We’ve been on a bit of a writing sabbatical for the past few weeks. Actually my job IRL has unfortunately collided with the job of my passion.
WARNING: This particular blog entry is going to be a rant, and I do promise I am not going to make a habit out of this type of posting. Since you may not be interested in reading mine or anyone else’s rant, I wanted to give you ample warning and opportunity to turn away now. Don’t worry, you won’t hurt my feelings.
Today we are going to take a little side road down the Disney trail and talk a little about a Disney Fan Site on the internet. Google “Disney fan sites” and you’ll get over 300k hits, that’s a lot of fodder to sieve through and you need to understand that not all Disney fan sites are really fan sites at all. But, I’m not going to bore you with a lot of suggestion or advice, other than to tell you, in general, if you are going to play in online forums, you are going to need a thick skin.
Now on with show. There is fan site that a I would recommend against visiting, and that would be MousePlanet(MP). I’m not even going to link it, if you want to venture over there, Google it. This is a site that had been operating since about 2000, so there were a lot of old timers in MP’s Mousepad (the name of their collective forums). I participated on this site for a couple of years, and the only good thing to come of it, was that I made a few friends online, couple of whom I’ve met IRL. After awhile, I ventured into their “Lounge” forum, and found a few debate topics of interest and began to join in the fun. What I began to see was a small group of what I would call fanatic conservatives. I consider myself a fiscal conservative, and a social liberal, but, to this group anyone who leans anywhere left of center is, “One of those damn liberal!”
What I eventually discovered was that the person who had recently acquire control of the site had a very conservative view, and was letting her little cadre of fanatical conservative troglodytes violate the site own CP’s (community policies) against the more liberal participants in forums at her whim and whimsy, while using the same CP’s as a whip over the heads of the liberal forum members. Go ahead and call me names, that’s not a problem, I’m a big boy and I don’t bruise easily, but, just expect the same in return. Unfortunately, these simple-mind minion don’t like it when you use terms that they have to look up in the dictionary and still can’t understand, so the head moderator (i.e. the owner, or the queen to many) uses the opportunity to support the conservative cause and chastise, suspend, and ban the liberal members from her little world. She probably won’t remember it, but we have met IRL at a Disney event not too long ago. We only talked for a couple of minutes and I was not impressed. What troubled me almost instantly was the ease with which she berated other ME-Planet (a name that I feel reflects her position that MP is all about her) members whom she held with great distain, while being almost oblivious to her surrounding and who might be within earshot. I am quite sure her conversation was not intended for my ear, but I was close enough by that I could hear it without trying too hard. From what I could hear, if you are not in her immediate gang of about a dozen, you are in that group of distained members.
Anyway at that point I realized this was probably not a group with which I wanted association. I finally decide to stop my participation, and after some discussion with the few friends I had made on the site, went elsewhere. Now, in the atmosphere of full disclosure, I will tell you that I too have been banned from this site. Not for anything I did on the site, but merely because “she who must be obeyed” did not like a personal email that was sent to her, and quite honestly it wasn’t a nice one. However, that event occurred well after my departure from the boards.
What has finally torn it for me is that one of the friends I made through that site was just been banned for no apparent reason other than she is no longer in favor with the Queens Adrienne, and happens to be married to the gentleman (also a friend of mine) who is an Arch Evil enemy of the ME kingdom. And he has become this evil enemy for, after being banished from the queens’ sight months ago, having had the unmitigated temerity of being in the same location as recent celebratory event hosted in the guise of a honoring the ME kingdom, but in truth arranged to pay tribute to the queens. Granted he went there to check out want was happening at this event, however, he never made any comments or interacted with anyone in attendance. His mere presence was enough for the royal court issue a full alert, and all-points-bulletin, to the absolute extreme point of complaining about him to the location management requesting that he be removed from the premise. It even appears they have even resorted to stalking certain members of our little group of friends on the internet trying to find out what we are staying. Apparently the queen is consider about what is said about her outside of the kingdom.
They’ve even come up with a new euphemism for banning someone from the site. While you can still be banned and have that show up as your status on any post you ever made on the site (as it does for my screen name and a few others), they now have an “account closed” status which they use to hide the fact that you did nothing wrong but they want you gone. That way they don’t have to explain themselves, and can make it sound like it was at your request even though the FAQ’s on the site claim they don’t shut accounts down even if requested.
Question for the queen; if I am banned from ME-Planet and all its marginal events, does that mean that, should you hold one at Disneyland, I am not allowed in the park during your festivities? I think not! If a certain queen thinks that, I have a certain part of my anatomy that she can kiss.
So consider yourselves warned, ME-Planet is not the place you want to hang out for you Disney fix, besides their actual Disney related forums aren’t all that good, informative, or active these days either, at least not in my opinion. There are much better run site out there, watch the links list, I may put one or two out there.
Next week we’ll be getting back in Walt Disney – The Man, The Myth, and The Company. In the meantime rest assured, if I find a Disney related activity that doesn’t deliver the Disney experience, you’ll be hearing about from me.
Your comments or questions are always welcome. If you have a correction or something you think I should look at in my research, please feel free to contact me at mr.grumpyguy@gmail.com
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