AVSFORUM HD Section locked down... how long? (UPDATED: REOPENED)
 

Apparently the rampant BR/HD-DVD flame wars made AVSFORUM.COM lock down their HD section as a "punishment". Unfortunately it doesn't say for how long.

As that board, along with this one, are my favorite forums and source of information, anyone have any idea when it will be back?

11/12/07: It's reopened, nevermind : )

I'm guessing through the weekend.

I've read where someone said it was because of the "mess" that the 90k HD DVD players sold in two days news caused, but that isn't true.

I read in a post my a moderator over there about how they were considering shutting down the HDM areas before that news broke. They had been discussing it for some time. Kind of a shock treatment.

They better close the forum until January 1st, because we're going to see many more HD DVD players on sale, and that's just the players. HD DVDs should be kicking into rather low prices in the following weeks (my guess is around Thanksgiving).

In all fairness, they should lockdown the entire site, and just make it read-only. The comments and responses on virtually every forum are rather non-helpful. I have to scroll threw a 50 pages of verbage just to find one or two people who actually know their equipment and the technology.

Maybe if the site's so-called "moderators" were as good as what we have here it wouldn't be nearly as bad.

absolutely agree. After the ban's lifted they need to come down hard on the posters from each side that post threads just as bait.

The problem also seems to be the paying members are given more leniency. There's a small thread on AVS talking about the ban and one of the members just jumped on and posted 'oh by the way, the PS3 2.0 firmware is out. :) '

Thankfully that post was removed - but it illustrates the kind of posts they've had to deal with.

Thankfully DVDTalk doesn't have this.

This action by the AVS forum moderators was long overdue. While I do go there for other topics besides simply HD-DVD / Blu Ray media, it had become increasingly difficult to find useful information on both hi def formats.

[soup_nazi]Two weeks!!![/soup_nazi]

What was the quote from another thread? "Nerd on Nerd carnage" Now that still has me laughing!

That would have sucked for me since just this morning I received help from one of their posters regarding an issue I had, which when posted here, resulted in no responses whatsoever.

AVS HD forums should reopen tomorrow (Friday).

In terms of technical knowledge, AVS forum members are some of the nicest, most helpful folk I've ever come across. Too bad they can't hold a civilized conversation about HD and BD. You would have think some of them smacked each other's mommas.

Not to point fingers, but it definitely is a mod issue. They can close the forums for a day, week, or year... but if they don't start banning folks who continuously break the forum rules and post flamebait, the problem will never be solved.

Just for the record, I responded to your other post after seeing this post. :)

The HDM forums seemed like almost an entirely different crowd than the other forums. I rarely recognized any of the names in the HDM forums from the other forums on AVS that I checked out. The most prolific posters had mostly joined the forum within the last year and had many thousands of posts, 99.9999% of them in the HDM forums. What would get me is when the prolific posters would rudely smack down long-time AVS members who had been extremely helpful to many other people over the years on technical issues.

While I don't always agree with everything here, the moderators must be doing something right to have kept this site from becoming another wasteful battleground.

After going to AVS more and checking out some threads, I tend to agree. Maybe they need more mods as previously mentioned.

This is true.

I've watched this very closely for the past few months. I've noticed some of the "Blu-blood" types (their label, not mine) post something inflammatory on AVS, get an infraction or a suspension, then run over to blu-ray.com and post about how the evil, unfair, pro HD DVD AV$ forum punished them, blah, blah, blah. He then gets a big pat on the back "HOOO-RAH" from the crowd for sticking it to The Man.

One in particular I remember cross-posted his comments on AVS and bu-ray.com and the title was something like, "how long before I get suspended for the 3rd time on AVS" or something to that effect.

Note that you need to actually create an account on blu-ray.com to see all the crap (they hide most of this type of stuff in the off topic areas which are not visible unless you have an account).

Obviously shills, getting rid of them should be the first step & quite easy to do, since only the most extreme of fanboys would miss them.

I appreciate it. :)

Indeed.

I prefer the highdefdigest forums. They care a bit more about the movie's quality rather than the bitrate.

To be fair, I've lost count how many Blu-Ray threads in the Blu-Ray sections are constantly hijacked.

The HD DVD fan boys are just as bad.

I just hope we don't get more AVS refugees here.

Agreed

It's my first stop if I'm seeking information about projectors, screens, and a useful resource for other a/v technical questions. A bit heavy on the subjectivist audiophiles for me, but I just stay out of the expensive subforums and the speaker/amps/cables/etc areas and it's all good.

The HD subforums are a disgrace to the rest of the site, it's like they were on cruise control with no one at the wheel. It's good to see them doing SOMETHING.

They need to break out the ban stick and need to just have one forum for HDM. The projector and screen sections of that site are the best around. Too bad the HDM forums are ruled by fanboys who constantly flamebait and hijack threads.

I hate to say it but AVS is probably my most reliable place for HD stuff. I don't usually use the site besides finding out PQ on titles or finding out bargains. Besides that, this site and HDD are my favorites. And did they really need to shut down the forums? Are internet dorks really gonna get together and fight or kill eachother?

New Posting Rules Are Up
IF actually enforced, some fanboys will be none-too-pleased. :thumbsup:

Which means AVS will be "can I post this" over and over. Lame.

I'm fine with this as long as we have a definition of "attack". Disagreeing with The Digital Bits or some blog on HollywoodInHighDef and pointing out where they are wrong does NOT = an "attack".

But, in general, I don't see the need for a huge list of rules. Stop the trolling by banning the obvious suspects and the problem solves itself.

I agree... like Barney Fife once said, just nip it in the bud!

I do think it would be pretty funny though if they banned any slams of bluray.com, while blu-ray.com still kept the now-classic 'rant' thread. :lol:

Trust me, this is the right thing to do. Most of the repeat offenders over there do not even think twice before they start spewing venom so hopefully they think twice before posting rubbish now. There are a few of them over there that are quite intelligent such as Grubert but posters like that are far and few between.

You're too kind. :)

But it is true: the signal-to-noise ratio of the forum had gone down the tubes lately. A real shame, because, as other people here have noted, the knowledge base in the rest of the forums is amazing.

hometheaterforum has also enforced a 'no-war-posts' policy.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

Ah, but what about a person's credibility or motivations? It can be useful in an argument to point out that the person making a particular argument has a vested interest in the subject matter (e.g. they might be an industry insider) or a documented history of biased posts in order to assess the weight to be given to that person's argument. Happens in courts every day, where such "ad hominem attacks" are not only allowed but actually encouraged.

Anyway, I think the new AVS rules are too draconian and, if strictly enforced, will stifle too much legitimate discourse, especially with regard to challenging authority figures and websites. But then I actually enjoyed the mudslinging in a perverse kind of way. When I want sane and measured discussion of HDM, I usually just come here.

You know when it comes down to it, what legitimate reasons are there to specifically discuss the war or competition in the context of who's winning?

You could say it benefits people waiting to jump in to see "the facts", but honestly, I feel sorry for anyone that has visited AVS looking for sane and impartial feedback on HDM.

All of the BS that happens there is between members who already own one or both formats, and are sticking with their choices. So, why do they even need to address each other at all?

If you have HD DVD, stick in the HD DVD sections, and talk about your chosen formats. And that should include the ability to say you're disappointed with some aspect of the format without being attacked.

Same goes for Blu-Ray. If you're a Blu-Ray only guy, you don't have to show up in a bunch of threads saying HD DVD is done, etc., etc.

If you own both formats and are TRULY neutral (because many that do are not), then you should be able to discuss both formats reasonably.

The measures they have imposed IMO will help immensely if enforced. If their aim is to bring the HDM forums inline with the level and quality of discourse elsewhere on AVS, draconian is probably the only thing that has a chance of accomplishing it.

Well said bunkaroo. I hate to bring it up again, but that "nerd on nerd carnage" post here (classic by the way) really tells the story. It's either 12-year olds who are doing the flaming, or they're just nerds with nothing better to do. Like you said, there's really no reason to post anything negative about either format. You makes your choices, and you takes your chances. Beyond that, there are likely so many factors involved with this format "war" that we don't know the details of that it's just silly to bicker about.

But again, there are apparently plenty of 12-year olds or nerds out there who just don't have much better to do than argue about a stinkin' HD format. The whole concept of HD media is fun (at least for most of us)--since diving into HD-DVD a few months ago, watching many of these movies again on HD-DVD has been a real revelation. I'm sure the blu-ray folks feel the same way. And it will shake out one way or the other, regardless of what any of us say to one another.

AVS HD Disc areas are open again.

I hope they don't think twice. I'd love to see some mass bannings to get the point across and clear out some unneeded members. I don't understand the mentality there. I own HD DVD and never even peek in the Blu-ray forums. I don't know why it's so hard for some.

If this fails, then I really think they should just create a new war forum with no rules, no guidance and no moderation. Just set them loose in there and shut the door.

The only thing is that when you do that, it inevitably bleeds into the other forums as well. You'd have to set it so that users who post in the War forum are physically restricted from posting anywhere else. You'd practically have to make it a private forum to keep those same arguments from leaking into the other forums as well.

The best solution, of course, would be if people would grow up.

I would love to see the likes of Rdjam, Beatboy and TheBland just to name some annoying idiots to get kicked of from that forum. It must be quite a shock for some of those 24/7 fanboy posters to not be allowed to say what they feel like saying on there.

So far so good. People are really trying hard to play nice with some soft jabs here and there.

A couple of knuckleheads tried to derail the Nielsen thread, but it looks like the mods stepped up.

Stepping up as in deleting the posts or ban? This will be key to see how they enforce the new rules.

It is amazing me to me people get so upset about this kind of stuff.