribute much more because I missed the deal. I'm not sure what was said. I still think it's kind of crazy that they would delete a whole forum because of one thread. If that happened on all sites, there would be no forums.
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Post by pitbulllady on Jan 29, 2010 19:32:50 GMT -5
Basically, SgtYayap and I posted comments about Pixar bringing Randall back and giving him a second chance, having him undergo a believable character arc and putting emphasis on the themes of forgiveness and second chances. Some teen girl, claiming to be a Christian, came in and stated that Randall was pure evil and didn't deserve a second chance, basically, and said she'd "pray for me" because I believed that he had good in him and that Pixar should show this. I let her know that this was extremely self-righteous and NOT in keeping with the most basic underlying theme of Christianity-FORGIVENESS. Pixar then deleted the entire discussion board, period. Again, I don't know if it was because the ever-controversial topic of religion came up, or if it was because the also-controversial topic of Randall Boggs, Good Or Evil came up. If you've been to Pixar Planet's forum, you can see just how the mere mention of that name can stir up a debate and really polarize people. There are people on that forum who absolutely hate Randall with every fiber of their being, and hate US, as well, simply for sticking by him.
pitbulllady
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Post by RandallBoggs on Jan 29, 2010 19:35:29 GMT -5
*blinks* Pixar themselves deleted the discussion board on facebook?
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Post by pitbulllady on Jan 29, 2010 20:11:09 GMT -5
*blinks* Pixar themselves deleted the discussion board on facebook? Yes. It's Pixar's actual Facebook page, not a fan-made page. They took down even the link to the discussion board-no explanations, no prior notice, nothing. Everything(and there were several pages of discussions)was just deleted. Again, I don't know if it was because of the controversial topic of religion or the almost-as-controversial topic of Randall that led to them doing that. AND, if it's the latter, primarily, I don't know if it's because they feared that the discussions could become too heated(perhaps they have been lurking on Pixar Planet, after all)OR if they didn't want anyone saying anything positive about a character they want everyone to hate. pitbulllady
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Post by RandallBoggs on Jan 29, 2010 20:14:46 GMT -5
*raises hand* You can be exact...but if you have to round-down do so....how many posts were there in the deleted discussion involving Randall (with that one girl)?
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Bampot
Randall's Friend (800-1999)
<3
Posts: 1,204
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Post by Bampot on Jan 29, 2010 20:18:08 GMT -5
Thanks for filling me in. That sounds like nothing to delete a forum over, but some people can get pretty irrational. I was be ticked at the girl too. In fact, I am now. I've had many conversations with people like that. People that think you're a bad person only because they can't understand the concept of seeing the good in people. I got a lot of it on a Harry Potter forum I was on.
Now that I'm thinking about it, the issue with Randall can easily be compared to that of Severus Snape. I'm going to get into some very spoilerific grounds, so stay clear if you're a HP fan who hasn't read the whole series.
Severus did some horrible things in his past, only because he was a very lonely and confused young man. He was seen as an antagonist for the majority of the books. Many fans wanted to see him dead only because he was "evil." These fans worshiped Harry, who is a very brash protagonist who rarely thinks through situations and often only sees things in black-and-white. I stood by Snape being good the whole time. Even after HBP. I knew that he could redeem himself. In the end, it turned out Snape was one of the few purely brave characters in the series. It also turned out that some of the characters you thought were nothing but good (Dumbledore) has a bit of a dark side. Snape went from a very stressed and confused young man to an honorable adult working his best to redeem himself from past mistakes. Before the last book was revealed, many fans told me I was misguided for thinking Snape was good. That he should "Be stabbed in the heart and left to die." They would dislike me just for thinking that there's possibility for redemption and a little good in everyone. It was a long couple years on HP forums, but Snape fans got the last laugh.
I'm hoping the same for Randall. Randall has all the qualities that I admire in Snape and that might be why I'm such big Snape fan now, looking back at it. I hop that Pixar will open up to the idea of redemption and realize that not all characters have to be either extremes of good or evil. That everyone, even those who make horrible mistakes, can be good.
Sorry, I guess I should get back on topic. I always get carried away with these things.
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