Comments

[drphibes1]

I have been going to SM shows many years, and this will be the first and only time I will comment.

My experience on Saturday was very good as I got everything I was after, however I feel very sorry for everyone that had a bad day and they have the right to say how they feel as a paying customer, as it was pretty obvious many people were having a bad time.But reading the comment from a mod re the SM forum "THIS IS NOT THE PLACE FOR FREE SPEECH DEMOCRACY OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT" is an appalling thing to say and is far from helpful.

[eccheetham]

 

I dont mind people on crutches or in wheel chairs queue jumping. i think it is important to do that even as disabled people can become ill, block the way for everyone else or cause accidents when people around them aren't paying attention. so im quite happy for disable to jump in. I laso am happy for gald , silver and vip peope to go before standard tickets into photos, auto's or general entry. on top of this i think that those who had PRE baught their tickets should all have been let into the venue before they started letting in people who had turned up to the event without pre buying tickets. then there may not have been quite a squeeze inside as when you got to capacity they could have just aside right no more tickets on sale were full.

 

So nice to hear someone say that cos I had a few dodgy looks from other people when I was placed near the front of the queues for photos as my autistic son struggles with long queues! Though most people were happy and understanding to allow people like my son be moved towards the front! Just nice to hear someone who actually understands!

 

MrsEllacott i have epilepsy myself and hence have a greater understanding of people with disabilities. glad you liked my comment. if i were disabled i too would not want to stand in a line or have the thought of injuring someone due to me being in the line. it is important that people think "how would i feel in their situation". everyone will have different opinions but we sometimes need to do what's best for those people whatever the consequences.

[Knitty Fred]

Apologies but this has turned into a seeming rant and is not meant to be.

 

Reading through the recent comments, here lies the problem - no matter how reasonable we try to be on here, unless we do exactly what EVERYONE wants, there's always going to be people that are rude and have complaints about how we do things around here.

 

Sorry but I disagree with you on this point on the basis that there is absolutely no way you are going to be able please everyone as there is just too many variants.

 

 

I've tried to ask people to be reasonable to each other, and I've not deleted things but instead locked them, and still there's issues.

 

It's a hydra situation. You chop a head off (albeit for the right reasons) and you are going to have two more pop up. In my view a thread should have been started by SM management which essentially said "we're aware that there have been issues this weekend and apologise for any upset it has caused however please let us have your feedback which we can then collate and review and improve things in the future. From what I have heard the occurrences of this weekend are what was responsible for the discontinuance of the Panopticon conventions back in 2003/04 and somewhat similar to one of the crafting circuits ones.

 

 

 

BUT reading through things today, I've tried to listen to people and deal with things in a more positive manner, allowing people to air their opinions on the event and not removing anything, while simply requesting that people don't argue with each other. Same with Twitter - I've been told to f--k off and all manner of things on there, but never risen to it. Despite all this, things still descend into mess.

 

I don't agree that people should be communicating in this way as it really doesn't achieve anything. I know I was extremely angry yesterday morning. I woke at about 4.30am after only getting a couple of hours sleep in order to get Earls Court for when the gates opened with hopefully getting a chance of being able to get Stan Lee's autograph. At that time of the morning the heavens had unfortunately opened. The venue staff (presumably the supervisor) then arranged for doors to be opened so those waiting outside could be let into the basement and queue there instead. All good to this point. It was then the problems happened as rather than lead the queue from the front they seemed to break the line in two where the doors were and lead those separate lines into the basement corridor, so if you were person 50 you became person 1 in QA and person 51 became person 1 in QB. They then merged the two queues and people were so completely out of order as a result with a lot of us being a lot further back than we had been originally. If we had known that would have happened then I have no doubt that we would have quite happily continued to stand out there in the rain and wait in our proper places especially given how early some are purported to have got there. (I read on one thread a very dedicated someone had stayed queuing overnight.) I tweeted what had happened and I was not happy and left it at that without getting into any sort of vulgar tirade.

 

The truth is simple - this is Showmasters' forum, they allow you to post here by signing up, and they/the mods are entitled to run things how they see fit. It's not a place for free speech, for democracy, or anything like that. It's just like every other message board and website out there. Just because it's the Internet, it doesn't mean you can do whatever you want.

 

Sometimes I just want to smack my head against the desk in all honesty..

 

Damned if you do and damned if you don't right? :)

 

Absolutely as I've also said myself in a couple of places.

Edited July 14, 2014 by Knitty Fred

[DavidB]

@drphibes1 - apologies if it seems offensive out of context. It's an ongoing discussion about the way people want things to be moderated on here. We've been called Nazis etc before, and many don't want anything done with their posts. I'm just being honest and saying that while I'm encouraging people not to argue, and to post their thoughts, it's not a 100% anything goes forum. It never can be, and I think that's a fair point in my eyes anyway. I certainly don't think it's an appalling thing to say as I've tried to be reasonable on many an occasion today to everyone and settle things down.

Edited July 14, 2014 by DavidB

[cherrydarling]

MRSELLACOTT - my previous job was working with autistic children and their families and a big part of this was helping them plan for days which were out of routine e.g.holidays, day trips and appointments. Going to a big event like this is very brave. I love the fact that you and your family had a great time and that you felt supported by the crew. This is how it should be.

[sophstar007]

Reading through the recent comments, here lies the problem - no matter how reasonable we try to be on here, unless we do exactly what EVERYONE wants, there's always going to be people that are rude and have complaints about how we do things around here.

 

I've tried to ask people to be reasonable to each other, and I've not deleted things but instead locked them, and still there's issues.

 

The truth is simple - this is Showmasters' forum, they allow you to post here by signing up, and they/the mods are entitled to run things how they see fit. It's not a place for free speech, for democracy, or anything like that. It's just like every other message board and website out there. Just because it's the Internet, it doesn't mean you can do whatever you want.

 

BUT reading through things today, I've tried to listen to people and deal with things in a more positive manner, allowing people to air their opinions on the event and not removing anything, while simply requesting that people don't argue with each other. Same with Twitter - I've been told to f--k off and all manner of things on there, but never risen to it. Despite all this, things still descend into mess.

 

Sometimes I just want to smack my head against the desk in all honesty..

 

Damned if you do and damned if you don't right? :)

You've been really respectful and helpful David. It must be really hard to mod all of this so thankyou. You have been running the twitter really well too.

[Guest johnson1970]

I'm quite happy to wait and see if any lessons have been learned and hopefully a reflective account of that post concerning 'drama' and 'fiction' will be more courteous. Its good to be reflective in the aftermath.

[Knitty Fred]

 

 

I dont mind people on crutches or in wheel chairs queue jumping. i think it is important to do that even as disabled people can become ill, block the way for everyone else or cause accidents when people around them aren't paying attention. so im quite happy for disable to jump in. I laso am happy for gald , silver and vip peope to go before standard tickets into photos, auto's or general entry. on top of this i think that those who had PRE baught their tickets should all have been let into the venue before they started letting in people who had turned up to the event without pre buying tickets. then there may not have been quite a squeeze inside as when you got to capacity they could have just aside right no more tickets on sale were full.

 

So nice to hear someone say that cos I had a few dodgy looks from other people when I was placed near the front of the queues for photos as my autistic son struggles with long queues! Though most people were happy and understanding to allow people like my son be moved towards the front! Just nice to hear someone who actually understands!

 

MrsEllacott i have epilepsy myself and hence have a greater understanding of people with disabilities. glad you liked my comment. if i were disabled i too would not want to stand in a line or have the thought of injuring someone due to me being in the line. it is important that people think "how would i feel in their situation". everyone will have different opinions but we sometimes need to do what's best for those people whatever the consequences.

 

 

There was a lady in the second Colin Baker photoshoot yesterday who was on crutches. The crew member was going to place her at the front of the queue in front of us holding gold passes. However, she was quite happy to stand behind us as she thought it unfair as we had paid for the privilege of being at the front. I couldn't, and didn't want to, speak for the others but I let her go in front of me.

[DavidB]

@sophstar - thank you :) I am trying but sometimes you feel like you have to watch every word you say as someone will find something off. It can be very difficult.

 

Like I said though, we can never please everyone and all I hope for is that things remain calm here and Jason et al can take all the useful comments on board and make an even better event next time.

[sickkgirl]

Hi Michealskiller here Ok lets start of it was very brave of you David B to start this topic on the forum it should of been down to Jason, you should not of got the abuse at all, ok things have gone very wrong as we know not alot of crew members this was obvious and stalls and guests being put into one hall bad mistake, also having to many photo shoots with stan lee, but that's up to your taste as I have discussed with a number of people what would you mostly like an auto or photograph. Lets think of the positive side alot of people did still get to meet stars that I didn't think would attend like Ian Mcdiarmis and Carrie Fisher hope they still do in the future, and lets hope that showmasters and jason will think about moving to bigger venues to cater for the spare room for thier future plans the funny thing I heard alot of people said jason is been ver greedy this year and why not he is trying to make a business after all and trying to grow the popularity of the show but he needs to go back to drawing board and think of a better venue to hold future shows like this one. Also make it easier for the fans to spend their cash have the guests with their own credit card machine to take cash if big stores can you certainly can do it as well showmasters

[sickkgirl]

Also I do think it was silly for people not to book tickets online in the first place as its like going to a gig if you really want to see tha band you should book in advance, as yes reading most comments im shocked about this girl getting to meet stan lee for crying as many fans didn't and hearing that some people know crew members that will get them in if they asked them most peole should be treated as equals if most people are not getting in than that person shouldn't and wait, and yes more should be advertised on the website if the event is sold out and to many people attending.

[farmer]

@cropsy - we'll have to agree to disagree. I'm not interested in propaganda in the slightest, but if that's how you see it then fair enough. I can't let people have free rein here or what's the point in moderators anyway? :)

 

But hey, I will never please 100% of the people here so that's fine :)

 

I think we had differing views on moderating, I like the relaxed approch and moderators there to keep subjects on track, and stop insults.

 

I'm not bothered if people repeat the same experiences, their opinions are just as valid as mine.

 

If somebodies views are clearly wrong, through open discussion the rest of the forum should police itself with alternative opinions. Thats is essentially what a forum is.

 

You seem to like to get too involved, and like control. I've been involved on hundreds of forums through other interests, and I've never experienced anything like this place for deletions, modoerator interferance, or numbers banned.

 

This is not an insult at all, we just have a clearly different view on how it should be done.

[DavidB]

Indeed we clearly do have different visions - but, as I've said elsewhere, if I was on another forum and they did things their way, I'd have to abide by their decisions. I've been on more relaxed ones and I've been on far more restricted ones.

[kitten101]

Also I do think it was silly for people not to biy tickets online in the first place as its like going to a gig if you really want to see tha band you should book in advance, as yes reading most comments im shocked about this girl getting to meet stan lee for crying as many fans didn't and hearing that some people know crew members that will get them in if they asked them most peole should be treated as equals if most people are not getting in than that person shouldn't and wait, and yes more should be advertised on the website if the event is sold out and to many people attending.

I booked early bird tickets online and arrived at half seven to queue and was three thirds of the way around the building, Only to see people walk up at 8:45 and push in. Also people that were buying early birds on the day walked in ahead. It was awkward and very disheartening. Especially as we had planned ahead.

[LogicTheory]

David, maybe in these situations a "give us feedback" thread/topic should be created. All positive and negative feedback welcomed but under 1 rule (on top of the normal forum rules of course) that you are only allowed to post your own feedback and not reply/respond to someone else's. So it's a place to give feedback to SM so they can process everything but not a place to Discuss (or argue) topics with each other.

People can still make separate topics if they want to discuss a guest or a particular element, but then people still have a place to post negative feedback without moderation unless someone breaks the rules.

[Nightcrawler]

David, maybe in these situations a "give us feedback" thread/topic should be created. All positive and negative feedback welcomed but under 1 rule (on top of the normal forum rules of course) that you are only allowed to post your own feedback and not reply/respond to someone else's. So it's a place to give feedback to SM so they can process everything but not a place to Discuss (or argue) topics with each other.

 

People can still make separate topics if they want to discuss a guest or a particular element, but then people still have a place to post negative feedback without moderation unless someone breaks the rules.

 

This sounds a brilliant idea - at least then all feedback would be in one place ( good & bad ) and it can be recorded for all to read

[eccheetham]

David, maybe in these situations a "give us feedback" thread/topic should be created. All positive and negative feedback welcomed but under 1 rule (on top of the normal forum rules of course) that you are only allowed to post your own feedback and not reply/respond to someone else's. So it's a place to give feedback to SM so they can process everything but not a place to Discuss (or argue) topics with each other.

 

People can still make separate topics if they want to discuss a guest or a particular element, but then people still have a place to post negative feedback without moderation unless someone breaks the rules.

you also need the rules of no swearing, rude language or nit picking on any 1 person.

[DavidB]

I have personally tried that before as I've always felt the feedback would be useful, but unfortunately it always descends into the normal arguments etc. It's honestly not like I've never tried to give people an open forum but as with everywhere on the Internet, you get people that hate ANY rules.

[Nightcrawler]

I have personally tried that before as I've always felt the feedback would be useful, but unfortunately it always descends into the normal arguments etc. It's honestly not like I've never tried to give people an open forum but as with everywhere on the Internet, you get people that hate ANY rules.

Yeah but you can leave the posts just edit the bad language .. ?

[adriangill]

Bad language is just one issue with some posts.

[Nightcrawler]

Bad language is just one issue with some posts.

this is why we have mods to edit posts... but as it's a forum I do think all threads should stay and not go into hiding - I put good comments and bad comments ( never swear ) but do think it's a more honest approach to leave the entire thread in place minus the bickering / swearing

[eccheetham]

especial since freezing or deleting message areas only aggravates people and makes them create new pages to go an write the same thing. keeping everything in 1 place is easier to mod.

[LogicTheory]

I have personally tried that before as I've always felt the feedback would be useful, but unfortunately it always descends into the normal arguments etc. It's honestly not like I've never tried to give people an open forum but as with everywhere on the Internet, you get people that hate ANY rules.

Those are the people that need moderation. I don't think you will see mass complaints if you edit/delete posts that break the rules. Giving up on a proper "we welcome any feedback" area, because a few people don't follow the rules is really bad for everyone.

 

I honestly think a "Give us feedback but do not discuss/reply to other peoples posts" thread would work. But I've never moderated a forum before.

 

I've written my thoughts on different things only for the entire topic to disappear. Can SM even read posts once they are deleted?

 

Thanks for your hard work by the way :)

 

[DavidB]

I know stuff was removed, which is why this topic was made by me, and things are still going.. albeit slightly off-track now

[discodiva]

Just don't delete the "Dusty Batmobile" thread...it's Gold!