Should forums who clearly backed an HD DVD agenda be called out and boycotted?

[Joon]

AVS is the worst of all. What HD DUD backers were allowed to say over there and get away with was ridiculous. There were some avid BD fans that were banned for very very little. I wish that site would get shut down.

[galz]

Don't go there if you don't like it.

[SavagePotato]

I've often wondered, since I have never met an hd-dvd supporter face to face what kind of discussion would take place in person without the shield of anonymity between the two.

Moreover I've wondered what it would be like to meet some of these super rabid fanatical hd-dvd supporters face to face. Would they be half as cocky and ridiculous as they are behind the wall of the web?

Taking phone calls all day for a living and being a person not at all of typical scrawny geek nature has led to some interesting meetings in that department that lead me to believe these people would lose the wind in their sails. I have had a few extremely hostile customers do the "I'm coming into the store" thing and come stomping in puffed up like a penguin and backpedal completely when they actually get to looking you in the eye and realize "oh.. wait I'm not hiding behind a phone anymore"

I guess really it's done a service in showing the true colors and integrity of some of these sites. I won't read Gizmodo any longer, and have no interest in visiting AVS, even though I did quite regularly when shopping for my plasma. I don't have any confidence in the quality of information I am getting from such a site after the behavior that went on.

[Spankey]

The mistake a lot of people seem to make in regards to these sites, is that a lot of members look upon the ownership as experts and fountains of knowledge. Just because someone runs an internet site does not mean they are neutral and fair minded. Quite the contrary. The reason the majority of these sites exist is to give their owners personal validation and ego stroking.

They view success as quantity over quality. As long as there is one well known poster or two that carries weight with the membership, they will coddle that member no matter what the BS they are spewing.

This site has had more reliable information throughout the entire format war than all of them combined. The Insiders had a track record and came through time and time again. Josh broke news sooner than some news outlets. Yet the old guard HT sites looked down on this site because it was anything but neutral. The only difference? Blu-ray.com never intended to be neutral!

I have no problem with people taking stands or making a preference. At least it shows some courage in their convictions. That's why I have more respect for Universal than Paramount. Heck, even Harry Knowles took a stand, whether it was paid for or not.

These really are little people you are trying to reason with. Most of us wouldn't give them a second look if we passed them in the street. Why give them the satisfaction of making demands of any of them. Just walk away.

[ground chuck]

just let it go.......

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by SavagePotato

Moreover I've wondered what it would be like to meet some of these super rabid fanatical hd-dvd supporters face to face. Would they be half as cocky and ridiculous as they are behind the wall of the web?

I think it would be just like what the end of Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back is like.

[owa]

Originally Posted by mightypen

Extreme bias does lead to me deleting the website from my bookmarks, such as mentioned in this thread. However, places like AVS, I choose to ignore certain topics or subfora. Its much easier as a lurker.

IMO, AVS was the worst offender because they're well known, *were* well respected, are supposed to be neutral and are supposed to be a good source of knowledge. When I had friends or co-workers ask about the hi-def formats, a lot of them would mention that they planned to do some research about it on AVS. I kept having to add...well you might want to check some other sources as well and then spend a while trying to explain how "a respected source" had become tainted. It was ridiculous. It also made me feel like I had to constantly defend blu-ray when IMO, it was the better format (and it should have been the other way around).

[Grubert]

Originally Posted by SavagePotato

Moreover I've wondered what it would be like to meet some of these super rabid fanatical hd-dvd supporters face to face. Would they be half as cocky and ridiculous as they are behind the wall of the web?

I seem to remember DaViD met plazman personally.

[LynxFX]

F*&# the HTF. I was a member for 8 years, always helped those that asked, and got banned by a pro HD DVD mod (Michael Reuben) because I mentioned in a thread that now that HD DVD was being discontinued they should remove their veil of neutrality and support Blu-ray publicly for better of home theatre since it should be all about the movies. He was also the only mod that said he nor HTF had to do anything to prove they were neutral. I disagreed but left it at that and didn't antagonise him on it anymore. This was after they started deleted/closing/merging all those big blu-ray announcements.

So....F*** em, and if you do want to visit the site at least turn on an ad blocker.

[phranctoast]

Ive met two HDDVD supporters personally which resulted in arguments.

The first woked with Geek Squad in Best buy and is a friends boyfriend. I asked him his opinion on the whole war. He more or less said not to count HDDVD out due to MS wallet. His opinion stemmed from, MS does not like to lose anything and they have the money to alter results to their favor. When the Paramount payoff happened, I was quite upset to say the least.

My argument was more or less..If MS cared about HDDVD, it would have been in the 360 from the start...yeah.. check and check mate.

The Second from my good friends crazy mother. She bought a HDDVD player with her HD TV purchase. This woman thinks she knows more about anything than anyone. She believes she could school people in how to do their own jobs.. (yeah..thay type of *******).

All I could say is, I was giddy with anticipation when she asked to borrow my blu ray copy of NipTuck.

"So.. How did that work?
oh by the way.. thats how most studios HD content will work for ya..."

[DaViD Boulet]

F*&# the HTF. I was a member for 8 years, always helped those that asked, and got banned by a pro HD DVD mod (Michael Reuben) because I mentioned in a thread that now that HD DVD was being discontinued they should remove their veil of neutrality and support Blu-ray publicly for better of home theatre since it should be all about the movies. He was also the only mod that said he nor HTF had to do anything to prove they were neutral. I disagreed but left it at that and didn't antagonise him on it anymore. This was after they started deleted/closing/merging all those big blu-ray announcements.

What?!? You got banned *after* we went one format? Amazing. I'm sorry to hear that.

[york weir]

You know, HD DVD supporters are just like us. They like HDM and supported their format of choice. For anyone to get so worked up they would expect a fight to break out while meeting them face to face is pathetic.

Are we really talking about adults here?

[krinkle]

Originally Posted by DaViD Boulet

I care.


I suspect that money was involved. And that possibility should bother all of us.

+1

[Nick Graham]

Dave and I both have long-time ties to HTF, and more fond memories of that place than most. That's why I still participate there, and would guess it plays a big part in Dave's decision to go there. AVS was always a place I went to for technical stuff (what first attracted me there was their HTPC section), but HTF very much used to have a family feel to it, and was a great place to discuss all things movies and AV. I haven't had much of an issue with Ron throughout the whole war, aside from his defense of Robert George and a couple of others. He has on multiple occasions discouraged bashing of Bill Hunt, whereas mods at many other forums encouraged or outright participated in it (see the infamous DVD Talk thread where the site owner and other mods accused Bill and Ron of taking BDA payola).

I don't think there was any kind of unethical under the table stuff going on at HTF, I just think some of the mods hurt it's rep by continually stating neutrality while carrying obvious preferences. If they had just stated their preferences from the get-go, it would not have bothered me. To be honest with you, I don't even really think there was anything shady going on with AVS - I think they got starstruck having these MS Insiders all show up and start participating, this drew more traffic, and then they were afraid to scare off their new celebrity friends. You add that with some mods who (like everyone invovled in this war) preferred one format over the other, and the line between moderating in a neutral fashion and doing so in a biased fashion gets more and more blurry until it is gone.

Basically, with human nature being what it is, I don't think that any website that feigned neutrality was going to stand up to scrutiny. Ron at HTF very much tried, and I still believe to this day he is more loyal to HDM than one format over the other, but unless he was going to be the only one moderating, any attempts at the site as a whole appearing neutral was never going to happen. Honestly, the only places on the net that were going to be able to operate without any look of hypocrisy are ones where a clear preference is stated from the get-go, like here. The downside to that is that a site like that still won't be without problems - it will draw obnoxious fanboys (see any gaming related thread here) and elitist snobs who feel that any opinion other than their own is flat-out retarded. Thankfully most of the biggest culprits of that either post sparingly now or not at all, which is why this place has become my primary spot to discuss AV.

[Mr. Hanky]

I don't know how a forum can be "called out" or if a boycott can be organized practically, but perhaps a "list" of well known AV forums that have demonstrated a "compromised nature" during the term of the hdm war could be hosted on a website? These would be forums that have made a specific claim of neutrality, but exhibited something entirely different in the moderatorship, pattern of topics/posts that have been locked/disappeared (hence, fundamentally shaping/manipulating the context of certain controversial subjects), and types of topics that were allowed/facilitated.

Hopefully, such a warning website will come up in a few Google searches for people seeking AV information. It will serve as an internet "warning beacon" that some valuable information may exist in these places, but be wary of its integrity. Perhaps, the primary offense of said sites would be the cyber-world equivalent to racketeering? (I dunno- just throwing something out there)

[WickyWoo]

It's pointless to do so. Unless the advertisers that keep those forums afloat are willing to pull their $$, individual boycotting makes very little difference

[little_boy_blu]

I won't return to AVS since I realize that 'impartialness' of the posts is compromised after the HD-DVD Bluray debacle. Would you visit a forum that did not allow free, and open conversation regarding a product? What if I want to buy *insert_next_cool_toy_here*, will I go to a forum that has been proven to be biased? No. I'll seek a forum that I can trust o get ALL opinions on *insert_next_cool_toy_here*

[Clark Kent]

My list of sites that strongly favored HD DVD(while most claimed neutrality) for most of the "war":

HDD
Avsforums
Dvdtalk
HTF
Amazon forums
Gizmodo
Ars Technica
numerous "blogs" that remind one of an astroturfing campaign

Really there were too many to name but these were the worst offenders of the ones that I followed regularly. Here's my list of sites that were actually neutral or favored Blu-ray(there weren't many):

Blu-ray.com
Digital Bits
Dvdfile

It didn't upset me when a forum strongly favored one format but what did upset me was when a site claimed to be neutral like AVS when it clearly wasn't close to being neutral. The way they let posters basically attack the BD insiders over there was shameful. I hope the Microsoft money was good because it will never buy back their once good reputation.

[Mr. Hanky]

Great list! That's exactly the spirit I had in mind!

[Mr. Hanky]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

It's pointless to do so. Unless the advertisers that keep those forums afloat are willing to pull their $$, individual boycotting makes very little difference

Well, that may not be entirely out of the realm of possibility. If advertisers were aware that a certain website goes out of their way to regularly trash their particular product or brand, they just might pass on advertising there. Whether or not that impact is enough to make a difference relative to other advertisers on the site, I dunno. Put it this way (as an example), can avms live indefinitely on a diet of ads limited to video cables, specialty brand dvd players, and video projectors, while the market focus really concentrates on flat panel displays and blu-ray players? I guess time will tell...