Recent Debates/Problems/Etc on Forum

[IHateJumpScares]

We can have discourse and there won't be a ban. After further discussion with the Staff, I will remove the avatar from JumpScares as whether or not it had good intentions, you are ultimately right. @IHateJumpScares, please DM me privately going forward on the matter.

Well, that’s was an interesting exercise in assumption and selective censorship. Since I was asked to explain I will.

Here are my core beliefs around this issue:

1) I think it’s pretty clear that 4 cops killed a guy in Minneapolis. All should see jail time, all will likely be lucky to get out alive, and that’s fine with me. I think it’s correct.
2) Too many cops act like this, and it drives me nuts. Has for years. I’m always watching out for more police abuse of power examples and railing against them when I can.
3) not all cops act like this
4) blue lives matter avatar was to support the cops who are good, the hundreds who have been injured, the dozens who have been hospitalized, and the small but tragic handful who have been murdered by protestors in the past week.
5) I fully support the peaceful protestors, all of them, in every city, regardless of ethnicity
6) I fully oppose the violent looters and rioters, all of them, in every city, regardless of ethnicity.

Those 6 positions are not contradictory or mutually exclusive, and should not be controversial. But they are for some reason.

The criticism leveled at the avatar could just as easily be directed at the black boxes as well.

To be honest, I was hoping to START conversation, not shut it down, when I decided to post my current event-relevant avatar.

This issue, and people’s views, are multi-faceted.

I’d prefer if we are to keep politics out of it, we keep politics out of it- consistently. But while being accused of “shutting conversation down,” I do find it ironic that only MY political self-expression was deleted. It’s an interesting contradiction.

 

[hhn28andbeyond]

Well, that’s was an interesting exercise in assumption and selective censorship. Since I was asked to explain I will.

Here are my core beliefs around this issue:

1) I think it’s pretty clear that 4 cops killed a guy in Minneapolis. All should see jail time, all will likely be lucky to get out alive, and that’s fine with me. I think it’s correct.
2) Too many cops act like this, and it drives me nuts. Has for years. I’m always watching out for more police abuse of power examples and railing against them when I can.
3) not all cops act like this
4) blue lives matter avatar was to support the cops who are good, the hundreds who have been injured, the dozens who have been hospitalized, and the small but tragic handful who have been murdered by protestors in the past week.
5) I fully support the peaceful protestors, all of them, in every city, regardless of ethnicity
6) I fully oppose the violent looters and rioters, all of them, in every city, regardless of ethnicity.

Those 6 positions are not contradictory or mutually exclusive, and should not be controversial. But they are for some reason.

The criticism leveled at the avatar could just as easily be directed at the black boxes as well.

To be honest, I was hoping to START conversation, not shut it down, when I decided to post my current event-relevant avatar.

This issue, and people’s views, are multi-faceted.

I’d prefer if we are to keep politics out of it, we keep politics out of it- consistently. But while being accused of “shutting conversation down,” I do find it ironic that only MY political self-expression was deleted. It’s an interesting contradiction.

Ok, we’re moving on

 

[OrlandoGuy]

This will probably get removed and I’ll probably get banned or whatever but for some reason, maybe it’s the hangover, maybe it’s stress, I dont know, but I felt compelled to make this post because the last couple weeks of Epic discourse (including some posts in the Epic thread I read today) have been a microcosm of what I’d consider some serious culture rot that’s been trending over the past year or so.

Culture rot a strong term? Probably. But let me explain. A while back, a fairly new user stated that trims were being added to the new roller coaster at Epic because forces were too intense…predictably, he was met by a handful of 10,000+ post count users not just calling him wrong, but borderline mocking him. Then, sure enough, we’ve confirmed trims were added to the ride.

That same user today answered a poster’s question about Express at Helios; he answered, and was met with a reply condescendingly telling him, “You’ve already made that point before.” Well, sure…but the question was asked, and he answered.

That same responder was really critical, again borderline condescending, toward a new-ish poster who suggested Universal may play ball with Disney to get the Marvel rights back…glancing over the fact that a (arguably THE) prominent insider had suggested the same thing just a page or two beforehand.

The most upsetting thing to me happened during the Stella Luna previews—one particular Twitter user was absolutely trashed for being critical toward very specific aspects of his stay (not the whole stay, mind you…just a couple things). Now it wasn’t necessarily on this forum, but users from this forum on Twitter took to personal insults of the guy, commenting on his capitalization of every word in his tweets. Not long after, the guy had to come out and explain this was a result of having a learning disability…he was essentially “outed” for his dyslexia because fanboys couldn’t bear the fact that he had something critical to say about their favorite theme park. Not that he was critical of them directly, mind you…just their theme park.

[Sidenote: any forum built for intense fandom is going to attract individuals on the spectrum/classify as neurodivergent; these forums should be spaces for those individuals to express their passion in a constructive way that they can’t necessarily vocalize/interact with in the real world. Not a place for incumbent users to punch down to them]

“OG, stop white-knighting for randos on the internet.” Okay, fine. I’ll use my own example…when the Helios concept art were released (after weeks of speculation that we’d be at truly premium prices), I suggested the rooms looked cheap. It wasn’t about the “theming” of the rooms, just the presentation and lack of certain amenities (walk-in showers being the biggest). I said this not as a fanboy, but as a status Bonvoy member who has stayed in a lot of bad hotels and a lot of five-star luxury hotels…and yet I was sure enough come for in the comments. However, once a well-know theme park community stan posted his thoughts about the resort, it was met with zero resistance; in fact, there was a lot of outright agreeing with the same opinion I had shared earlier.

All this to say, the theme it seems is that if you’re on the inside of the “online theme park fan” fraternity…the ones with thousands of posts…your word is gospel. Any dissenting opinion is written off as a result of blind bias or a grab-bag of internet accusations (whataboutism, gatekeeping, straw man arguments, etc.) and mocked in the process. The only way to get on the inside of this club? Don’t say anything bad about the things those folks like. Period.

The reason I even care is because I genuinely enjoyed this site. This is a secret hobby of mine—I don’t run in circles that care about the parks and save my time spent on this site for when I’m alone. I will not be a 10,000-post user any time soon, nor will I ever have a theme park twitter presence. Even from a more objective, non-personal standpoint, I can’t be any of those things because I have history with the company at the corporate level. This site was supposed to be my little escape and outlet to talk parks.

Now, I’m not saying every single post should be met with acceptance. I think in any sort of forum you have to expect people to get chippy with one another (you all probably realize I’m guilty of this too). Disagreements are part of the nature of the beast, but they typically come when someone is being:
a.) legitimately hurtful/annoying
b.) purposefully contrarian
c.) personal

And in all of the examples I described above, none of those things were at play. Like I said, it all boiled down to… ‘you didn’t agree with my take about my favorite theme park so I’m gonna use my following to start a pile on.’

This is not a plea for people to just let me spout contrarian takes about Universal. I’ve noticed this site starting to bring out the worst in how I communicate with strangers and that’s on me to step away from it. But I figured there might be some other folks who feel the same way who wouldn’t want to speak up because of their post count or social media influence score.


As always, just my $.02…

 

[Brian G.]

This will probably get removed and I’ll probably get banned or whatever but for some reason, maybe it’s the hangover, maybe it’s stress, I dont know, but I felt compelled to make this post because the last couple weeks of Epic discourse (including some posts in the Epic thread I read today) have been a microcosm of what I’d consider some serious culture rot that’s been trending over the past year or so.

Culture rot a strong term? Probably. But let me explain. A while back, a fairly new user stated that trims were being added to the new roller coaster at Epic because forces were too intense…predictably, he was met by a handful of 10,000+ post count users not just calling him wrong, but borderline mocking him. Then, sure enough, we’ve confirmed trims were added to the ride.

That same user today answered a poster’s question about Express at Helios; he answered, and was met with a reply condescendingly telling him, “You’ve already made that point before.” Well, sure…but the question was asked, and he answered.

That same responder was really critical, again borderline condescending, toward a new-ish poster who suggested Universal may play ball with Disney to get the Marvel rights back…glancing over the fact that a (arguably THE) prominent insider had suggested the same thing just a page or two beforehand.

The most upsetting thing to me happened during the Stella Luna previews—one particular Twitter user was absolutely trashed for being critical toward very specific aspects of his stay (not the whole stay, mind you…just a couple things). Now it wasn’t necessarily on this forum, but users from this forum on Twitter took to personal insults of the guy, commenting on his capitalization of every word in his tweets. Not long after, the guy had to come out and explain this was a result of having a learning disability…he was essentially “outed” for his dyslexia because fanboys couldn’t bear the fact that he had something critical to say about their favorite theme park. Not that he was critical of them directly, mind you…just their theme park.

[Sidenote: any forum built for intense fandom is going to attract individuals on the spectrum/classify as neurodivergent; these forums should be spaces for those individuals to express their passion in a constructive way that they can’t necessarily vocalize/interact with in the real world. Not a place for incumbent users to punch down to them]

“OG, stop white-knighting for randos on the internet.” Okay, fine. I’ll use my own example…when the Helios concept art were released (after weeks of speculation that we’d be at truly premium prices), I suggested the rooms looked cheap. It wasn’t about the “theming” of the rooms, just the presentation and lack of certain amenities (walk-in showers being the biggest). I said this not as a fanboy, but as a status Bonvoy member who has stayed in a lot of bad hotels and a lot of five-star luxury hotels…and yet I was sure enough come for in the comments. However, once a well-know theme park community stan posted his thoughts about the resort, it was met with zero resistance; in fact, there was a lot of outright agreeing with the same opinion I had shared earlier.

All this to say, the theme it seems is that if you’re on the inside of the “online theme park fan” fraternity…the ones with thousands of posts…your word is gospel. Any dissenting opinion is written off as a result of blind bias or a grab-bag of internet accusations (whataboutism, gatekeeping, straw man arguments, etc.) and mocked in the process. The only way to get on the inside of this club? Don’t say anything bad about the things those folks like. Period.

The reason I even care is because I genuinely enjoyed this site. This is a secret hobby of mine—I don’t run in circles that care about the parks and save my time spent on this site for when I’m alone. I will not be a 10,000-post user any time soon, nor will I ever have a theme park twitter presence. Even from a more objective, non-personal standpoint, I can’t be any of those things because I have history with the company at the corporate level. This site was supposed to be my little escape and outlet to talk parks.

Now, I’m not saying every single post should be met with acceptance. I think in any sort of forum you have to expect people to get chippy with one another (you all probably realize I’m guilty of this too). Disagreements are part of the nature of the beast, but they typically come when someone is being:
a.) legitimately hurtful/annoying
b.) purposefully contrarian
c.) personal

And in all of the examples I described above, none of those things were at play. Like I said, it all boiled down to… ‘you didn’t agree with my take about my favorite theme park so I’m gonna use my following to start a pile on.’

This is not a plea for people to just let me spout contrarian takes about Universal. I’ve noticed this site starting to bring out the worst in how I communicate with strangers and that’s on me to step away from it. But I figured there might be some other folks who feel the same way who wouldn’t want to speak up because of their post count or social media influence score.


As always, just my $.02…

My recommendation is to enjoy your weekend and not stress too much about this stuff. The problem with online is that it's really hard to decipher intention and tone. Right off the bat, you said maybe it's the hangover and stress.

 

[OrlandoGuy]

lol no, a hangover isn’t the reason I feel disgusted seeing people attack a guy for the way he writes his tweets because of homer fanboyism. it’s just the reason I felt the need to call it out.

 

[Brian G.]

lol no, a hangover isn’t the reason I feel disgusted seeing people attack a guy for the way he writes his tweets because of homer fanboyism. it’s just the reason I felt the need to call it out.

I can't speak for that. That took place on Twitter. I don't own or exclusively have any of these members. Many IU users are on Magic, DISBoards, Alicia's Discord, etc. I can only speak for the mods.

 

[OrlandoGuy]

I can't speak for that. That took place on Twitter. I don't own or exclusively have any of these members. Many IU users are on Magic, DISBoards, Alicia's Discord, etc. I can only speak for the mods.

Like I said, that’s just a microcosm. There’s plenty of examples of the same things happening here. I listed a few involving mods.

 

[Brian G.]

Like I said, that’s just a microcosm. There’s plenty of examples of the same things happening here. I listed a few involving mods.

And like I said, I recommend you enjoy your weekend and not stress too much about this stuff. The examples you listed don't include the context that the same user has already been corrected several times and that the information is not true. Nothing the mod stated, regardless of how curt it was, should be taken as ableist - as that also assumes the user is (and we do not know that to be the case).

 

[USO92]

the word “Grace” comes to my mind. I agree with Brian - tone and intention is impossible to read online. We truly can never know - so that’s where grace comes into play…unless we know someone is being deliberately malicious, then what do we have to go on other than our own personal interpretation of what was written/how it was written? I’ve been on the receiving end of this, and on the other side as well. It’s a dicey game to play.

Why not assume the best, and IF it’s bothering someone to the point where it’s called out, why not privately DM the individual and ask what the intent was? That would be gracious…and that includes everyone…if what Floridaguy (or anyone) posts is “mock-worthy”, just move on and be kind. Extend grace…we don’t know who is on the other side of that keyboard…what they’re going through…we’re all enjoying something that helps us escape “real world”. Unless real damage is being done, what good does mocking do?

I hope this reads the way I’m advocating for…gracious. I’m sorry you’re dealing with a lot of stress OG…I get it. My DM is open if you need to let loose. You’re not alone! (And I know that’s not the primary reason you posted this…just saying).

 

[Lucky Planet]

Like I said, that’s just a microcosm. There’s plenty of examples of the same things happening here. I listed a few involving mods.

And like I said, I recommend you enjoy your weekend and not stress too much about this stuff. The examples you listed don't include the context that the same user has already been corrected several times and that the information is not true. Nothing the mod stated, regardless of how curt it was, should be taken as ableist - as that also assumes the user is (and we do not know that to be the case).

it could be awkward when the snarky remark is coming from a mod. it's different if it's coming from a regular user. ( a mod post has more weight) I can just say that I think I see where Orlandoguy is coming from. I've never said anything but I've seen what he means.
( awkward specially if someone uses the laughing emoji to react to those posts)

 

[Brian G.]

it could be awkward when the snarky remark is coming from a mod. it's different if it's coming from a regular user. ( a mod post has more weight) I can just say that I think I see where Orlandoguy is coming from. I've never said anything but I've seen what he means.
( awkward specially if someone uses the laughing emoji to react to those posts)

We have a history of affording a lot of grace to users, perhaps to a fault, but we try to be understanding and reasonable to the best of our abilities.

Moderators are people too. We aren't perfect, and each one of us faces our own challenges. Right now, I’m spending my Saturday here while taking care of my sick wife and my cranky toddler, which is not how I’d prefer to spend my time. People in Southern California have been dealing with an especially stressful month due to the fires.

If we are expected to afford the same courtesy to users, it should be expected that, within reason, we should be given that courtesy, too.

Sternly telling a user to stop after repeated corrections should fall into that category, IMO.

 

[AvoidTIMtation]

Anybody who thinks this place is filled with snarky condescending people has never been a member of the Theme Park Review forums lol

 

[OrlandoGuy]

We have a history of affording a lot of grace to users, perhaps to a fault, but we try to be understanding and reasonable to the best of our abilities.

Moderators are people too. We aren't perfect, and each one of us faces our own challenges. Right now, I’m spending my Saturday here while taking care of my sick wife and my cranky toddler, which is not how I’d prefer to spend my time. People in Southern California have been dealing with an especially stressful month due to the fires.

If we are expected to afford the same courtesy to users, it should be expected that, within reason, we should be given that courtesy, too.

Sternly telling a user to stop after repeated corrections should not into that category, IMO.

Okay I really did tell myself this was a one-and-done but just in an attempt to salvage what I thought was a well-thought-out post I’ll just leave you with one last note—if your takeaway from anything I said is that this is about mods moderating conversations too sternly or that ‘OrlandoGuy is just a little stressed out’ then you’re missing the forest for the trees lol.

This was supposed to be constructive. If we’re gonna get defensive then we’ve lost the plot and it’s just better to move on.

 

[Brian G.]

This was supposed to be constructive. If we’re gonna get defensive then we’ve lost the plot and it’s just better to move on.

pot meet kettle here.... lol

 

[Lucky Planet]

We have a history of affording a lot of grace to users, perhaps to a fault, but we try to be understanding and reasonable to the best of our abilities.

Moderators are people too. We aren't perfect, and each one of us faces our own challenges. Right now, I’m spending my Saturday here while taking care of my sick wife and my cranky toddler, which is not how I’d prefer to spend my time. People in Southern California have been dealing with an especially stressful month due to the fires.

If we are expected to afford the same courtesy to users, it should be expected that, within reason, we should be given that courtesy, too.

Sternly telling a user to stop after repeated corrections should fall into that category, IMO.

I'm really sorry to hear, I hope things gets better. I understand.

Anybody who thinks this place is filled with snarky condescending people has never been a member of the Theme Park Review forums lol

actually this place is extra nice compared to others, really really extra nice. but maybe that's why a snarky remark would stand out. lol.

 

[Mad Dog]

My take is that this is generally, and presently, the friendliest theme park forum by far. There's been times in the past that it got a little too mean- spirited argument wise and snarky. But mostly it was just a couple posters who ended up getting barred anyway, and that would calm things down. In my 'opinion', I think the moderation is the best it's ever been, and yes sometimes there might be just a tad of a tone, but just a tad. But I really don't see much as mean spirited. Mostly, it's just strong personal opinions. There's been times in the past when a rash of really bad unsubstantiated rumors has caused discussions to deteriorate and info to become confusing. So I think there's been a natural development to trust our internal info and question a lot of outside stuff that really has little credence and muddies the conversations too much. But, again, though there was some too caustic moderation from a couple of moderators in past years, I don't think the present moderation team is guilty of that. I believe the corrections are just intended to keep bad info to a minimum. There's really no other theme park site that has such a high degree of good information on their forums. If too much shaky info creeps into the discussions it really subtracts from the validity of IU info. and discussions.

 

[Brian G.]

I'm really sorry to hear, I hope things gets better. I understand.


actually this place is extra nice compared to others, really really extra nice. but maybe that's why a snarky remark would stand out. lol.

It's fine! My point is that crap happens, and sometimes we get caught up in the stresses of it. I don't think it means anything more than that.

But again, I'm only speaking for the mod team but I know it can be applied to users in some cases.

 

[Jake S]

I have mixed feelings on this. I broadly agree that we should do our best to foster a discussion that is welcome to a broad set of viewpoints, not just because it makes for better discussion, because it's the right thing to do. I also agree that we should, again broadly speaking, treat each other with the requisite respect and refrain from being jerks.

I also generally feel we should take each other's posts in good faith, if for no other reason than it will improve our mental health. I certainly do not have a perfect track record on this, though in my advanced age I think I'm getting better. With that said, people are going to get frustrated with one another and at times fall short of what I generally believe are good intentions. That's not an excuse, but I think we all know it's going to happen.

There are times when I disagree, sometimes strongly, with opinions that I feel are too favorable to Universal, Disney, Six Flags, you name it. I feel comfortable voicing these opinions, even if I know other more experienced members of the forum don't agree with me. Any time I've disagreed with Brian (or any other mod, frankly), whether in public or private, I've felt we're all pretty comfortable with it while remaining cordial.

I say all that while recognizing that I'm now part of the Management Class and as such, I appreciate a grain or two of salt will be applied to what I'm saying. But I don't think this forum is suffering from a cultural rot or from an overabundance of nastiness. Twitter? BlueSky? Whatever? Yeah, I'm on record as saying I think that type of social media is bad for us. I don't think that's the case of this forum.

That said, I think we are broadly in favor of people on here telling us where we fall short. That can be done publicly like this or through direct messages. We're not above criticism and our intention isn't to be dismissive of that. I'm not overly concerned about what y'all think of me, but I do care a lot about how what I say and do makes people feel. This is a thing I do for fun and my hope is that this can continue to be that for as many people as want to hang around.

 

[OhHaiInternet95]

Anybody who thinks this place is filled with snarky condescending people has never been a member of the Theme Park Review forums lol

TPR is basically a dead forum. I'd say it's because Robb banned anyone who disagreed with him but running a forum is very tough, so I cut him some slack there.

Magic on teh other hand makes me need Prozac.

 

[TheUniC6]

TPR is basically a dead forum. I'd say it's because Robb banned anyone who disagreed with him but running a forum is very tough.

Magic on teh other hand makes me need Prozac.

Agreed. WDWMagic is a little too lax on moderation.