1) Flaming
2) Baiting
3) Trolling
4) Lack of respect
AND THE BIG ONE…
5) Forcing their opinions on others
This sounds grand and noble! Until you read the example.
User 1: I liked the transformers movie and what Bay did to them
User2: I don’t care what you like, bay sucks and so do you for liking him
This made me extremely angry, because this is exactly why I stopped posting on TF boards. I used to go to the official movie forums, I mostly lurked. On there, a lot of links to threads on other forums were posted there. They were honestly quite horrendous.
It was the exact opposite of this. People who were complaining about the movie were called "Geewunners", insulted, belittled, and the people doing so ulimately protected by the mods on this forum. I don't remember much about this site in particular - but I do remember someone posting on the movie forums, after a mod claimed Seibertron made sure to stop people forcing their views on others, a thread were movie supporters were doing exactly that. Even after pointing it out on the forum, nothing was done.
I was weary because of this, but was willing to write it off as just one bad mod, or bad incident.
I know it's "Just an example" but it's reinforcing a misconception and I get the feeling this ruling will do more to discriminate against my opinion than protect it.
The fact is that people were very nearly forced into liking the movie. If you didn't like it, or thought, god forbid, it should have been based more on the original and most popular and most developed iteration of transformers, you were a "Geewunner", even if that person, in some cases, preferred Beast Wars as a series.
The idea of acting like it was the other way around, the "Haters" enforcing anything, is irritating. In the example there, the "Hater" is speaking out of sheer frustration and I know what it feels like. They're not trying to be malicious - they feel cornered with all the unwavering positivity at absolutely any new piece of news and shoving of everything new down someone's throat. They're not a in a position to "force" their opinion, no offense to the admin that posted that but I'm not entirely sure he understands when it's correct to use that phrase in some cases. Someone would not necessarily take the same action when they know they can affect someone else and are not the underdog.
People should take into account how people react when they're upset. People need to be allowed to vent! What happened was that many of the pro-movie crowd on the Movie forums and others essentially trolled the "Haters" off the boards. Because it's easier for mods to ban people who are notably upset instead of those causing the problems. Also, sometimes people deserve to be insulted more than others. "Hater" or "Geewunner" is a nasty insult, accusing someone of being closed minded, Geewunners are often compared to homophobes. Yet if someone were to say anything back to those people, who actually deserve it, they get warned/or banned. I lost some of the few friends I made on the Movie boards to this. Swearing is not a good way to insult someone, telling someone too **** off is completely impersonal.
If there is no "Internet Gestapo" here, then this thread shouldn't be a problem, if it can be discussed maturely. The problem is people will just deny anything ever happened, and claim they don't see a problem if I dig up old threads. It's frustrating.
I do not want to contribute to this forum if the attitude is that "Complaining = Bad". If people don't complain nobody sees there's a problem and changes it. If people recognise the real problem is not complaining, but those who disallow others to complain, then it's fine.
Sorry for the rant, I guess a lot of it was copypasta of stuff I've been hearing from friends and reading on smaller boards lately. But I'm really disgusted with how people were treated during the movie fiasco, and never became fully involved because of it. As a new member I only want to get on with people, if people want to like whatever series I don't care as long as they don't force it on me like most did with the movie, but I don't want to be somewhere that demonises people for what in some cases amounts to little more than critical thinking.
Sorry for that, hope I haven't offended anyone.