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Started 1 year ago by JonMyers
Latest reply from rus

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JonMyers
HCMC ✈
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I know a lot of you are always asking where to buy domain names and where to host your websites. I've heard people mention Godaddy. In addition to their skeezy advertising as a reason for not using them, this takes the cake:

How to damage your brand in one smooth shot - Way to GoDaddy

GoDaddy's CEO Bob Parsons went out of his way to do his bit for the community, he traveled all the way to Zimbabwe to rid a local village of a troublesome elephant, and got them to slaughter the animal wearing GoDaddy hats. Way to go, what a great guy.

The following video is not for the faint of heart:

Get the Flash Videos

You have to wonder what idiocy powers such behavior. Big game hunters will go to any amount of trouble to be allowed to go after species that are illegal to hunt because of their protected status, and if these animals were so much trouble to the local population the person to make the kill should have been a Zimbabwean game warden, not some big shot (pun intended) American tycoon. The reason why is easy to understand, if we allow rich people to hunt protected species under the guise of game control there is an immediate opportunity to mark more animals than needed as 'problematic' or 'diseased' than is really the case and that would cloud the issue considerably.

By making the game wardens solely responsible for the actual kills you take away that possibility and so the number of kills will be limited to those that are really necessary. As soon as game becomes a trophy and there is money involved there will be more kills than required.

Cementing the gore in the video above, the terms 'slaughter', 'GoDaddy' and the GoDaddy logo together in the minds of people all over the world was a PR blunder of the highest caliber. As a CEO you always speak for the company, even when you're on a holiday, and when you hand out corporate merchandise that changes what could be construed as a private affair into a corporate PR exercise.

Posted 1 year ago #
Twixlen
Westgate, Columbus
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Yup. I've seen a lot of Twitter traffic today about folks migrating off GoDaddy... and how other domains are offering great deals for transitioning.

Bad GoDaddy. Baaaaad.

Posted 1 year ago #
JonMyers
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Twixlen wrote >>
Yup. I've seen a lot of Twitter traffic today about folks migrating off GoDaddy... and how other domains are offering great deals for transitioning.
Bad GoDaddy. Baaaaad.

Yeah, same here. I hope this turns into a serious setback for Godaddy and they lose market share. I can't stand that company whether it's their actual products or advertising both of which are shit.

Posted 1 year ago #
rus

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Problem elephant destroying crops... rich guy pays money to hunt it down and kill it ( as opposed to local government paying someone to kill it ), meat donated to local village...

Sucks that there wasn't enough meat for everyone, but what's the problem?

Posted 1 year ago #
maveric1
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I'm with Rus on this one unless it was illegal to do so.

Posted 1 year ago #
JonMyers
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rus wrote >>
Problem elephant destroying crops... rich guy pays money to hunt it down and kill it ( as opposed to local government paying someone to kill it ), meat donated to local village...
Sucks that there wasn't enough meat for everyone, but what's the problem?

The only way to deal with it was to kill it and turn it into a publicity stunt?

Posted 1 year ago #
Twixlen
Westgate, Columbus
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rus wrote >>
Problem elephant destroying crops... rich guy pays money to hunt it down and kill it ( as opposed to local government paying someone to kill it ), meat donated to local village...
Sucks that there wasn't enough meat for everyone, but what's the problem?

Well, they are an endangered species.

Posted 1 year ago #
rus

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Twixlen wrote >>

rus wrote >>
Problem elephant destroying crops... rich guy pays money to hunt it down and kill it ( as opposed to local government paying someone to kill it ), meat donated to local village...
Sucks that there wasn't enough meat for everyone, but what's the problem?

Well, they are an endangered species.

Dangerous wild animal is a dangerous wild animal.

I dunno, maybe they could have offered the elephant an empowering round of one on one therapy, get it on a raw food diet and perform high colonics in a nurturing and supportive environment. While enya plays in the background. With healing crystals.

Or, a local economy in one of the poorest nations on earth can spend oodles of cash on elephant repellent ( instead of, I dunno, food ) and spray that over the crops ( I'm totally sure that wouldn't affect the food. Totally. ).

Or, maybe, let some crazy rich guy pay you to fix your problem. Hell, make him pay you to try; even if he blows it you're making money off him, charging him to stay in the area, selling him meals, etc.. If he kills it your problem is solved and the animal gets fed to hungry people in the area.

Nah. That last one is just crazy talk.

GoDaddy may suck as a web host, but that's a different argument.

Posted 1 year ago #
Twixlen
Westgate, Columbus
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Dude. That was a fab speech and all, but endangered = illegal. Something a rich white guy should know something about.

If he were so fucking concerned about the people, likely he could have brought in some cases of water/food/whatever and provided money AND did something about the elephant ruining crops.... and if indeed that elephant had gone off the deep end (surely there are people in Zimbabwe who wrangle elephants, yes?) and there is something in the way endangered animals are managed that allows us to kill off the crazy ones, then great. Kill it, roast it, eat the hell out of it.

But I'm guessing humanitarian issues weren't exactly at play here.

Posted 1 year ago #
rus

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Twixlen wrote >>

But I'm guessing humanitarian issues weren't exactly at play here.

Hell no. It's using greed / self interest as a positive. Guy wanted to kill an elephant. Elephant needed killed. Guy presumably paid a $metric_asston_o_cash to kill that elephant. Beats the hell out of a poor backwater paying to solve the problem themselves.

Rich guy doesn't give a shit about the poor people, but wants to kill an elephant. Poor people don't give a shit about the rich guy, but want the pissed off mutli-ton to stop destroying their crops and attacking people.

Win / win.

Where are you seeing that it's illegal? Even the WWF doesn't say that:

http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/endangered_species/elephants/human_elephant_conflict.cfm

Posted 1 year ago #
groundrules

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rus wrote >>
but what's the problem?

"Cementing the gore in the video above, the terms 'slaughter', 'GoDaddy' and the GoDaddy logo together in the minds of people all over the world was a PR blunder of the highest caliber"

had he done this quietly on his own, maybe it's just a rich guy doing something greedy and outlandish as rich guys are sometimes prone to do. but instead he tied it directly to his company and made a publicity stunt out of it. so, he's linked the act with the business. It seems reasonable then to suggest that if you don't like the act (and I'm not real big on killing elephants) then you also may not like the company.

Alternately, if he wanted publicity he could have used his millions to catch the thing, put it in a crate and move him and his elephant buddies to a cabbage and pumpkin farm he started with local employment, where Dumbo gets bubble baths and daily ear scratches, then started ElephantPsychotherapy.com or something. But, he chose to go all Nugent on the thing.

Posted 1 year ago #
rus

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groundrules wrote >>

rus wrote >>
but what's the problem?

"Cementing the gore in the video above, the terms 'slaughter', 'GoDaddy' and the GoDaddy logo together in the minds of people all over the world was a PR blunder of the highest caliber"
had he done this quietly on his own, maybe it's just a rich guy doing something greedy and outlandish as rich guys are sometimes prone to do. but instead he tied it directly to his company and made a publicity stunt out of it. so, he's linked the act with the business. It seems reasonable then to suggest that if you don't like the act (and I'm not real big on killing elephants) then you also may not like the company.
Alternately, if he wanted publicity he could have used his millions to catch the thing, put it in a crate and move him and his elephant buddies to a cabbage and pumpkin farm he started with local employment, where Dumbo gets bubble baths and daily ear scratches, then started ElephantPsychotherapy.com or something. But, he chose to go all Nugent on the thing.

I can kinda get that; some market segments won't respond well. But others might: some people like it, some people don't, others don't care.

Hell, if he did start a elephant support group or something I'd be less likely to do business with him.

Figure the offended market segment is loud right now. If the offended segment is the largest segment then yeah he'd be making a PR mistake. Kinda like any other bad ad campaign.

Not sure if that's the case, though. I know I'd don't have a problem with him killing this thing, endangered or not.

If it's attacking people, destroying crops, etc. kill it. No problem.

Posted 1 year ago #
JonMyers
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rus wrote >>

groundrules wrote >>

rus wrote >>
but what's the problem?

"Cementing the gore in the video above, the terms 'slaughter', 'GoDaddy' and the GoDaddy logo together in the minds of people all over the world was a PR blunder of the highest caliber"
had he done this quietly on his own, maybe it's just a rich guy doing something greedy and outlandish as rich guys are sometimes prone to do. but instead he tied it directly to his company and made a publicity stunt out of it. so, he's linked the act with the business. It seems reasonable then to suggest that if you don't like the act (and I'm not real big on killing elephants) then you also may not like the company.
Alternately, if he wanted publicity he could have used his millions to catch the thing, put it in a crate and move him and his elephant buddies to a cabbage and pumpkin farm he started with local employment, where Dumbo gets bubble baths and daily ear scratches, then started ElephantPsychotherapy.com or something. But, he chose to go all Nugent on the thing.

Figure the offended market segment is loud right now. If the offended segment is the largest segment then yeah he'd be making a PR mistake. Kinda like any other bad ad campaign.
Not sure if that's the case, though. I know I'd don't have a problem with him killing this thing, endangered or not.

I'd say it's safe to say those pissed off are the loudest. Time has 2 million plus followers:

Posted 1 year ago #
Twixlen
Westgate, Columbus
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rus wrote >>

Where are you seeing that it's illegal? Even the WWF doesn't say that:
http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/endangered_species/elephants/human_elephant_conflict.cfm

Thanks for the link --- it's not one I found in my googling, which was all about killing elephants = poaching = illegal.

Even in that WWF post, there was info in there about how they are trying to resolve such conflicts thru other methods --- which means there were other solutions, if'n the GoDaddy dude had anything in mind other than self-interest.

Also +1 to groundrules...

Posted 1 year ago #
rus

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Twixlen wrote >>

rus wrote >>

Where are you seeing that it's illegal? Even the WWF doesn't say that:
http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/endangered_species/elephants/human_elephant_conflict.cfm

Thanks for the link --- it's not one I found in my googling, which was all about killing elephants = poaching = illegal.
Even in that WWF post, there was info in there about how they are trying to resolve such conflicts thru other methods --- which means there were other solutions, if'n the GoDaddy dude had anything in mind other than self-interest.
Also +1 to groundrules...

See, the other methods part: who pays for that?

Sure if someone is overcome with altruism they might want to donate a chunk of cash for that. Who stepped up to do that?

On the other hand, self interest got the problem solved.

Posted 1 year ago #
misskitty
Columbus
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I canÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t say that I am terribly upset about one elephant being killed 5, 10, 15 yea maybe then. So the elephant was a menace to the area they are killing and eating what already little crops the village had. So this guy comes in and kills it for them they get a good shot of protein and their crops are safe for the moment. How is that not a good thing? ItÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s one elephant I think I would have been more upset if he had it stuffed sitting in his office.
Now I can say that the hats show was a bit much but I suppose everyone makes mistakes. But heÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s sticking to his guns and you know what more people should sometimes instead of bending over to popular opinion.

Posted 1 year ago #
Twixlen
Westgate, Columbus
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Look. Just as easily, if there was any sort of real assistance being offered here, the GoDaddy dude could have contacted the WWF, fronted money, whatnot - it likely wouldn't have been any more or less expensive than the route he took.

Sure, the problem is solved - for now. The real issue is that these animals are endangered for a reason; in many places their habitat has shrank, but they never got the memo. There will always be another elephant, until one day there are no elephants.

Posted 1 year ago #
misskitty
Columbus
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See, the other methods part: who pays for that?

They can use the Ivory from this Elephant to pay for the next one to be shipped away instead of being killed win.

Posted 1 year ago #
Bear
The woods
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I don't know enough about the case to know whether putting the animal down was really necessary, but there are cases in which the viable alternatives are few.

Regardless, though, it'd seem to me to be a tragic event, not something to be filmed or glorified.

Posted 1 year ago #
rus

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Twixlen wrote >>
Look. Just as easily, if there was any sort of real assistance being offered here, the GoDaddy dude could have contacted the WWF, fronted money, whatnot - it likely wouldn't have been any more or less expensive than the route he took.

In context of PR that might be a different sort of advertising, sure. Guess he wasn't motivated to do that, though. Can't say I blame him.

Still, this appears to be a legal activity. As in not poaching: he apparently had the requisite permits.

Posted 1 year ago #