Wrongful, blatant forum censorship (and a larger discussion about A-RT as a company)

General Yo-Yo
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@AndreBoulay @YoYoExpertGarrett @vegabomb @jhb8426

I’m gonna be real with you. I’ve been on this forum for over 13 years… and this is by far the most disappointed I have been with a moderation decision in that time. Scrubbing/locking the A-RT Inhaler thread was a bad call, period.

YYE is a place where people come to discuss anything and everything relating to yoyos. Arguably, THE place to discuss yoyos, or do research on a throw or company before purchasing. I understand wanting to keep politics, etc out of things - and most of the time on a forum that is a fantastic idea. But this is WAY bigger than that.

At the end of the day, here’s the facts: (1) A-RT has associated themselves and intertwined their branding and marketing with undeniably, objectively bad people. (2) Users on this forum including myself have a civilized discussion while also informing others of this behavior by the company (using screenshots and evidence, mind you). (3) Many users were actually not aware about this association to the brand UNTIL finding the thread, and subsequently expressed that they either wished they hadn’t purchased A-RT products, or weren’t going to continue to purchase A-RT products again after reading it. (4) Thread is scrubbed of any discussion AND evidence of A-RT’s behavior or associations.

I put number three in bold because it’s a huge point. Most people didn’t know A-RT had a prior not-so-good history. But after being informed, most were thankful to have learned the info b/c it allowed them to make an informed decision not to buy from them again.

Questions to the moderators of YYE:
(1) Since (as I stated before) YYE is THE place to do research on a throw or company before purchasing them, how can a buyer make an informed decision when you’ve scrubbed/deleted an important thread containing information that would affect their opinion of said throw or company?

(2) Do you see how it could make you look as a company when you delete anything negative about a problematic company? Do you kinda see how that can be interpreted as taking sides with them? Or even ENCOURAGING sales? Especially when the only comments left are “I love this yoyo” or “I’m buying this!” type stuff.

And please, spare us the “iT’s NoT a fOruM/kId/FaMiLy fRiEnDly dIsCusSiOn” trope. Before the thread got deleted, I think it was @beezy who said as a parent they would WANT to know about this… to keep their kid away from A-RT. If a child who is old enough and able to log onto a yoyo forum reads that discussion and has questions about it, they’re old enough to seek out answers from an adult. I was 12 when I first joined these forums so it’s not hard to picture myself at that age reading that thread and just being like “Guess I’m not buying A-RT, they seem… bad” and moving the hell on.

Andre and team - I PROMISE you, most people are NOT happy with the way that thread went down. There’s already another thread with people expressing this - and some long time members are leaving the forum entirely which is a huge bummer. Have discussed it with some outside of here as well and unfortunately there are those who even want to stop supporting YYE (meaning the store) all together. If you look at the response, it’s obvious this was a bad call and was too far this time. I urge you have an open mind and reinstate the thread if possible, so that users can be informed, and maybe also apologize so it doesn’t affect any business/impact you negatively.

And please… I know you mods are pretty tight with that delete button today but would appreciate you not deleting/locking this as I not only spent a lot of time typing it lol, but I’m more than happy to just repost until it’s actually addressed by YYE. This is simply not going to go away until it is addressed, threads will keep popping up - and rightfully so.

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Why are you making this a YYEF issue? Last I checked YYE doesn’t even sell A-RT products. This similar topic has been deleted on the Facebook groups and Discord servers as well. I beleive even @unklesteve even called you out to “stop posting and linking this trash” on his server.

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No one will leave the forum. One person who said they were leaving commented (edited an old comment) on an unrelated topic less than 15 minutes after they said they were leaving. Those who say they will be leaving will stick around to read posts begging them to stay until they give in and “rejoin” the community because they feel so loved…

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Are you… forreal? YYE mods delete topic on YYE forums. It IS a YYE issue man, come on.

Also @unklesteve specifically told me not link Chase Hadden’s store, which is fair. You’re taking that out of context and making it appear as though “Discussing A-RT bad” which is totally not the case.

Maybe not, but that isn’t the point of my post, and discussing this small aspect of the post when there are more important things to be discussed is a bit “straw man.” I want to have this discussion because I want to STAY on the forums, and I think most people do too. But things have to be addressed.

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edit*

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Wow, something big just happened.

I wish that in the end everything will be ok and that no one leaves, especially the old-school people, recently I read some reviews of @saintrobyn but never saw a new post from him. . .

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YoYoExpert is a company providing a service (this forum). This is not a public good, this is not your right to free speech, this is not the town square. They, a company, have provided this space as a service to their customers and they have the absolute right to say “this is not the place for that discussion”. You can feel however you want about that decision, but throwing a fit about it in their house isn’t doing you any favors and isn’t making the point you think it’s making.

You are getting upset about a guy who sucks, who doesn’t hang out here, who reps a company that isn’t sold here. There is literally nothing tying the business operations of YoYoExpert to a white trash jagoff in Canada, which means there is absolutely no good reason for YYE to provide a platform for you, me, or anyone else to air their grievances with him.

I don’t want it in the CLYW server for the exact same reason. I provide that server as a place for CLYW fans to hang out and enjoy each others company, not for anyone to have to hear about some dude who sucks.

I appreciate your feelings on the guy, and I happen to dislike him at least as much as you if not more. But Andre and his team do not owe you their platform for you to have this fight, and assuming they do is grossly misunderstanding the nature of this space, as well as severely overestimating everyone else’s desire for this space to host that kind of conversation.

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Breaking two rules at once. Rules for thee but not for me.

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I don’t hang out here, I have literally no idea what’s allowed, but that’s what I call people when I don’t want to use the actual words that I know are frowned upon lol

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Yeah at the end of the day I don’t think the responsibility falls on YYE as a private company to host this discussion, however as a newer player I do wish someone would have enlightened me to know what I know now about the company so I couldve saved myself from buying their products.

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This is a good point, and I agree with you! However, it would be nice next time to hear that from them rather than having it just weirdly scrubbed without any explanation. Especially when so many people have stated they have benefitted and were thankful from the productive, civilized discussion that was being had about it. A “Hey Guys, we appreciate the discussion here and think it’s an important conversation to be had, but maybe somewhere else would be a better fit for it. We’re going to lock the thread but keep it up in case people in the future want to stay informed” or something would’ve gone a LONG way.

While the forum is owned by YYE and they can of course do whatever they want, it arguably is the central yoyo specific platform, so discussions about certain yoyo companies and players are not unheard of. Especially if there is an attempt to inform other players about certain yoyo companies and their players. I get both sides, I really do. It was just all SUPER strange the way things were handled by the moderation team.

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I don’t think Spence is making the censorship argument in the way that people are making it with respect to certain other ___offs being blocked from Twitter etc. It sounds like he’s suggesting to YYE that this should be a place where that can be talked about. If they disagree, that’s fine. Doesn’t sounds to me like he’s being a whiner about it either. Streisand effect notwithstanding, it would be good for people to know about certain things. I’m not a SJW or cancel them beehive type either. It just didn’t seem that crazy to have that info posted here. Anyway, love this forum and YYE. Wish that kid wasn’t a ____off because I want to like ART and everyone there.

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Thanks, @SR1. Missed that thread and had no idea about this crap. I was in the market for a Fe/urn to be my first A-rt throw, but hard pass on that.

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so correct me if im wrong, but it looks like youre mad bc they took a thread down bashing a company bc they associate with people you deem “bad”. Why are you spending your own time going out of your way to bash ART on the forums anyway? if you dont like them fine… start your own website about how bad they are and post all you want. YYE owns the forum and can choose to do whatever they want. i think a lot of the satirical stuff is going way over your head and youre reading way too much into things to find people who dont completely line up with all of your beliefs. just chill out bro its not that serious. let people make their own decision. They’re going to always have core fans and one person mad at them on a forum isnt going to change that.

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Happy to, let’s begin…

Once again, because it was an informative thread that allowed people to make an informed buying decision. Lots of people were thankful to know the info once they came across it. I was too!

I don’t think anyone is straight up bashing them, more-so holding them accountable while expressing disappointment. Chuck and Jensen are my two favorite yoyoers, so to see them associate themselves and their brand with human garbage is worthy of bringing to light for those who don’t know. I would want to know if I didn’t (and like I said - I didn’t!).

King… I was RAISED on satirical humor. Further, I was raised on the satirical humor from Jensen and Chuck THEMSELVES with stuff like the CLYW Ill Vibes video. I made some of my own satirical content all the time back then. I had my 4chan/post ironic/satirical phase like everyone else man. I promise you man, it’s more than the satirical humor you make it out to be - I understand that element of it but the associations to garbage people can’t be denied.

HOW can they if the relevant info is DELETED? LMAO man… that’s what my WHOLE point is!

I know! I was one of them… until I came across the info!

Seems like you aren’t paying attention and I can’t really help you with that. Quite a few people have a problem with this, and rightfully so. It’s a bummer when you looked up to someone and then they do this trash.

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Just wanted to share that not all Canadians are “white trash jagoffs”. Yes, they exist, but generally us Canadians are pretty cool people!

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There was a lot of complicated stuff in that thread. Moderators make the best call they can in the moment but it doesn’t mean we can’t go back and look at things again.

We are all human trying to create a positive environment (and especially here on YoYoExpert that has always been our goal from day one) and I need some time to read through the deleted threads to figure out what to bring back or not since it happened in the middle of a whirlwind of work for me (we just got done running a yoyo booth at a three week state fair and I honestly haven’t been able to be at a computer for much of that time and I have some serious communication debt this week.)

But I will look into it and will let you know.

I will say at the end of the day - our goal is never to ‘censor’ because we are trying to protect someone from something that wasn’t a good look and I agree that there should be accountability within the yoyo community and I have always been proud of the fact that very often our forum is a repository for this. I think some of the ‘content’ was the problem here and that makes things very complicated to moderate - trying to decide how to keep this a safe environment for all ages while allowing for accountability within the community.

I will followup and appreciate you bringing to our attention.

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Very much appreciate this post.

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Really appreciate the honest response Andre. You are awesome, and so is YYE. I’ve been here for a long time, still want to be here for a long time and I brought it up because I know most people love it here/want it to be a place to stick around as well.

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lol no worries, I was only talking about Chase.

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