I wasn't planning to do a blog entry today, but someone recently posted a topic in which they expressed an opinion about types of topics that was so flagrantly, disturbingly (to me anyways ) wrong, and enough people actually agreed with it that I felt I might as well copypaste my post to here in the hopes that maybe one or two others might read it.

Member's name removed in this version; it's the idea that I want to attack (and utterly eradicate ), not the member.

Please learn this, love this, live this. Methinks it's important.

What's your favorite [etc.]...

...seriously, all these simple irrelevent and meaningless questions... [emphasis mine]

I'm going to try to say this as gently as possible, but this statement could be offensive, and in any case it's seriously wrong -- and I can prove it. It's an understandable mistake, but it could be construed as flame, okay? If someone believes that a topic about a particular subject is relevant, or if it has meaning to them, etc. then it isn't accurate either.

 

More to the point, this is a fansite about something that is entertainment. Entertainment can have more important questions to talk about besides what we enjoy (slash enjoy most), yes, but talking about our various personal tastes in what we enjoy specifically about that entertainment is not "irrelevant and meaningless" because of that.

 

Why?

 

Because entertainment is primarily about what we enjoy. Okay? That is the main goal.

 

And one of the most edifying things any community of fans of entertainment can do is discuss our different preferences, favorites, etc. Why? Because when we don't show interest in each other's uniqueness, we (meaning humans in general) tend to fall into a dangerous trap of "only my tastes are right, yours are wrong", and "debate each other's tastes" and such things that lead to flamewars or possibly even worse. You might disagree with this, but on a fansite, that is simply going to be encouraged and allowed, okay? That's largely the whole point of fansites to begin with; to discuss what we like and don't like about various aspects of Bionicle (in this case).

 

(And, our differences in personal taste stem from the fact that we all have different talents and weaknesses. Which is good because society as a whole functions/survives/thrives best when there's a variety of different talents -- well practiced talents -- to cover the weaknesses of others; if not for that all would have the same weakness and could be quickly destroyed in extreme cases. And part of practicing talents, psychologically, includes entertainment that pleases the tastes that come out of them. And celebrating it (to some extent; posting what your favorites are is hardly obsessive so yeah).

 

Even more importantly, the Hot Topics list measures Bionicle-focused topics' popularity in terms of posts, and that is determined by our members. If enough members enjoy a topic enough to post, that means it has meaning and relevance to them, and asking them to disagree with it in here is kinda pointless yeah?

 

I understand that you might "lament" the possibility that many or even most of these are motivated only by the desire for popularity and getting on the list, but we can't possibly program the software to filter motive, so moot point. And this site allows for people to seek popularity as long as they do it within the rules anyways, even if you might disagree with it. But I for one care a ton what people's favorites are, and you should too.

 

Besides, even you didn't dare to claim that literally all such topic starters have that motive, so your own proposed solution would unfairly stereotype against them.

 

 

 

You could argue that this topic itself is arbitrary, but if it made it to the hot topic list, it would only solidify my point.

It wouldn't solidify your point at all -- it would simply show that a lot of people felt it was worth posting in, in a certain timeframe. That's all it measures.

 

Now because I believe that so strongly and have just completely disproven that founding idea of this topic, and partly because it is essentially complaining about a basic aspect of the site which isn't going to change, I'm going to go ahead and close this, okay? However, if anybody disagrees with my closing of this, please by all means PM me and let me know your reasons and I'll reconsider; I think dissenting opinions are usually best allowed to be discussed indefinately, but in this case, where could it go?

 

Finally, if you truly believe that there are topics that aren't getting enough posts, go post in them! Link them in your sigs if you think they're that great. Lead by example.

 

Topic closed.

Also, this might seem obscure to us fans, but I imagine LEGO could find such topics immensely valuable in seeing what we like and don't like -- and seeing such a topic on the HTL would make finding them that much more convenient for them. Thus it is easier for them to see our feedback, and listen to it, which is something the very same members complaining about this always give lip service to, so yeah. (And yes, that can still be true for Bionicle topics, because aspects of it we liked can help with similar lines like HF.)