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

[slaizer2000]

The war is done and over. Move on. It's like in sports. You play hard and rough to win. When it's done you have a few beers after the game. What happened on the field stays on the field. After the game you shake hands and have a beer with your opponents.
..
We will be having HD DVd supporters coming to this sight looking for info or having curiosity about turning blue or purple. We should clean up the HD DVD bashes, quotes, sigs that demean HD-DVD. As winners in the war we should be gracious winners just like HD-DVD people should be gracious losers.

We won't win any of the HD-dvd people over by having them see some of these comments. Best way to get blu-ray to grow and succeed over DVD and downloads is to welcome all new blu-ray users , regardless of where they came from or what side they were on.

[JTK]

Originally Posted by slaizer2000

The war is done and over. Move on. It's like in sports. You play hard and rough to win. When it's done you have a few beers after the game. What happened on the field stays on the field. After the game you shake hands and have a beer with your opponents.

Not with a select relative few who continue to deliberately try to lie and mislead others.

I won't do it. Ever. And I strongly believe that real consequences have been earned and should be doled out on said people and entities.

..
We will be having HD DVd supporters coming to this sight looking for info or having curiosity about turning blue or purple. We should clean up the HD DVD bashes, quotes, sigs that demean HD-DVD. As winners in the war we should be gracious winners just like HD-DVD people should be gracious losers.

For the most part we will be. Past that? See my above comments.

We won't win any of the HD-dvd people over by having them see some of these comments. The best way to get blu-ray to grow and succeed over DVD and downloads is to welcome all new blu-ray users , regardless of where they came from or what side they were on.

We'll see.

[slaizer2000]

Originally Posted by JTK

Not with a select relative few who continue to deliberately try to lie and mislead others.

I won't do it. Ever. And I strongly believe that real consequences have been earned and should be doled out on said people and entities.



For the most part we will be. Past that? See my above comments.



We'll see.

There are always a select few who are outside the norm. Most HD-dvd supporters are not like that, and those will be the ones who will be considering coming here to decide on if they want to go blu.

If you have a grudge against someone in particular who should not allow that to cloud your judgment against other HD-dvd supporters. when you start judging an entire group by a select few rotten apples then you start bordering on racism. Although I am not sure if being a HD-dvd hater would be considered be racist, but i'm sure you get the point.

Although i do agree with alot of the points you make, it's better to be nicer to others even if they are not.

[JTK]

Originally Posted by slaizer2000

There are always a select few who are outside the norm. Most HD-dvd supporters are not like that, and those will be the ones who will be considering coming here to decide on if they want to go blu.

If you have a grudge against someone in particular who should not allow that to cloud your judgment against other HD-dvd supporters. when you start judging an entire group by a select few rotten apples then you start bordering on racism. Although I am not sure if being a HD-dvd hater would be considered be racist, but i'm sure you get the point.



Although i do agree with alot of the points you make, it's better to be nicer to others even if they are not.

A fair point.

Now here's the truly sad part: With few exceptions, most of my encounters with HD-DVD supporters have been negative.

Out of that mass, if I'm honest about it, there's a relative select few that I would really isolate as "these guys are out to deliberately lie and mislead others."

The problem is: You have so many more of these people that WANTED to believe the lies and then, intentionally or not, helped to spread it anyways.

It's an ugly mess. Certainly most of us aren't looking to start fights or start witch hunts.

[york weir]

Originally Posted by slaizer2000

Although I am not sure if being a HD-dvd hater would be considered be racist, but i'm sure you get the point.

Hate crimes!

[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.

[kwhiplash]

Is it just me, or does anyone else find this baldface lie hilarious?! This was posted on AVSForum.com

"Rochester, NY, Feb 21, 2008 – AVS Forum has always been a neutral and open forum for discussion of the consumer electronics hobby, even through recent tumultuous times. However, with announcements by Toshiba and Universal, the conflict of the latest format war is at an end. AVS Forum now looks forward to reduced consumer confusion and increased adoption of High Definition content on discs."

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by DaViD Boulet

AVrev is a similar place where the mods would back up LOTUS and all of his false information and discourage other members from challening him.

AVrevforum is a disgrace. Not only did they ban me for providing irrefutable evidence that Lotus was nothing but an HD DVD shill, even after I provided their Admin Andrew with all my information, but they have also put an IP ban on my work address, despite being my very first ban.

Lotus' assertions that Warner were going HD DVD exclusive, that New Line would have some big HD DVD exclusive catalog announcements at CES, that Blu-ray yields were in the toilets and only Sony were doing BD50's, were all typical unsubstantiated HD DVD propaganda.

The site allowed him to continue and permanantly banned me, despite the fact that everything I said would happen has come to pass and nothing he said did.

The guy is an idiot and so is Andrew, their moderator/admin/editor/whateverthef*&k.

That site can hang its head in shame for being run in such a manner. In my opinion they are worse than AVS.

[RickD]

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

Personally, there is a least one site I will not be returning to anytime soon.

Rick

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Fozziwig]

Originally Posted by DaViD Boulet

AVS and AVrev are two obvious examples. I'm sure we all have many others. Forums where mod staff protected pro-HD DVD posters and allowed HD DVD FUD to go unchallenged while they punished, banned, or deleted posts from those trying to clear up misinformation and call out HD DVD shills who seemed to be running the show.

Personally, I don't think I'll ever visit AVS again except to monitor the discussion in the projector forum. AVrev is a similar place where the mods would back up LOTUS and all of his false information and discourage other members from challening him.

While at HTF it seems that most of the previously pro HD DVD membership have embraced the idea of a single-HDM format and are moving foward positively, there are still many individuals there and at other places who are now starting to push a "DVD is good enough" and "it doesn't matter since HDM is going to be replaced by downloading" message.

It seems that the format war for these individuals has merely changed categories... it wasn't HD DVD that they loved, it was just Blu-ray Disc that they hated.

What do you guys plan to do? Do you even remember that there used to be other decent forums besided Blu-ray.com?

I can sympathise with your view having posted at HDD, HTF, HDD and AVF (now banned there for calling them on their extreme bias on another forum). I also know some of the crap you personally had to put up with at HTF - but there were a few laughs along the way too, if we're honest.

Personally I really can't be bothered to worry about it anymore.

Blu-ray has won. A total victory with full studio and retailer support. I could not be happier and now I want to see Blu-ray go on to become a mass market format. I will put my energy and time into helping people move from DVD to Blu-ray (it's my business!).

And, with the exception of HDD (a pure format war site IMO), AVF, AVS and HTF all have some excellent content for any home cinema fan and I'll continue to visit those places. As for the 'war' forums, I don't see them lasting much longer. If the best that the anti-Sony brigade can come up with now is downloads and upscaled DVD well, they truly are a pathetic bunch.

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by Fozziwig

If the best that the anti-Sony brigade can come up with now is downloads and upscaled DVD well, they truly are a pathetic bunch.

Here is a great example even today of HTF mod bias - again, sometimes done in subtle ways..

After Toshiba's announcement the other day and HTF's supposed "Moving forward with one format...blah blah", Mod Parker Clack writes:

"The sober truth currently as BD attempts to scale the mountain that is DVD" and then he links to that garbage poll, "Slashdot" (http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=1530&aid=-1).

[dobyblue]

Here is more evidence that AVRevforum has no desire to change its ways, or that its admin team has no desire to get to the bottom of anything and prefers instead to back up its biased staff.

I sent an e-mail to them about their behaviour and included is the e-mail and response.

Not only should you guys apologize to me in the manner with which you permanently banned me and IP-blocked my company on a first offence, but you should apologize to all high definition fans everywhere for allowing posters like "Lotus" to have a pro-HD DVD agenda and spread propaganda that by now should be very obvious to you was exactly what it was.
Your handling of the situation (Yes I'm speaking specifically about Andrew) leaves you as one of the #1 anti-Blu-ray sites on the net in not just my eyes, but in the eyes of HT Enthusiasts like David Boulet and others and the attention will be drawn to this fact.
The name of your site is Audio Video Revolution. Perhaps you need to revisit the ideals and goals which were meant when the site was created and named, because it's very apparent that somewhere along the line you've lost sight of the goal.
Sincerely,
~Steve

Here is their reponse:

Steven,
Attacking Andrew is about the BEST way to get your IP address banned.
Moreover, you fight too much on the forum thus you are uninvited to be part of our group.
Good bye...
j--
Jerry Del CollianoPublisher - CEOAVRev.com
ModernHomeTheater.com
310.860.9988 tel.

First of all, what a pretentious way to sign off a letter.
Secondly, go take a look at the order of things on that site in the thread in question (search my posts) and try and find where there was any unprovoked attack upon Andrew, HD DVD shill, by myself.



This site should be called out and boycotted.
www.avrevforum.com

[cpgator]

Those people here considering boycotting certain sites should probably do so - it appears you are still harboring some pointless anger and I doubt you would be missed.

If you aren't ready to place nice, then stay home.

[Beta Man]

I agree.... if you are of the mindset that "boycotting" certain websites, etc. is effective, then you're probably the people posting deflamatory messages that don't add to any conversation to begin with. My decision is whether or not to continue to contribute to this site in regards to audio/video, etc. and instead just visit to check release dates and read reviews. It's concerning when someone posts a questions, states they used to own HD DVD, or still do, and they are considering getting a blu-ray player since the "war" is over etc.... and nobody offers advice, everyone just attacks them for what THEY consider to be a poor choice by the poster........

people who look for advice shouldn't be rushed out!

[cpgator]

Originally Posted by dobyblue

Here is more evidence that AVRevforum has no desire to change its ways, or that its admin team has no desire to get to the bottom of anything and prefers instead to back up its biased staff.

I sent an e-mail to them about their behaviour and included is the e-mail and response.



Here is their reponse:



First of all, what a pretentious way to sign off a letter.
Secondly, go take a look at the order of things on that site in the thread in question (search my posts) and try and find where there was any unprovoked attack upon Andrew, HD DVD shill, by myself.



This site should be called out and boycotted.
www.avrevforum.com

Actually looked at your posts over there, and it is beyond obvious why you were banned. Surprised you lasted as long as you did. Most every post of yours was attacking someone, and it looked like many people were getting tired of it. You should stick to this forum from now on...