McSmeag

I'm not ignoring any context, I'm not aware of any "gender button" in existence, and I'm geniunely curious as to how you've surmised that I don't find this an "important issue." It is critically important. Okay, so there are some dumb, regressive men. That's nothing new. Remind me why should we care about what those dinosaurs want, again? megablocks. #holla #yoooo #what

Many of us women are sick of our simple desire for representation being referred to as "crap."

To quote "some critics": "How the hell do you survive falling into a pool of acid, or at least being drained away to the same location as one? Besides, whether or not YOU, PERSONALLY, think they did or not does not change the fact that their status ranges from ambiguous to flat-out deceased. Even on-camera when Breez tells the other Heroes to drop the bridge, we see Beasts in the crystal cavern fall into the acid. "All we saw fall into the acid were cocoons" OK buddy, if infanticide isn’t enough for you, I don’t know what is." Just sayin..............................

I wonder if the theme will focus solely on the "traditional" disney princesses or if it will have non-"princess" women characters as well (Megara, Esmerelda, et cetera)? Either way, having more mini-doll options would be wonderful. I love their design and the great creativity throughout the whole Friends line. I'll tell you what I'd love to see the mini-dolls used for would be a Sailor Moon theme - the timing would be perfect with the rebooted cartoon series coming out later this year and the new translations of the comics that were recently released. Unfortunately it'd probably be too niche a market (and we'd have heard about it already it if were happening). I can only dream...

I don't see how that's relevant, and honestly I'm a little unnerved by your implication there. "It's something I might not approve, so posting it and breaking the rules is the course of action to take"? Please tell me that's not what you're saying. o_O; But either way, it is irrelevant, because whether or not I would approve it doesn't change the fact that you should have asked first. And if I hadn't approved, you shouldn't have posted it, because it was against the rules. Posting a topic to gather data for a petition is still part of a petition. And if you were aware of the no-petition rule, then you should not have let it keep running on BZ as a petition. Even if is started out as something innocuous, once it turned into a petition, you were fully aware it was now breaking the rules (and, thus, you were breaking the rules), by your own admission. You're pulling this off-topic, more to 'the poll on BZ' than the purpose of this topic here on EB. I'm going to ask you to continue this via PM if you have anything more to say, please.

If you think you have a 'cause' that's worth getting permission to bend the rules for, then you should contact the staff before you post it. That's just common sense. In this case, since the topic serving as data collection specifically for the petition (and thus inexorably part of the petition itself) was in the Voting Booth, so you should have contacted me and asked permission before posting it, as I am the Forum Leader of the Voting Booth (which is clearly marked on the forums). Again, common sense. As for whether or not Lego approve of petitions, that's entirely beside the point. We don't want to be associated with them - so it's just common decency not to bring petitions (including data collection for a petition) to the site of people who have specifically asked you (as part of the membership in general) not to bring them there. I support lengthy discourses on Yann Martel, but I don't post them in the Bionicle forum here on EuroBricks, because they've asked us just to talk about Bionicle here. Common decency.

I haven't read the blog entry in question (and was not aware that Tilius had left BZPower, in fact), but speaking strictly from the outside here, I'd encourage you to give him the benefit of the doubt, Zip. I'm actually on hiatus from BZ right now and started my break not long after having to close that poll, but the reasons for my break are completely unrelated to anything BZPower-related. Something in his life might have just coincidentally coincided with that poll's closure. BZPower's a big fish; one can need to take a break from there and still have time to check in at the smaller sites occasionally. I've made a few posts on ItB and now here since starting my hiatus, for instance, but I haven't logged into BZ since my break began.

I know most of the members viewed it as a "what-if," which is why I was so hesitant to close the topic. I really wanted to leave it open, as I said explicitly. But even after I reminded everyone to keep it that way, the creators of the topic maintained that it was going to be used for the purposes I expressly said weren't allowed on BZPower. What choice did I have, at that point? I had already warned everyone. I had explained things out lucidly and in detail. I'm a big believer in trying to avoid disciplinary action except as a last resort - so I gave the makers of the poll a second chance. And I was ignored. The only logical course left to take was to close the topic. It's pretty simple - Petitions of any sort to 'influence' Lego, particularly in response to Bionicle's closure, are not allowed on BZPower.* The creators of the topic made it clear that they were using the poll to gather statistics for a 'petition' to Lego to release this set. Thus, the poll was very much against the rules I could have just closed it right away, but I tried to give it a chance as a 'what-if' topic, because I try to be a nice and fair moderator (traits I'm very proud to know that most of BZ views me to have - when I learned that I'm known as one of the 'nice mods,' I was filled with satisfaction and joy; that's what I strive to be), and I don't like to punish. You guys can make up stories about me being a monster, but they'll still just be fiction. Your comments about me hurt when I first read them, definitely, but I can't apologize for doing my job, especially when I don't ask the topic-starters to apologize for breaking the rules. They broke the rules and that's not cool, but I'm not going to lambast them for it - they're just people, like any of us. *The reason being primarily because we don't want our name associated with them. We like the Lego company and are in good relations with them. If you want to do do petitions of your own, that's fine, just please don't associate us with them. That's basic human decency; if someone doesn't want to be involved in something, you let them stay uninvolved.

Hey, well, since I know you'll want to be a good parent and buy her the best quality care items - and since that leaves less money for toys and Lego is so friggin' expensive, maybe you can teach her to not be a prejudiced jerk by getting her some Megablocks! :)

This topic is really cute. :3 I like that someone made a Peter Gabriel reference <3

Funny how you say "Let's end this" and then are so quick to reiterate your argument, intent on getting the last word. Just sayin'

And you didn't think that people who buy Mega Blocks sets might have been insulted by your post? Lego makes a lot of "&lt;insert that tiresome argument&gt;" pieces made for specific purposes too. Can you use most of the pieces from the dinosaur sets for anything else? How about many of the star wars pieces (especially many of the characters - note that many of the Mega Blocks "specific" pieces are also for characters, like in the Cars sets shown)? And Duplo, of course, is largely comprised of stuff, and is probably more comparable to the Mega Blocks sets being discussed, which appear to be primarily of the targeted-to-younger-children variety. (PS: you realize that making new "specific" pieces doesn't make the designers' jobs any easier, right? If anything it makes it more difficult, as they actually have to design new pieces and have new moulds made).

I shan't dispute that Lego products tend to be of a somewhat higher quality; I own both Lego sets and Mega Blocks sets so I can attest to the greater structural integrity of Lego bricks. I wouldn't call Mega Blocks "cheap and crappy," but they are perceptibly more fragile, yes. Of course, the advantage of that is that Mega Blocks are far less expensive that Legos, which puts them in a market for the less affluent. I'm not going to lie: my family was very poor during most of my childhood, and my parents could not afford to buy me many Lego sets aside from the smallest ones. However, a nice Mega Blocks spaceship full of colourful minifigs would be roughly the same price as a tiny little Lego space rover with one minifig - yes, they were of lesser quality, but the lower price point allowed a less-affluent child like myself to be able to have a great playing experience I would simply have been unable to have had I stuck with only Lego. Anyway, I am not trying to launch into some kind of sob story or anything, and I am not even trying to 'defend' Mega Blocks, as it were. Merely, I simply do not understand why people who should nominally be responsible adults are acting in such a juvenile manner, spouting this intense, petty hatred against Mega Blocks. If you don't like them, would it really be that difficult to do it quietly like a mature person?

That is not at all what I am saying. What I am saying is that if you were acting like adults, you wouldn't be spouting such outlandishly, childishly hyperbolic vitriol and ire against something just because you like something else better.

You don't have to explain that to me - I can see that. Hence my groaning and asking if it would really be that difficult for us to act like adults instead.